TD Jakes - Discover Your Resilience Through God's Love
God is with us, the personification of Jesus. Step one is to realize that the great big God would come into the world at all; that He would come into His own creation—this is an amazing truth. He can’t even fit inside His own creation. The truth is, He had to reduce Himself down to His lowest common denominator. The Bible says it this way: He poured out of Himself His glory and honor and humbled Himself so low as to come into His creation. And having come into His creation, which was awesome, then He picks out a woman and comes inside of her. Now, you can get it: the God who performed the delivery of the first woman put Adam to sleep so no man could get credit for her and said, «This is not your fight, Adam. I got this covered. I’m going to show you what you got.» He reached inside of him and pulled her out of him, and heaven was amazed.
What I’m talking about is the God who created the woman now getting into the woman He created, wrapping Himself up in flesh and coming to walk around in a flesh suit. They called His name Emmanuel, meaning «God tabernacled with us.» It is Him answering the question, «Adam, where art thou?» The question never got answered until Jesus came. He said, «I’m coming to get you. I’m going to use this lamb as a temporary substitute, but lo, I come in the volume of the book to do Thy will, O God.» He comes down through over 42 generations, wraps Himself up in flesh and says, «I’m coming to get you.»
The Incarnate God—where we get the word «carnal,» related to «carnivorous,» meaning «meat.» God wrapped Himself in a meat suit. The term «incarnation» means «in meat.» I came down to your level. I came where you could touch me; I came where you could see me. If I had shown myself in my original state, it would have been too much for you; it would have burned the eyeballs out of your head. So, I hid myself in a meat suit just so we could have a conversation. Incarnated divinity—the Creator has now become subject to what He created.
He gave up His omnipotence, His omniscience, and His omnipresence. He submitted Himself to prayer because He gave up omnipotence. All-powerful, now He has to go to the garden and pray. Omniscience: He said, «No man knoweth the day nor the hour that the Son of Man cometh; neither the angels, nor the Son, but the Father which is in heaven,» meaning, «I don’t know everything anymore.» So, I gave up my omniscience. He traveled because He gave up His omnipresence. As Father, He never had to travel; He was just there. But Jesus had to get on a boat and travel to come where you are and said, «Let us cross over to the other side.»
It is the humility of God: the God who said, «I counted it not robbery to be equal with God, but made of myself no reputation.» He humbled Himself and came inside the woman He created to fulfill Genesis 3:15, that the seed of the woman would rise up and bruise the head of the serpent. Christ is the seed of the woman. I proclaim a woman doesn’t have a seed, and a virgin doesn’t have sex. So, the only way that she could be pregnant is—(I feel like preaching; I better quit.) I shouldn’t be up here because I’ve got time for it today, baby! I’ve got time for it! Does anybody have time for it today? I know in whom I have believed, and He became incarnate with us.
But that’s not the really good part. Let me give you the good part. The really good part is part two: the polar propensity of the nativity scene tells more than a story. The King of Kings would not be born in a palace, mansion, cathedral, house, or hotel. The King of Kings, the Ancient of Days, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful Counselor, the Bright and Morning Star, the Lion of the Valley, chose to live homeless. Now, even homeless people don’t choose to be homeless; He chose to be homeless, not because He was broke—because His Father was looking for a hotel room. You don’t look for a hotel room if you’re broke.
But God had shut the door on every possible option so that He could choose a spot to be born that was the lowest of the low—not a house, because houses are built for people, but a barn, because a barn is built for animals. The man that is about to be born wants to be born in a barn because He’s a lamb. No, no, no, let me show you the polarities of the text. You must understand that Jesus is the light of the world, but He was born at night. He was born at night, though in Him was life, and that life was the light of men.
He was born at night in a lowly place, so low that He could hear the cry of the poor, broke folks—folks eating government cheese, folks that can’t afford powdered milk, people eating out of trash cans. Jesus says, «I can be touched by the feeling of your infirmity because I understand what it is to not have a place to stay—a windy, drafty place.» Y’all are too young to know about what I’m about to talk about, but I want to talk about the old houses our grandparents lived in where they had newspapers in the cracks to stop the wind from blowing in. Jesus was born in a barn so that even if He was a slave in a shack, you could call Him, and He’d hear you.
Somebody holler, «Jesus!» We are comfortable with understanding a broke Jesus, a poor Jesus, and we love to talk about how lowly and poor He was. But the oxymoron of the text is that three wise men brought Him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. This is the offering that you give to a king. The king’s ransom is brought to a barn by camel. Tell everybody how many people need God to work on your credit. Touch—everybody got their hands up. Tell them the camels are coming! The camels are coming! The camels are coming! I know it looks crazy; I know you’re staying with your mama; I know you’re living in a garage apartment. But God says the camels are coming!
God said, «What I’ve got for you, I’ve got for you, and you don’t have to come to it; you don’t have to lower yourself for it; it’ll come to you. I’ll find you wherever you are! If I have to find you by night, if I have to follow the star, I’ll find you in the shelter; I’ll find you in your lonely place; I’ll find you with your power off; I’ll find you with nothing to eat for Christmas but a hot dog.» But I’ve got good news: Jesus said, «Preach good news to the poor!»
I want the broke folks to know that the camels are coming to you! And if you receive it, praise Him like you lost your mind; praise Him like you don’t care who’s looking at you; praise Him like you don’t care what nobody thinks; praise Him like you don’t care what you’ve got to wear! I don’t care if you’re borrowing something to come to church—give Him a crazy praise! Does anybody look at your neighbor and tell them, «My camels are coming»? I don’t care what you say; I don’t care how you look; I don’t care how you roll your eyes. My camels are coming!