Bishop Richard Aryee · Bishop Richard Aryee

What it Means to Become a Partaker

March 25, 2026·1 hr 9 min·6 clips

Bishop Richard shares the prayer that haunted him: 'What should I do so that I don't backslide?'

1. Bishop Richard Aryee delivers a teaching from Hebrews 3:14 and 2 Peter 1 on what it means to become a 'partaker' of Christ rather than merely a 'taster.' 2. Bishop Aryee is the sole speaker; he references a book he has written called 'Tasters and Partakers,' from which the sermon is drawn. 3. The episode's central thesis is that complacency—deciding you have done enough in your Christian life—is the primary spiritual danger, and that becoming a full partaker requires going deeper with God rather than staying on the periphery. 4. Aryee opens by describing driving through Accra at midnight during Christmas and being shocked by street crowds, noting that Ghana produces prophets and apostles yet the unchurched population appears to be growing wilder. 5. He frames his early prayer topic as a personal illustration: he spent years praying 'What should I do so I don't backslide?' and God answered him one morning while he was pacing on a church stage with a verse about hungering and thirsting for righteousness. 6. The instruction he received was 'never lose your hunger'—never reach a point of feeling full or having arrived. 7. He argues that many Christians are 'tasters' rather than 'partakers,' citing his own secondary school experience: he was labeled 'anti-social' by classmates and deeply uninvolved in school social life. 8. He recounts meeting 25 secondary school classmates he had not seen in 30 years, during which one man asked: 'Nobody in this room was your friend except me—you didn't talk to anybody. How did you become what you have become?' 9. Aryee explains that crossing into Christianity was when he became 'deeply, deeply involved'—'all in, everything of mine is in'—in contrast to his prior social distance. 10. He identifies the main barrier to deeper faith as a specific misunderstanding: believers assume God is demanding something they fear losing, when in fact God is only asking for their heart. 11. He uses an ice-cream analogy to make the point: if someone wants to give you an ice cream, they are not collecting your fingernails—receiving a gift only requires showing up. 12. He tells a story about his son in a shoe shop: the boy refused to choose trainers until he asked, 'Daddy, will you like what I like?'—and Aryee uses this to illustrate what God desires from his people. 13. He draws from Hebrews 5:12 to argue that mature Christians are expected to become teachers—and that still needing milk rather than solid food is a sign of developmental failure. 14. He contrasts two types of churches: 'pool of Bethesda' churches where everyone is a baby Christian saying 'I have no man to carry me,' and churches where the call is 'follow me, I'll make you fishers of men.' 15. He applies 2 Peter 1 on 'partakers of the divine nature' to temperament: going deeper in God should change a person from short-tempered to patient, making their temperament difficult to categorize with standard personality types. 16. He argues that a person's nature—not their outward features—is what makes them chosen, illustrating this by instructing the congregation to observe at the next wedding they attend that the bride is rarely the most conventionally attractive woman present. 17. He closes with Romans 15 on the Gentiles becoming partakers of the spiritual things of the saints, and argues that spiritual blessings—not nice shoes or cars—are the currency that produce lasting change. 18. The episode is delivered in an informal, conversational register with frequent audience-directed questions, humorous anecdotes, and direct challenges to individuals in the room. 19. Christians who want a practical challenge to deepen their faith commitment, especially younger believers or those feeling spiritually stagnant, will find this episode useful. 20. Listeners seeking academic theology or structured doctrinal exposition rather than experiential and relational preaching will find this episode less suited to their interests.

As heard by us

A forceful sermon about holding fast to Christ and letting God improve your life.

This episode keeps coming back to one point: being a partaker of Christ means holding fast, letting God in, and dropping the fear that love will cost something.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a sermon that stays close to one scripture and keeps circling its point, press play.

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