Creflo Dollar - Faith of God vs. Faith in God - Part 3
Acts 17:28 and 29. Please understand what I’m saying. It was through the faith that was in Christ Jesus is what he’s saying here, the faith that is in Christ Jesus, that is possessed, that is embodied, by Christ Jesus, the reflection of God’s faith. Paul is not saying that we are sons because of our faith in Christ Jesus. Acts 17:28 and 29: «In him we live. In Him we move. In Him we have our being: as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also,» what? «His offspring». Verse 29, «Forasmuch then as we are the offsprings of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stones, or graven by art and man’s devices,» and stuff that came from his stuff. To tell you the truth, we have always been sons. It was his doing, not ours, that made us sons.
We came from him. He is our daddy. Okay, so here we go the Christian folks: «Not if you’re not saved». Please understand, the whole world has access to all of the gifts that have been made available to mankind. What’s the only thing standing between them and the gift, the only thing that was standing between us? We accepted him. So we are accessing, we are taking a hold, or laying a hold, of what we realize now that is ours. We’re accepting the gift. What’s the only difference? The only difference is everything that he made available for all of us here in church, he made available to everybody in the club.
So what’s the deal? They’re not accepting it in the club. But you know what? They will. You know why? 'Cause you and me, and more than that, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost saying, all right, so you won’t accept this, so now I got a way already planned. The path has already been planned. You say you ain’t gonna accept it here, but I already got the path. I know what you got to, I know where you’re gonna be at the day you realize that you want to accept me. I already know. So go ahead, but I got this thing covered. You gonna want me. You gonna want what I got. You gonna need what I got. You’re gonna get tired of what life is dealing to you. And once you get tired of that, I’m gonna be whispering in your ear, hey, I got something better. Hey, hey, it’s already done. It’s already finished, it’s completed, it’s done. It’s a gift.
Let me give you a gift. Everybody like gifts? Let me give you a gift. But the issue is, as simple as what I just explained to you, religion has made it hard. Religion has made it so hard, and with it, religion has put the threat of hell and the fear of death. And then consequently with the threat of hell and the fear of death, then you fear the most comes upon you and all of the stuff happens and people end up dying without accepting a free and gracious gift because they kept going to the church. It’s like a drug push, would just give you a little taste so you keep wanting more of the same bad stuff. Why do you keep going to that church? Because my mama went there.
Where your mom at? She dead. I have nothing else to do in this life. I have done everything I want to do. I could leave the earth today, and say: «What a ride». But every time I think about y’all, and the religious journey that I’ve gone through with others and the condemnation, coming to church condemned, coming to church and get more shame from the pulpit. The sermon changed me. They preach on fatherhood, and they tell me how bad of a father I am, in so many words, by talking about all the things I needed to do. And they ain’t say nothing to me about God trying to help me and God gonna help me and God got this planned out. That you just going to hell. You’re a bad father. You ain’t no good. God don’t like ugly. And I just was condemned and just beat myself up. And I’m just trying, Lord, I’m just trying, Lord.
And then you try and then, you don’t slip up, but you cuss somebody out and, cause you condemned and shamed in church. And you just, you know, you’re human, so you gotta release this. And you’re supposed to deny you’re human. You ain’t human. You are human. You are human. Then you deny your emotions like you’re not supposed to have emotions. You do have emotions, you have emotions. You get sad, you get happy. Then they tell you you can’t even be sad at your mama’s funeral. 'Cause if you’re sad at your mama’s funeral, then you ain’t got no faith. I just, I was like: «You know what? I’m over this».
That’s just several times I thought: «Well, you know what, maybe the atheist has got it better than some of this. This stuff don’t even make no sense to me. I’m just tired. Time I think I got it, and then something else come up. And then something else come up». «Well, you need to confess the Word». «Well, what do I need to confess»? And then I write it down, and then that wasn’t enough. So I wrote another page down. Then it wasn’t enough, and then I got five pages of confession. I’m gonna be late to work. I got all these confessions I gotta say. And then I talked to God. Then it wasn’t enough to talk to God. Now I got to talk to God for an hour. I’m like: «Well, where that at»? «You know, well, you should you not pray for one hour»? «Okay, well, yeah, that’s what he said».
And, you know, so I’m gonna pray for one hour. And then I get up some morning and I’m tired because I went to bed at midnight that night. And I got up and I set my clock for one hour. And I said… And then I got up some morning, and I got to going. I’m, like: «Oh boy, I’m getting this thing. I’m in the Spirit». Looked at the clock, ain’t but two minutes went by. I’m like: «It’s…it’s», and then finally one day God was, like: «You know», I told him, I said: «I just gotta be honest with you. If I can’t be honest with you, who I’m gonna be honest with»? And I went to God, and I said: «I don’t enjoy this prayer time».
And you know what he’s said: «Me neither». Because God don’t want you to have to pray out of you got to. He wants you to pray out of I want to. He don’t want you to give out of I got to. He wants you to give out of I want to. He don’t want you to love out of I got to. He wants you to love out of I want to. He wants a desire from you to want him, to want to do him, and he wants to work on you and to give you the delight of your life, so you can live life in abundance to the full until it overflows. That’s the kind of God life he wants you to have. But you can’t have it because you’re too entrenched and stuck into religious law and tradition.
And you tired. You tired like I was when I, you know, we used to have, you know, morning service, then we had to come back for evening service. And we had Tuesday night Bible study and Wednesday night I study, Friday night something, and Saturday something. And I said: «I had to do all of that if I’m gonna get to heaven». If you wanna see Jesus, you know, 99 ½ won’t do. You gotta make 100. I wasn’t making no 100, never. I wasn’t never making no 100. Sometime I’m making 50. Pastor called me one evening, he said: «You coming back to church»? I said: «No». He said: «Come on, son, just this one time». I said: «I’m tired, I’m exhausted. I didn’t know serving Jesus was so hard. I’m tireder after Sunday than I am after work».
And I was believing God for some shoes because they said: «the faith stuff will work». The best thing I did is I just forgot about it. I said: «Whatever. If God want to bless me with some shoes, he’ll bless me with some shoes. If not, then I’ll just figure out, get me some money, and go and buy me some». And the only person to remember this is Ken when had put plastic on a rainy day. Didn’t you have some holes in your shoes, too? It was just, we both had holes, right? I’m so glad to know that. I thought, all this time, I thought I’m the only one who had holes in his shoes. Yeah, we both had holes in his shoes.
Sometimes we try to wear each other’s shoes, whichever one that was the best one. Figured out a way to put plastic, you know, your socks on, I think we put plastic over the socks and then put the shoes on. It wasn’t funny 'cause, you know, sometimes we step on a rock, a pebble. And so I said: «Man, let’s use this faith». And it was the time I wasn’t gonna come to church. And I said: «I’m tired, boy». So I went, I had an attitude. Y’all know nice-nasty? Praise the Lord, Reverend Dollar, mm-hmm, praise him, praise him. You need to praise him because I’m too tired to praise him. I don’t praised him all morning and now I’m tired of praising him. Walked out there and they called me to the front, and first thing they pulled out the back was some shoes. I needed that. I just needed something. That just let me know that God cares because I realized it’s hard to give financially when you don’t believe that God will take care of you.
So you ain’t trying to give nothing to an offering because you don’t believe that God will take care of you. And then you make up excuses for all the reasons why you don’t do it. And the real reason is you don’t believe that God… you can’t trust. And so all of this mis-translations has got us to where we bought all of the con. We didn’t stay in context, and then we took the text out of context, and we were left with the con. Not that people were doing it to everybody. We just only teaching what we all knew. But when you know better, you can teach better, and when you’re taught better, you can receive better, and you can live better. And that’s all I’m trying to do. I ain’t just trying to be a problem. «He’s just trying to be a problem talking about all that stuff. Why don’t you just keep it like it is»?
We had a lady call the office this week talking аbout: «Y’all need to stay away from all that Greek. It wasn’t but three Greek words. What you talking about? You think we were sitting up here talking in Greek and…» I’m not sure why we, as believers, struggle with it being his faith and not ours. We realize that it’s his strength. We realize that it’s his wisdom. We realize that it’s his righteousness. So why wouldn’t we realize that it’s his faith in us, that it’s his faith through us, here’s a scripture that convinced me.
1 Corinthians chapter 4 and 7 in the NLT, 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and 7 in the NLT, well, let’s look at the King James and then the NLT. Oh, Father: «For who maketh thee to differ from one another? and what hast thou that thou did not receive? now, if thou didn’t receive it, what does thou glory as if thou had not received it»? Now look at this in the NLT: «For what gives you the right to make such a judgment? What do you have that God hasn’t given you»? All right, stop right there. Answer that question. What do you have that God hadn’t given you? No, no, some of y’all really think: «Well, he ain’t give me, it’s just like my daddy when you know, when my nephew, somebody asked him, and he got a bike for Christmas». He said: «Who got you that bike»? Ryan said: «Jesus». My daddy said: «No, Jesus didn’t get you that bike. I bought you that bike».
Well, he didn’t know. Some of us think the same way. «Oh yeah, Jesus did». You don’t understand, it took inhaling and exhaling for you to do whatever it is you do. It took divine protection for what was gonna happen, what could have happened, what should have happened. «What do you have that God hadn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift»? Everything you have is from God. It’s a gift. And you’re boasting like it’s not a gift, but something you earned. You’re boasting like it’s something you earned, something you worked for, something you should be congratulated for, something you should get a pat on on the back for. He said: «Everything comes from God,» and you’re boasting like it’s not a gift.
And he even said: «On our salvation we were saved by grace through faith». He said: «It’s not of your own lest any man should boast». The only time you boast is when you think you’re responsible for it. You see why I gotta take my time with this? There’s a lot. It’s like an onion. You just peel that onion, there’s still another lever, and you peel it. And then there’s still another level, and you peel it. There’s still another level, that’s why you can’t come to church this month. And I see y’all in January. You’re liable to come back here and don’t even understand what we’re saying. What they talking about? You come back here talking аbout: «Yes, look at what I did in my faith».
And people be looking at you, like, naw, you ain’t been to church in a long time, have you? The word «received,» you remember the Greek word from last week, iris, it’s talking about the tense. What we’ve received from him is finished. It’s finished. It’s a finished fact. All that we have received, which includes his faith in us, his faith in us is finished. His faith in us is perfected. His faith in us is complete in us. And then if you go back to Galatians 3:27, he says: «For as many as were baptized into the Christ have put on Christ». He’s not talking about water baptism. I’ve seen preachers do that. Well, in order to put on Christ, you got to get baptized. He’s talking about immersion into Christ. He’s talking about our identity that we’re so in Him that Christ is now my identity.
Who was immersed or who was baptized into Christ? Notice what it is. He says: «As many as,» that phrase, «As many as,» and that’s what Paul here is talking about in this verse. He’s talking about baptism in Christ as it equates to those who died with him, those who were buried with him, those who are raised in Him, raised with him. He’s talking about our identity. I identify with the with the burial. I identify with the death. I identify with the Resurrection. This is my identity, praise God. Who is it that died with him? We did. Who is it that was buried with him? We were. Who was raised with him? We were, all right, watch this. All mankind, that is, you listen to me, all mankind.
Now everything I’m talking about, it ain’t just for everybody in this room. You just accepted it, but all mankind, all were baptized, all were immersed in the Christ, so that we could live in the newness of life, so in the resurrected life, his life in us. And here’s the sad thing. Not all yet are awakened to that truth. Not even everyone in church who prayed to sinner’s prayer and asked Christ to come into their heart has awakened to the fullness of his resurrection life in us. We don’t believe that what Jesus did, he did and made it available for the whole world. They have yet to accept it. You have. Our job is show them Jesus. Show them Jesus. Let your life be a living in pencil and show them Jesus so they can come to the place of realizing.
«Oh, you mean I can have that, too»? «Yes». His strength is our strength. His wisdom is our wisdom. His righteousness is our righteousness. And his faith is our faith. And then in verse 28, he continues with mankind’s identity being in Christ. They are no longer defined by their own personal identities. Huh? You’re not defined by your identity as a Jew or a Greek or a slave or free, or a male or female, but all are defined by him. All are defined by Jesus. You can’t define me no more as a black man. You can’t define me no more as as a male man or a female person. You can’t define me. You can only define me by Jesus.
My identity is Jesus, and that is what’s under attack. He wants to attack your identity in Jesus. He can’t get you. He can’t see it. Devil ain’t gonna sit back and just let you walk around with your identity in Jesus. He gonna attack your identity just like he attacked Jesus’s identity. When Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit of God, and Satan came and attacked, back then: «If you are the Son of God, 'cause I don’t believe you believe you are, if you are the Son of God, turn these stone into bread».
And Jesus was thinking: «Well, I can turn the stone into bread. But if I do that, I am defending something I don’t need to be defending. I know who I am. Why do I have to prove to you that I know who I am? You’re just trying to get me to doubt what I already know about myself. So I ain’t gonna turn these stone into bread because I don’t need your validation. I don’t need you to validate my identity. I don’t need you to validate my sonship».
And that’s what we got to stop doing. You don’t have to approve. You don’t need nobody’s approval to have the identity that Jesus has given you. I don’t need your approval. I’m grown. I don’t need your approval for me to have the identity of Jesus. I ain’t got to prove to you. «Well, where is it in Bible»? «But I ain’t got to show you nothing. I know who I am. I have the identity of Jesus». That’s the Gospel, folks. That’s good news. That’s the good, glad, happy news that will make a man jump for joy.