Joyce Meyer - Changed By Grace (08/21/2019)
Nothing we do in our own strength can earn God's blessings or eternal life—it's all by His grace through faith alone. Sharing from Luke 18 and 2 Corinthians 12, the message reminds us that human effort always falls short, but God's favor and power shine brightest in our weaknesses, turning impossibilities into realities when we trust Him and boldly ask for His help in every area of life.
What Is Impossible with Man Is Possible with God
Father, thank you for the word this morning and how we can be changed but only by Your grace. And help us once and for all to get that through our heads and really know it. And He said to them, what is impossible with men is possible with God. Can anybody say amen? Amen.
What you cannot do and what I cannot do, God can do. What is impossible with men is possible with God. Let's just soak that in for a minute so that doesn't just kind of whiz over our heads and we just run on to the next thing. What you can't do, God can do.
Maybe you cannot change your child, but God can. You cannot make somebody love God that you would love to see have a relationship with God, but let's just give God a chance to work on them for a while. I can't change my circumstances, but God can.
Trusting God for Supernatural Favor
I can't make everybody that I minister to like me, so I've turned that over to God. God can give me favor. It's amazing what happens when we start praying and believing for supernatural favor. Grace is undeserved favor. It's God giving you things you don't deserve, opening doors for you that you cannot even imagine could open for you, getting you a promotion at work that you're not even qualified for.
I know, because I've had that happen to me. Before I went into ministry, I had that happen. I mean, I would end up with jobs I no more had any business having, and I don't really have any, in the natural, have any business doing what I'm doing now. But when God gives you favor, He can put you somewhere. And when God puts you, He keeps you.
We need to learn how to really trust God for favor instead of struggling trying to make our own way all the time. God, let's be more aggressive in trusting God for favor. When you go out to shop, God, I ask You for favor. Give me discounts I didn't even know were available. Amen?
Asking God for Favor in Everyday Life
When you go into a restaurant, God, I ask You to give me favor. Just takes a minute. It's just a way of releasing your faith to say, God, I'm trusting You to do for me what I cannot do for myself.
I remember a woman that I was talking to one time, and this was so sad to me. She worked in a department store, and somehow I started asking her about, do you guys just get a salary? Do you work on commission or what? And she said, no, we work on salary. But she said, we do have to meet a quota, and if we don't do that, then we can lose our jobs.
And she said, I'm a little concerned because things haven't been, you know, going very good for me. And I said, well, why don't you pray for God to send you customers? And she was a Christian woman—her and I had already been talking about that. So I said, you know, why don't you pray for God to give you customers?
And she looked at me so odd, and she said, well, would it be okay to pray about something like that? Now, here this woman had been a believer for something like 30 years, and she didn't know that she could ask God to give her favor.
You Have Not Because You Ask Not
I said, well, there's people in here buying stuff. Why don't you pray for God to give you favor with them and supernaturally guide them over here to you? You have not because you ask not.
Let me tell you something. You can ask God for anything, and if He don't want you to have it, He just won't give it to you, so don't worry about that. I kind of got over, well, God, is this Your will? Is it Your will? God, if it's Your will, you know, I know what the Bible tells me, but, you know, I don't—there's a lot of things I don't know.
So we have freedom and liberty to ask God radically and aggressively. The Bible says that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond all that we could ever dare to hope, ask, or think. God wants us to prosper, but we're not going to do it on our own. We need God's help, favor. You can have favor.
What is impossible with man is possible with God.
The Rich Young Ruler's Question
Luke 18, verse 18. And a certain ruler asked Him, Good Teacher—You are essentially and perfectly and morally good—what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
Now, first of all, the question is a goofy question. Because he says, what can I do to inherit? And the two are totally opposite of one another. First of all, when you inherit, you don't do anything. You receive something.
I can tell you that whatever we have, when the Lord calls us home, our children will inherit it. They didn't work for it. We did. And they're going to get it. Whatever I can't manage to use, they're going to get. Now, do they do anything to get that? Well, they're just my kids.
Come on, you can get something. They're just my kids. And everything that they get will not be based on their perfection. It will be based on one thing and one thing only. And that is blood relationship, our relationship with one another. Are you with me today?
Everything We Receive Is by Blood Relationship
Everything that you receive from God is based on blood relationship. You were bought with the blood of Jesus Christ. It's not based on what you do, but it's based on whether or not we are willing to really, fully believe the Word of God.
Is anybody here willing this morning to step out of your flesh and decide to believe the Word of God? Let me tell you something. If God can do something for anybody, God can do something for you.
Well, you just don't know all the wrong things I've done. Yeah, well, you don't know all the wrong things I've done either. Let me tell you something. We all make mistakes. If we could be perfect, we wouldn't need Jesus.
What can I do to inherit? Wrong question. Jesus said to him, why do you call Me good? No one's good but God.
Verse 20, you know the commandments: don't commit adultery, don't kill, don't steal, don't witness falsely, honor your father and your mother. And he replied to Him, all of these I have kept from my youth.
One Thing You Still Lack
Now, here comes the kicker. And when Jesus heard it, He said to him, one thing you still lack.
Now that is so frustrating. Well, I've done this good, and I've done that good, and I've done this good, and I've done that good, and I've kept this rule, and I've kept that rule. And Jesus looks at us and says, well, yeah, but there's still something you lack.
You know, the interesting thing is, no matter how many right things we do, there's always something wrong that we're going to do. So it's so frustrating unless we learn to get in on the right plan, which is Jesus died for us because we have weaknesses in our flesh and there is no way that we can ever possibly keep all of the law and do everything right and be perfectly holy.
But He, right now, this moment, is interceding at the throne of God for you and for me and keeping everything right. I said this morning, Jesus, pray for me today and Holy Spirit, pray through me today.
We Inherit by Grace Through Faith
Just think of that. He's constantly at the throne interceding for us and the Bible says that God views us—He chooses to see us as right because we're in Christ. He chooses to see us as the righteousness of God.
Can you choose to see us justified just as if we never sinned just because we believe. We believe. We inherit. We're joint heirs with Christ. Everything that He bought and paid for, we get. Everything He worked for, everything He died for, we get.
It's by grace through faith. By grace through faith. By grace through faith. It's provided by the grace of God. It's bought with the grace of God. And faith is only the hand that reaches out and says, I'll take it.
See, sometimes we can even get mixed up about faith and we can think, well, you know, I got that because of my faith. Well, all you got to do, brothers, is believe. Just believe.
But you know what? I read something many, many years ago and it really blessed me. Faith is not the price that buys the blessing of God. It is bought totally by the grace of God, totally by the blood of Jesus. Faith is only the hand that reaches out and receives it.
To Get Versus to Receive
You know, to get means to obtain by struggle and effort. But to receive means to just be a receptacle and take in whatever is being offered.
Did you get saved? Did you get your blessing? Did you get healed? Did you get your breakthrough? Well, truthfully, if we got any of that, if we have any of that, it's not because we got it. It's because God gave it.
Did you get a breakthrough? No, I can never get a breakthrough, but I'm prayerful that God will give me one. I'm prayerful He'll download one on me.
One thing you still lack. For example, maybe you pray two hours a day and you have a God-given ability to memorize whole chapters in the Bible. I was talking to Marilyn Hickey the other day. She's a great woman of God. And just in conversation, she said, yeah, you know, I memorized the whole book of Revelation years ago.
And that just gives me a cramp in my brain. I mean, she's like, you memorize the whole book of Revelation. You know, I got some of these books in here—I still got to go to the front to the list and find out where they're at. She memorized the whole book of Revelation.
We All Have Different Gifts
And see, that could make me feel bad, except it doesn't, because I know that she can only do that because she's gifted to do that. And if I can't do that, it's because I don't need to or I'm not gifted to. When I need a scripture, I pull it out. I have memorized them, but I got what I need. They come flying from here and there, and I don't know exactly where I got them, but they're all there, and they're right.
So maybe you can memorize the whole Bible and you pray two hours every day, but you got a bad temper. One thing you still lack. Come on, is anybody with me today?
Maybe you are not jealous and envious—that is just not a problem for you—but you're very impatient. Maybe you learn very quickly. You're just like really smart. You know, some people are just naturally more intelligent than other people.
And so let's just say you learn very quickly, but then you turn around and judge other people who don't learn as quickly as you do, and your attitude with them is, well, what is wrong with you? How could you not understand that? One thing you still lack.
Paul's Thorn in the Flesh
So let's look at 2 Corinthians 12:7 through 9. Before we just get too upset about our weaknesses, let's just take a look at how we should view them.
I don't know about you, but I got tired a long time ago of being mad at myself all the time, and I just don't mess with it anymore. How many of you don't get along with yourself very well? I mean, it's a lot of people.
You know what? If you don't like you, you're in for a hard ride. I say this all the time: you are everywhere you go. You know, that really just became—I became aware of that years ago. It's like, I can't get away from me.
I mean, you don't ever get away from you for one second. You can't go to the bathroom without you. You can't take a shower without you. You can't do anything without you. And seriously, if you don't like yourself, if you're mad at yourself all the time, how about if somebody makes peace with themselves today?
God's Grace in Our Weaknesses
Second Corinthians chapter 12, verse 7—the apostle Paul: and to keep me from being puffed up—remember our little balloon last night that we blew up and said, like the balloon, sometimes we're full of hot air and we just get so full of ourselves. And, you know, then, remember I let the balloon go and it just fizzled out and all the air went out of it? And that's the way we are.
To keep me from being puffed up and too elated because of the exceeding greatness of the revelations that were given unto me—God was using Paul in an amazingly astounding way. He received, by revelation, and wrote two-thirds of the New Testament.
And so, to keep him from being puffed up, there was given unto me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to rack and buffet and harass me to keep me from being excessively exalted.
So, something was harassing him all the time, bugging him all the time, whether it was a person or a personal weakness or something in his physical body. I don't think it matters what it was. I think the point is, is it was. And it seems that it was a gift from God. It was something that God permitted in his life.
God never gives us anything bad, but sometimes He will permit certain things because even though it doesn't make any sense to us, it is ultimately going to be spiritually better for us.
Why God Permits Weaknesses
See, for example, like, if every time I had a problem, the moment that I prayed, God supernaturally delivered me from it, I would think that would just be amazing. But you know what? It wouldn't be the best thing for me spiritually.
You know why? Because I would never have to exercise my faith. I would never grow in patience. I would never learn how to have any tenacity. I would give up way too easy.
So God doesn't deliver me right away in His wisdom, because there are deeper things that He wants us to learn. And we're always only interested in our temporal, immediate comfort. But God is more interested in eternal values that He's planting on the inside of us.
So Paul wanted to get rid of this aggravation, irritation, frustration, whatever it was—and we've all got them. And God said, no.
Now watch. Joyce, please don't tell me that I'm not going to get rid of this thing that bugs me. Well, I'll just leave that with you and God.
My Grace Is Sufficient for You
But He said to me—well, first verse 8: three times I called on the Lord and besought Him about this and begged that it would depart from me. I can tell you, I prayed more than three times about some of my stuff.
And He said to me, My grace, My favor, loving kindness and mercy is enough for you. It is sufficient against any danger, and I love this part, and enables you to bear the trouble manfully.
In other words, quit whining about it. Stand up like a man or woman of God and say, I don't expect everything in my life to be perfect. I have the power of the Holy Spirit in my life to enable me to do whatever I need to do and to do it with a smile on my face. Hallelujah.
My strength and power are made perfect, fulfilled, and completed, and show themselves most effectively in your weakness. Are you with me now?
Where is God's power going to work? Where is it going to show itself if there's no weakness?
Glorying in Weaknesses
Now, I'm not inviting everybody to have weakness, but I am telling you that if you have some, it's not the end of everything, and God still loves you, and He'll still work with you, because if we never have any reason to need Jesus, we will stop needing Him pretty quick.
And it was much more important for Paul to not get prideful and full of himself than it was to get delivered from whatever that particular weakness was.
Do you know the human flesh can only take so much glory and so much success without starting to fall apart? And to be honest, it's good for us every once in a while to just not do the perfect thing and have to deal with the fact that we are in reality after all just people and like everybody else.
Thank you. But now here's the part that I'm still trying to get. My grace is sufficient for you, will enable you, works most in your weakness.
Well, Paul got messages quick. Paul said, the last part of this: therefore—see the therefore?—therefore, I will all the more glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and the power of Christ the Messiah may rest upon me.
Staying Plugged into God's Power
So it's almost like Paul saying, oh goody, I got a weakness. I'm not going to fight with that thing anymore. I'm just going to glory in it because it's really not a problem after all.
Because see, here's the thing. Even if I do have a weakness, if I lean into God and I press into Him to receive His grace, His grace comes up and fills it up, and I may know that I have it, but you may never know it. So you can just think I'm this hot shot, but you don't know. You just don't know.
1 Corinthians 1—He purposely chooses the weak and the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, that nobody should be able to take the glory unto themselves.
So God said to Paul, no, I'm not going to remove that weakness. But I will give you the grace to man up. I'll give you the grace to bear that trouble manfully.
And Paul said, oh, well, then the weakness is not a problem. Because God can help me.
You see, our problem is not our weaknesses. Our problem is not staying plugged in.
Now, if you weren't here last night, you missed my little plugged-in analogy, so I'll just explain it to you. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. We need to plug into our power source, which is God.
And that comes as we just take a little time and go to God. Whether that's one minute in the bathroom, one minute in the bathroom stall at work when you feel like you're about to go over the edge. Whether that's a ten-minute walk outside. Or whether it's getting in wherever your prayer place is in the morning and drawing the strength that you need before you ever even know that you need it.
Don't assume because you wake up feeling pretty perky that the day is going to go good. I always plan to be good when I'm laying in bed and I'm okay till I put my feet on the floor. That's when the trouble starts.
You know what? I can get along with everybody as long as nobody's home. I don't have a problem with that. I tell you what, I am so easy to get along with when nobody's there.
But you know, we just feel so spiritual till somebody comes home. Then it's another story.
Man, I was like a Jekyll and Hyde years ago. I'd be like, I don't know where this other thing came from, but as soon as somebody would press me or irritate me a little, I could turn into another creature.
Making Peace with Yourself
I found out a secret, you know. You won't feel so bad about yourself when you make mistakes if you don't feel so good about yourself when you're doing good.
Come on, let's say that again. You won't feel so bad about yourself when you make mistakes if you don't feel so good about yourself when you think you're doing good.
Because the point is, if I'm doing good, it's only God doing the good through me. And if I'm doing bad, then only God can take care of that.
So I've learned to call myself an everything-nothing. I'm everything in Him and nothing without Him. Everything-nothing.