TD Jakes - In Between Fights
Paul's encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus completely disrupted his life as a zealous Pharisee, turning everything he valued into rubbish and transforming him despite his past. No matter how deep your traditions or identity, one real moment with Christ can revolutionize everything and make you a misfit for His sake.
The Disruptive Moment with God
He had a moment with God, a moment with God that disrupted everything he knew about himself. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. He knew that about himself. He was a Pharisee, the most conservative group. Concerning the law, he was zealous. He was committed to what he believed. He had lived all of his life under the law, and in one moment, it was all disrupted.
Do you not know? I do not care how long you have been in religion. I do not care how long you have been following an idea. I do not care how many generations it has been in your family. One moment with Jesus can radically revolutionize your life.
Somebody listening to me, you are trying to hold on to your traditions and get a little bit of Jesus. You like some of the stuff Jesus said, and you think that religion is a smorgasbord. I have a cup of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of the other, and I mix it all up together. Me and God have our own thing. No. If you encounter Jesus, you have to give up everything you encountered before and walk away from it.
That is why Paul said, “I count it all as dung, everything I knew, everything I learned, everything I lived for.” He had a radical moment with God that changed his value system. His values had been misaligned.
God Shuts You Down to Get It Right
And all of a sudden, Paul, who was leading men, ends up being led by the men he was leading. They had to lead him because he was blind, because God said, “I am going to shut your eyes till you get this right. I am going to shut you down till you get this right. I am going to shut up your finances until you get it right. I am going to shut up your strength until you get it right.”
God has a habit of shutting you down till you get it right, especially when you are stubborn, especially when you are hardheaded, especially when you like to fight. God knows how to shut you down. He said, “I am going to bring you to a place of vulnerability where you are going to need the people that you used to lead, and they are going to have to lead you as I bring you into the truth.”
It was the moment that changed the rest of the moments for the next two thousand years. God did not trust any evangelist to do it. He appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus. Part of the criteria of being an apostle is to be an eyewitness to the resurrection, and Saul was not at the tomb. So Jesus did a special appearance.
God will do a special appearance. He will come in your room, He will come in your hotel, He will come in the club, He will come in the bar. God will do a special appearance. He will come right where you are and just show up.
Somebody holler, “He showed up!” He showed up in my life. I was not planning to get saved. He showed up. When I came back to the club, I went to Columbus. I brought two sets of clothes. I said, “I am going to the convocation, and at night I am going to the club.” I never got to use the second set because He showed up.
I packed all my sharp stuff too. I was going to be clean, baby. I put a couple of suits in there. You know, give God a nod. How you doing, Jesus? Yeah, I am going to the club. Quick change after church. Never made it to the club because He showed up. Next thing I know, I am walking down the aisle with tears running down my face.
Mother McKissack was singing “All of My Life.” I said, “Yes, Lord,” and I was crying in an offering, coming back to the Lord.
Have You Had a Real Moment with Jesus?
Have you had a moment with Jesus, or do you just go to church? Have you had a moment with Jesus, or is there a nice-looking girl in this church, and you are coming over here because you are trying to convince her that you and Jesus are cool? Cool, I am cool. Give Jesus a nod. It is really you I am after.
You can experience The Potter’s House and not experience Jesus. You can experience me and not experience Jesus. If you have a moment with Jesus, it will radically change your perspectives, your attitude. Look at how Jesus wrecked everything that Saul’s life was built on, and suddenly in one moment, it is gone.
You cannot be a member of the Sanhedrin and preach Jesus. You cannot be a Pharisee and preach Jesus. You cannot be zealous concerning the law and teach grace. It changed his head. It changed his identity. It changed his personhood. It changed everything about him. God wiped the slate clean, completely clean.
This is why you hear Paul saying, “I profess to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified.” He is not going to fall into the trap of thinking he is smart again. He spoke in five different languages, and he says, “I am a fool for Christ.”
He had a moment with God, alone, with nobody there but the men who were with him, and they are leading him into Damascus. This is not how he planned to go into Damascus. He did not plan to come into Damascus blind, being led by men.
He planned to come into Damascus strong, attacking men, snatching women out of houses, but it does not always end up like you thought. Just because you think something right now does not make it true.
From Powerful to Helpless
He comes into Damascus helpless. The powerful man is now helpless, blind, groping, depending on them to lead him. God tells him to go to a man he does not even know named Ananias, and there he is on a street called Straight. He does not even know Ananias’s address.
When God tells Ananias to pray for Saul, he says, “Are you serious? Saul of Tarsus? You want me to pray for him? You want me to go pray for him?”
See, we get in these cliques, and sometimes we will not pray for people because they are not in our clique. “I am not praying for no Democrat. I am not praying for no Republican. I am not praying for no White folks. I am not praying for no Black folks. I went through something. You know what I went through?”
I do not care what you went through when you were a child. God will humble you down because God does not promise to always use who looks like you, votes like you, dresses like you to bless you. God uses whoever He wants to use. He does not meet with you. He does not do a poll. He does not do a census. He does not meet with the committee. He does not need board approval.
When God gets ready to snatch somebody, He will snatch somebody. Ananias does not want to be seen with Saul. It is bad for his brand. It is bad for his reputation. It could be bad for his life, and yet God says, “He prayeth now.”
There ought not to be anything that supersedes the command of God in your life. When God says “forgive,” forgive. When God says “let it go,” let it go. When God says “it will all be over in the morning,” it will all be over in the morning.
When God says “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning,” He does not ask you how you feel about it. “Well, Lord, I just do not feel like it. I do not feel like this morning. It does not feel like morning to me.” Shut up. If God says it is morning, it is morning.
It may still be dark outside, but it is morning. You do know that morning starts in the dark. When God says it is morning, it is morning. So He wants you to rejoice like it is morning. He wants you to shout like it is morning. He wants you to move like it is morning.
Obedience Over Feelings
And Ananias, He wants you to go down to a street called Straight and pray for a man who was coming to kill you. How do you pray for a man who was coming to kill you, a man you have ought against?
That is why God will not accept your gift if you have malice in your heart. He said, “Leave your gift at the altar and reconcile yourself with your brother,” because whatever they did, it is not worth you losing your authority with God. Whatever they said, it is not worth you losing your power with God.
No matter how it hurts you, it does not matter. You still have to do what you have to do, and if God says “do it,” you have to do it. See, we do not use this word anymore, the old word “obedience.” Obedience is better than sacrifice.
I appreciate whatever you sold, but obedience is better than sacrifice. You cannot give your way into getting a license to do wrong.
So Ananias obeys God, and he goes down there and lays hands on the man who was going to lay hands on him. Can you do it? No, seriously. Can you do it? Can you lay hands on the person who was coming to hurt you?
Ananias lays hands on Saul, who was going to lay hands on him, and the power of his obedience causes the scales to fall from Saul’s eyes. I do not know who I am preaching to, but I am talking to somebody that if you would just do what God says do and stop wrestling with your ego and your pride and humble yourself, the power you would have.
The scales fall from his eyes, and suddenly Saul can see, and he goes from having a moment with God to a moment as a misfit.
Embracing Life as a Misfit
How can he go back to the Sanhedrin court and tell them about Jesus? Because he is no longer one of them. There is no seat for him amongst the Sanhedrin. He has lost all of that. He has lost all credibility with them because he has taken on this Jesus philosophy that they hated.
They had empowered him to attack what he has become. So he cannot go back. There is a point in God where you cannot go back. The problem is not just that he cannot go back, because I can leave one group if I connect with the other.
The problem with Saul is, when he comes to the apostles, they do not believe in him. They do not like him. They do not accept him. And so he has to accept being a misfit. You have to accept being a misfit.
You can change your hair, you can change your clothes, you can change your style, you can change your walk. They still are not going to like you because when God has called you out, you cannot go back in. You have to accept being a misfit.
Look at somebody and say, “I am different. I am different. You have never seen nobody like me before. You are never going to see anybody like me again. I am different.” And after years and years of low self-esteem and crying about it, I am finally starting to accept that I am different. I am cool with it. I am okay with it.
I can live with it. I understand it. I have been trained in it. I have learned how to be a misfit. It does not matter that you do not like me, and it does not matter that you do not believe in me. I can stand on my own because I had an encounter with Jesus.
And so when Saul, who is now called Paul, starts to minister, he ministers from the place of a misfit. All my misfit people, hear me good: the reason you have the anointing is because you are a misfit.
Had they accepted you, you would not have had the anointing. Had they embraced you, you would not have had the anointing. Because Paul was a misfit, he gives us most of the New Testament epistles because he does not fit in with either group.
He is an outcast on both sides, but when you are an outcast with men, you are incast with God. Stop fighting it, stop changing yourself, stop redoing your philosophy, stop trying to be what everybody else wants you to be. You were meant to be a misfit.
Your Savior was a misfit. The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Stop crying about it, stop worrying about it, stop being frustrated about it. You do not want to be in with them. God saved you from being in with them. He meant for you to be different.
The Loneliness and Strength of Being Different
Look at your neighbor and introduce yourself. Say, “Hello, I am different. Yeah, my name is different. My walk is different. My talk is different. The way I think is different. The way I believe is different. The way I flow is different.”
I understand it if you do not like me. Everybody cannot walk with a misfit. You have to be a misfit yourself to understand another misfit when you see it.
Often it takes half your life to accept being a misfit because we are always advertised, marketed, modeled, and promoted fitting in. It hurts to not quite be either one. It is lonely being a misfit.
When you are a misfit, you are misunderstood. They accuse you of being arrogant. They accuse you of being high-minded. They accuse you of walking around with your head up in the air. They accuse you of forgetting where you came from.
Being a misfit means that you have to learn to be okay with being misunderstood. That is not easy. It was not easy to be the apostle Paul. It was not easy to be shunned by your future and rejected by your past.
It will make you pray harder because you do not have nobody to depend on but the Lord. It will make you get up and come to church on Sunday morning. I do not care how cold it is outside, you wrapped up and came to church because this is the only place you fit—not the building, the presence of the Lord, the glory of the Lord, the anointing of the Lord.
This is a place where we feed the misfits. And the Bible says that immediately Paul started preaching. Immediately he starts preaching in the synagogue. He does not come back to the synagogue to be accepted. He knows they think he is crazy, but he is preaching in the synagogue.
He has to fight all of his life, but in between the fights, he is writing most of the New Testament. He came to Lystra, and they threw rocks at him and stoned him till his head was busted and his back was bleeding, and they dragged him out of the city as half dead.
But as soon as he woke up, he got back in the fight and started preaching again, saying stuff like, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk no longer after the flesh but after the Spirit.”
“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new.” “For we know if this earthly house, or tabernacle, shall be dissolved, we have another building eternal in the heavens.”
“Having this assurance that God, who has begun a good work in you, shall perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
I want to talk to everybody in here that has been in fight after fight after fight. The Lord said, “In between the fights, preach the gospel, lay hands on the sick, open up blinded eyes, rebuke the devil, and keep on going.”
They put him on the boat, and the boat fell apart. He survived the shipwreck, and the snake bit him, but in between the fights, he kept on telling them Jesus is Lord to the glory of God.