TD Jakes - When Surviving Is't Safe
In the book of Ezekiel, chapter 16, beginning at verse two, we find a scripture that mesmerizes us. The graphic nature of the text is spellbinding. Verse 2: «Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, and say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem: Thy birth and thy nativity are of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite. As for thy nativity, in the day that thou wast born, thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None I pitied thee to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born.
When I passed by and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, 'Live! ' Yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, 'Live! ' Somebody shout, 'Live! ' I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and grown great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments; thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Can the Lord add a blessing to the reading of His word? I want to speak on a very unusual subject, if you will allow me: „When Surviving Isn’t Safe.“ Let’s pray:
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on us. I thank you for what you’re about to do in the midst of your people. I believe in miracles—the present and the unseen, the unrealized and the intangible made touchable, the invisible made physical. Speak to us out of the volume of the book, great God that you are. I thank you in advance for what you’re able to do. Do whatever you want to do; have your way, throw your weight around. Touch your people where they need to be touched, whether they’re in the building or online, whether they’re on the couch or laying in bed. Wherever you find faith, remember your people. I thank you for what you’re going to do, in Jesus' name. Say Amen. You may be seated. Let’s go forward.
I will never forget, as a little boy at the bottom of the dead-end street where I grew up in the hills of West Virginia, my mother cautioning me not to go to a certain house. In fact, there was a sign out front that said „TB.“ At that time, I date myself when I say this: tuberculosis was quite pervasive. Because we were not always allowed access to treatment centers or had insurances to go, we dealt with it at home, with signs out front that said „TB.“ The tuberculosis crisis was of mammoth proportions, killing many people, but I survived it. Smallpox came along, and there was much debate, like the debates we have now about vaccines. Many suffered damage, loss of vision, etc. I survived it, and so did many of you.
Today, John F. Kennedy was riding down the streets of Texas and was shot in the head, and Jackie was covered with blood. We wondered about the future of America. I survived it; so did you. Dr. King was upstairs in the motel, shot, bled to death, and died right beside Andy Young, with others standing all around him. For our community, it was devastating because he had succeeded in galvanizing many of us, whites, Jews, and others, who had finally begun to listen to him. At the height of his ministry, just shy of 40, a bullet ripped through his young flesh and took him away from the arms of his wife, Coretta, and his little girl, Bernice. My teacher put her head down on her desk and cried, and so did I, but I survived it. That’s why I stop. I won’t go into details, but I survived it.
I survived the Vietnam War, Cassius Clay turning into Muhammad Ali, locked in jail in protest of a war that we now realize he was right about. There was chaos and confusion, and all the cover-ups, but I survived it. Watergate—the stigma of that name still lingers. The other day, I was put in that hotel, and it made me nervous. I didn’t want to take a shower. Watergate, Nixon, and the cover-ups and scandals—we survived the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a long silent war. By then, we had become too sophisticated to show the bodies like we did in Vietnam, and somehow, out of sight meant out of mind. But that didn’t mean that bodies weren’t flying home and people weren’t dying. It was just that media finesse had become so debonair that they no longer showed us. The cost of war was more than money; it was the sons and daughters of Americans whose tables remain empty. Though our headlines have moved on, they still grieve, but they survived it.
I’ve had moments in my personal life so devastating I wondered if I would crawl through it. I remember the height of my mother’s illness while we were trying to build this sanctuary. I rushed between the hospital and the church, preaching on the road and writing. How ironic to write „maximize the moment“ while someone’s dying! I remember driving home around three o’clock in the morning from the hospital, down Fisher Road where I lived on White Rock Lake. I thought, maybe if I just drive into the lake, I won’t know how this ends because I didn’t think I could take that level of grief. But I survived. Survival is vital.
I sat in the hospital room with one of our members whose son drowned in Joe Pool Lake; his corpse lay in the bed, and I sat there for two and a half hours, listening to the father’s screams and watching the boy’s body grow colder. He kept asking me why he had just lost his mother, and now his son was gone. I have become too wise to answer life’s questions; I no longer feel obligated to come up with simple answers to mammoth pain. Instead, I told him not to worry about why. It may be eternity before you understand why; focus on surviving it. Survive any way you can. Pray, cry, scream, holler, yell, collapse, faint—get up, rinse, and repeat. The only thing I ask is that when life hits you in the gut, survive.
When they say you won’t make it, cry if you must, but survive. When they fire you and you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, hold your head up, back straight, and survive. I remember when they shut down the plant; we had two children, and I walked across the parking lot trying to get all my tears out before I got home. I didn’t know how I was going to feed my family but was determined to survive. If I had to dig ditches, I did. If I had to cut grass, I did. If I had to start a lawn care company, I did.
To be a survivor is important. If I drop the mic, there’s not a person in this room who doesn’t have a story about the hard places in their life they had to survive. There are people in this room who have had cancer, facing the terror of hearing the doctor say the biopsy is cancerous, wondering if they would die. But they survived. There are people who have had bypass surgeries, going through surgeries so difficult and swelling so badly, they didn’t know if tomorrow would come. Yet, they are here today; they survived. Some have been betrayed, heartbroken by people they loved so much that their hearts broke in a way that made them think they would die. But they didn’t; they survived.
There are mothers whose days are not Mother’s Days, receiving treatment that isn’t loving. You have cried until you ran out of tears, but you survived. There are children who don’t know who their mothers or fathers are, feeling different and always had a hole in their heart and insecurity, but they survived. Sometimes life offers you no option but to survive. You have no choice, but to survive. At first, you luxuriate in how you wish it could be, and then when it turns out differently, you’re left in the abyss of survival. Survival instinct is the strongest instinct in the human spirit. We survive, we adapt, we adjust.
The reason for variation in the melanin of our skin is not solely a result of our DNA; it is the regions from which our ancestors came, responding to survival. That caused our noses to grow wide so that the sands of the desert wouldn’t obstruct our breathing. It allowed the melanin in our skin to darken, reflecting the glare of the sun to survive, causing certain cultures' eyes to squint to survive the terrains they inhabit. Our bodies adjust to our environment because we were created to be survivors.
In the text before us, it is a mosaic of many different things. It is perhaps one of the most horrific metaphorical descriptions that any prophet ever pronounced against any people. When you visualize the text, it is graphic, poignant, an R-rated scripture—not for its sexual content, but for the magnitude of the graphic depiction of blood, guts, and birth, suspended between life and death. God uses this expression to have a conversation with His people, Israel, specifically about their birth.
It is not a lovely birth; it is not a glorious birth. It’s not like the baby on the Gerber bottles or a birth like Jesus, lowly but surrounded by a loving mother and father, and the lowing of sheep and cattle. This is a nativity scene nobody talks about. In the text, you will notice that the word „nativity“ points to the fact that this was indeed a nativity scene—no swaddling clothes, no mangers, no animals—this is a nativity scene of depletion, rejection, and turmoil.
The definition of „nativity“ is not just birth; it encompasses the process or circumstances surrounding birth. Sometimes God births the greatest things in the worst places, devoid of care, love, or touch. We are sometimes born into environments without nurturing, kindness, or affection—the warmth of a mother’s breast, nourishing the body while bonding the baby to the mother. None of that was there when Mary placed Jesus' mouth to her breast to feed him; she might not have known that he was the Word incarnate. But that’s not the nativity scene here. Jesus was born in a manger, and for years, I thought that signified poverty, but really it signifies identity because he was the Lamb of God.
As the Lamb of God, it is no accident that the Bible describes the shepherds in the field, for a lamb was born to take away the sins of the world. This is the nativity scene of Jesus, lowly yet powerful; two diametrically opposed ideas—the barn suggests poverty, while the wise men suggest riches. It expresses the reach of God; you cannot get so low that he cannot reach you. He is the God of the homeless, the helpless, the destitute, the rejected, the alienated, and the despised. He is God enough to connect with someone listening to me who has no place to stay after the service. If you’re here in this building surrounded by people but know you’ll return to a shelter, a bridge, or a hidden spot under a wooden enclosure where you wash in a plastic basin, he is your God too.
He encompassed us enough to not make you reach very far to touch him. He came into a manger, among the arms of homeless people who sleep in barns and under bridges. He came low enough that is His nativity scene—born in a manger, wrapped in rags, swaddling clothes, and there he was in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger in a lonely place so that rich people couldn’t block your access to Jesus. He came, he came where you were. He came where you were.
I feel like preaching this morning. He came where you were, and so that poverty does not become the emblem of Christianity, the wise men brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh, acknowledging him as king. He is born with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, acknowledged as a king, which is why Herod hated him in the first place. Normally, the gold would have gone to Herod, but it went to Jesus, meaning that they had bypassed the existing powers and acknowledged him as the King of the Jews, in a way that threatened Herod so much that he wanted to kill him. Not because of his messianic value as Savior of the world, but because he threatened to be the King of the Jews.
So, on one hand, we have a God so low that he is lying in hay in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, so that the most lowly among us, who are dealing with pervasive times and destitution, can still access him. Yet, he has brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh as a king, so that the highest among us do not become so wealthy, famous, or intellectual that we could escape our need for God. He is our God too. Folks say it this way: He’s so low you can’t get under Him, He’s so high you can’t get over Him, He’s so wide you can’t get around Him. You must come in. But y’all don’t hear what I’m saying.
I wanted to spend a moment on the nativity scene because juxtaposing one against the other fascinates me. On one hand, he was surrounded by impoverished elements, while on the other, he was rich. He was not denied the maternal love of a mother and the care of a father, which is not the case in the text before us today. Because the real riches of a baby are not gold or diamonds; what will a baby do with gold or diamonds anyway? A baby really doesn’t care how fancy the bassinet is, even though we spend all kinds of money to get all kinds of things and dress them in all kinds of clothes that they don’t know are Gucci. The baby doesn’t know he’s wearing Saint Laurent; that’s why he throws up on it. He doesn’t really care about that. It would have been better to take the money and put it in a college fund and prepare for its future.
What the baby does know is that I am wrapped in love. I can hear my mama’s heartbeat; I can feel my father stroke my head. When I am around them, I am safe, whether I am in the ghetto or in the penthouse. I am safe because I am surrounded by that which is intangible. I am surrounded by love. So, when I step into this text today, I do not weep because there is no gold, and I do not weep because there is no silver. I do not weep because there are no diamonds, and I do not weep because there is no finery; I weep because there is no love in this text.
The nativity scene set before us stands in sharp contradiction to the nativity things that I’m accustomed to saying. But this text is a picture of God expressing the abomination of Jerusalem. Very few times do we hear it preached in context, so I wanted to take just a moment with you to put the text in context before I take liberties with it, for which Ezekiel never met. Ezekiel is pronouncing judgment on Jerusalem because Jerusalem has finally come to the promised land and forgotten its identity.
I talked last week for just a moment about how important identity was when I mentioned that my last name is Jason. Jason is German, and I am not German, which means I have no last name. This means I cannot fully point to a lineage without DNA. My name does not define my DNA; the two do not match. That is a cultural dysfunction that we have not studied the ramifications of, because we have not deemed it important enough to provide Yale research into what happens to a people who lose not only their ancestors but their identity.
The problem in the text today deals with people who have been wandering in the wilderness. They have come to Jerusalem, and all of a sudden, they have conquered the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Garroshites. They have conquered all of them, and yet they have been affected by those they conquered. They have conquered their country but not their culture, and like their forefathers did in Egypt, they have assimilated into their environment to the extent that they have lost their identity.
I thought it was important to share with you that when you are always adapting to the culture, little by little, you are eroding your own identity. The desperate need we have to fit in, to be accepted, and all that we do to send signals to the culture that we are one of them, means that we are none of us. Anytime being one of them becomes more important than being you, you do not recognize that their acceptance is creating the erosion of your own identity.
You know, if I were foolish enough to answer a question, I wore white shoes last Sunday. A lady asked me on Instagram, „What’s up with the white shoes?“ I started to answer, telling her I liked them; that’s why I wore them. I didn’t wear them because she liked them; I didn’t wear them to find out if she thought I looked good. I didn’t wear them to see if it was okay; I didn’t wear them because all the men in the church were wearing white shoes. I didn’t wear them to fit in; I wore them because I liked them. I thought they looked nice, and I wanted to wear them. If you want to comment on it, it’s okay, but just know that your comments don’t matter. I still have them; I will wear them again. I am not worried about fitting in with the standards of an individual that I have never met.
If you knew how little I cared about what you think, you would have saved the opportunity to say something significant. Because, frankly, baby, I don’t give a flip what you think about my shoes. You’ve got to know who you are, and you’ve got to know who you are even when other people protest your right to be unique and suggest that you have to live up to some unwritten standard that they have made for you to live by. I do me. I just do me. I just do me. I just do me. I don’t have to be Fred Price; I don’t have to be Kenneth Copeland; I don’t have to be Creflo Dollar; I don’t have to be Bishop of Color. I don’t have to be anybody else. God did not call me to be you; God called me to be me.
You see, my brothers and sisters, the abomination in this text is that Jerusalem has taken the land but lost themselves. All of us know people who got a job and changed, who moved into a position and changed their voice and inflection. They started talking funny, acting like they didn’t know you, even though they knew you last week. Just because you got a pay raise, don’t go crazy, baby. They might take it back next week, and you might need some of the people you walked away from. Don’t burn the bridge just because you got a helicopter; you may be back on that bridge again.
The abomination with Jerusalem is that they have allowed themselves to be sequestered, culturally snatched away from who they were. And when the Bible talks about how they were cast out into an open field, it reminds them that their association with the people they’re dealing with had a custom of taking babies who were deformed, different, or couldn’t be afforded, and leaving them in the wilderness to be devoured by animals. So, when He says, „I catch you; you were cast into an open field to the loathing of your person,“ it is reminiscent of the fact that the people you are impressed with have as a tradition the removal of their babies to be devoured in the wilderness by animals because they were different.
The loss of their identity has caused them to assimilate to the point that God is upset with them. I believe that if He were to come today, He would be upset with the church. I believe He would be upset with the church because we are bent on living like, looking like, dressing like, walking like, singing like, and performing like them, when we were supposed to be the head and not the tail, above and not beneath. Yet, we are letting hip-hop and the world and other people decide who we are and how we are, and we no longer think we’re cool if we’re different. We have been captured by those we have captured. That is the substratum of this text today.
Can I deal with the reality? I don’t hear anybody talking about what the text really means, and God is upset because He has found Himself asking the same question He has in Genesis: Adam, where are you? What happened to you? What have you come to that you have forgotten who you are? Have you endured so much pain that you are unrecognizable? Have you turned in your nice finery? Where are you with your loving heart, your giving heart, your praying heart, your worshiping heart? Have you imitated your sisters of the heathen nations, and now pride yourself on being cold? Where are you, men of God, that you have turned into wimps, satisfied to marry women to replace your mama, calling her mama and referring to your house as a crib?
I’m not going to bother you. The text is gruesome and graphic, yet preachers as a whole spiritualize it rather than deal with it. If we deal with it in its graphic dimensions, the scene I see is horrific. I see a newborn baby. I’ve been in the room when babies are born, and when babies are born, they’re not cute. Anyone who walks in and sees your newborn baby when it first comes out of your body and says, „Oh, how cute,“ is lying. They might look cute in a day or two; they might even be cute in an hour or two, but when they first come out, they are scary. They look like creatures from the black lagoon; they are covered in all kinds of different substances and sticky stuff. They look like an absolute mess; they look like something only a mother could love. Now, a mother can love her baby; my mother can love hers, but I look at them and say, „Oh, love those nebulous statements that don’t commit me to any particular decision.“
But a newborn baby doesn’t look cute because birth is traumatic; birth is dramatic. Right after they get through crying, they fall asleep because birth is hard work. They are bruised in the birthing process, and the mother is exhausted. They call it labor for a reason; it’s a job to have a baby. Punch the clock when you go in the hospital because you’re going to be working. The doctors, with all of their medicine and all of their technology, cannot push for you or endure pain for you. If you don’t have an epidural, you will experience the pain of childbirth in your own body.
I think God meant for us to feel the pain so that we would stop giving our children to their grandparents to raise because they cost you enough that you wouldn’t toss them around and throw them away so easily. The fact that we have numbed the pain means we have numbed the responsibility because when you go through something, when you birth something that hurts you, you don’t let anybody take it from you. You don’t allow anyone to take it when it hurt you, when you went through hell to get it. It changes how you see it.
This baby, this Jerusalem, this young country—I almost called the text the birth of a nation—it is the birth of a nation that was once enslaved, now sons, and having possessed land, they have become a very small baby nation surrounded by larger nations with more advanced equipment. They were hated, even though they were winners; they were hated. And even to this day, they are hated. If we look back at recent history, to Adolf Hitler, they were hated in a way that we can’t compare tragedy to tragedy. But we must admit that the trauma of being stripped naked, starved to death, and thrown into gas chambers is no walk in the park.
What did they do to deserve to be cast out into an open field to the loathing of your person? Now let’s not get it confused; this text does not deal with them being abused; it deals with them being neglected. It says nobody salted you, which was a custom in the day to heal the bruising and trauma of what you’ve been through. Salt was how they got your skin to be supple and to recover its normal texture so that it didn’t reflect where you came from. I know you survived, but some of you survived yet still have where you came from stuck to you. You made it out, but it’s still on you.
And God said, „No, I pitied you, and no hand salted you because it is not God’s will for you to look like what you’ve been through.“ The placenta has escaped the vagina, the baby has been born, but the afterbirth is still on the child. I wanted to ask you this morning: Are you still carrying afterbirth? I know you survived, and I know you’re alive, but is this what you came through, still clinging on to you? And that’s why you come to church. You don’t come to church to dance; you don’t come to church to run; you don’t come to church to leave. You come to church that you might be cleansed by the washing of the water of the Word—cleansed by the washing of the water of the Word. Cleanse, cleanse, cleanse, cleanse—morally cleanse, spiritually cleanse—from old habits, all addictions, old cravings, and old things that are out of control in your life. Cleanse from your idolatrous attraction to being like one of them.
You came to get enough Word so that you can stand in the cognizance of who you are, with full awareness that you are enough, whether others like you or not. You came to be cleansed from your incessant need to be accepted by people who really don’t matter. They don’t pay any bills; they don’t pay your rent; they don’t come to see you when you die, and yet you’re trying to impress people for likes on a post or friends on Facebook. I came to wake you up—you need to be salted, you need to be washed, and you need to be cleansed because you have given too much importance to things that are not important and not enough attention to things that are important.
This is an abomination unto the Lord that you have been birthed and thrown into an open field, and no one cut your cord. You are still connected to your past; you are still feeding off of your yesterday; you are still talking about what happened last year, five years ago, and ten years ago. How can you go forward when you’re still connected by your cord? Those three people should say, „Cut me loose! Cut me loose! Cut me loose! Cut me loose! Cut me loose! Cut me loose!“ And if you won’t cut me loose, I’ll cut myself loose! If I have to be like an animal in the woods and gnaw through the cord that’s holding me back to where I used to be, I gotta get loose from what’s holding me. I cannot let yesterday contaminate today. What used to be a blessing has become a curse. What used to feed me now restricts me, and it’s time to cut the cord. You’ve got to know when it’s over; you’ve got to know when it’s time to cut the cord.
The umbilical cord was a blessing at one stage in your life, but it’s a restriction at another stage. Now that I can breathe on my own and eat on my own, I cut the cord. That’s why some people don’t want you to get better—because your dysfunction is their job security. They want to keep you bound up and chained so that they can feel important too. But nobody will cut you loose. Gnaw at the cord! Chew through the cord! Pull through the cord! I want every person who wants to be free in this room to make some noise! I said, make some noise! All right, we’re going to be bold; we’re going to be radical; we’re going to get out of control in this place!
I want you to tell three people, „Survival is not enough.“ It’s not enough for me to survive; it’s not enough for me to just make it through; it’s not enough for me to still have this burden on me. It’s not enough for me to not be salted, not be washed, and not be cut loose. I’m tired of just surviving; I’m tired of just getting by; I’m tired of just going through the same old, same old, every day. This is a reckoning; this is an awakening; this is a revolution! I’m ready to gnaw through some cords that have held me back. I need 30 seconds of crazy praise in this place! What good is God giving me a new year if I’m still going to live in the old year? What good is it for me to see another decade if I’m still tied to the past decade? To all of you who won’t forgive, won’t forget, won’t move on, and won’t go on in your life—you think you’re strong because you’re still angry and bitter?
You’re not strong; you’re bound. You’re alive, but you’re bound; you’re alive, but you’re not free; you’re alive, but you’re living in restrictions. I speak to you today in the name of Jesus; God is not satisfied for you to be a survivor. He wants to get you to a safe place, and if you know I’m talking to you today, give Him the highest praise. Your God, I want to make this practical so you can get it, because if I stay metaphorical, you’ll shout over it, but you won’t understand when I say, „Gnaw through the cord.“ That means cut yourself off from everything that reminds you of where you used to be.
One of my pastors called me and told me that there was some disc jockey talking about me, saying something I don’t know what he said. I told him, „I don’t care what he said, and I don’t need to hear what he said.“ He said, „I’m going to tell you who it is.“ I said, „I don’t care who it is because he said what he said, and it didn’t affect anything in my life. I refuse to allow him to affect my life.“ You gotta gnaw through the cord—the message and the messenger, the words that come into your life to drag you into captivity, to deal with stuff you declare is over. When I say it’s over, it’s over, baby; when I say it’s done, it’s done.
When I walk away, it’s over. I get to choose what space I’m going to be in, my nativity, my environment. I get to control where I give birth; I’m not going to give birth in hate, anger, hostility, and confusion. I’m not going to be tricked into changing your mind as a substitute for birthing my baby. What do I get if you change your mind? What do I get if you start liking me? I’m going to resist the temptation to make you my prize and instead birth what God put down inside of me. Somebody have this baby! Somebody go right into labor right now and birth this baby! Somebody’s water ought to break in this room—the water of praise! You ought to birth this baby in this room right now because survival is not enough. You’ve got to get yourself to safety!
Somebody scream at the top of your voice, „I want more!“ I’m not talking about more cars, more houses, or more property—I’m talking about more liberty, more freedom, more creativity, more grace, more movement, more peace, more continuity! Somebody shout, „I want more! I want more anointing! I want more unction! I want more victory! I want more power! I want more gifting in my spirit!“ Somebody shout „I want more!“ I want more encounters with God. I want more movements of the Spirit. I want to be more intoxicated with the Holy Ghost. I want to get in my car, drunk in the Holy Ghost; I want to drive down the road, talking in tongues. I want to get a word of knowledge on how to raise my child. I want to get a word of wisdom on how to stay in my marriage. Somebody throw your hands up and say, „I want more!“
So, get this mud off of me, get this muck off of me, and get this gunk off of me, because I have decided that surviving isn’t safe. At no point in this text is the baby dead; the baby is not dead, but it is dying. Dead? No, but dying. If it does nothing, it will die. All you have to do to die is nothing; if you do nothing, dying is easy. Let’s compare it to climbing a tree. Climbing a tree takes effort; falling out of the tree takes none. Climbing a tree takes skill, planning, and looking at where the branches are; falling is easy. If you decide you’re going to fall, all you have to do is let go, and immediately you’re going to come down. But there are some of us who have made up our minds in this room. I’ve been through too much to get to this point in my life and fall down. I’m going to climb with intention; I’m going to climb with strategy; I’m going to climb with tenacity. I’m going to climb to the place that God has called me to climb.
If you don’t want to climb, please get out of my way—move, step aside, step over, collapse, faint, play dead—I’ll step over you! Whatever we got to do to go on down the road, because I’m running out of time, and I want to see the glory of God manifest in my life! I don’t have 20 years to wait to see it happen; I want it now! Somebody scream, „I want it now!“ The worst thing in the text, declare it with me just for a minute—the worst thing in the text is where it says that the baby was sitting in its own blood. What a putrid image—to be sitting in your own blood, to be sitting in what ought to be inside you. If the blood were in you, it would signify life. But if you sit in it, it is death, and you are sitting in your own blood.
I’m going to go real deep; when you see the putridness of sitting in your own blood, you say, „I would never do that.“ But when you sit in your own memories, when you sit in your own trauma, when you rehearse negativity over and over again, when you remind yourself of every painful thing that has ever happened in your life, it doesn’t matter what you wear, it doesn’t matter what you buy, it doesn’t matter where you live, it doesn’t matter how big the house you get in is—if you’re still going to sit in your own blood, you should have stayed in a trailer in a park and lived in the trash, because you’re sitting in your own blood. And I don’t care what you say to me; I know for a fact that there are people in this room who are sitting in their own blood. Sitting is to make yourself comfortable; sitting is to recline and relax. Sitting is a position of ease and comfortability.
If you can comfortably sit in filth, if you can comfortably sit in negative thoughts and negative attitudes and become so comfortable sitting in your own blood that when somebody tries to raise you, you reject them. When somebody tries to lift you, you say, „I don’t mind; he’s cool, but I just don’t like it.“ You don’t like me because I won’t sit with you. I’m not going to sit in your own blood. Hallelujah! I want all the people who have been rejected to stop feeling sorry for yourself. People don’t always reject you because you’re not worth something; they reject you because they’re comfortable in their own blood, and you disrupt their comfortability.
Stop feeling bad about yourself because they weren’t willing to get out of their own blood. But there are some people in this room this morning who are going to escape their blood! I don’t care what it takes; I refuse to sit in it. It happened, but I’m not going to sit in it. I was raped, but I’m not going to sit in it. My mother never loved me, but I’m not going to sit in it. My father beat me like I was an animal, but I’m a grown person. I’m not going to sit in it! I refuse to sit in my own blood! I’m going to rise above the trauma of what I went through and become the best version of myself I can be because I refuse to sit in my own blood! Somebody shout me down in this place! I feel the Holy Ghost in this place. I feel the Spirit of God moving. I’m not going to sit in it; I’m not going to sit in it; I’m not going to sit in it.
Somebody say, „I’m not going to sit in it!“ I’m not going to sit in it; I’m not going to sit in it. I’ve been divorced, but I’m not going to sit in it. I’ve been depressed, but I’m not going to sit in it. I’ve been through hell, but I’m not going to sit in it. I had to see a therapist, but I’m not going to sit in it. They had to put me up, but I’m not going to sit in it. I hate to take meds, but I’m not going to sit in it. I’m on kidney dialysis, but I’m not going to sit in my own blood! Whatever I’ve got left, I’m going to lift it up! Whatever I’ve got left, I’m going to take it to the next level! Whatever I’ve got left, I’m going to take it to another height! I refuse to sit here and die in my own blood!
Open up your mouth and give God a crazy praise! I dare you to praise Him! I dare you to praise Him until hell gets nervous! Praise Him until demons tremble! Praise Him until you feel strength coming back! Praise Him until you feel the glory of the Lord coming into your life! Praise Him until witches back off! Praise Him until you feel the power of God resurrecting Himself in your spirit! If you are determined to get out of the blood, give me a crazy praise! A praise that lifts you up! A praise that takes you out! A praise that takes you over! I can’t hear you! I mean a praise! I’m going to get up this year! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! I dare you to praise Him! I double-dog dare you to praise Him! I dare you to praise Him like you have a made-up mind! There is a better life; there is a place for me!
If the Canaanites don’t like me and the Jebusites don’t like me, I like me. I will arise; God likes me. God’s got a plan for my life. I will get up—get up in the balcony, get up in the pulpit, get up in the congregation, get up in your living room, and get up in your situation. God said get up, lift your voice, and give a shout to God. Oh, and so the Bible says that your father was a Canaanite and your mother was a Hittite, and it’s a description of the influence that has intoxicated and numbed Jerusalem from recognizing who they really are. But the Bible said God still passed over you. When I read it, I thought, „Lord, this is the second Passover.“ We often preach about the first Passover, and the Bible said in the first one, „When I see the blood, I will pass over you.“
The Bible says that when He passed over this time, He still saw the blood, but it was not the blood of the lamb; it was the blood of your past. When God passed over the blood of your past, He made up His mind: I’m going to speak one word. I’m going to speak it over your life, and if I speak one word, I want you to come out of this. I’m going to speak one word. Somebody said, „One word—speak the word only, and my son shall live.“ I’m going to speak one word; somebody say, „One word—speak to Lazarus, and he’s going to come out of the grave.“ Somebody say, „One word.“
One word will pull you out of poverty; one word will pull you out of depression; one word will pull you out of fear; one word will pull you out of procrastination. One word will wake you up! God said one word over your life: „Live!“ I don’t care what you’re going through; He said live! I don’t care what happened to you; He said live! I don’t care what they say about you; He said live! Open your mouth and shout, „Live!“ Shout live until your gums tremble; shout live until your liver quivers; shout live until your feet start jumping! Shout live! Do you feel power rising up in you? God said live! God said live! God said live! Oh, well, Bishop, I had a good life, and I’m 80 years old, and you know how life is—it is what it is.
I don’t know what you’re talking about; God said live! If you’re on a kidney machine, God said live! If you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, God said live! If you’re HIV positive, God said live! If the doctors have done all they can do, God said live! If you only have three weeks, God said live! If you only have two friends, God said live! If you’re living in a house by yourself, God said live! If you have to hug yourself, God said live! If you have to take yourself out to dinner, God said live! Whatever state you’re in, what did God say? What did God say? What did God say? What did God say? What did God say? What did God say? What did God say?
Now, to bring this message to a close: everyone standing, everybody’s already standing. Surviving isn’t safe! If I have to sit in blood, it’s not safe! If I have to carry what I’ve been through on me, it’s not safe! If I carry what I’ve been through, it will turn around, make me sick, and infect me. You shout because you survived, but surviving isn’t safe. You survived for a reason; you survived for a reason! Wait, wait, wait! Let me make it plain: you do not survive to survive. I don’t know how to make it any clearer than that; you don’t survive to survive. I want to free you from survivor’s guilt because you made it, and somebody you love didn’t. You keep saying it should have been me. If it should have been you, it would have been you.
Stop carrying around false guilt over divine providence. My God! If God would have called you, you’d be gone! There’s a reason you’re still here. Listen to this very carefully: any people who have been oppressed for a prolonged time—whether you have been abducted, whether you have been through rape and abuse, whether you have been through a terrible history, a terrible relationship, or an abusive job—survival starts to look like success, and you stop wanting better. You become content just to survive. I understand the trauma you’ve been through has made you believe that survival is success. Survival is only transportation to success. You survive for a reason; you survived for a purpose! You made it out of the hospital for a reason; you made it out of the psych ward for a reason; you made it out of your trauma for a reason! And if you just get here and say, „I survived,“ that’s not safe!
So we have to wash off some afterbirth; we have to salt away some bruises and get our skin supple because some of us have grown hard through the birthing process. The push was so hard, and it’s nothing but the sound of somebody getting delivered. That’s the way church is supposed to sound! That’s the way church is supposed to sound! When a soul is set free, it snaps free! It snaps free! She’s not the only one in here; there are hundreds and hundreds of people in this room who got a snapping free from the bondages of your past. God is snapping you free! And you can’t wait on everybody else to agree! Did you hear my message? Go for yourself! Get out of order, get out of control, and thank God He’s snapping you free! It’s not safe to get healed and not be whole.
The one man returned back to Jesus because he understands that being healed is not enough. In the arms of the priest, he is healed, but in the presence of Jesus, he is whole. If you ever get in the presence of God, you will never want to leave this place. If you ever get in the presence of God, you will never want to leave this place. God is saying live to you—all online, all on the internet, all across the waters, all across the sea. God said live! Surviving isn’t safe! God said live! I know you’ve been hurt, but God said live! I know you’ve seen some painful days, but God said live! I have two, I have two, but God said live! God said live, God said live, God said live! And I have learned that I have to be intentional about living! It doesn’t seem like it would be this way; it seems like living would be normal.
Go ahead, do you! It seems like it would be normal to live, but when you have been traumatized, normal isn’t normal. You have to be intentional! You have to look at some people’s numbers on the phone and say, „No, I’m not answering that! No, no, I’m not answering that! I’m not going to let that afterbirth get on me today! I’m not up for that today! I’m not up for that today! I’m not! I’m not going to respond to that; I’m not going to flow in that, because this living thing—I’ve got to work on it! I’ve got to practice being happy! I’ve got to practice having peace! I’ve got to practice being present! I’ve got to practice being content! I am so caught up living in the past or concerned about the future that I’m ignoring the present, and if you ignore the present long enough, you will lose the present reaching for the future.
So the desert to be devoured by animals because something was wrong with him. But Jesus said to babies who have something wrong with them, „I won’t throw you in the desert; I call you to me, and I will not set you up to die in things you can’t wash off!“ I passed by you, and I said live! And even though Jerusalem was small compared to its enemies, even though Jerusalem has been attacked continually and unrelentingly, it has survived! There will be many attacks—that’s what life is. Being a Christian doesn’t exempt you from life! But Jesus said, „I come that you might have life and have it more abundantly!“ This is the will of God for you, people! Jesus says, „The enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly!“
Going to church doesn’t give you life; singing in the choir doesn’t give you life; dancing and jumping because the music’s good doesn’t give you life! Life comes from a vibrant personal intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. I want that life! To a degree, I have that life, but to a degree, I’m still seeking that life! God said to Samuel when he found David, „I found a man that’s after My heart.“ He wasn’t talking about David being perfect; David proved that he wasn’t perfect! God said, „I found a man that’s chasing Me!“ He’s after My heart; he’s wanting Me; he’s courting Me; he’s dating Me; he’s longing for Me; he’s craving for Me; he’s after Me! He’s singing Me songs; he’s writing Me poetry; he’s dancing on the mountaintops in the early morning dew!
I tell you this dude is some kind of special! He’s making up songs; he’s killing his lions and bears and writing his poetry and courting Me like I’m his chick on the side! He’s after Me; he’s wanting Me; he’s blowing Me kisses; and I am going to promote him because he’s a God-chaser! Now, I know there are a lot of reasons to come to church. There are some cute girls in this church; there are some great business partners in the church! People come to church for all kinds of reasons, all kinds of reasons, all kinds of reasons! But out of the crowd in this room, there are some people who are tired of sitting in their own blood—tired of smelling their afterbirth—tired of having fits of rage and mood swings because of the trauma of your past!
There are some people in this room who have been literally sitting in your own blood; you have told the same story over and over and over again—about what happened to you, and what they did, and how they treated you! You’re sitting in your own blood! It’s tormented you; it’s making you sick! If you sit in blood, it’ll make you sick! The same thing that gave you life on the inside gives you death on the outside; it’s a pool of infection! It attracts diseases; it’ll tear up your family; it’ll kill your marriage; it’ll pollute your ministry; it’ll disturb your mind! All you’ve got to do is sit in it! I want a thousand people who make up your mind this day: I will not sit in that blood another day! Rush this altar! I want people online to call the prayer lines! I’m tired of sitting in my own blood! I’m not just going to be a survivor; I’m going to get to safe! I’m going to get to safe! I’m going to get to safe!
Surviving isn’t safe! Surviving isn’t safe! Surviving isn’t safe! It’s not safe for me; it’s not safe for my mind; it’s not safe for my emotions; it’s not safe for my well-being; it’s not safe for my mentality; it’s not safe! It’s not safe for me to live my life the way I’ve lived my life; it’s not safe—it’s toxic, it’s dangerous, it’s detrimental! I don’t have a drinking problem; I’ve got a sitting-in-blood problem! I don’t have a drug problem; I’ve got a sitting-in-blood problem! I don’t have a relationship problem; I’ve got a sitting-in-blood problem! But God passed by me today! God passed by me this Sunday morning at the Potter’s House, and He said live! God passed by me, and He said live! God passed by me, and He said live! Whether I’ve got a job or don’t have a job, God said live! Whether I’ve got money or no money, God said live! Whether I live in a house on a hill or a barn at the bottom, God said live! And I need to learn how to live!