True Faith - Creflo Dollar, Sunday Sermon | July 28, 2024

Praise the Lord. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to minister to these, your precious sheep. Thank you that revelation knowledge will flow freely, uninterrupted, and unhindered by any satanic or demonic force. Father, I pray that you will speak through my vocal cords and think through my mind, Lord. Give me the way to articulate what you've allowed me to see, and we give you praise for it now. In Jesus's name we pray. Everybody say amen. Amen.

Now we are about to start something in this series that I believe will equip you to see the glory in your life like you've never seen before. Now let me define that. I believe over the next month, as you hear these teachings—and listen, I'd love to be able to teach the whole series in one thing, but it's like an onion. I got to peel this back—but what's going to happen is, as we begin to discover and get detail on things that we thought we knew, you're going to begin to see the manifestations of the promises of God, and it'll be with sweatless victory. Watch this, instead of sweating to try to get it.

And so, I pray for you and your house and your family and everything that you've been going through, that the Lord will bring some of those discomforting, painful situations to an end, that everything Jesus has given you, you will now know how to take it and receive it and walk in it, and to turn to your friends and people around you and say, "There it is." I want to show you how to move what God has finished from the unseen dimension to this physical, seen dimension without sweat. Go ahead and praise the Lord like he's already done it. Go ahead and praise him like he's already done. Go ahead and praise. Amen.

You may be seated. If you have your Bibles, go with me to the book of Ephesians, chapter 2, beginning at verse 8. And sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, it's the small foxes that spoil the vine. If you read the word of God and you get a wrong interpretation or just kind of miss out on the fullness of what it means, it can affect your outcome. Verse eight, and y'all pray for me today, sweet lips, Pastor Dollar, say that, sweet lips, right? Because sweet lips increase learning. Sweet lips. Hey, sweet lips. All right, ready?

He says, "For by grace are you saved through faith; and that"—underline the word "that," no, underline it or, if you have computers, I apologize, make note of the word  "for by grace are you saved through faith; and that," that's huge, "and that not of yourselves," that's important too, it is the gift of God." Verse 9: "Not of works, lest any man should boast." Not of works, or this gift is not available because you performed or labored to get it. If you performed and labored to get it, it would no longer be qualified as a gift, but something you earned or deserved because you labored to get it. And it also literally means not of the works of the law, which is a performance-based agreement. And it says the reason why it is not going to be of your works or your labor to get this gift, he says, "Lest any man should boast." So what God gifts to us, you can't boast on your behalf. The only way you're going to be able to boast is to boast about him.

Verse 10: "For we are his workmanship." God's work. We are his workmanship, which means God's work is us. That's awesome. God's working on you. Say out loud, "God's working on me." "We are his workmanship." Oh, that's awesome. You're seated here minding your own business, and God's working on you. As I teach this, he's working on you. When you go home, he's working on you. When somebody cusses you out, he's working on you. Why did the Lord have me get cussed out? He's working on you. "Oh, I lost my job." He's working on you. How is he working on me? See, all of those are opportunities to mature and to grow. "For we are his workmanship, created—we're created in Christ Jesus." Now watch this: "Unto the good works." So good works are huge here, but good works are not added to the gift so that the gift can do what it needs to do. Good works will come from the gift. That's right. Which God hath ordained that we should walk—he's ordained for us to walk in those good works. I'll show you scriptures in this series where God said, "I save you by grace so you can do good works." That's right. But he didn't say you have to add works to my grace in order for my grace to work. What he said was, "My grace doesn't need your work, but my grace will produce out of you and from you good works because of the gift I gave you." So without the gift, good works wouldn't flow out of you. So I gave you a gift so that good works can come out of you. So when somebody knocks on your door and says, "I'm hungry and naked," good works, if you really got that gift, it's just going to flow out of you. The fruit of the spirit flows out of you because of the grace of God.

Yeah, all right. Now let's go back to verse 8, and let's dissect this for a moment. He says, "For by grace are you saved." Now, here's the big thing: we know that grace, by its definition, is unmerited favor. It is unmerited favor. It is abounding provision in the unrestricted or unrestrained operation of this love that comes out of Jesus Christ towards, and it's for, human beings, mankind. But it's especially for those who—especially for those who depend on him, right? Now watch this: "For by grace"—so we know that grace is already a gift, right? By definition, grace is a gift. It's unmerited—a gift is unmerited, unearned. A gift is unearned, so by definition, you know that grace is a gift. "For by grace are you" He didn't say, "For by grace are you born again." This is huge. He did not say, "For by grace you are born again." Now, are you born again by grace? Yes. But he didn't say, "You're born again by the grace of God." It's more than born again. Yes, you're born again by the grace of God, but he uses a word here: "saved." I'm going to look at two Greek words. The first one is "soteria." "For by grace are you sozo" or "soteria." Now put this on the screen for me. "For by grace are you saved, soteria." Now, this means something. I want everybody to see it. Yeah, this means something. So by grace are you—you have deliverance, preservation, safety, protection. You're delivered from the molestation of the enemies in an ethical sense, that which concludes to the soul safety and salvation. So you're delivered from the attacks of your soul, the messianic salvation, which includes all of those things that Jesus has made available for you and to you—all the finished works of Jesus.

All right, now let's put it in College Park understanding: He gave you the gift of protection, soundness, safety, healing, deliverance. All of the finished works of Jesus is what you got by grace. By grace, you are born again. By grace, you are delivered. By grace, you are sound. By grace, you are healed. By grace, you are equipped to deal with the enemy. By grace, all of what you're sweating to try to get has been gifted to you by grace. We limited that to just "born again," but it's not just born again. It's born again, it's delivered, it's protected, it's healed. It's all of the finished works of Jesus. It's everything—the dealing with the enemy trying to come against you, you're equipped for that. The enemy trying to attack your soul, you're equipped for that. Brokenness in your heart, you're equipped for that. You are equipped right now for that, but we've been working to try to get these things when we already got these things by grace. If I give you a box and in the box there is a T-shirt and you go around talking about, "I need to go to work and get extra hours 'cause I need to buy a T-shirt," and I'm like, "You've got a T-shirt." Where is it? It's in the box. "Well, how do I know it's in the box? I mean, the box is all wrapped up." It's in the box. Unwrap the gift.

I'm saying to you, Church, unwrap the gift. All right, so now look, let's look at another Greek word, sozo (s-o-z-o). "For by grace do you have sozo: to save, to keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction, one from injury or peril." So any type of thing you go to save a suffering one from perishing, suffering from disease, to make well, to heal, to restore to health. By grace are you saved from suffering disease. You're saved and made well. You're healed by grace. You're restored to health by grace. "No, I got to work to get to it." Unwrap the gift. It's been gifted to you. Oh, my goodness.

Now something needs to change in our thinking when it comes to you trying to do something to get what's already been gotten. You have to change your thinking to realize I have it now as a gift to me by grace. I am healed by grace. Now, here's the thing: we've been trained to look at what we can see, and we don't stand on what we don't see. You are not going to be—not trying to be, well, I hope to be—you've got to move to this place of "I am saved, delivered, healed, protected" now. That's got to be present tense continuum. It's got to be something that you—it's got to be something you receive now without seeing.

If you make a reservation on the phone or online, you may not see what you reserved until you get there, but somehow or another we're living by faith in everyday situations. You came to church by faith. Now go back to Ephesians 2. Y'all see how we're going to do this now. Now watch these fascinating things that come to place now with that in mind: for by grace are you—it's a much bigger word now, right? Much bigger word—saved, healed. All right, I'm going to call it out, and then you just say, "Already done." Ready?

Healed, sound, preserved, delivered, whole, prosperous, restored, defeated [Applause] enemies. That ought to get you preaching to somebody. You're going through something, and they don't know. They're up here trying to feel sorry for you. You're going through something, and they don't know that you already know. "Oh no, honey, don't get this twisted. I already, I already got it. Don't get it twisted. It's been gifted to me. Don't get it twisted. I know who I am. Don't get it twisted. I know physically I might be in a situation; emotionally I might be in a situation, but I am now just being transformed." It's like the air conditioning unit. It can be hot in the house, but when you change the thermostat, everything starts working to reach the desired temperature. I'm trying to change your thermostat this morning so that the angels of God, the Holy Ghost of God, the name of Jesus of God, everything will start working to bring you to that setting.

So today I'm going to talk to you about true faith, for by grace you'll never be able to say that one word again without thinking all of the other stuff, and now here it is. So everything that's been made available, we access this through what? We access this through what? All right, real quick, Romans 5:2 and Romans 4:16 in the NLT. Romans 5:2 and Romans 4. We'll come back to this now. All right, verse two: "Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand." Isn't that interesting? We now stand. Glory to God. "And we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing" what? Watch this: "God's glory" or these manifestations. I started off talking to you about glory. Here is the manifested word, and notice how it starts. The beginning of verse two again, notice how it starts. He says that "because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege." It's not because of our labor, not because of our effort, not because of our performance. Do you see this? It is because of our faith that he has brought us into these undeserved privileges. So I am all that he has done, all right? Because of my faith.

Now look at Romans 4:16. Now, this is going to be a little shocking, but I've got to take my time on this, but amen, here we go. He says, "So the promise is received." All of the promises, we just talked about the promises of sozo and soteria, right? All of the promises are received. See, all of these gifts have to be received. They've got to be received. We've been trained. We've been working for it. They've got to be received. Get a picture of that. They've got to be received. I have a gift in my hands. I extend that gift to you. It's got to be what? Received. It's got to be taken. It's got to be received. It doesn't require you to work to get it. You've already got it. It's got to be received—not working to get healed, not working for soundness, not working for preservation, but receiving. Received, say it: "Received."

This promise is received, and guess what faith is? Faith is your receiver mechanism. Faith is your receiver mechanism. Faith is not your "go get it" mechanism. Faith is your receiver. It's your receiving mechanism. So God gave you grace, which is a gift. Watch this: "So the promise is received by faith." What is this "it" referring to? Faith. It is given as a free gift. It's interesting because the promise was given as a free gift, and faith was given as a free gift, and we are all certain to receive it whether or not we live according to the law of Moses. You don't need faith to live by the law because the law is clear: do this and this happens, right? You don't need faith to live by the law, but you need faith to receive under this new covenant what Jesus has already given you. And if we have faith like Abraham's, for Abraham is the father of all who believe. He's not just the father of all Jewish people; he's the father of all who receive. He's the father of receivers who received like him.

And how did he receive? "Abraham, you're going to have a son." Abraham said, "I'm 100, my wife's, uh, she's 90-something. We're old. We don't have the equipment. There's nothing we can do to make this happen. We, we don't even feel like getting it on. We—there's nothing we can do to make this happen. Yes, if this is going to happen, if this promise is going to take place, you're going to have to do it. All we can do is believe and receive this child. The only thing we can do is receive an Isaac. We can't make him. We can't work for him. We have to receive an Isaac." But religion's taught you, "Now, you've got to sweat for Isaac. You've got to perform for Isaac. You've got to do all these things to get an Isaac." And he says, "No, no, no. I only require for you to hear the promise, believe the promise, and take the promise. I ain't asking you to do nothing else." All right, go back to Ephesians 2. 

Now, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that. So what is the "that" referring to? Some theologians say, "Well, he's referring to grace." Well, if "that" was referring to grace, it would make it redundant. You follow what I'm saying? It's now redundant. We already know by definition that grace is a gift of God, and that makes it redundant. "For by grace are you saved through faith, and that faith is not of yourselves." And for most of my life, I made faith about me. "Do I have enough faith to get this?" And then when I don't get it, and I don't get healed, and I don't get anything, then I blame it on my lack of faith. Wow. But he has given to every man what? The measure. Not a measure, because if he gave to every man a measure, then it would be another measure and degrees of measure. But that's why he said he gave to every man the measure, which means every man got the same measure that another man got.

Think about it. Think about God, who's not a respecter of persons, giving Pastor Ken a measure, and then I get a different measure, and you get a different measure, and then you look at people that got manifestations, and you think, "Well, the reason why they got it is because their measure of faith was greater than my measure of faith." And watch the condemnation that comes. Now I feel condemned because now I got to go and figure out how to work my measure of faith and work my faith muscles so it can get big like theirs. Y'all hear what I'm saying? I'm talking about me. How many of you know I can talk about me? I'm not going to get mad at me. I'm not going to walk by me and not speak to me and nothing like that. I'm talking about me, so don't you think I'm talking about nobody else. I'm talking about my journey to get where I am right now. That faith is not of yourselves, so you're trying to manufacture more faith to handle your issue that you don't believe you received because you can't see it yet. Everything that is, is, but it just may not have appeared yet in this dimension that you live in.

There are angels; you can't see them right now, but your lack of seeing the angels doesn't mean the angels are not there. Remember the story with Elijah? Uh, I think it was Elijah, and he had a servant, and he told him to go up, "Tell me what you see." They surrounded Elijah, getting ready to destroy him. He said, "Go up and tell me what you see." He said, "I don't see nothing." He said, "Go up there again." "Oh, I see a bunch of angels surrounding that army." Now, the angels were always there. Just 'cause you can't see them, they're here right now. If God were to open your spiritual eyes, we would all see that we have more than one guardian angel. Who said there's got to be one angel per person? There are enough angels to take care of you in fulfilling the mission that God called you to fulfill. Don't let your angels be lounging around because you're not following the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Now, watch this. This faith is not of yourselves. Think about what we've done with that. We've made it all about ourselves. When it worked, we made it about ourselves and boasted. Anytime you can boast about your faith, it shouldn't be boasted about. You should be boasting about God. We've made it about all of that, that not of yourself. This faith is a gift of God. I was so blown away that God gave me grace as a gift and then turned around and gave me a gift to receive what grace—yes, sir. Grace is a gift, and faith is a gift. Faith is a gift. It was dealt in equal measures. Faith is a gift. He gifted every man with the measure of faith. Glory to God. Glory to God.

And I'm going to teach on these phrases: little faith, big faith. That's just real simple. Your faith is little or big based on if it's active or not, based on if you're receiving or not. It's not measured. All right, now watch this. And that not of yourself, this faith is a gift of God. And now watch what he says about this gift. He has said this faith is not of works. Okay, so this is the first session, so I'm going to kind of go with it just a little bit, and then we'll do details later. This faith is not of works. That freaks people out because the Bible says faith without works is dead. The Bible didn't say that. Yeah, James. James 2 says, you know, "So then your faith without works is dead." But you got to understand—watch this—context. So I'm going to teach on it, so I'm going to give you a week to read it. The context is that Pastor James was dealing with a situation of people showing up on the porch and saying, "I'm naked, and I'm hungry," and you say to them, "Be ye clothed and be ye full," and James was saying, "Okay, this saving faith that you say you have—you say you've been saved by this saving faith." He said, "Now, if you've been saved by this saving faith and you have this relationship with God, then this saving faith and this salvation in you should produce out of you some good works."

Watch this, and then he said, "Show me your faith." I'm going to use a synonym. "Show me your faith without proof, works, fruit, and I'll show you my faith with proof, works, fruit." In other words, now that you're saved and have a relationship with God, what should be brewing out of you because you're saved is, "I gotta clothe you. I gotta give you something to eat." Paul was saying, "Don't talk to me about you have saving faith, and there is no fruit or works coming out of that relationship." Context. Then he goes on, and he says, "Abraham was justified by works," when we clearly see in Romans 4 that the Bible says that Abraham was justified by his faith. But James was not saying, "Add works to your faith in order to be justified." James was saying that if you are really born again and you have this gift on the inside of you, then it'll be demonstrated, and proved out of that will come the proof or the evidence of your works. Like Abraham was justified by his fruit when he was asked by God to take his son up and sacrifice his son. We know he had a relationship with God 'cause look at what he did. Are y'all seeing this? James was not contradicting Paul at all. James was saying, "Show me your faith without works or proof or evidence or fruit, and I'll show you my faith and what's come out of my relationship with God in clothing folks and feeding folks and carrying out the good works that are being ministered on the inside of me to carry out."

So you were saved by grace so you can do good works. There are certain things that come out of you that maybe weren't in your mind before you got saved, but now that you're saved, you've got mercy and empathy, and you find yourself doing something for people that you would have normally not done for them. But now that that saving grace has interrupted your life, you can't help but look at people with mercy and grace and say, "Look at what God's done for me. I gotta do it for them." Proof of your faith. And the way we interpreted it was James said faith without you doing something. And that's, that's, that's—if you understand what he was saying, but that's not how we did it. We took it to mean we got to add performance to our faith. Amen? In order for our faith to work. So if you were receiving healing for your eyes, the way we've been trained is you gotta take your glasses off 'cause faith without works is dead. See, you're trying to get your faith to make, and faith doesn't make. Faith takes. What does faith take? It takes what grace has made. Amen.

Faith doesn't make, and you're trying to get faith to make your healing. You're trying to get faith to make your prosperity. You're trying to get faith to make you a new job. You're trying to get faith to make all this other stuff, and faith doesn't make. Faith is a non-work. Faith is a non-work. This is strong. If faith requires performance, then that faith destroys grace or your opportunity to take it. You can't take Romans 11—if grace is works, then grace is no longer grace. It's no longer grace. See what happens? So if you add work to your faith, you destroy grace. It's no longer grace. And everything that you're believing for and all the promises he made came by grace, and to add works to the gift of faith destroys what came by grace. So now what you have to do is you say, "By the grace of God, I am healed, and by the faith of God, I receive the healing. I'm not trying to make it."

I'm not trying to create it. I'm not trying to invent it. I'm just taking what he has already made, and I will not add works to that. But now that I'm saved by faith, hallelujah, you're going to see the good works that come out of me because grace saved me so he can produce fruit out of me to impact this sick world. See, you're disappointed because you've been using your faith to get your car. Yeah, but I got my car. That's mercy and grace. They don't know. Chef, Lord, teach them. Ten years down the road, they'll get it. You keep adding works to a gift that is a non-work. This is as shocking to you today as the first day I started preaching on grace, but this is a gift. Have we not proven that by scripture? Now the fight you're going to have is: do I let go of my tradition of the way I've believed, or am I ready to dig and pay attention to that voice in me that's saying, "This is right, this is right," because there's too much sweating?

Listen, a spiritual son of mine died years ago, and I went, and I said, "Well, I'm just going to raise him from the dead." Now I'm going to compare that to when one person was raised with nothing and me trying to do it with works. So I was in Alabama, and I told them, I said, "Go get—I want to see the body." They said, "The body ain't ready yet." I said, "Bring it on out anyway." And I had George with me. He was like, "What in the world are we doing?" Dead body came in, and I was working. I was working my faith. I said, "In the name of Jesus, rise up," just like they did and Elijah did, just like they did, but see—and "rise up." I ain't saying it. I got to add something to it. I keep trying to, like, it feels more powerful when you say something you don't know what you said. "Get up," still didn't get up. I ain't lay my hands right, not enough oil. That dead body sitting in there—I got oil all on the dead body, hands all over. "Rise, la la la," coming outside of—and "He ain't get up." I said, "Well, praise the Lord, that's it." Jo was like, "Well, what happened?" I said, "I don't know. Come on, let's go."

Versus, I was staying with my pastor, Bishop C. L. Carter, and we were like the two night watchmen. He called, he said, "Son, we got to go right quick. Get dressed." Got dressed, and we're driving about 3 or 4:00 in the morning to East Point, Georgia. We need to pray for somebody. I'm thinking, "Pray for somebody at 3 or 4:00 in the morning? Can't they wait till tomorrow?" He knew stuff, but he didn't tell me. So I walked in, and there was this guy on a hospital bed, and he had the oxygen thing up his nose and everything. But you know you can see when you're breathing. And I walked in, and Pastor Carter said, "Pray, son." I'm thinking, "What is going on here?" So I laid my hands on him. When I laid my hands on him, I'm like, "Whoa, he cold. Y'all might want to turn the heat on or something." And I prayed a strange prayer. I said, "Lord, we release and receive your anointing to remove burdens and destroy yokes." And a few seconds later, he started coughing, and he grabbed the mask, put it off. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Then his mama was standing by the bed. She fainted, and he had an uncle in the room who was drunk. That boy sobered up and came up and tapped me on the back of the shoulder, said, "I want to be saved." And the whole time, I'm thinking, "This is the weirdest family. What in the world is going on?" When I woke this man up, and she fell out—what'd she fall out for? And he talk about he want to get saved. So when I got in the car, I said, "Pastor Carter, explain all that." He said, "All right, son. I didn't get a call for somebody we know to come and pray, but in addition to that, they said he dead." I said, "Oh, how?" I said, "What? I said, the what?" He said, "Son, he was dead. The reason why he was cold is 'cause he was dead." So I just figured out, as long as I don't know you dead, we might be able to do something. You see the difference? In one case, I'm trying to work my faith. In the other case, I'd already received what faith and grace had made available.

Oh yes, Lord, I ain't even started my sermon for today. I don't know if I said this to you, when I was working out, "If your faith is not at rest, then your faith is not at work." Yes, good. Now, what I mean by that, go to Hebrews chapter 4, and verse 10 and 11. Hebrews chapter 4. Lord, I just give you praise. And the reason why I'm giving him praise 'cause, you know, I got everything all wrote out what I was going to be talking about and stuff like that, and then in the back room, he says, "I don't want you to start there. Start here. Amen." Because the glory is about to increase in your house. Amen. I said manifestations of the promises of God are about to increase in your house.

Now, now, now watch this. This is very important. "For he that is entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from his." All right, now before you go to 11, go to verse one. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. "For he—let us therefore fear, lest any promise—any promise being left us of entering into his rest—any of you should seem to come short of it." Verse two: "For unto us was the gospel preached." I am preaching the good news of Christ to you right now. As well as unto them was it preached. So what was the problem? Why didn't they see the promise? "But the word preached did not profit them." How many of you have experienced that? "The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it," because the promises are given by grace, but faith is a gift.

Now go to verse 11 before I make this statement. Is everybody on the bus? "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest." You're not supposed to labor to get healed. You're not supposed to labor to get delivered. You're not supposed to labor to get rich. You're not supposed to labor to get sound. There's only one thing we should be laboring to do. We should therefore labor to enter into that rest. The labor to rest. You know what your faith—you should be at? Your faith should be resting. Oh glory to God. Your faith should not be working; it should be resting. What should your faith be resting in? Watch this. This is so good. Your faith should be resting in the love of God. You know that God loves you, and because God loves you, he will do what he said. Because God loves you, he will heal you. Because God loves you, he will deliver you. And the Bible says that faith worketh by love. And so my faith rests in the love of God. Because he loves me, I know I have the promise. Because he loves me, I know I have what grace has. And so every time I wonder, "Am I going to get this?" I say to myself, "God loves me." That's how I know that this too shall come to pass. I don't know why I'm not healed now. I don't know why the money ain't came yet. I don't know why I lost my job. I don't know none of this. But I know God loves me, and because God loves me, I have faith. I can receive what he said. I can enter into that rest. So I'm going to chill out. I'm going to stop struggling. I'm going to quit doing all of this stuff to see if I can make God do what he's already done.

I'm not going to labor to get rich, labor to get healed, or labor to get delivered. I am going to labor to enter into that rest, and if your faith is not at rest, it is not at work. But your faith will work when you're at rest. You got to rest like God rested on that last day. But what have we been doing? Working our faith. We've been working our faith like a carpenter uses a tool. You use faith? No, you don't. No, you don't. Your faith should be at rest, and when it is at rest—or excuse me, when you're at rest—of course, when you're at rest, then your faith is at work. Rest. Rest. When you're at rest, your faith is at work. The problem is, self-effort tries to work through faith, and it's a gift. You can work all day long, but if I hadn't decided to give you a gift, if I do give you something, it's because I feel guilty because you've been working.

We've been on the West Coast all week, and you know we stayed at this place, the last place we were at, and my heart goes out when I see older people, people having to work that should be their golden ages. But 75, you having to get a job. And so this lady was our waitress, and she was just moving around. I thought, man, this lady blessed; she got movement every day, she's moving. And she was so gracious and so kind, and the Lord said, "Every time you see her, give her $100." Here, the first hundred I gave to her, she said, "Is this for me?" I said, "Yes, ma'am, that's for you." She said, "All of it?" "Yes, ma'am, all of it. It's all for you." nd then she was so happy, she started—she was trying to preach, but she ain't have nothing to say. What I mean, she would say, "You know, we're all one, and you're all a part of me, and I'm all a part of you." And I'm like, "I don't know if I'm all a part of you and all that other kind of stuff," but my point was, just receive. Some of us can learn a lesson. Sometimes you need to learn the vocabulary of silence. Just when somebody gifts you with something, just receive, because we still got guilt working on us. "Oh, they bought me something for Christmas; I didn't buy them none for Christmas." All right, what they gave you was a gift; what you're giving them is wages.

Our faith,  we didn't have it at rest with us. We won't chill out and say, "I receive this," and I labor to stay at rest. Why do I have to labor to stay at rest? Next day, I don't see nothing. I'm still resting in, "I believe you, Lord." Next day, I don't feel no different. "Lord, I'm laboring to stay at rest. I sing a song to stay at rest. I listen to a sermon to stay at rest. I call in somebody and testify to stay at rest. I'm laboring to stay at rest." That's why God can do more with us when we're asleep, because we and our work is out of the way. Sweet sleep. And the Bible says he gives to us in our sleep. When we're at rest. When we are at rest, God will be at his best. But we're still trying to go and figure out how to work our faith. We need to  work my faith, and if somebody happens to die, it's your fault, 'cause you didn't work your faith enough. That's just ridiculous. You know how condemning that is? You know how painful that is that somebody died and the weight of that situation was put on you because you didn't have enough faith? Is it amazing to me the Bible says that no man comes to the Father unless he's drawn by me? I was like, even your salvation wasn't really all for you, 'cause there are some people just ain't ready to get saved yet, but God working on them, and when that time comes, he will draw you. He will draw you and bother you in between all the times and work on you. But when the time comes, he'll draw you. You're going to want him, and God knows how to get you to want him. So every last one of us who got saved, we were drawn. We were drawn by the Spirit of God. Go back and look at your life. You were drawn by the Spirit of God. The only other way you came to God was through the hell gate of fear. "I got saved 'cause I didn't want to go to hell."

Right. What we are about to do this month is to prepare you for the greatest outpouring of God's glory in manifestation. And it requires a gang of people to just say, "I'm ready to hear and learn." Not spending your time trying to pick my life apart or pick this church apart or just let me hear, 'cause faith cometh, Romans 10:17, by hearing. Watch this, and hearing by the word, King James translation of God. The actual translation is, "Faith cometh by hearing the word of Christ." Because if it's just hearing the word of God, then you go back and you can say, "by hearing the law," faith cometh. But you don't need faith to operate by the law. So faith cometh by hearing the words of Christ. Hallelujah. The words of Christ, the word of redemption, the word of righteousness, the word of grace. As you hear that faith, faith comes. It comes by hearing this gospel of grace. And do you know the thousands of people that left this church because they said, "I don't agree with that grace message"? And I've had a chance to visit some of those lions, and I'm like, "Wow, if you could have just hung in there, the glory is coming to your house, and not of yourselves." Amen. God wants you to share in his glory, and what happens? Your relatives are going to see it, your coworkers are going to see it, your enemies are going to see it, and God is going to use his glory to draw people unto him. "What's the difference between that church, and what's the difference between them people?" You know, you know, all Christians are the same? No, no, no, don't put me in that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The glory. The glory that you can't boast about unless you're boasting about the Giver of the glory. You can't boast about it. You can't boast about it. You can't boast about it. You can't boast about it.

The devil will do everything he can to try to stop this message, but I'm cool. I feel good. I'm delivered from people. I'm delivered from approval addiction, and I don't mind being vulnerable with my church congregation or whoever visited in here. Vulnerability is no longer a fear in my life but a power in my life. How you—how you feel like it's a power? If I can share some tales and our experiences with you, hopefully it'll give you some hope to say, "Whoa, they were there too? They believed like that too?" Oh, the enormous amount of work I tried to do in trying to get people healed, and the manifestation of most of the healings came when I was laying hands in rest. And the better one came when I didn't lay hands at all and just spoke the word. 'Cause I thought, "Oh," because I did not understand little faith, big faith, no faith. And I'm going to teach that. What is big faith? What is little faith? I mean, here's Jesus telling a guy who just walked on water, "Oh, ye of little faith." How do you tell a dude that just walked on the water that he has a little faith? We need to know what that means.

If the just are to live by faith, and we don't know what it is, and we missed out on it.  Faith has been designated for the Christ. Faith is designed for this New Covenant. Faith is designed for all that grace has made available. Faith has not been designed so you can use it to get what you want. Faith has been designed for you to get what has already been gifted to you. Amen. It is not this free-for-all, "This is my little magical tool, and I'm going to get what I want."

Faith is a receptor of all that Grace has made available. Get yourself out of the way because this is not about you. It is not about your performance. God does not need you to bring something to the table. He doesn't need your help. He doesn't need your support. He doesn't need anything that you got that he gave you, right? You remember that guy when it came to money? I think it was David, one of them. It came to money and giving in the offering. This boy had enough sense to say, "All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own." Out of your stuff, I give to you.

You know how that's changed? You think that's your stuff. You think that's your stuff, and you're negotiating within yourself and God whether or not it's safe to give God what's already his. God says, "I own a cattle of a thousand hills. I don't need to ask you for nothing. I don't need anything you got. Everything you got, I gave to you. I'm just giving it to you to see if you'll love me enough to give back what's mine already." And you're still struggling with that because you're scared some preacher is trying to take something that's yours. If he does take something that's yours, he took something that's from God, and God will deal with that joker. But you got to understand, all things you have have come from God Almighty, and when he asks you to give something, he's asking you to give what's already his. If you didn't have the oxygen to breathe, you wouldn't be able to get it. If you didn't have the strength to go, you wouldn't be able to get it. If you didn't have the wisdom, you wouldn't be able to get it. You got to wake up and recognize this is not your stuff. All things come of thee, O God, and of thine own has he given you. Come on.

[Music] Hallelujah. They heard it. A lot of things we've heard, but faith doesn't come by having heard. Faith comes by presence. See, it's a conundrum. It seems like a contradiction. You know, faith doesn't add no works, but here's the conundrum. But I want you to live by it or practice it. Live by it. Live by resting. The greatest level of a man's faith is in rest. How do I know that I'm believing? 'Cause you're at rest. What's the authentication? What authenticates faith being faith and versus something just being mental ascent? I'm at rest. I'm not worrying about it, and I'm not sweating about it. It is what it is, and God already said what it is, and I believe it, and I receive it. And it used to me sweating, "You know what's going to happen?" I don't know when it's going to happen, but I know it's going to happen. I don't know how it's going to happen, but I know it's going to happen. I ain't dealing with all that. That's a settled thing. I'm done with that. I'm keeping it moving. And as you keep it moving, you look up one day, and while your faith was at rest, it has delivered something to you that you wasn't struggling and sweating and feeling guilty if you didn't do the same work every day. "Oh, I missed a day, so,  it might not happen now." That's not how this works.

Now, I'm sure I'm going to receive letters and phone calls from all the people, and so I'm not going to read them. I'm not going to read them. Don't get upset with me because I know how to read, right? Right, which is all we did today was read. But some of these things I mentioned, we're going to have detailed teachings, like James chapter 2. It needs to be looked at. It's right there in the Bible, and I thought, "Oh my God," you know? I felt like when I first saw this, I looked up as if I wanted to pray to James because I thought James was like a troublemaker. Just because he was the half-brother of Jesus, you know good and well that you don't add no works to faith to be justified. Why are you trying to contradict what Paul said? And then when I saw what James was talking about, I'm like, "James, bro, forgive me, man." I said, "James, I ain't see it, man. You're the dude, man. Forgive me, man." I said, "No hard feelings, James." I'm like, 'cause I'm thinking when I see James, I'm like, "Bro, why you causing trouble, James?" He's like, "That ain't what I was saying. Context is the key. And when you take the text out of the context, you're left with the con. You just don't open the Bible and just read stuff out of context and then push an idea or push an opinion." God doesn't need our opinions, and my opinion is that my time is all up. Okay, that's part one. Did y'all get anything out of that? Man, that's part one. Part one. Part one. All right, let's pray. If you can hold your walking, hold your walking. If you can, if not, I know y'all got to do stuff, and I appreciate you coming, and you can give on the way out.

Father, we thank you. We thank you for your word. We thank you for where you're about to take us. We thank you, Lord, for your marvelous grace and for the gift of faith, and we receive  this grace, and we receive this faith that's not of ourselves. Now, Lord, show us how to operate in this gift. Make it plain in our lives. None of me and all of you. Do something in the lives of those who have heard this word. Get them stirred back up in their faith. Get them stirred back up in their relationship. Confirm what I have taught today and let this week be a week of resting in your finished works.

Now, Father, as we prepare to bring our gifts to you, we ask that you help us to be free from the fear of you not caring for us. Father, we believe the love you have for us, and we know that you will care for us, and therefore, Lord, we bring glory due to your name. We bring an offering, and with that, we worship you in the beauty of your holiness. We don't neglect the opportunity to keep showing you we're not afraid, that we trust what you've put in our hands and that we bring proof that what you've given unto us we will give to you, O God. Bless this next four to five weeks. Oh, think through my mind. Think through my mind. Think through my mind. Let your spirit change us on the inside. May the glory visit each home that's represented at the sound of my voice. Let something that we can't take credit for happen in the lives of these people, these precious people, who will be willing to make the adjustment. Oh God, we trust you. We need you. We need you. A lot of things are going on, Lord. We need you, and today we declare to a faithful God that we have complete dependence on you. Oh God, fill this atmosphere with your presence. Fill this atmosphere with your strength, your anointing, and your power. Clothe us before we leave. Clothe us, and may we return resting in you like never before because we receive this everlasting love that you have for us. In Jesus' name we pray, oh amen.

If you need an offering envelope, would you raise your hands? We want to make giving a part of our worship. We want to make giving a part of our relationship with God. We're not going to shy away from it because so many just don't understand what it's about, and I just pray that God will manifest himself in your receiving, not just your giving. Your giving is important, but in your receiving as well, that this week I will receive. I am a receiver. That today is my receiving day, and tomorrow is my receiving day, and I will live my life in the posture of receiving what Jesus—remember who grace is—what Jesus has made available to me. Thank you, Lord.

As you prepare your offerings, I just want you to think about the love that God has shown you and shown us in our ignorance, in our times of trouble. He's just always been there, and maybe not at that moment did you see anything, but when you look back and you examine where God has brought you from and you begin to recognize if it had not been for him, I don't even know to think about where I would be, but he's been with me through everything. Thank you, Jesus. And he said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you," so you don't have to worry about him leaving. He says, "I'm not going to," says you're not divorcing me. I tear it up. I'm not going to let you go 'cause I saw what you were going to be like at the very beginning of your life, and I am committed to your transformation on this journey of life. Take your offerings out. Let's just go declare over it.

Father, we thank you for the opportunity to give. We thank you for the opportunity of that which you have given to us, that we can now faithfully give to you, and we praise you for this opportunity. Thank you for your promises concerning giving coming to pass in our lives as we trust you more and more in every area of our life. It's in Jesus' name we pray, and everybody said it. Amen.

Ushers, you can go ahead and receive the offering, and hopefully, somebody took good notes. I need those notes so I can add them in with my book on the sermon I preached today. I'm looking at them like, "This ain't in there. I need to get the note." Well, no, I guess I have to listen to it, but if you're here right now as you're giving your offering and you're not born again—and y'all can go ahead and decide whatever y'all want to sing when the time comes. If you're here and you're not born again, and today is the opportunity for you to take care of that business, go ahead and take care of that business.

What is happening in your heart right now? Do you continue to live this just the way you've been living, or are you ready for the Spirit of God to take leadership in your life? If you're not saved today, this is the opportunity for you to make Jesus your Lord and personal Savior. Secondly, if you want to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, the evidence is speaking in tongues, we can teach you on that, show you that. And then last but not least, if God's calling you to join this church today, man, Taffi and I would love to watch over your souls. We watch over your souls by making sure it gets as much accurate information and training and teaching as we can possibly give to you through our ministry and through this staff of pastors that we have here at World Changers.

So it's on you, and I'm cool with that, but it's on you to make a decision. So if you're here and you're not born again and you want to get born again, come now. Come now. Let the devil know I am going to be set free today. You no longer have any part in my life. You know, a church alive is worth the drive. Amen. And whatever you have to do to get here, but get to a certain brook that God's called you to, and if he's called you to this certain brook, then get to this certain brook. And you know, one of the things I'm recognizing is that you are a free moral agent, and you get to make a decision, and once you make that decision, a decision is an open door into reality, right? It's an open door into reality, and I just thank God for what he's going to do in your life. I wonder where would we be now, Ken, if—had we heard the gospel of grace? A lot of us are having to turn from a lot of stuff that we got. I know some of you are like, "Well, I'm glad I didn't hear it." But this is going to be an amazing time for you, for this ministry. It is clear that God has allowed us to be alive and for you to be alive and to be here because this gospel has got to get around the world, and I'm believing God for a new team of people who know how to help me to do that. How do I get this gospel of grace around the world in one year? How do I do that with the technology, with the stuff?  I've just been praying, "God, help me. Send the people. They're here somewhere. Know somebody knows how to do it," but this gospel must get around the world, and then the end will come, and we're not going to stop preaching it. You're not going to stop preaching it. I'm only preaching it so you can preach it. Please understand that. I ain't preaching this just for me preaching it. Y'all, I'm preaching it so I can get you to understand it so you can go preach it. Amen. Praise God.

All right, guys.