Creflo Dollar - No Condemnation For Those Who Are In Christ - Part 1
So, Jesus doesn't excuse people of their errors, but the Bible says that he has compassion on us. Look at Hebrews 4:15. He has compassion on us. He knows everything, right? So he know he can go back 40 years and say, "Man, that's what caused this, right here". He knows that. "Ah, and they've been doing pretty good. They're working their way up. Ah, yeah, yeah. Come on, I gotta help them up. Yeah, because I know what happened back there. They're gonna be all right. But I also gotta help them up because that thing could kill him one day. I gotta help him up because that can make it worse one day because the consequences of sin in the natural is working on killing, stealing, and destroying".
Y'all see what I'm saying? But it's not God's heart that says, "Now, how many lashes you get". That's not God. Here's what he says: "For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmity". The high priest we have can be touched with everything we've ever gone through. The high priest that we have can be touched with that broken heart. He can be touched with that sadness. He can be touched with you feeling inferior, feeling like you don't matter, feeling like nobody cares, feeling like, he can be touched with all of that.
And he's so awesome because if you will give him the attention, more than giving yourself attention, that's why self-pity will rob you. Self-pity will rob you of what God can do for you right in the middle of what you're going through. And when you're in self-pity, you can't see what nobody else is going through because you're so busy looking at yourself. But we have a high priest who's still touched with your sadness, your pain, your fear, your concern. He's touched with your inferiority, your insecurities. God, I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna be like this. You could not imagine the people that in their private time, they just break down because they can't figure out how to stop being what they despise about themselves.
And he created Christians so we can kinda be his hands in the earth to kinda help show that kind of compassion. And we done got carried away with rule-keeping, and so all we wanna do is beat people down with the rules, when there is mercy available. We have a high priest that's can be touched with the feelings of our infirmity, He says, "But was in all points he was tempted," with unbelief like we were. I don't know if you remember the time when things didn't happen, they didn't go right.
Something went crazy and the temptation was, "God, where are you? Are you real"? And on the deep down on the inside you knew he was real, but it was just that little temptation in your head: "Where are you? I just lost my baby and we prayed all night and my baby died. Are you real"? And he gives you a little time before he swoops in and comforts you with a word or comfort, and you have the assurance that he is real. And yeah, the temptation to leave him and walk away. The temptation to not have "nothing to do with them church people no more. And I ain't coming to church no more. I'm done". And you can be done with it and God won't let you go. He won't let you go.
God is like, "I'm fighting for our relationship and, even though you wanna leave me, I'm not gonna let you go. I'm attached with you. I will fight every day for you. I'm not gonna let you go. I'll talk to you in your dreams. I'll wake you up in the morning. I'll overwhelm you with goodness, praise God. I'm not gonna let you go. You can quit on me, but I ain't never gonna quit on you". And when you have come to the end of yourself, when you've come to the end of yourself, you realize, "I have a high priest that understands me, even in my worst pain. I have a high priest who loves me". But the Bible says he was tempted in all of those areas, mostly in the area of unbelief.
Can you imagine in the Garden of Gethsemane, sweating blood out of his pores, that's pressure. Physical bodies, blood, physical bodies going through his emotions going through, fear entering in, depression was coming in. You don't see that Jesus. But go and read, when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus, in a human flesh, that flesh was like, wow, what I gotta go through, I've got to be whipped with a cat o' nine tails. He knew all of that but I've got to be nailed to a cross. He knew all of that. I gotta die, he know all of that. And I gotta go to hell for 3 days and 3 nights. He knew all of that. But what Satan didn't know is that through all of that suffering, that's when he was glorified. Wow, wow.
Go back to John chapter 8 and verse 9, I wanna finish this with the woman. Verse 9, he says: "And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone. And," watch this, "the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and he saw none but the woman," this is so awesome, "he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? And she answered, No man, Lord. And he said unto her," get this. "Neither do I condemn you: go, and sin no more".
Jesus did something that a lot of Christians recognize. He gave her a gift of no condemnation. We see she sinned, we see the law commanded her to be stoned. And in the midst of the the law being broken, something greater than the law showed up that day: Jesus. And Jesus says, "I don't condemn you". You remember in earlier scriptures, he says, "I did not come in the world to condemn the world, but that the world through me might be saved". So Jesus says, "I came so those who are condemned can be saved through me. I didn't come to condemn the world". And church, we are in Jesus, we are of Jesus. We should not play the part of condemning the world or people. Sinners sin because that's their nature. Let's pray that their nature change and they get the nature of Christ that we have, praise God. They had the gift of no condemnation.
Now, what can a person do with the gift of no condemnation? What can you do when you recognize that heaven doesn't condemn you? He said to her, "Go with this gift, and sin no more. Now you can go and sin no more". I guarantee you, she didn't have no more problems with adultery. Why? Because there's no condemnation. But when there's condemnation, there is this pressure to keep sinning. When you get knocked down and people continue to beat you and keep you down, there's the pressure of, well, I might as well just, you know, you know. I can take the condemnation. That's all you do anyway. But I'm just gonna keep doing it because now the enemy is trying to convince me that's who you are.
So just go ahead and do it anyway. You can never be successful over sin by allowing condemnation to minister to you every day of your life. Jesus said, "I know what happens since I know everything. I also know a way out of your situation and I will not condemn you," because where there is condemnation, there was the continuation of sin because you feel condemned. Even if you go back to verse 9, and you see that those people who left sinned more, he gave her the gift of no condemnation, first, and that gift enabled her to go and sin no more, second. And this is why we need to get rid of all of the condemnation. We need to get all the condemnation out of our lives.
How many of you are still coming to church self-condemned? It gotta go. You have got to deal, please deal with the condemnation. Don't let the condemnation deal with you. Deal with that condemnation. Remember who you are. Remember what Jesus has already done for you. If we are full of condemnation, we might end up going and sinning some more if we're full of condemnation. Now, but you still might be around people who condemn, but do not be full of condemnation. Look at what he said in Romans chapter 8, verse 1, what happens when we get in Christ? What happens when we get born again? He says: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," period.
If you study the scriptures, the rest of that is in italicized. And if you rightly divide the Word, if you read the rest of that it's saying you have to do that in order to have no condemnation. What he says is, the original text says: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," period, okay? You have no condemnation, those of you who are in Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus is a safe place from condemnation. And then go to 1 John chapter 3 and 20 one more time. I wanna answer that question about all the stuff that he knows. He says: "For if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and he knoweth all things".
What is it that he knows? Well, he knows about the blood of Jesus and he knows about Jesus have paid the ransom and the compensation for our lives. He knows about all of those things that can be responsible for keeping us in condemnation. And so what he is saying is, is I want you to focus on the things you know. Focus on the blood. Focus on the broken body. Focus on what Jesus has done on that cross. Focus on what happened when he was resurrected. Focus on the stance that you have with God right now. Focus on the Spirit of God that's in you, that's not condemning you. Focus on the perfection that you have, that you are the righteousness of God and that you have been made righteous. Focus on these things.
What do I remember right away when condemnation wants to rise up in my life? 1 John chapter 2 and verse 1 through 2, focus on this. Focus on this. Start practicing this. There's a lot of times, you know, I'm preaching and you're saying, "Well, yeah, that's good. That's good". I'm not preaching so it's, yeah, that's good, good-sounding. I'm preaching so you can begin to rehearse this in your life. It makes a big difference when you say stuff and remember things in your life, you see? He says, and here's what you do when that condemnation shows up. We gotta be free from it. That condemnation shows up, he says, "My little children, these things write unto you, that you sin not".
So that's the perfect will of God for us. He doesn't want us to do it because he does not want us, his love and his mercy doesn't want us to have to, you know, deal with the consequences that are built into this natural world of what goes around comes around. It's in the natural cycle here. He says, "So my will is that you sin not. And if any man sin," now, I'm gonna put provision in there. "We have an advocate with the Father". We have somebody that will go and plead for us. "We have a advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous," and look what he says. Here's what you do: "And he is the propitiation".
Now that is he is the compensation. He is this peace offering, the sin offering, and he is the ransom that has been paid for you to be free from the sin man, glory to God. He says so when condemnation comes or even when sin comes, he said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to remind yourself of this, that we have a advocate who is our compensation who paid for that. We have a advocate who became the peace offering, glory to God. We have an advocate who has given us the gift of no condemnation, praise the Lord. And he says: "And not for ours only, but also," this is awesome, "also for the sins of the whole world".
I don't think Christian people realize it but Jesus Christ did what he did for the entire earth and when they come to him, he is ready, the plate is ready, the table is ready. He didn't ask us to bring anything to the table. He made everything ready. So when your friends get born again, when they get tired of condemnation, when they get tired of shame, when they get fed up with the judgment and the pain and the brokenness of the world, they should be able to look at us and see some peace, some similitude of this grace that will cause them to say, "Help me," and please don't get so deep and just say, "I'll help you. Can I pray with you? Will you invite Jesus to come in"?
And make it simple. Don't make it complicated. Just, if you have to go to 'em and just say, "Repeat after me, 'Jesus, save me.'" That's enough. Somebody says, "Well, what do I do after I get saved"? Get to know Jesus. "How do I get to know Jesus"? Talk to him. Pray, read the scripture. If you don't understand it right now, listen to these sermons and teachings. Get to know him. And I say today, get to know him right. Because the Jesus I got to know, I didn't get to know him right. I got to know a Jesus that would judge me and condemn me to hell, a Jesus that would get on me if I broke any of the rules. But I did, I just felt like that wasn't him.
All the time, I just knew that that wasn't him. And then when the gospel of grace was ministered to me, I said to myself, "Now that's the Jesus I always thought he was". That's why I'm never, I'm never going back to the rule-keeping. I'm never going back to trying to live by a law that doesn't give life. I'm never going back to a law, glory to God, that can't save nobody. I'm never going back to a law, now remember, the law was perfect but I am not perfect. I need a Jesus who can deal with somebody who's not perfect. I need a Jesus who can deal with somebody that's not flawless yet.
But the promise is if you let me come in you, glory to God, and I in you, and you in me, then I'll start working on you and I promise you the day when I come back, you're gonna be perfect. You're gonna be just like me. I promise you a total transformation and it'll be finished when I come back. There is no condemnation at the throne of grace. And when we have made mistakes and when our heart condemns us, there's one place where we're safe: at the throne of grace. Watch this in Hebrews 4. Hebrews 4:14 to 6, 14 through 16. This is awesome. "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into heavens, Jesus the Son of God".
Now we have a high priest, a perfect high priest. In the old covenant, they would have to take the animals to the priest, and the animals needed to be acceptable because if the animals were not all right, then the people that bought the animals were not all right, and they would leave without their sins being covered. So under the sacrificial system of animal sacrifices, the blood of the animals would cover the sin. That was called atonement, atoning blood.
Now see, we really mix that up in the New Testament. It should never be atoning. Atoning blood is the blood of the animals. It covers it up, but it could never completely get rid of it. We have in heaven a perfect sacrifice, a perfect high priest and a sacrifice. Man! He says, "So let us hold fast our profession". Verse 15: "For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points he was tempted like as we are". Verse 16, or "without sin. Let us therefore," here's a part I love, "come boldly to," the safest place around, "the throne of grace". What happens when you come to the throne of grace? "You obtain," what? "Mercy and you find," what? "Grace to do," what? "Help," when you need help, right? "In a time of need".
So notice what happens when you go to the throne of grace, you find mercy. Mercy is the bad you deserve: the condemnation and the judgment. Mercy is the bad you deserve. Go to the throne of grace and get mercy. He says, but not only do you get mercy, which is the bad you deserve, but you don't get, the judgment you deserve, the condemnation you deserve, and this was from heaven's place, that you don't get, when you go to the throne of grace, there is, he's not gonna judge you. He's not, yeah, I'll say this for real. He's not gonna judge you, hurt you, or take blessings from you. Y'all don't get that. No, he's not gonna judge you, condemn you, hurt you, or take blessings from you. I used to think, "Well, I done missed it, so I guess he gonna take this from me".
Somebody said one time, "I used to sing. I used to sing, but God took my voice away". Uh-uh, first of all, he says, the gifts and callings of God are given, watch this, without repentance. That means he gives it without changing his mind about giving it, okay? You will obtain mercy and then you'll find grace. Grace is the good that you get that you didn't deserve. And I prophesy a lot of good is getting ready to come your way that you won't be able to take credit for. All you gotta do is be ready to receive it. "I receive the..." say this out loud with me. "I receive the good that I don't deserve". Yes, amen. Yes, amen. "I receive the good that I don't deserve".