Ignite Island 2nd Service by Pastor Kingsley Okonkwo: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

What God Has Done Is Greater Than What He Will Do

What God will do is nothing compared to what God has done. What God has already done for you is greater than whatever he is going to do for you.

• What he has done is major — what he will do is minor.
• What he has done is permanent — what he will do is temporary.

There is nothing God does for you now that will not need upgrading. If God gives you a car, you will need to change that car in a few years. If God gives you a house, you might need to repaint it, change the faucet, or even change the house after some years. Anything he does for you now needs upgrading. What he has already done is perfect. God cannot improve. He cannot get better. He has already done for you his best.

The African Church Has Misunderstood Mercy

Nigerian Christians have bastardized the mercy of God because they are always trying to ask God to be merciful to them, as though he is reluctant. God and man are not operating on the frequency of mercy. God and man are operating on the frequency of his goodness, of his love. That is his primary motivation, not mercy.

When Nigerian Christians pray for mercy, what do they actually mean? Usually it is asking forgiveness, or saying, "I am undeserving of this thing I want God to do for me." But whose child are you? Are you the neighbor's child that somebody is having pity on, or are you a child of the house?

What we do in Africa is character assassination — we attack God's personality, treating him as though he is busy and needs to be persuaded to turn toward us.

John 3:16

It does not say "for God so pitied" or "for God so forgave." It says for God so loved. We are attacking his character, the way we talk to him, when we beg him for mercy over the greatest gift there is to give. God so loved is his starting point. He is a generous God. He is a good God. The moment you come on any other frequency, you are attacking his character by implying he was busy.

We are an emotion-based community rather than a principle-based one. We hate following the guidelines of Scripture. This shows in every sector, not just the church — the same way a crowd will excuse a uniformed policeman drinking openly on duty because "he was kind to them," while ignoring the danger he represents. We are emotion-based, not principle-based, so we only notice a problem once it directly costs us.

God cannot improve. He cannot get better. You cannot motivate God. You cannot provoke God into loving you more. He did what he has done out of love — he so loved, and so he gave. We are not begging him, cajoling him, or convincing him to do anything good. He does not need to have mercy or pity or forgiveness on you — he already so loved that he gave.

Grace, Not Works

Ephesians 2:8

"For by grace you have been saved... not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." This is John 3:16 in reverse order — God so loved, God so gave, and man needs to believe and receive. It was entirely from his end: his goodness, his kindness, his generosity. Faith does not provoke God — faith is the container you use to receive what God has already given. Any scarcity or hardship you face is never from God's end. He has already given the highest he is going to give.

What You Have Already Received

Ephesians 1

• He has already blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ (verse 3) — note the past tense.
• He has chosen us before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blame before him in love (verse 4).
• He has predestinated us unto adoption as children by Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will (verse 5).
• He has made us accepted in the beloved (verse 6).
• We have redemption through his blood — the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace (verse 7).

The natural world came out of the spiritual world — the spiritual gave birth to the natural, so there cannot be a physical reality without a spiritual one already existing first.

Where had you committed any sin by the time this Scripture was written? You were not even born. So many people do not understand that becoming born again is not an ongoing forgiveness they receive daily — it is a forgiveness already settled before they existed.

Adoption is the highest thing God can do for you. Consider a trillionaire who adopts you as his child. On the day of adoption, he does not have to hand over the shares of his company or the cars that day — the inheritance is already yours, even before it is physically in your hand. That is what many believers never grasp: they have been adopted, yet they still pray as though they are strangers begging at the gate, unaware that their Father owns everything they are asking for in fragments.

Romans 8:32 — He Spared Not His Son

Romans 8:32

"He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Picture a rich man who has an only son, and he kills that son so that through his blood he might adopt you. He then adopts you — and you are begging him passionately for dinner. Something is wrong with that picture. He gave his son. That is how much he loves you.

This God did not love you because you started coming to church, or because you began trying your best, or because you now read your Bible. He loved you while you were a sinner. We love him because he first loved us. That love he had for sinners is already the highest love possible — it cannot be improved on. It only takes faith to receive it, the same as it will take faith for anyone else to receive it. But the love itself cannot grow.

If he loved you when you did not qualify, how could he now love you less now that you are his own family? Some Christians think the equation runs backward — that his love decreases as intimacy increases. That mathematics does not work.

You Are a Son, Not a Servant

The story of the prodigal son is one of the clearest pictures of this, though it has rarely been decoded properly. A son took his inheritance, wasted it, and rehearsed a speech on his way home: "Father, I have sinned against you and against heaven. I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants." But when he arrived and began the speech, the father cut him off — a son can never become a servant again. Instead: "Bring the best robe. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet." Full restoration.

Human love is conditional — a father might make his own returning son wait outside after squandering half his estate. But that is not how God loves. The day a man's love equals God's love, God stops being God. He is the friend, the colleague, not the Father.

Human beings are wicked, and because of it they assume God is wicked like them — holding grudges the way they hold grudges, so they beg him the way they would beg an offended man. The day you receive God's generosity, it becomes easy to also give that generosity. The reason many will not extend grace to a brother is that they have never truly received God's grace themselves. Stingy people and wicked people have usually seen suffering; the way God heals wickedness is by showing kindness, not punishment.

How Kindness Heals a Wounded, Combative Heart

When driving first began in North America after years of driving in Nigeria — where every stretch of road is treated like a warzone, where no one lets another car in front of them because everyone has been made to fight for space — the instinct was to keep fighting for position on the road, refusing to let anyone in. Only after months did it become clear that the reflex to fight was personal, not necessary — everyone else on that road was simply letting others in, no one was dragging or forcing their way. The love and ease shown by other drivers eventually broke the defensive habit. That is trauma, and God heals all trauma the same way — by love, by generosity, by goodness, not by demand or force. People who have never received that kind of love keep fighting battles they cannot even explain, assuming everyone else, including God, is out to make them suffer the way they once suffered.

You have received forgiveness of sins. You have been accepted in the beloved. You have received the adoption of sons. You can never be a servant again — to ask for mercy as a stranger would require first leaving the house and starting over outside it. You are already inside the house, and you already have an inheritance in that house. All things are already yours.

Father, we thank you for your word. We are not begging — we are the children of a good God, the children of a generous God. You are so faithful, so good, so kind. Thank you for your grace. We receive it this morning and forever, in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.