TD Jakes - Preaching In Pieces
We’re preparing our hearts and our minds to share with you a word from the Lord. I’m going to do something that I don’t know I’ve ever done before. I had the honor and bittersweet experience, which was beautiful and humbling, to be asked by the Ellis family to eulogize Bishop Jay Delano Ellis. I’m going to share that word with you in just a moment for two reasons. Number one, I want to have one more moment to appreciate this tremendous man who came from meager beginnings in a tough childhood and ended up at the Vatican in Rome leading a delegation of bishops there to meet the Pope. He did amazing things in terms of reaching America, inspiring men of all walks of life within the Pentecostal realms and outside of them, bringing them all together to form the Joint College of Bishops, which left an indelible impression on the world. I just wanted to say goodbye to my friend this morning and honor him.
But the message itself, whether you knew him or not, will speak to you because it is preaching in pieces. If you’ve ever had to lead, if you’ve ever had a need, if you’ve ever been in a storm, and if you’ve ever wondered if you were going to make it or not, I think this will speak to your heart in a special way. If you’ve ever found yourself in a situation where things you thought you could count on were falling apart and it looked like you weren’t going to make it, and your dreams were shattered and hopes were dashed, and you had to survive on broken pieces, preaching in pieces will bless your life. I think the message will speak for itself.
I’m going to take you live into the funeral. The crowd is there; the bishops of every stripe have gathered—great minds, some of the most influential people, so inspired by this man that they came out in spite of the pandemic and risked their well-being to say goodbye to him. But beyond that, I want you to listen for the voice of God and what He wants you to hear from this word today.
In spite of your circumstances—shackled in your finances, tied up in your mind, and scarred in your emotions—you can still give God glory. Though you are in a storm, losing things, and things are falling apart, even when people said they’d be there and are not, you can still give God glory. In those moments of shattering, you can still give God glory because there is just as much anointing in the pieces as there is in any other part of your life. So, if you’re making it on pieces and feel fragmented, this message is going to speak to you. I’ve never done this before, but I’m going to take you into this service for our Sunday morning. Take a look at this and be blessed:
At the moment it became official—because it really wasn’t official until Lady E called and confirmed and validated the fact that they wanted me to come—this text leaped into my mind. I did not know what to do with it, but it leaped into my mind: Acts 27, verses 21-26. I’m going to ask you to stand for the reading of the Word. I won’t be long, but just indulge me; the family need not stand, and I will be reading it out of the NIV. There are so many amazing preachers and singers in this room, of which Cleveland has long been noted, that I’m too smart to try to sing something. If I get weak, I’m going to act like this is a tag team sermon, so catch me.
The book of Acts, chapter 27, verses 21 through 26. Catch this: this journey where Paul is going to Rome, I catch it midstream. I stopped shy of its conclusion and short of its beginning, but it is the middle to which I am drawn because I am coming to learn that it is not about our beginnings or our endings, our destination, but the things we learn in between. It’s the journey! Somebody say journey!
After they had gone a long time without food, Paul stood up before them and said, «Men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete; then you would have spared yourselves the damage and the loss. But now I urge you to keep up your courage because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. Last night an angel of God came to me, to whom I belong and whom I serve, stood beside me and said, 'Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar, and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.' He’s given you the lives of all who sail with you, so keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.»
Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island. Remain standing for a moment of prayer. I want to talk to you from the subject «Preaching in Pieces.» Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on us as we embark upon the mission of declaring and becoming the oracle to transfer that which you have imparted unto me into the ears of the hearer. Let it be strength and meat; let it be grace and help; let it be nourishment to our souls; let it be stripped to our bones. I ask you for your divine assistance in this moment. Cry loud and spare not; establish yourself in the midst of your people.
There are people in this room who are preaching in pieces. There are people in this room who understand the fragmentation and the disjointed, discombobulated feeling of growing through storm after storm after storm. I pray, God, now in the name of Jesus, that not only would we commemorate, memorialize, accentuate, and appreciate the life of Bishop J. Delano Ellis, but I also pray that we would bring encouragement to some wayfaring travelers who have been in the storm a long time. I thank you for what you’re going to do; I believe you for it in Jesus' name. As loud as you can, with your mask on, shout Amen! You may be seated in the presence of the Lord.
When I came here years ago, with the Jerry curl preaching for people, I preached in this pulpit, and during the revival—we did revivals back then; we were running three-day, four-day, five-day revivals. During the revival, a lady died in the parking lot. Isabella, who was sitting behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and said, «A lady just died in the parking lot.» I started praying for her, and Bishop Ellis said, «She did.» I didn’t know what to do. I was a young preacher; nobody had died before in the middle of my revival. So I just did what I was trained to do: I prophesied as I was commanded; I prayed. Bishop Ellis said, «She did.» And the next night, when I came to preach, he slapped me on the shoulder again and said, «She woke up.» Remember the woman who was taken into the morgue? She started kicking up under the blanket. He said, «I thought she was crazy last night when you prayed for her,» but God woke that woman up!
God has a way—I said, God has a way—of doing things that boggle the human mind. Out of our foolishness and not even knowing, we have no better sense but to pray every night. Then God just does something crazy to let you know that He’s God. Look at somebody and holler, «He’s still good!» I would have thought, at the time, that we were young. We were young then. I would have thought that we were living together. You come preach for me; I come preach for you, and your anniversary and my anniversary; we were living together—not in the sense of living in the same house, but living in the same era, in the same generation. Our relationships have been lifelong. I can see dozens and dozens of people here that I remember from way, way back when.
We all thought we were living together. You have to live a while to figure out that it is not so much that we are living together—more aptly put, we are dying together. Halfway through your life, there are messages and emails and texts that come from your body, your bones, your joints, your tissues, and your cells. Your core puzzles say you’re not going up; you’re going down. We’re dying, and it changes how you treat one another. Imagine if we were all on the Titanic, and if we were all going down together, we wouldn’t be so petty. We wouldn’t fight over foolish things; we wouldn’t be so territorial, we wouldn’t be so political, we wouldn’t be so analytical, we wouldn’t be so self-aggrandizing if we all recognized that we are a generation fading into the shadows.
It causes a different level of appreciation. Every moment we interact with each other ought to be a little bit more special. Every time we connect, we will not allow the voice of the enemy to inflict some poison into our interaction because we would appreciate that we may not ever have this opportunity. So if I love you, I better say something right now, and if I care about you, I better say something right now. If you’re valuable, if you’ve helped me in some way, I ought to say something. I don’t have to compete with you; I’m glad you have what you have. Do what you can do as long as you can do it because there may come a time that you will not be able to do it.
Jesus lets us know a doctrine of theology about dying—that even though the pure emblem of the Christian faith suggests that there will be suffering, we tend to obliterate the ideology that there’s any suffering in faith. Occasionally, we come up with the idea that if we have enough faith, we will go through nothing, and we will get everything we want—that our God is not God; it’s that He’s Santa Claus, and that He has come to give you your wish list for Christmas. We have this theology that omits suffering, but a big clue that suffering is in the strategy, the structure, the infrastructure, and the composite of God Himself is exemplified by the very emblem of our faith being a cross. The cross is a big clue!
When Jesus called His disciples, He said, «If any man must be my disciple, let him pick up his cross and follow me.» Can you imagine making an altar call at a time when Jesus lived, and the cross was not an emblem of worship but a place of suffering and degradation? It was like an execution chamber; it had no spiritual significance. Can you imagine making an altar call and telling them, «If anybody will join this church, let him be prepared for a gas chamber»? At that time, we had not yet pinned the hymn «The Old Rugged Cross.» At that time, the cross had no endearment about it; it was common to see men die and sometimes decompose in shame on crosses.
Crosses had nothing to do with religion; it had something to do with Rome’s torture chamber for people who rose against the powers that be. Still, Jesus warns us that it is bigger than Rome and bigger than Caesar: that God has left space in everyone’s life for a cross. Jesus delivers his final homily from a cross—perhaps His most powerful session on His exodus as He prepares to depart. It is delivered to us with splinters gorging into the blood-gaping holes of His back, where He had been beaten with a cat-o'-nine-tails. He is denied even the luxury of liniment or band-aids; He presses His open wounds into the rugged cross and there delivers His homily.
Jesus teaches us that preaching is painful, that serving is painful; that it is not the glamorous thing to which many people who aspire to think it is. In reality, your gospel must be proven in your life and in your suffering and in your agony. You start out preaching it, but before you get old, you have to live through everything you preach about. You find out that it is more than a hoop and a holler when your back is pressed against the wall, and there is no comfort, and your mouth is parched, and you have to beg for hyssop. You begin to recognize that preaching means suffering in secret places; it means dealing with agony that we don’t even talk about.
I was wrong when I said we were living together. We are, in fact, dying together. When I look at this text, Paul is in this text, but he is in a grave situation; he’s in a terrible situation. There are so many characters that contribute to the context, from which I will extrapolate some ideas. I’m trying to figure out—let me back up and say, aside from what I do in the pulpit, I own a television production company that does film and deals with scripts. People bring you stories that must be converted to scripts, and if the story is good enough—and this one is amazing—you have to turn it into a script.
The first thing you must decide when you’re turning a story into a script is which one of the characters is going to do the talking. I was watching «Soul Food» the other day. I told my wife, «Isn’t it funny that they chose the little boy to be the narrator to tell the story of the whole Soul Food movie from years ago?» You know, COVID has got you in the house so long you’re watching everything—I love Lucy! I’m out of everything; I’m watching stuff that I forgot even existed.
As we were watching «Soul Food,» the question arose: who tells the story? My first thought when I look at the text is that it’s Luke—the physician who has journeyed with Paul. He has given us the Gospel of St. Luke and the book of Acts as one piece, divided only later. Is it Luke who is the narrator? Because he is the contributor who writes a story in such detail that even contemporary meteorologists have to confirm the authenticity of the fact that this journey would be tough at the time specified because they are traveling in the winter.
They are traveling in the winter at a time that most people would not be willing to travel. I thought maybe it ought to be Luke, because Luke is one of the contributors to the four gospels who is not an apostle but a contributor nonetheless. He writes with a level of intelligence and intellect that far exceeds those of the other gospels because he is so educated. He articulates this to the point that modern-day meteorologists can read this story and tell the climate of the times around the ship. It does matter what is going on around you when you sail.
I have sailed when the coast was clear and the breeze was high. I have sailed through good times and marvelous times; but to sail through the time we are going through right now is perhaps the most tempestuous time in the history of our lives. To operate ministry right now in the middle of COVID, in the middle of over 200,000 people dead, five million people infected in our country, in a time of governmental chaos, in a time of racial divide—such as we thought we would never see again, in a time of such turmoil—there is a certain stress that devolves not only from the circumstances but just the uncertainty.
Uncertainty is its own affliction. You don’t know what to plan; you don’t know what you can have; you don’t know when to set something on the date; you don’t know how long before things are going to get better. Anytime our souls are uncertain, there is a certain agony that comes from the invisible influence of uncertainty. Luke, in great detail, makes us know that they are tossed from pillar to post, dealing with inclement weather. They start out on a passenger ship and end up on a cargo ship because the passenger ship was ultimately going to Asia. In order for Paul to get to Rome, he had to ride on a cargo ship with meal, with grain, and about 276 people moving through a storm at the worst possible time to go to Rome.
The time to go to Rome was so bad that most people said nobody would go to Rome except for people who were genuinely interested in getting there because the cargo ship was going, and you got paid double if you made it, since Rome would have food shortages in the winter. Whoever made it through the storm would be more valuable because of the food shortage. Therefore, to jump on this ship, Luke is telling us, is to jump into a perilous live-or-die situation. They are sailing through storms, winds, rains, tornadoes, and floods. Unlike you, Paul does not know how his story is going to end; he does not get on the ship as the great Apostle Paul. No, he doesn’t board the ship from a position of power and influence. Instead, he gets on the boat in chains and fetters as a prisoner— a prisoner who does not see himself as a prisoner; he sees himself as a preacher. But you can be a prisoner and a preacher.
Oh, y’all didn’t hear what I’m saying! It is possible to be a preacher and a prisoner at the same time. Isn’t it funny that God would send him to Rome to liberate Rome and to transfer the headquarters of the early church from Jerusalem to Rome through an inmate? The irony is that the one whom God is sending there to free Rome is bound. So I’m confused; I don’t know who should tell the story. I don’t know who should write the script. Maybe it should be Julius, the Centurion of Augustus' band, because Julius, the Centurion of Augustus' band, was not supposed to deliver inmates. He served at the pleasure of the emperor himself, but he comes upon Paul at a time when he is about to be beaten to death in Jerusalem. And Paul screams out, «I’m a citizen of Rome!»
And the Jews were afraid to kill him. I cannot tell you how many times along your journey we have survived, not because the people were merciless, but because they were afraid to kill you. I want to talk to somebody who’s been protected, somebody who has been protected. I want to talk to someone who was on the hit list of hell and they were coming in for the kill, but God stepped up and said, «Not that girl, that’s my daughter!» So I think maybe, maybe Julius should tell the story, because he has the hideous and demeaning task of bringing home inmates when he serves at the pleasure of the emperor. He is not meant to deal with inmates, but he has this task nonetheless. And sometimes you find yourself in situations that don’t make any sense.
He’s trying to get them there and they get on one boat, they go as far as they can on that boat, and then they have to hop on another boat. Now they’re on a cargo ship filled with all kinds of seed, meal, and wheat, with 276 people trying to make it to the other side. I thought it would be appropriate to use Julius to tell the story since he is a Roman aristocrat, a centurion of the highest order. Maybe protocol should dictate that we use him to tell the story. Bear with me just a moment, if you will. Can I go a little bit further? And then I thought maybe we should not use Julius and maybe we shouldn’t use Luke. Perhaps we should use Paul, because Paul has already been through hell and high water.
When I thought about Paul, I thought about Bishop Ellis, who has lived a life that has not always been easy. It has not always been glamorous; it has not always been special. You saw the robes and the finery and the charisma and the articulation, but you didn’t see the suffering he endured from his youth onward that produced the kind of anointing that made him who he was. People always want your anointing, but they don’t want your story. They want the finished product; they want to pick and choose what part of your life they take.
But through many dangers, toils, and snares, you don’t get to be a J. Delano Ellis because you carried his briefcase. You don’t get to be Bishop Hales because you can wear his shoes. You don’t get to be Bishop Ellis because you can don all the garments and go through all the ceremonies and be in full choir. Not until you’ve been in full tears, not until you’ve been battered and forsaken. Paul went through hell, and when he was called on the road to Damascus, I got preachers; I don’t have to tell the whole story. He comes on the road to Damascus sighted, yet he leaves blind. He loses his eyesight so that he may gain his insight.
Helen Keller said there are worse things than being blind: she said she would rather be blind than have eyes and no vision. Paul gave up his eyesight, but he gained his insight, and God began to use him in a spectacular way. He preached with such power and clarity that the anointing was so strong on him that one time he preached and a man fell out of the window and died. Paul went down, raised him from the dead, and kept on preaching. He was powerful; he was articulate; he was intelligent; he was multilingual; he was flexible enough like Bishop, to be used in different settings and areas.
The broader your mindset, the more adaptable you are in God’s service. Thank you for your adaptability, sir! Thank you for your ability to ascend and descend! Thank you for your capacity to move in and out from this place to that place while holding your head up with integrity. Not everybody who wears a collar can walk from a Jewish synagogue to a Catholic cathedral and still be accepted in all places. Paul was that kind of man. He was an Ellis kind of man, gifted and profound. You would think that if you were that valuable to God, you would not have to go through storms. But Paul had been beaten; he had been stoned at Lystra; he had been left for dead outside the city; he had been laughed at by his peers and the scholars of his time. But nothing is like this moment because now the great Apostle is a prisoner.
When I first heard Bishop’s first bout with cancer, cancer is a prison. It’s a shackle; it’s not just a term; it’s nausea and sickness and affliction and stuff that people don’t see. They see you after you wash up and clean up and come out and dance over it, but the people who live with you know how you suffer. You suffer your way to the stage; you suffer your way to a point where people stayed home because they had a cold. I just want you to understand who we’re talking about; the kind of toughness that he brings to the table means you are who you are, chains or not. And as the story goes, I thought maybe we should let Paul tell it because even though he is a prisoner, the text does not read like that of a prisoner. Before the storm had finished with him, the owner of the ship and the centurion were looking to Paul for answers, because he might have been in chains in his body, but he was free in his spirit.
He said, «I heard from God.» I heard from God! Every Sunday morning that Bishop stood in this pulpit, he stood because he had heard from God. That does not mean that he did not have chains around his ankles while he preached. That does not mean that he did not suffer in his body and in his heart and in his mind over and over again. And even though he came into the church dancing, that does not mean it didn’t hurt, because greatness carries its own pain. Y’all don’t hear what I’m saying! Greatness carries its own pain, and even though there are some preachers trying to act like they don’t know what I’m talking about, I don’t want to blow your cover, but it has to be you! You go through hell being you! You shout in church and cry all night, because greatness produces its own pain.
I thought maybe Paul had earned the right to tell the story. He becomes a perfect depiction of who Bishop J. Delano Ellis is: diverse in his ability to communicate with all types of people in all types of settings and situations, yet true to who he is. He is able to be respected even when he is not in positions of power; he is still recognized for his influence with God and able to move crowds that had not been subservient to his ministry because of his integrity. That’s who Bishop Ellis is. That’s what put T.D. Jakes on a plane after not having flown since February, because I wanted to see my «Amen» and salute this general with your amazing self and your ability to do incredible things while still knowing who you are.
Most people, if they’re adaptable, are so impressionable that they lose sight of who they are. But Bishop could go in and out and not lose sight of who he was. Paul knew that the chains did not define him, and the weather did not define him, and the storm did not define him. The glory defined him; the power of God defined him, the spirit of the living God. What they call incarceration, Paul saw as transportation. Yo, miss said that what they dubbed incarceration, Paul perceived as transportation, because he had to get to Rome, and he thought he might as well hop a ride.
The chains did not bother him because he was free in places that man could never tie you up. Are there any free people in the room? Is there anyone left in the church who has not succumbed to the shackles that men try to put on you? And you have made up in your mind, «I’m going to be free, come hell or high water! Whether you like me or you don’t like me, whether I’m preaching in a crowd or preaching in a room by myself, whether I’m streaming online or I’m cut down to ten folks, I am who I am. I can do what I can do; I’m going to say what I’m going to say, because I have not lost sight of myself. For these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work for us a far more exceeding weight of glory. For we look not at the things that are seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.
I almost thought that Paul should lead the narrative—not Justice, not Luke. I almost thought Paul should lead the narrative, and then I recognized that the real star of the story is not the Apostle Paul. It is not Justice, as articulated, profound, and prolific as Luke is, who was trained to be a physician but called to be a minister, and walked away from his profession to operate in his gifted calling. He gives us the most adept descriptions of the storm that we have ever seen. Hats off to each one of these amazing men! But I suggest to you that the real star of the story is the ship. I made the ship the star of the story because it is the ship that carries all the weight.
If I was going to describe Bishop Ellis, I can’t use another man; I have to describe him as a ship that carried all the weight. It is, my brothers and sisters, the ship that is the star. We must tell it in the voice of the ship because the ship carried all the weight with only an occasional sigh and groan. It is the ship that fought the adverse currents; it took three times longer to get there than it should have, because the ship had to sail against the currents. The wind was blowing, and as soon as the wind blew, the current changed, and the ship had to keep going forward when everything on the outside was pushing it back. Bishop J. Delano Ellis kept moving forward when all the forces of hell were trying to push him back. The ship has got to tell the story. It is a ship that endured the impact of other people’s decisions, that suffered the injuries of choices that it did not make itself. It is a ship that kept going even when it was guided by bad decisions. It kept going.
It is the ship that carried the grain and the weight of 276 people. To be a great man of God, you carry everybody: your staff, your volunteers, your members in your community, your sons in the gospel, and the people who are associated with you. You even carry your Judases. That’s why I think the ship ought to tell the story because it was a ship that endured hardness like a good soldier. It is the ship that kept moving forward when the winds were trying to destroy it. It is the ship that survived in the middle of a hurricane when they faced winds so tempestuous that the ship should have fallen apart in the middle of the sea, but it refused to fall apart. It is the ship that kept going even after they had put the ropes up under it to hold it together, and the ropes began to break.
The ropes were called helps. So the ship kept going when the help fell apart. Is there anybody in here that kept going? You didn’t have the help. Oh, the help you started with ran out on you. All the people who said, „I’ll never leave you,“ moved somewhere else, and you had to sail in contrary winds. And when all the helps began to break, it was the ship that kept on going. And then it was the ship that lost its rafts because the men had thrown the rafts overboard, preparing to escape, and Paul talked them out of escaping because he said. „The only way you will survive is by staying on the ship.“
It lost its help; it lost its rafts, and every time it hit a storm, a boat came loose—little by little, little by little, little by little. It kept on preaching; it kept on going; it kept on caring; it kept on delivering us; it kept on sustaining us. Though it was falling apart in front of our eyes, it still stood up to the weight and cost of being who it was. When I thought about Jay battling on Ellis, he was the kind of ship that would carry the weight, scarcely a grown hormone, and keep on going when the help left and all the rafts were cut loose. He still stood tall; he still sang his own songs; he still brought you into worship—from anthems to old-time Pentecostal jubilee.
It was Jay Delano Ellis who never let you know that the bolts were coming out, who never let you know that he had been throwing up for days so he could come to church on Sunday morning, who never let you know that he was holding on to the edge of the pulpit because his strength was failing. The ship should be the star of the story because it stood up to the cost of carrying you to where you are. It lost its health; it lost its rafts; and finally, it lost its cargo, but it kept on going. Paul said, Paul confirmed—it’s a ship we ought to appreciate. He said that if you stay on the ship, not one of you will be lost; everyone of you will be saved. If you stay on the ship, even though the ship itself will shatter and every time he fought off cancer a piece fell off.
I want to talk to some survivors in the room. Are there some people that have been through some stuff and survived it? I need you to be my witnesses. Can you relate to the fact that every time you survive something, you made it, but you lost a little something? See, people always want to talk about how they made it, but they don’t tell you how much it cost them to make it. Every time you go through a battle, you lose a little something. Finally, in the last moment of the text, the hurricane becomes so strong and the wind so forceful that they brought the ship too close to the edge because it was trying to get you as close as it could to the destination. I knew if it got that close, it might cost its life, but it kept on going anyway.
I said, „If I perish, I perish, but I’m going to bring you as close as I can to the shore,“ and it was bringing you close to the shore that caused the ship to shatter. It was this man bringing you close to the shore that caused the ship to shout, and the ship should tell the story because it ended when the ship shattered. The ship was so awesome, so anointed, so strong, so powerful, so gifted that even if I fall apart, if you grab a board, if you grab a broken piece… and the Bible says, and the Bible says, and the Bible says, the ship might have shattered, but there was still enough glory in the boards that some on boards and somehow broken pieces made it safely over to the other side.
The Lord told me to tell you that the ship is out of service, but the boards are still good. If you hold on to what remains—yes, yes, yes, yes—look at somebody and say, „I got a little bit! I got a little bit! I got no peace! I got enough of a bishop! I got a fight! I got enough fire! I got enough power! I got enough anointing!“ On broken pieces made it safely to the other side. Paul would have drowned if it weren’t for peace. Luke would have died at sea if it weren’t for a little bit. Justice would have drowned in the water, but because of the ship they were in, now to many reformations God will send a man into many movements; God will send a voice; and to many women; God will send a husband; and to many children; God will send a father. But to you, he sent a ship.
Now hear me real good, and I’ll sit down. He may not be here, remain standing. He may not be here; he may not be here in his original form. He may not answer the phone when you dial his number. He may not be sitting in his favorite chair when you get back to the house. But that only means that the ship is shattered. Never believe that the mission is aborted because the ship is shattered. When God sends you a ship, he is so committed to you getting there that if he has to use the ship in another form, everybody in here that’s got a piece in here, everybody in here that has a story to tell, and an experience and a moment that changed your life, I want you to take the roof off of this place and give God a crazy praise for what you got left! Yes, yes, yes, yes!
To my preaching brethren in the room, I know this storm has been crazy. The stress has been amazing. The day they told me Bishop Ellis died, I cried for three hours. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so emotional if it weren’t for all the storms that preceded it, and I felt like I couldn’t take just one more thing. All the giants are leaving, and it looks like they’re being replaced by midgets! I wonder sometimes—what will we do when those of us who have stood the storm so long back up off the stage? Are there enough new recruits coming who can take a licking and keep on ticking? The Lord gave me this text and said, „Don’t worry about it! They may not be ships, but some on boards and some on broken pieces, I will still get them where I meant for them to go.“
So my word of comfort to the preachers: you may not be who you used to be; you may have lost some physical strength, but you have a deeper depth and a deeper anointing and a deeper action than you ever had before. And the Lord said, „Preach in pieces!“ To the young folks, you may not have the full revelation and the full vision, but take the little bit you got and preach in pieces, and God will get you where he’s trying to take you. To the grieving wife: you heard the first lady on the stage, you heard Dr. Ellis on the stage, you heard Dr. E on the stage, you heard the woman of God on the stage. She doesn’t go home as Dr. E to the wife who lies in bed and reaches for a man that’s not there.
In those times, you worry about something and wish you had somebody you trusted enough to talk to, and he’s not there. He left enough of himself in you that you can make it. You’re so close to the shore that if you hold on to the pieces—to the daughters and sons whose hearts are broken—I know what it is to lose my father. I know what it does to you in your stomach and your guts, and it makes you nauseous. You believed in him, now believe in you. Believe that there is enough of him in you, that what they roll out of here is not him because he left the greater part of himself inside of you.
As long as you breathe, your father will never be gone. Preach in pieces! You were getting on somebody on social media, and your daddy called me and said, „She is going off! I don’t know what…“ I don’t know nothing about this social media! What do you think I wanted to tell him? I wonder where she got that from! You got a piece; you got a piece; you got a piece. When you get through crying and you get through moaning, you’re going to be driving down the road and you’re going to hear him talk to you right in your head because the most important parts the storm could never shatter. Hold on to the pieces, and you will land safely on the shore. May the Lord forever bless you; may heaven smile upon you.
And there you have it: God has blessed, God has moved, and God has sovereignly orchestrated His doings as only God can. I trust that something along the way has challenged you and spoken to you. I also want to say to you, if you’re watching and you don’t know Christ, don’t be afraid to pray this simple prayer and just ask:
Lord, come into my heart and give me life. I recognize that life is fickle and fragile; it’s easily snuffed out and taken away. I’m touched by what I’ve seen, what I’ve felt, and what I’ve heard today. I want to invite You into my heart and into my soul so that I can leave the kind of legacy that was so inspirational to watch and behold. Come into my heart, forgive my sins, and make me clean. In Jesus' name, amen.