TD Jakes - Finding Strength in Troubles
And we are all called, both men and women, to cut away the flesh. If we are going to walk with God, we must understand that periodically we go through seasons of circumcision; we go through periods of setbacks. If we were bushes, we would call them prunings. There are times in our lives when God allows us to lose something so that we might gain something. If we were to, yeah, yeah, I’m going somewhere. If we were to go a little bit deeper, we would also understand that according to the Book of Leviticus, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. There is no blood that makes you appreciate the pain and the power of purpose like your own.
When you put your own blood, sweat, and tears into something, you are serious about it. In fact, where there is no sacrifice, there is no commitment. The sacrifice makes you understand that, in order to get to this next level, there has to be a cutting away. It is very prudent and essential for you to realize and understand that and to always be reminded of it. Circumcision happens throughout the scriptures as an indication of stepping into a new dimension, a new lifestyle, a new order. In the New Testament, it is compared to water baptism because it is an outward sign of an inward cleansing and an initiation. Give me a minute—an initiation that says, «I’m going into the next level.»
Let’s face it: going into the next level is not easy. Change is not easy. Anytime God orders change in our lives, it is not easy, and it becomes even more complicated when God changes your life but you won’t let him change you. Life can take you to a place that you are not equipped to handle. Circumcision says that if I’m going to go further, not only will my environment change but I, personally, have to change in order to enter this next level. I am a sinner, and some things need to be cut out of my life for me to progress to the next tier. I can’t spend all my life in kindergarten. Sooner or later, I have to grow up, even if it means losing some friends I had in kindergarten. To go to the next level, circumcision becomes a necessary thing. If you can’t feel it, it’s not a sacrifice. Sacrifices occur all over the world, but when you start talking about your faith, if you cannot feel it, it’s not a sacrifice.
Now we have raised a group of believers in this era that we have intoxicated with the promises of God. You get excited about the promises of God and about the land that flows with milk and honey, but we do not tell you about the pain associated with the promise. Consequently, we’re more excited about the wedding than we are about the marriage; thus, we invest all our money, energy, and passion into the ceremony. But the ceremony doesn’t mean anything if the relationship behind it is not more beautiful than your wedding gown. Are you hearing what I’m saying?
We like the idea of saying that we work for a major Fortune 100 company. We like to brag about it. We wear the logo to get the preferred parking space, to get the office, but when it comes to the work involved, you’d be surprised at the number of people who like the title but don’t want to do the work. It’s like the husband who kept telling his wife, «I’m the head of the house, I’m the head of the house, I’m the man, I’m the head of the house.»
Then, they were lying in bed that night and heard someone walking around the property and coming to the door. He said, «You better go see what that is.» We don’t always understand how much it costs to go through transition—the price that people pay to be who they are, who they become as our heroes, how they function in our lives, what they do in our lives. We don’t understand how much it costs to make yourself available. We see them on stage; we see the comedian making us laugh; we think they must be happy people. Yet, we have had countless famous, successful comedians commit suicide because we don’t understand that there’s some bleeding and some cutting going on. All we see is the performance, but we don’t see the pain or the price.
It is painful to be a good husband. It costs you something to be a good husband. You have to cut your ego back to be a good husband; you have to cut your pride back to be a good husband; you have to cut back your need for reciprocity to be a good husband. It is not easy to be a good husband. Women, you’re kind of quiet, but you’re going to let this next part, uh-huh, register. It is not easy to be a good wife. It is easier to look like a good wife, and that takes a lot of work. You spend hours looking the part, but when it comes down to actually being a good wife, that’s a task. Listen, ladies: if you have a dog, you have to feed him. If you have a cat, you need to change the cat litter.
If you have fish, you have to change the water every so often. You can’t take in something and not expect it to require something. Just because you have a baby doesn’t make you a mother. Uh-huh. Let me give you something to chew on: you are a mother, but you don’t want to get out of bed. You’re a mother, but you don’t want to cook. You’re a mother, but you don’t want to wash clothes. You’re a mother, but you don’t want to deal with the issues. You’re a mother, but you don’t want to help with homework. You like the title, but you don’t like the job. Circumcision says that, in order to go to this next dimension, you’re going to have to pay a personal price in order to evolve. It’s going to cost you something. I know it’s not the way you’ve always done things.
I know it’s not the way you like it, but we’re getting ready to cut away the way you like it so that we can do it the way God wants it. It requires something from you. Everything in life requires something from you. Promotions require something from you. If you get a promotion, they’re paying you more. You love the money, but you don’t love the extra work, the extra hours, the extra demands, the extra stress, and the extra headaches. Nothing is free; there are no free rides. The fact that God allowed Abraham to cut himself illustrates that God wanted him to understand that salvation is expensive; redemption is expensive. He later says to Abraham, «Take now thy son, thy only son, and take him to a place I will show you and offer him up as a burnt sacrifice.» He wants to know, «Abraham, do you have any skin in the game?»
Everybody wants you to invest in them, but they don’t invest in themselves. Do you have skin in the game? Circumcision is about having skin in the game. Circumcision is about being fully vested in the fact that you are committed to whatever it takes to get to this next level in life. In our text today, when we start dealing with it, we begin to understand that not only in our text but all the way to the New Testament, all the way to the Cross, we are exploring circumcision beyond the cross. They’re still debating circumcision throughout the Epistles. In the Book of Acts, there was a great discourse; they almost came to blows in the Antioch incident. They were fighting about whether the Gentiles who were converting to Christianity had to go through the remedial process of being circumcised as Jews to be eligible to be Christians. The disciples almost came to blows.
When I read that, it did me good because the preachers get to fighting today, too, so it lets me understand the early church had its issues as well. They had their disagreements; they had their fights. I used to think that you could only walk with people who are in total alignment with you. But when you’re going to do great things, you have to work with all kinds of people. Sometimes you have to deal with people with whom you philosophically disagree, but in order to get the task done, you’ve got to work with different types of people.
You cannot just hire people because they’re nice. You can’t hire people because you like them. You can’t hire people who always say yes to whatever you say. You have to be able to deal with all types of people. The disciples almost came to blows arguing about how to get this right: how much of the old do we take into the new? How much of it is still relevant? What did the Cross cancel out, and what did it not cancel out? How big is the word grace? Is the word grace encompassing enough to allow these uncircumcised heathens, who were idolaters, to go through the blood of the Cross and that be enough circumcision for them to be redeemed? The debate brought the disciples to the point of being ready to fight.
In the 15th chapter of the Book of Acts, they started the discussion. Just give me the first couple of verses; I might not read it all. Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers, «Unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.» That’s what they were teaching. This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute—which means fisticuffs. Paul and Barnabas were ready to get into a sharp dispute and debate with them.
So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. They are traveling all the way back to Jerusalem to go before the council to debate this issue because it had become toxic; it had turned violent, and they were willing to fight about it because it was a big deal. They were concerned that circumcision would delay the Gentiles from being converted to Christianity. If you make the price too high, they might fall away. Secondly, they were concerned about our understanding of grace—how gracious God’s blood is, how efficacious his redemption is, and is it efficacious enough that they don’t have to go through the path I went through to get to the place I’m going to? You didn’t hear that. They don’t have to go through the path I went through to get to the place I’m going to.
Most of you have to be careful whom you let mentor you because people tend to think that you have to go through the path they went through to get to the place God is taking you to. When, in reality, sometimes God took you through it so that I don’t have to go through it. God allowed you to face it so that I don’t have to face it. So don’t make me go back and go through what you went through in order to get where I’m trying to go. Can we pick up from here? Can we take it from right now? Can I listen and learn? Do I have to go back and repeat the classes you’ve already taken in order for me to move on to the next place?
You’ve got to be careful whom you let mentor you because, instead of just giving you their Christ, they will impose their culture on you and not accept that you can have Christ and still be uniquely who you are. You make me have to dress like you, act like you, talk like you, and think like you, or then you threaten me with hell if we disagree over a point. But I noticed in the Word, God gave Peter the keys to the kingdom, but He didn’t give anybody the keys to hell. Y’all aren’t going to talk back to me today. The substratum of this text centers around the reality that they have now crossed through the Jordan. What you don’t realize is that this whole story is full of circumcision. It is not merely the physical act of circumcision that is the substratum of this text.
The very fact that they went through the Jordan is a type of circumcision; it is a type of baptism; it is a type of burial; it is a type of new beginning. It is a new self-actualization that takes place as they come through the Jordan on dry ground. It was so powerful that when the heathens heard about it, their hearts melted inside them when they saw how God made a way for them. Now, you’ve got to be in trouble for God to make a way. You want God to prove himself strong in your life, but you don’t want to get in trouble. The reality is, for God to prove Himself strong, He has to put you in trouble to show you how strong He is so that the heathens can see that God brought you forth on dry ground and you made it across to the other side. Somebody shout hallelujah! Hallelujah!