THE RICHEST MEN IN THE WORLD USED TO BE CHRISTIANS UNTIL THE BALANCE SHIFTED TO MORE OF GRACE AND LESS WORK. I LOOK FORWARD TO WHEN THE TOP 10 TRILLIONAIRES WILL ALL BE CHRISTIANS.
IF WE CAN BALANCE GRACE AND WORKS WE WILL BE EXTRAORDINARY CHRISTIANS AND PRODUCE EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS
GRACE GIVES US OPPORTUNITY BUT WORK MAKES US EXTRAORDINARY
GOD’S GRACE IS AVAILABLE TO US BUT WE MUST WORK IN AN EXTRAORDINARY WAY TO EXPERIENCE EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS
-Dr Mensa Otabil
IGOC 2021, KICC, Prayer City, UK
Day 2
Praise the Lord!
It’s great to be here again at IGOC all the way from Accra Ghana to minister at IGOC 2021 as we talk about God’s extraordinary works and I just want to give honour to God’s servant, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo and his wife, Pastor Yemisi and the team at KICC. Thank you so much Sir for the opportunity given to me to be part of IGOC. I’ve been speaking here for a while, from 1998 and so, I have seen the journey that we have traveled and it’s always an inspiration, it’s always an honour, it’s always a privilege to encounter your ministry, your person; what you do, what you stand for.
My last time, I spoke about No Limits and I spoke that in the context of our theme for this year’s IGOC which is God’s Extraordinary Works which is anchored in Isaiah 28:21 and I fully subscribed to the prophetic direction that has been given; that we have entered a season of God’s Extraordinary Works. Church Gist. I believe God is going to do something in us, through us and for us that will amaze us at various levels.
God’s nature has no limit and God’s power has no limit. He has no limitation on Himself because everything that is limiting to us as human beings was created by Him; He created time, He created space and so time and space are made by God and therefore they cannot limit God. He can do what He wants to do anytime He wants to do it and so I believe with all my heart that this extraordinary season has come upon us and I talked about the fact that the season we have come through, the COVID period could easily condition our minds to place limits on ourselves but I am confident that God is giving us the tools to break every limitation from us.
So, I am going to take it on from there and my message today is:
THE WORKS OF GOD AND THE WORKS OF MAN.
I am going to try and answer an important question that I believe that most of us would be asking because if God is going to do extraordinary works, is it going to be a work of God or is it going to be our work. How is it going to happen?
In my ministry, I have sought to always answer questions and also to try and teach on how, the process for us to do the things that God wants us to do because years ago, I was in a service and a guy who was leading the service said to us; “lift up your hands and drink in the Holy Ghost in the blood of Jesus” and I was so confused. I asked myself, how do you drink in the Holy Ghost in the blood of Jesus and it was one of those things, where in a prayer meeting you are supposed to be in the Spirit but your mind is working at a different angle because a thought has been introduced to you that doesn’t really explain itself. Church Gist. So I have sought in my life, in my ministry to remove ambiguity when I preach so that people don’t get confused and wonder; how is it going to be? How do we do this and so, it’s one of those things I want to do today. Because I believe that during this conference, many speakers would talk about the extraordinary works of God and move us.
So, is God’s extraordinary work a product of God’s grace or a product of our works? If God is going to do it, is it His grace that is doing it or our works doing it? It is a very fundamental questions and I trust that we can find some answers to it.
2 Corinthians 9:8
We have two words here: Grace and Works.
The passage is simply telling us that God is able to make all grace abound towards us so that we can do every good work.
The concept of grace is important and my simple definition of God’s grace or grace is God’s work. Church Gist. In the Bible, we see God’s work done from creation, the whole of creation; the earth, the universe is an expression of God’s work. Human beings, our creation is the expression of God’s grace and through out the Bible, everything we see God do is an expression of His grace, even the giving of the law is an expression of grace.
However for the purpose of this message, I will limit God’s Grace to what God does in us, for us, with us and through us. Church Gist. God’s extraordinary work therefore is a product of His grace; grace is God at work.
Work is simply man’s effort. That does not mean God does not work, God works and it doesn’t mean work has no other definitions but for my message, this is the definition I’m using – man’s effort.
The concept of works sometimes need a little explanation because sometimes when we read the New Testament, it will seem as if God doesn’t want us to work or work is wrong especially from Paul’s epistle where works and grace contrasted and it would seem as if grace is perfect and then in the epistle of James, work is perfect. Just a little explanation before I go on, the concept of work as it used by the Apostle Paul in his epistles is not the same as the concept of work as it is use by James in the epistle of James.
When Paul talks about works, largely, he is talking about obedient to the Mosaic law and that he contrast it with grace which came through Jesus Christ. When James talks about works, he is talking about the fruit of the believer, that is what Christians should do because they are Christians. The good thing they should do, the attitude they should show forth and when you understand where the two of them are coming from using the same word, it helps you to reconcile the theology of grace and works a bit better because they are not using it in the same way.
When I talk about works, basically I am talking about man’s effort and grace, God’s work. When a person receives something extraordinary, is it going to be a work of grace or by our efforts. Church Gist. There is a place where God speaks prophetically into our lives and we believe in what He says He is going to do and we just trust Him to do it and there is a place for where God puts an idea in our hearts and we go out and do something about it. But the two are not exclusive, God in this season wants to speak a word into our lives but that word in our lives is going to demand a corresponding action from us.
1 Corinthians 4:7
The three concept I want to bring out here:
- God give each one of us something different and what we have is based on what God has given us. So if I am able to teach the Word of God, it is because God has given me something.
Proverbs 31:10 (The virtuous wife)
Three things:
a). This person is considered virtuous. That means she is capable, she is efficient; they have a certain quality that is great about them
b). Who can find her? That means she is rare, you can’t find her easily. If it was something that was so easy to find, they she would not be rare. The question will not be; who can find because everybody can find a virtuous wife. This shows that she has a certain quality that is not seen in other people.
- Her value is more than money. So that is how the virtuous wife is introduced.
(Verse 29). This is an extraordinary woman. How did she get to extraordinary? Is it because of God’s grace upon her or because of her works? If it is God’s grace, why is it rare to find? Because God’s grace is abundant. Church Gist. He gives without holding so if it is just a matter of God’s grace upon her life, we should find many people like that. So why is she achieving this level of success in her life, marriage, in all that she does? When you read from verse 13-18, it tells us why she is extraordinary.
If you look at all the reasons why she is called a virtuous woman, it is because she is doing something. So in a season where God is doing extraordinary works, His grace is available but we must also do something. We must act in an extraordinary way, they must be extraordinary steps. Church Gist. There must be bold actions on our parts, we must break some certain limitations from our minds. We must dream big dreams, we must aspire for big things, we must build deeper capacity so that we can work in the season of the extraordinary.
In the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14, the Master gave talent, 5:2:1. The guy with 5 talents multiplies it to ten, the guy with 2 talents multiplies it to four. The guy with one talent buries it and still keep the one talent and the Master comes for accountability and when we read the parable, we get the impression that Jesus puts Himself or the Father in the place of the Master who is requiring the usage of the talent.
There are three things I want you to note in the parable:
- God does not judge grace, He judges works. In the parable, the Master does not come looking for the talents He gave to them, that’s grace. He is looking for the effort and what He judges is not what He gave to them, it is what they have done.
- God does not reward grace, He rewards works.
From the parable we can see that:
- Grace gives us gifts but work makes us extraordinary.
- Grace gives us opportunity but work makes us extraordinary.
- Grace opens the door but work makes us extraordinary.
- Grace will expose us but work will promotes us.
I see a lot of things this days in ministry, Young pastors seeing an extraordinary minister who had probably raised a massive ministry for the Lord, they go up to him or her and say please lay hands on me, pray for me. Church Gist. I want the grace on your life. The intention is right, the expectation is wrong. What they admire that they want is actually not the grace because the extraordinary minister, the grace was on him 30 years, 40 years ago when he probably was a small time pastor in a classroom or under a small tent trying to do ministry. Was God’s grace abundant to him? Yes. But what he has built later on is works.
The work of God has produced the work of man and what the person is really admiring is the work of man through the work of God and so what you come looking for is not grace but works.
So let me ask you a question?
Can a footballer improve his playing skills simply because this guy (his mentor) laid hands on him? No, but if the footballer studied their habits, their work ethics, their work patterns and reproduce the attitudes that they have towards their work, they will be good, maybe extraordinary but of course they will improve because what they are desiring is not the gift, it is the works they are desiring.
The pattern we learn in the Bible is that people learn from their leaders, the leaders pray for them and then they receive an impartation, I think people are trying to swap it, we want to receive the impartation first when we haven’t learn anything. Church Gist. In the Bible you will find out that Moses laid hands on Joshua, but that was at the end of Moses’s ministry. For forty years, Joshua had been learning from Moses. He accompanied him everywhere, learn from him and studied him, then hands were laid on him.
The classical one is Elijah and Elisha, Elisha served Elijah for twenty years before he said I want double portion of your spirit.
Are you saying it all works, that if we don’t do something, then nothing will happen, then we don’t believe in God? That’s not what I’m saying.
Many of you have seen this before, you go to your child’s school prize giving day at the end of the term, when they are rewarding those who have done well and prizes are been awarded and then excellent students who are receiving all kinds of prizes and I must confess that when I was young, once in a while, I received the prize but most of the time, I was one of those who was clapping for other people and there is almost always these brilliant students, they are collecting all the prizes and you can find one child that takes about 8, 7 prizes and you go to these events and the school is honouring the best students and there is this brilliant girl, she receives the prize, the whole assembly is clapping and then she would go and give the prize to the parent. Why is the child honouring the parent? They didn’t take the exam, why is she doing that? Because she understands that her extraordinary work is a combination of what her parent have done and what she has done. They gave her food, feed her, clothes her – that’s grace but then she has to work and study her books and make the grades. So it is their efforts, her efforts coming together to produce extraordinary works.
God wants to do something extraordinary. Since this COVID broke out from last year, I have been this urgency in my spirit that this is the finest moment for the Church, that I believe. But that fine moment for the church is not just going to happen by itself. It’s going to be God’s open door and our work. I believe with all my heart that this season is also God’s favour to the previously disadvantaged people of the earth especially the people living in the geographical space and in the social condition that is been described as the third world. Church Gist. But in the scheme of God’s grace, there has to be extraordinary effort. It’s going to be more work than ever.
From the time COVID broke till now, I have preached more times than at any other time. I have work harder than at any other time, I have studied the scripture deeper than at any other time because in an extraordinary opening of the Heavens, there has to be extraordinary efforts on God’s people.
1 Corinthians 15:19
The Apostle Paul helps us to position what God is doing this season and what we must do. So for every prophetic declarations that we say amen to, for every prophetic declaration word that we say, I receive, for every declaration that we must make, that is all grace being made available to us. Let’s not waste the grace because if it ever worked in your life, it’s time to roll your sleeves because we are going to work harder than before. Church Gist. We going to labour more abundantly than them all and it’s time for believers to be more hardworking than unbelievers because we cannot and we should not accept the notion that the richest people in the world are unbelievers. I am looking forward to the time when we talk about the billionaires, the trillionaires of our world, the first ten would be born again Christian. It used to be so, probably about 50, 60 years. It used to be so in the world, where the richest are Christians but it shifted and I think it shifted because this balance of grace and work tricked us and for many of us especially Pentecostal, Charismatic, when we sense the presence of God, we think it is done, we think everything is finish, we don’t labour abundantly as Paul said. But if we catch this properly, then we will merge the work of God with our efforts, grace with our works and we will labour abundantly until the extraordinary works of God are done in our lives. May the Lord lead us to extraordinary exploits.
- I speak to every person listening to me, whatever is a limitation to you is broken!
- Every harassing spirit over your life is broken!
- Every confusing thought pattern is broken in the name of Jesus!
- What pursued you to shame is off your back. You are running now by the grace of God to victory, honour and glory and that His grace is coming to you but you must take that Word and labour with it and the Lord will increase us.
I trust God that next year by this time at IGOC 2022, our testimony would be, God has done extraordinarily in my life, marriage, business, education, ministry, in everything that I touched, there are extraordinary works to show that the Lord God visited me last year at IGOC and has perfected it in my life.
Father we thank You for the entrance of Your word which gives light and at this time, I pray Lord for everyone who has heard this word, there will be a spirit of urgency in their hearts, a running spirit, an accelerating spirit: a fighting spirit rests upon them Lord, that they would pick themselves up and refuse to give up, to sit and perish and they will work with all their might under the auction of your prophetic word to see extraordinary things done in their lives in Jesus name.
#DrMensaOtabil
#IGOC2021
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