TD Jakes - The Father of Mercy
So here, the great Apostle Paul writes to us from 2 Corinthians 13:10: «Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.» This is why we need the church; this is why we need the Word; this is why we need help and ministry. This is why we have security. Brother, don’t mess with Texas! Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Watch this closely; I want you to watch this closely. Sometimes, when we hear a greeting, we hear it in a monotone fashion, as if there were no revelation in the hello, the greeting, or the salutation. But this salutation is loaded with the perspective of a great man and how he describes God: «Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies.»
I don’t believe I have ever heard Him referred to as the Father of mercies, the progenitor of mercy, the manufacturer of mercy. Paul says He is not just the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. If there be any comfort, it is of Him. If you can find a soft place in the hard bed of life, that soft place is Him. If you can find something to ease your scorching brow, that drop of water has come from Him. If you have found something that cleared the indigestion and the antagonism and the controversy and adversities that come from the high expense of being you, that soft thought, that giggle, that laugh, that long ride you took in the car listening to soft music to calm your nerves and ease your troubled mind, you did not know that God was sitting in the passenger seat riding beside you.
Because He is the God, yes, He is the God, He is the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction. He comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction. Oh, so my affliction has the purpose of making the student the teacher. So sometimes I am attacked so that I can teach on a higher level. Oh, y’all don’t hear what I’m saying to you! He comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Both the comforter and the comforter receiver have much in common because both of them have been in each other’s place. I am able to comfort you because I have been comforted, and if I fail at comforting you, please forgive me.
I cannot give you what I have not received. Sometimes we are angry at people for not making withdrawals where they never had deposits. If you have never been comforted, then you don’t know how to comfort, and you marry someone and love someone who needs something in an area where you are bankrupt. Though you are well-funded and financially rich, that does not take away from emotional bankruptcy. Gucci and Tom Ford and brand names do not take away from emotional bankruptcy. You’d be surprised at the people in here; I almost call this message «The Walking Dead,» because you’d be surprised at the amount of people in here who are void of the capital and currency of character and compassion and empathy.
And it’s not because they are evil people; they just never got it, so they just can’t give it. They’re not wired that way; they don’t think that way. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s suffering, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. You cannot have the comfort without the suffering, and if you’re going to share in Christ’s suffering, that makes you eligible to share in His victory. You cannot have one without the other. Our hope for you is unshaken; it is unshaken; it is unshaken. I know you are going to be all right! If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And if, if, if we are afflicted, I just love this verse; we may never finish! I hope you brought a hot dog. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure.
When you patiently, when you patiently endure, that’s the word I have problems with; I’m still working on that. I was going through something recently, and God said, «You think you need more power, but what you really need is more patience.» I said, «Oh God, I’m in trouble. If you’d asked me for more power, I got a lot of fight in me, but patience has never been one of my strong suits.» But He amplifies the word: «You experience when you patiently endure the same suffering that we suffer.» So be careful about criticizing what we suffer because you’re going to also suffer some form of it too. The mercy that you give out comes back to you. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
If you are merciless when you need mercy, you have nothing to withdraw because you have not deposited any mercy. So if I were the enemy, I would make you critical, self-righteous, and arrogant knowing that you’re going to trip down the road and need a little mercy, but you won’t have it to receive because if you didn’t sow it, sweetheart, you cannot reap what you have not sown. That’s more than an offering; you cannot reap what you have not sown. Our hope for you is unshaken—there we go. Our hope for you is unshaken. I just want that to sink in. Our hope for you is unshaken in the midst of a shaking world. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.
Notice that he keeps talking about suffering intermittently with affliction, and let us not be too quick to assume that they are the same thing. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that—let me remind you of the writer—now this is the Apostle Paul writing. We were so utterly burdened while we were teaching, while we were working, while we were casting out devils, while we were raising the dead, while we were establishing the New Testament Church. We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. I have to stop there and say that is the attribute of a general—when you have the discipline to function beyond your pain, beyond your strength, that you don’t just get up here and throw up on me all of your personal pain and trauma and do not have the discipline to operate outside of the season you’re in because we’re all in different seasons.
You prophesy and, as you are commanded, you do your job whether you feel like it or not. You do it whether you’re in a good time or a bad time; you do it in trouble, you do it in pain, you do it in agony, you do it in crisis, but you do it because how can you talk about the faithfulness of God and not be faithful yourself? You got to do it! But He almost whispers at us the truth of the matter: we formed well outwardly, but inwardly we were pressed beyond strength and above measure so much so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. I was writing the epistles to Timothy, and I had perceived that this was terminal. Have you ever gone through things that you thought, «I just, I’m just not coming out of this?» We had the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
So, I felt like I was dying so that I wouldn’t look to myself to save myself from my circumstances. I had to totally give up on my own ingenuity, and I had to rely on God because this one was too big for me. Is there anybody in here that’s humble enough to admit sometimes it’s just too big for you? It’s beyond your strength; it’s beyond your capabilities. And that sometimes, safe filled up with the Holy Ghost, and that with the might burning fire, you feel like you despair of life itself. The oxymoron of the text is so beautiful I can’t get away from it because on one hand, He is the one who taught us about faith. He is the one who taught us whatsoever things are lovely and holy and pure, of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. He is the one who taught us there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk no longer after the flesh but after the Spirit.
But He said sometimes I was writing by faith while I was wrestling with feelings. Oh, this is good! But I’m happy to report He delivered us from such a deadly peril. See, that’s why you can’t always judge people who have exuberant praise because maybe you haven’t been delivered from what they have been delivered from. And you can sit there and maintain your composure, and maybe you have a different personality, or maybe your composure is more important than your Christ. But some of us, we came so close to dying… oh, God, don’t get me started; it’s too early! We… it wasn’t just that I didn’t make my goal; I wanted to die. I wanted to just die; I despaired of life!
The only way out was to get out, but He delivered us! He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will. Did you see that? He delivered us is His resume; He will is His first day on the job. I can look at what He has done and determine what He’s about to do. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril; He will deliver us. I used what I know about what He did in the past to give me the courage to face the future. On Him, we have set our hopes that He will deliver us again. I’m sorry I’m the only one who takes 10 minutes to read a scripture, but He is the Father of mercy! Touch your neighbor and say, «He is the Father of mercy!» Let’s go to work on this: He is the Father of mercy.
There was a movie that came out several years ago, in 1995, called «Dead Man Walking,» and it was used to describe people who were on death row. When you were on death row and you came down the hallway, they would say, «Dead Man Walking.» Sean Connery played in it, and several other mainline actors played in it. «Dead Man Walking» means the sentence of death is over; you might not be dead yet, but it’s a dead man walking. In the mafia, they say, «You’re good as dead,» but you’re still walking. The oxymoron is dead men don’t walk, but the statement is «Dead Men Walking.» You’d be surprised at the amount of men and women who are dead men walking. Paul says to us in the text, who incidentally is responsible for most of the doctrine and theology of the New Testament Church, that I went through a season that I despaired of life in spite of how I gave, in spite of how I taught.
So to all of you women who are watching us and think you can read us good, you’re wrong, because we can be dying and not show it. We can be depressed and not show it. We can be suicidal and not show it. We can be happy and not show it; we can be so glad you came in the room and look like it’s all good. So all of you who are evaluating us by externals, there is a level of men—it is changing somewhat today—but there is a level of men who were not allowed to wear on their face what they feel in their heart. And to be misinterpreted is almost as bad as being ignored.
So you must understand, He did all of this having seasons that he despaired of life. The courage that experiences of Saul of Tarsus and his unorthodox entry into the apostolic order of the church are legendary. He did not start out as one of the Twelve; he was not mentored by Christ; he was not at the Last Supper; he was not in the boat when Jesus walked on the water; he was not there with the woman with the issue of blood when she was healed. He was not there when Lazarus was raised from the dead. He has no religious pedigree as it relates to Christianity, but rather, he is very steeped in the Jewish traditions of his era. He was an intellect among the Hebrews; he was a Pharisee among Pharisees; he spoke in five different languages; he was respected among thinkers like Aristotle and Socrates.
His writings have defined the New Testament Church and were the catalyst for Martin Luther and his 96 theses that led to the Protestant protest movement that produced the Protestant movement. All was inspired because Martin Luther started reading Paul. Greatness talks to greatness; greatness talks to greatness. That’s why if you’re great and you’re talking and you get rejected, don’t be offended, because you’re being rejected; you’re being rejected because they’re not attracted to the level of greatness you are, and they hate it because they can’t feel it. Metal never rejects a magnet, but plastic will turn away.
Every time do you hear what I’m saying? If you stop fooling with plastic people and find your people, it will—yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah—see, even when you go to events like Good Soil, it raises you; you will not be the same. You can’t be in a room with all that great thinking and great communication and go back to normal because you’re going to be sitting up talking to your old friends who are probably talking about people, because broke people always talk about people. They love to talk about people; they really do. Middle-class people like to talk about goals: «I’m going to get my credit score up to 800. I’m going to get it to 700. I’m going to get it up.»
Middle-class people like to talk about goals, so they can go out and spend more money. Rich people talk about ideas and innovation so that their money can make money for them. So now you’ve got a problem because you’re speaking a language that your group doesn’t like. You’re talking about a business plan; they’re talking about a booty call. I know I’m 67, and anything comes out now, and now you’re sitting up forcing yourself to laugh because you are shrinking to fit into a sociological construct that does not accommodate the height of what you think. It’s not that you can’t have raw moments and laugh and act a fool, but you can’t spend the entire afternoon on Silly Boulevard because you’ve got stuff to do.
How many people in here have something to do? It is amazing; this verse is amazing. You should take it out of your Bible and frame it. It is amazing because Paul, formerly known as Saul, because of his religious pedigree going back into the very roots and foundations of King Saul from the Tribe of Benjamin, has come from aristocracy and notoriety. He is so fluent and so articulate that he writes the majority of the New Testament. We would not have an understanding of church without Paul. Christ birthed it, but Paul bathed it, clothed it, dressed it, educated it, organized it, implemented it—he was the COO of the Kingdom. He brought organizational structure to that creative thing that Christ birthed.
That’s who Paul is. Paul’s friends were as smart as Paul; he was accepted in the courts of theologians and scholars. He was known for his brilliance, and he counted it all as dung that he might win Christ. In other words, he was willing to lose the respect of his peers to embrace his beliefs. That is a huge test of character when you are lauded as being exceptional for something that your faith has pulled you away from. You have to choose: do you want to be accepted by them or do you want to follow the call of Him? That is conversion all by itself. I want you to understand the greatness of him. He went to places where the preaching was not easy; he went to the hard places. He went to Mars Hill and preached to people who didn’t believe in Jehovah and didn’t believe in Jesus.
He went there and ministered to them and withstood entire cities by himself. He got arrested, he got thrown in jail, he got ostracized. Paul is no wimp; that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Paul is tough. Paul is strong. Paul has a strong mind, a strong will, and a strong anointing. He preached the gospel until a man fell out of the window, broke his neck, and died, and Paul kept preaching, walked down the steps, raised him up, and finished his sermon. Paul is a hero of the faith. Don’t let anybody fool you about the Apostle Paul. You wouldn’t have any doctrine, you wouldn’t have any church hierarchy, you wouldn’t have any understanding of the second coming of Christ, you wouldn’t understand immortality, divine nature, justification, sanctification, or glorification without Paul. Alright?
You have no message. You have no message! And yet, in the midst of all this greatness, there is a rare moment—one of the few I can think of—where he indulges himself in the luxury of expressing a human part of himself. A human part of himself! Because it should be a rarity that you expose your humanity to people who follow you, because most of them cannot handle your humanity. You’re not there for therapy; you’re there to do your job. So stop going to work and being mad at your coworkers because they don’t want to hear about you and your mama. They want the report done, and you want to tell them how your husband got a girlfriend. That’s not going to work; we want the report done.
Go to your therapist. Oh, you’re going to get with me in a minute; I ain’t scared of you! Now, this is a rare moment where he lets us know— we talk about what he did—but this is a moment that tells us what it cost. Hear me: Achievers, overachievers, Alpha people, aggressive people, go-getters—people see what you do. Lord, what do you do? We love to make heroes and then destroy them. That’s part of the American culture—to build you up so we can watch you come down. We do it all the time throughout history. If I had time, I’d walk you through history and all the heroes we built up to unreasonable heights only to kill them because they weren’t what we called them. We like our heroes dead; then we name streets after them and highways and school buildings when they’re dead.
But when they’re living, we give them hell. Because the person being mentored by you sees what you did without seeing what it cost you, they have a tendency to want to be you, underestimating what it takes to be you. They’ll fool around and get your outfit, your clothing, your body language, and your image, but until they get your grit, your gut, your tenacity, and your stamina, they’ll never be like you. There’ll be a cheap copy of a great original. He introduces to the church a doctrine of suffering—a doctrine of suffering. Write that down: a doctrine of suffering. There is in the Scriptures a doctrine of suffering. It is not talked about because it’s not popular; people don’t want to come out and hear about suffering.
They’d rather fake a smile and give you a phony religious, «I’m blessed in the Lord, thank God.» We’d rather give you one of those slogan statements than tell you the truth: «My daughter and I haven’t spoken in 15 years, and I’ve been mad at my mama and don’t know who my dad is.» We don’t go into that; «I’m blessed in the Lord, thank God.» It’s a camouflage suit that we wear not to admit we are human. In this moment, Paul indulges himself in defining that you cannot—this is really going to make you leave—you cannot be a Christian and not suffer. I’m sorry; I’m sorry; I’m sorry to burst your bubble. You’re going to suffer whether you drive a Mercedes or a Volkswagen. You’re going to suffer whether you’re in a Ford pickup truck or in a limousine. You are going to suffer.
Money doesn’t mean that you won’t suffer. Being beautiful doesn’t mean you won’t suffer. Being fit doesn’t mean you won’t suffer. Having more degrees than a thermometer doesn’t mean you won’t suffer. Graduating from Yale doesn’t mean you won’t suffer. Going to Harvard or Howard doesn’t make any difference; you are still going to suffer. The intellectual and the illiterate have one thing in common: if you live long enough, you will experience seasons of loneliness, seasons of agony, seasons of distrust, and seasons of uncertainty. Most of the time, if you are wise, you will shut your mouth and keep it to yourself. But because he is teaching us a doctrine, he lets us know that the elixir that makes him able to comfort you comes from the suffering that he endured, whereby he was comforted.
Now he comforts you out of the excess overflow of that which was given to him. In short, God lets you go through horrible things, so you can help people who are going through horrible things. If you have not gone through a horrible thing, shut up! I know all you people mean well who comfort us when our parents die, but if both your parents are living, just bake a cake and shut up because you do not know what that feels like until it happens to you. So you’re going to say something stupid because you haven’t paid the price for the wisdom that it takes to have that discussion with somebody. And sometimes it’s not even a discussion; it’s just a presence in the room because everybody loses something different and handles grief in various ways. Okay?
So just because you had a baby, don’t write a book on parenting just yet. Write a book on changing diapers. Some life experiences will make you a professor in the University of Suffering: the doctrine of suffering. But the deviation and outcome of suffering are also expressed in his ability to enhance his depth of understanding of who God is. What does that mean? God reveals Himself in suffering. Read all the Greek and Hebrew and Swahili you want, but there are some things you will not know about God until you are suffering, until you are in pain, until you have nobody else to talk to, until you are backed into a corner and shoved to the wall, and God shows up.
Paul says, «When my hour of trial came, no man stood with me; notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me.» That’s what makes you love Him when everybody else walks out the door and He says, «I got you, dog. I got your back. I’m still with you.» That’s what makes you want to praise Him! I feel like breaking out in a dance. So the text begins with what he received before discussing what it cost. He has received God, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Father of mercy and the God of all comfort. He received all of that before, as a result of going through what he endured, but he tells us about the reward before he tells us about the cost. Go back to where you were. He tells us about the reward before he tells us about the cost.
We see the reward, but we don’t see the cost. You don’t know the cost of the war in my bowl. You smell the aroma, but you don’t know what it costs me. You don’t know what it cost First Lady to be First Lady. You don’t know what it cost her. Back when she used to wear hats all the time, everybody would come in with hats; it ain’t in the hat, baby. It ain’t that simple. We’d be having those hats on. Now she used to have hats as big as me; I got to take out insurance on the hat sitting up in the closet. But the hat doesn’t bring you through the storm. The hat doesn’t bring you through the test. The hat doesn’t bring you through the trial. The grit, the stamina, the stability, the anchor, the fight back—that’s what brings you through the test!
Glory to God, I feel a praise about to break loose in this place! What it cost him, I move on; what it cost him happened in Asia Minor. I looked and looked and looked, trying to find out what happened in Asia Minor. The Scriptures do not tell us, historians do not tell us, Josephus doesn’t tell us. There is some speculation that some of the adversity he went through in Ephesus is what he’s referring to. Some scholars reduce it down to that because Paul completely changed the economy of Ephesus by preaching Jesus until Diana was overthrown, and the silversmiths who made money off of Diana hated him because he put them out of business. That’s why he says, «Remember Alexander the coppersmith, because he did me much evil.»
Some people will try to kill you because your ministry is affecting their ambitions and goals, and they will sabotage you and try to take you out. For Paul to still remember Alexander when he was dying, he went through some horrible stuff. But whatever it was, the metrics say: this is beyond my strength. I do not have the capacity within myself to endure this pain. I am pressed above measure. I despair of life itself. I don’t think you hear that! I despair of life itself! I just don’t want to be here anymore. The sentence of death, he says, is now working in us.
This is June, and it’s Father’s Day. Not only is it Father’s Day and my birthday month—just thought I’d throw that in there; it wasn’t in the sermon; it’s not in the notes, but I just thought I’d mention it in case anybody, you know—it is men’s mental health month. So in Greek, there’s a separation between suffering and affliction. In Greek, the word «pathos» speaks to suffering and can be brought about by pressure coming from outside circumstances—situations that push you into a corner, and you have to take it. They downsize, and you can’t get another job; you’re either overqualified for this job or underqualified for that one. And there you are, doing something that’s menial, and there’s pressure, pressure, pressure on your body, in your life.
Emotions, uh, in your limbs, in your joints. Pressure affects your body; pressure affects your knees, pressure affects your elbows, your legs, your hips, your joints, your brain. The calcium deposits in your brain are affected by pressure, and some of us are under pressure, and we handle it like this. So when Paul mentioned suffering, he is speaking from the Greek word «pathos,» which refers to suffering or a negative experience; generally, it denotes an outward experience. When he uses the word «affliction,» the word «affliction» in Greek has a completely different meaning from «pathos,» because the word «affliction» is «phthonos,» which deals with how you handle what happens outside, the internal combustion inside of you that results from what happens outside of you. Do you hear what I’m saying?
Come on, fellas; talk to me. You didn’t say anything; your face didn’t change expressions. But the outer pressure is over, yet the «theopus» is still there; the inner crisis level is still there, so much that he despaired of life. In other words, I’ll say it like Dr. McKenzie says, Bishop McKenzie: «trouble doesn’t last always, but trauma can.»
So, you survived Asia Minor, but there is a residue of pressure that collects inside the human soul. If pressure were to come into water and we were to open our mouths and let it out, we would all drown. Since his father’s day, if the men who are sitting here saying nothing, looking straight ahead, could verbalize emotions fluently, they could spew out enough to drown the room. When you ask what he’s thinking about and he says he’s fine, he’s lying; he just doesn’t want to drown you in the agony that he paid to be who he was or that he’s trying to pay to be who he wants to be. He may not have arrived yet, because sometimes the bill comes before the merchandise. Y’all don’t hear what I’m saying; you’re paying for a level you haven’t even reached yet, and you can’t understand why the enemy hates you like this.
The enemy is not fighting you over where you are; he’s fighting you over where you’re going and what’s about to come next in your life. I don’t know who I’m helping, but I’m about to help somebody. There’s no way in the world the devil would be fighting you like this for where you’re at. But because he believes in you more than you believe in you, he has sent a giant against a child. Why would you send a giant against a child if there were not a king in this kid? There’s a king somewhere inside of you. I don’t care where they lock you up; I don’t care where they put you.
If you’ve got a king in you, Joseph, the jail can’t hold you. I want every man who thinks he has something down inside of him to holler at your boy right now. I can’t tell you about the women that passed over me for a better deal, and the better deal ended up working for me. Because you can be a king and look like a peasant at the time that they met you. So this notion of trying to marry somebody on your level can be quite deceptive, because we cannot be at your level, which, by the way, you aren’t as high as you think you are today. And in 10 years from now, you could be someone whose autograph you want. «Can I have your autograph?» Because some of us are late bloomers, but something is about to happen in our lives, and we know something is about to happen in our lives because of the inner turmoil that we carry deep down inside. I want to hear you; I want to hear you talk back to me. I–I—this is for the women too, but I’m aiming at the men.
Make some noise if you still believe in yourself. Paul wrote most of the New Testament. I’ve got a whole list of the books of the New Testament that he wrote; it’s 13 in total that he has written. He wrote the book of Romans; he wrote the book of First Corinthians; he wrote the book of Second Corinthians; he goes on, he wrote Galatians; he wrote Ephesians; he wrote Philippians; he wrote Colossians; he wrote First Thessalonians; he wrote Second Thessalonians; he wrote First Timothy; he also wrote Second Timothy; he wrote Titus; and he wrote Philemon. If you take all that out of your New Testament, how much do you have left?
So, wait; the dude who spent the least time with Jesus, the guy who had a questionable right to be an apostle, contributes more than all other people. That’s the problem with people who have close proximity to you; they get used to you, and they don’t really appreciate you. And somebody who longs to have an experience with you can take one moment on the Jericho Road, and it’ll turn their whole life around because they value your time, your energy, your experience, and what you bring to the table. Somebody—hey, I got it, for one moment he shows us that he did all of that with a cloud behind him, with a sentence of death working in him. Without Paul, we would not know that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord.
Without Paul, we wouldn’t know that if this earthly house or tabernacle should be dissolved, we have another building eternal in the heavens, whose builder and maker is God. We would not know that without Paul. We would not know that God, who quickens the dead, shall also quicken your mortal body. Without Paul, we would not know, «Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How can we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?» Without Paul, we wouldn’t know, «Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye. The dead in Christ shall rise first, and they which are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet him in the midair.»
Without Paul, we would not understand, «Great is the mystery of godliness; for God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world and received up into glory.» Without Paul, we wouldn’t know, «I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.» Without Paul, we would not know, «Nothing shall separate me from the love of God; neither life nor death, nor powers, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come.» Without Paul, we would not know, «I know a man, whether I in the body or in the spirit I cannot tell, who went up into the third heavens and saw things that were not lawful to be uttered.»
Without Paul, we would not understand that «I desired to give you spiritual things, but because you’re carnal, I had to give you milk when I wanted to give you meat, because you were not ready to discern the things of God.» Without Paul, we would not understand the great mysteries that if we leave this mortal body, we would wear a crown filled with jewels that is laid up for those who finish righteously. Without Paul, we would not understand that «he gave some apostles, some prophets, some pastors, some teachers, some evangelists for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, till they all come into the unity of the faith.» Without Paul, we would not understand that «the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your heart and mind.» Without Paul, we would not understand, «And you hath he quickened who were dead in the trespasses of sin.»
Without Paul, we would not understand the true meaning of what it means to be a praise and a worshiper of God, to be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Jesus Christ. Without Paul, we wouldn’t understand that no weapon formed against us will prosper. Paul demonstrates for us an understanding of the goodness of God, the strength of God, the power of God, the glory of God, the plan of God, the strategy of God, the might of God, the force of God, the intellectualism of God, the ability of God, the immutability of God, the sovereignty of God, the omniscience of God, the omnipresence of God, and the omnipotence of God. Without Paul, somebody give him a praise like you know who he is; praise him like you know your God sits on the circle of the earth, like your God has all power in his hand, that heaven is his throne, and Earth is his footstool.
Praise him like he’s the lily of the valley; praise him like he’s the bright and morning star; praise him like he’s a doctor in a sick room; praise him like he’s a lawyer in a courtroom. Praise him because he’s able to do exceeding abundantly above all you may ask or think; praise him like you know he’s God; praise him like he can raise the dead; praise him like he can make a way where there is no way; praise him like all things are possible to him that believes; praise him like he’s the rose of Sharon; praise him like he’s the bright and morning star; praise him like he’s your shield, and praise him like he’s your buckler; praise him like he’s your El; praise him like he’s more than enough; praise him like he’s Jehovah Rapha—he heals all your diseases.
Praise him like he’s sufficient! I’m on a rescue mission this morning; I came to be an EMT this morning. I came to resurrect all of you who have death chasing you and feel like your life is over, and the pressure on the inside is combustible, and you’re about to implode, and you can’t talk to anybody, and you can’t tell anybody. Well, I’m coming to get you. I’ve got a warrant for your arrest; come out with your hands up! We got to talk about this. Put my graphs up on the screen; we need to discuss this. You’ve got to understand here are the suicide rates per 100,000 people among men and women of varying ethnicities in America. White men lead the charge at 27,4%. White men have a death wish as opposed to 8,8% of white women who want to die by committing suicide. There’s 12,2% of black men as opposed to 2,9% of black women.
Sisters, give me a minute; I know you’ve had it hard. I know you’ve been through hell; I know you’ve faced all kinds of trouble; I know you’ve been treated unjustly, unfairly, mistreated, and ostracized. But explain this death rate: explain why 12,9% of black men want to die compared to 2,9% of black women. Can we please have a moment? Can you step outside of being so excited about getting your power back? I’m glad for you; I’m happy for you; I’ve clapped for you; I’m with you. But what about your son? What about your brother? What about your daddy? What about your husband? How can you expect us to be good husbands when we want to die?
12,9% of people you sleep with want to die while making love, while wanting to die making money, while wanting to die writing books, while wanting to die singing hip-hop, while wanting to die holding everything inside, getting no relief? We don’t even talk to each other. Yes, sir, yes, sir. Native Americans lead the charge at 33,8% per 100,000 who want to die compared to 1,9% of women. Sisters, listen: the pandemic isn’t gone; it’s just not COVID. We are losing more people of all races and socioeconomic classes to suicide than to COVID. Don’t you care, fellas? Living with this bottled-up pressure, right?
Years and years of agony on the inside are killing us. If you’re not suicidal, it’s giving you cancer; it’s causing inflammation in your body; it’s got you on dialysis; it’s got you in pain; it’s got you self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, pornography, and anything else you can find just to get a minute of happy—just two minutes of happy. We will do anything, and it’s not because we’re freaks; it’s because we are empty and dying and suffering without cure or hope or medication or encouragement or anything.
And on Father’s Day, let me have this; I’ve lost for 30 years. Can I have one day? Can I have one day? Our young men want to die over what they didn’t get—imposter syndrome, thinking they’re not enough, thinking they don’t have what it takes, having never been validated properly in their lives. Our middle-aged men are trying to be fathers while they still have little boys who need to be sons, and it’s happening simultaneously. Our older men are shocked by age, can’t believe they’re getting old; don’t mention it, hide it as best they can. But it’s not on your itinerary; it wasn’t on your schedule; it was not in your purview. You knew you would get older, but you didn’t know what old would do to you. And to all of that, you sayuntil they find you in a car or in a tub of water with your wrists slashed open or your head blown off. If the guy who wrote the Bible despaired of life itself, don’t tell me the guys who read the Bible don’t go through this stuff too.
Now, I’m going to ask you for something just for a minute, and it’s hard to get from you because you’ve been betrayed, and you have betrayed. You have been hurt, and you have hurt; you have received pain, and you have inflicted pain, and trust doesn’t come easy. You’re suspicious of everybody and everything. Be suspicious of me all you want; I’m suspicious of you too. Anytime you try to tell me you’re Superman, I’m suspicious of you wear glasses, Clark Kent, so I’m going to ask you for something this Father’s Day: take off your cape and your boots for a minute. Take off defending yourself against everything that everybody says about you.
Let them think whatever they want to think about you. I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t want to bury you. I don’t want to explain to your son that it wasn’t that you didn’t love him, but you were so miserable that you ate yourself to death, blew your brains out, or fooled around 'til you got AIDS—not because you were wild, but because you wanted out. It may not even be a conscious thing where you have verbalized to yourself that you are that empty and that bankrupt. The last time you tried to tell somebody how you really felt, they left, and they taught you to shut up. But just because you shut the door on a bomb doesn’t mean it won’t blow up. You know what’s killing us? We don’t have intimacy. Nobody sees into me, so I’m lonely in a crowd or alone.
I laugh and joke, and we talk, and we say we’re friends, and I almost talked to you, but I didn’t. I wanted to call you back, but I didn’t. I wanted to tell you that your love gives me life, but I was worried about what you would think of me, and I said nothing at all. I wanted to tell my wife I’m tired, but for fear of losing my Superman jacket, I just said nothing and turned over and went to sleep. I’m tired of moving everybody, carrying everybody, making it happen for everybody, opening doors for everybody, and then when I need a door open, they say, «Oh, he just got it like that, he can just do that.» They don’t understand it’s not that I can’t buy the watch, but the fact that you bought the watch.
I noticed that I call everything in my closet that was given to me by the name of the person who gave it to me. Absolutely, because their giving to me acknowledges that I’m a person and that I matter, and that’s more than money. Do you understand me? I’m going to ask you for something for a minute. If Paul took the risk to say that he despaired of life, and sometimes it was hard to keep writing and keep moving on, this Sunday morning, I want every man who can relate to what I said, from the balcony to the floor, from the youngest to the oldest, black, white, or brown.
If you don’t believe the Bible, believe the stats. We’re dying. We’re dying. You’re watching online—you matter, you matter. You love me, I love you, love Jesus; he loves us. You hated on me, I forgive you. You didn’t have anything but hate to give 'cause all you ever got was hate, and you became good at hate and you don’t know how to love, and I understand that, so you don’t have to apologize. I get it; I understand it. But I want something to happen to you this morning that’s real, meaningful, personal, and private, that goes with you and stays with you and keeps you going when you have those moments and those thoughts. You don’t have them all the time, but every now and then you have a thought: What is the quickest way for me to get out of this?
You have thoughts on the inside that, if anybody knew that you thought what you thought, they’d be scared to death. Your mama had you, and she doesn’t know you. If we wouldn’t have people making bombs and guns in the bedroom or the house, and the parents don’t even know it. If being related to people equated to knowing people, you can be related to people and not know people, and the truth of the matter is that most of you don’t. Nobody fully knows you. You’ve got a piece you show over here, a piece you show over there, a piece you show over there, and a piece you show over there. How are you going to behold if you are in pieces? How can you behold if you are separated in pieces? And we’re grown, sometimes gray-haired men, and we’re still aching inside. We’re here at the altar today because it’s Father’s Day, and He is the Father of Mercy.