TD Jakes - Blessed by the Blood
We have come down to the 13th chapter, and then the writer carefully notes to us that Jesus died without the camp. And I want you to take the time to understand that Jesus did not do all he did so that he could get into a building, he did everything that he did so he could get out. Because if you constrict him in four walls, you have imprisoned him. It was never his will to be trapped in a building. You live in houses, but God didn't need to have a house to live in, because earth is his footstool and heaven is his throne. He's too big to be held in what you built.
And every now and then God will send something like this to shake you from thinking it's about a building. It's not about a building. It's not about a building. It never has been about a building. We built the building for you, we didn't build a building for God. God don't need a seat. He sits on the circle of the earth. He has all power in his hand. You can't build no place for God to sit down, he's high and lifted up.
See, the problem with the church today is that our God is too small. If you lift him up the way he's supposed to be, your problem'll shrink. He's bigger than all of your doubts, he's bigger than all your fears, and bigger than all of your reservation. He's high and lifted up. He holds all power in his hand. Everything belongs to him. He can order all the angels and all of them have got to move. Not only can he speak to the angels, he can command the demons. Come out, and they gotta come out. I'm talking about your God. But I don't want us to miss his truth about him dying outside of the camp.
One, you must realize that he loves Jerusalem. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you, as a hen doth her chicks, but ye would not". He wailed over Jerusalem. He weeped over Jerusalem. But when he got ready to die, he died outside of Jerusalem. You must realize that the writer took the time to let you know that he died outside of the camp so you wouldn't spend all your life trying to get into... He stepped out of the incarceration of religiosity.
See, religion will always incarcerate, relationship will always liberate. He wrestled with the religious. The religious people were the ones who persecuted him. The sinners were not the one who persecuted him, it was the religious people who persecuted him because his relationship was an indictment against their religion. He said, you pray often so that you can impress the people with big swelling words and long speeches, he said, but if you really wanna pray go into your secret closet and pray. And see, religion never wants to go into secret, it always wants to be opulent, it wants to be out front, it wants to be in front of the people, it wants to be traditional, it wants to teach its traditions.
But the Bible says your traditions have made the Word of God of no effect. You're more concerned about what they got on than what they got in 'em. Oh, I'mma mess with you this morning, I'mma mess with you a little bit. You so busy tryin' to see do they have on makeup and earrings, God is tryin' to see how their heart is. Religion will always be embarrassed in the face of relationship, 'cause religion is all you have to hold on to when you don't have relationship. The fact that the writer tells us that he died outside of the camp is an indictment against the camp. It is an indictment against the camp. He said, I'm through with you, you can't hold me no way, I'm too big to fit in your walls. I'm too big to fit in your laws.
So I eat on the Sabbath day, I heal people when I'm not supposed to. I let the woman with the issue of blood touched me, I never rebuked her. And the law said she shouldn't touch me. I'm tryin' to show you, you can't hold me with that stuff. I didn't come to honor it, I came to fulfill it. When you fulfill it you're finished with it. Y'all don't hear what I'm saying. I'm getting ready to take you into another dimension. Are you ready for this? Where I'm getting ready to take you is beyond your walls. You need to get over your walls. You got too many walls. You got too many walls. You got too many walls.
First we gotta read a Scripture, and then we gotta say a prayer, and then the deacons got to stand up front, and then we gotta wear white, and then we got to... shut up! They're having all this big discussion about whether we should have church or not, or whether we should be in a building or not. They're talkin' about, what would Jesus do? I don't know, 'cause Jesus never saw church. Jesus never saw a pew, Jesus never saw a stained-glass window, Jesus never heard a choir sing, Jesus never heard a praise team, Jesus never saw a church. When they started building churches, Jesus had been gone for over 100 years. Jesus saw the desert as a church. Jesus saw preaching on Peter's boat as a pulpit.
All of this stuff you made don't have nothin' to do with the power of God. I don't need a collar on to preach, I don't need a suit on to preach, I don't need a tower on to preach, I could preach in my shower. The stuff I got is on the inside. It's on the inside. He died outside of the camp, shattered the walls of religiosity, shattered the norms of those that thought this was sacred and that was sacred, shattered the routines and the religious routines and rituals of people, he shattered all of that, that's why they hated him. That's why they sought to kill him, because he shattered their theology, he shattered their traditions, he shattered their ideas, he shattered what they believed in, he shattered their concept, he shattered their routine.
I'm talkin' about God. God is a shatterer! He's a disrupter. And every now and then, God will send something that disrupts your order. I believe the reason we're in the condition we're in right now 'cause we got, as my grandmother would say, too big for our britches. It's not going to move 'til I say it moves, I'm going to control everything. No, the Democrats is right, no, the Republicans is right, everybody's arguing. God said, let me shut you all up. I'll send something you can't legislate. I'll send something you're not ready for. I'll send something that brings you to your knees. Oh, you don't want to worship me? I will bring you to your knees. I will make you have to believe me. I will make you have to serve me. I will make you have to call on my name. I will blow up your parties, I will come on your cruise ships, I will disrupt your senate, I will break up your courtroom. I'm God! I'm God! I'm God! I'm God! And beside me there is no other.
That's who we're talking about morning. We're talkin' about Jesus, who died without the camp. He died without the camp. He went outside of all of that so that we might have, this is a big word, access. He died outside of the camp, preacher, so we can have access. If he'd have died in the wall I couldn't get in. He died outside the wall so that the heathen and the whore, the hypocrite and the liar, the fornicator and the fictitious, the whoremonger and the ill repute, to be able to get to him. If he'd have died inside the wall, I couldn't have reached him. But he put himself out, he bled out.
Look at somebody say, he bled out. I'mma take some time with this, this morning. I feel like teaching and singing. Look at your neighbor and say, something's gonna happen in here this morning, something's gonna happen, something's gonna happen, something's gonna happen. Something's gonna happen on your couch. Something's gonna happen in your kitchen. Something's gonna happen while you're tryin' to make coffee. Something's gonna happen while you're sitting on the side of the bed. Something's gonna happen while you're stuck in your car. Something's gonna happen! God!
He died outside the camp so that we would have access. No lambs were to be killed outside of the camp. No lambs were to be offered up outside of the camp. There was a specific place for a lamb to be offered up. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was a burnt offering. A burnt offering is a sin offering. He died for the sins of the world, but he didn't die where his predecessors died. Every lamb who was a foreshadow of Jesus, died on an altar on a sacrifice inside the camp. He said, they were shadows of me. The former things are passed away. To distinguish himself from his placeholders, he died outside of the camp.
In theater, when they're setting up for movie scene, they don't have the actors play the roles while they're in set-up. So they have setups, these are people who are acting like you, who are posted and stand in your position so you don't have to use your creative energy during a setup. When everything is set up, they don't bring the stars out 'til everything's set up. When they're set up and they're ready to roll, then they bring the star out. Oh, y'all don't hear me. All of those lambs and all of those bullocks and all of those goats, they were stand-ins. But when that which was perfect has come, that which was in part is done away with. When the stage was set and everything was in order, that's when they brought out the star. And he says that he died outside of the camp, watch this, so that we would have no continuing city. That means that if we're gonna walk with God, we gotta be fluid.
Your praise is your offering. By him, therefore, let us offer. Now let's bring that offer. Offer means I don't have to accept it. You see? Offer me your pocketbook, just the whole thing, just offer it to me. Yeah, just offer it. I don't want it. She offered it, I didn't accept it. It is possible to offer something that's not accepted. By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise. I'm not sure it's going to get there, I'm sure it's gotta come by him, but I am offering him the sacrifice of praise. Wait a minute. The sacrifice of praise?
Are we in Hebrews 13, but back in 10, 9, 8, and 7, the sacrifice was bullocks and goats. That says my praise is my goat, my praise is my bullock, my praise is my lamb. My praise is a living thing. That's why I said, let everything that have breath. That's why the prophet said, the grave cannot praise you. Because you are forbidden to offer a dead animal to God. You have to offer life to life. You have to offer, it has to be a living sacrifice, a living sacrifice. By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise.
Now, praise is a sacrifice. Okay? Not all praise is, but what he will accept is the sacrifice of praise. If it don't hurt you, it don't move him. If it don't cost you something, it doesn't move him. So a lot of this lip service that we're giving doesn't move God, because our lips are saying somethin' that our hearts don't validate, we're not really connected to it, and sometimes it doesn't move God because it's just easy. What really moves God is when you're broken and you praise him, you're hurting and you praise him, you're going through a tough time and you praise him. Your flesh says, stay at home and you praise him.
Any time you offer him the sacrifice of praise, Jesus offers it up to the Father because he's touched by how you feel about it. Anything you give God, something that you have no emotional attachment to, like you see people come to the altar, take all my junk, Lord, I don't want it no more, take my cigarettes, take my cursing, take all this stuff away, Lord, take it away. Take it away, Lord, take it away. Just take all this stuff, I don't want it, take it. Take it away, Lord. No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want it, he don't want it either. What really blesses God is when you give him something you still have an attachment to.
Oh, y'all ain't going with me. Y'all ain't going with me. Y'all ain't going with me, 'cause I'm about to get down deep into something. What really blesses God is not when you give something you don't love, but when you love something and you give it up to him. Like Abraham gave up Hagar. He loved her. Sarah put her out. It's easy for somebody to put out something they have no attachment to. But Abraham slept with her and held her, she carried his child. He'd heard her thoughts, her secrets, her tears, her fears. He was bond to the bondwoman. The sacrifice of praise. The one that got away. The no you said that you didn't even mean no. Being exiled into a situation that don't make you happy, but it's right. That is the sacrifice of praise.
And with your heart broken, and tears falling in the night that nobody can see, when you lay there with tears running down your cheeks and lift your hands and offer him the fruit of your lips. You can't have fruit without relationship. The fruit of your lips. What you had left when the relationship is over, that's fruit. You understand? Come on, come on, come on. That's fruit. And I can feel it in the room right now, that somebody knows what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about somebody that don't know. Somebody in this room knows what I'm talking about, to have to make tough decisions, and decisions that honestly you didn't really mean.
If you'd have done what you really meant to do, you'd have went in another direction. But by him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise. Not with bitterness, not with attitude, not with animosity, not with the anger, but with praise. The fruit of our lips. The fruit of our lips. Can I hone in on this just a minute? The reason that God wants you to praise him out of your mouth is because, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. You can dance, your feet can say one thing and your heart can say somethin' else. You can clap your hands and your mind be on what you're gonna cook when you get back home. But if you start talking out of your mouth, whatever's in your heart is gonna come out of your mouth.
And God says, I want to hear your heart be ventilated. We're living in a time now of stress and anxiety and emotional illness and mental depravity because we're all clogged up. We need what's in our heart to be ventilated out of our mouth. You're too quiet about how you feel, you're too quiet about what's going on inside of you, you're too quiet about what you deal with by yourself, you're too quiet about what you hold on the inside. Calling yourself being tough, calling yourself being masculine. That ain't masculine, it's unhealthy, it's detrimental, it's destroying you. It turns into cancers and diseases and frustrations and animosity and anger and aneurisms and Alzheimer's.
Some of y'all got Alzheimer's because you held everything in. When you open up your spirit to God and let out of your mouth and you begin to say, I love you, Lord, I love you anyway, I praise you, I praise you. I'm hurting, but I praise you. I'm lonely, but I praise you. I'm broken, but I praise you. God, I ache at night, but I praise you. I glorify you. I'm gonna stand right here and let the glory of the Lord come into my spirit. I dare you to try. I dare every one of you that's watching, every one of you that's mourning, every one of you that's suffering, every one of you that's dealing with something, every one of you that's going through something, I dare you to open up your mouth and let it out of your mouth.
I dare you right where you are. It might look silly, but right where you are lift your hands and open your mouth and let the praises of God, the praises of God, the praises, the praises, the praises come up out of your belly. Oh God! Oh God, oh God. I'll probably always have no continuing city. I'll never be understood the way I wanted to be understood, I'll never be held like I wanted to be held, I'll never get what I wanted to get, but if I never get it, God, as long as I got you I can make it. And I glorify you and I give you the praise and I magnify you and I thank you. And I refuse to get to this stage in my life and be miserable and disgruntled and angry with everybody and vindictive and tryin' to get even. I lift my hands and I open my mouth and I give you the praise. I give you the praise, God. I give you the praise, God. I give you the praise, God. I give you the praise, God.
That's why I'm telling you he bled out. He bled out so you could get in. He bled out so you could have access. He bled out so that he could hear your cry. He bled out so the guilty could come to the cross. He bled out so you could have access to come and call upon his name. He bled out for you. He shed his blood for you. He hemorrhaged for you. His blood came streaming down. He died within your reach. His blood is falling right on you right now, right on your brokenness, right on your frustration.
I speak to every brokenhearted mother, he bled out for you. He bled out for you, Mama. If the kids don't come, if they don't honor you, and one of 'em's locked up in jail, if one of 'em's dead, he bled out for you. He bled out. Nobody understands how you feel as a mama, nobody understands how you feel as a daddy. But he bled out. He bled outside the camp so you could go to him at two o'clock in the morning and touch the hem of his garment and be made holy. He bled out for you. He bled out. He bled out for you. He bled out. He bled out. He bled. He bled. You don't have to lie, you don't have to fake it, you don't have to pretend. You can come boldly to the throne of grace.
And let me tell ya something, if you've come he'll hear you. If you come he'll hear ya. If you call on him he'll answer you. If you call on him he'll respond to you. I dare you to do like Hannah and act like a drunk woman and get in the presence of God and let the Holy Ghost touch your heart. I dare you to open your mouth this Sunday morning and give your heart to God. Whatever's been on ya, whatever's been on your nerves, whatever had you upset,
I dare you to open your mouth. The devil don't want you to open your mouth because the power of life and death is in the tongue. The power of life and death is in your mouth. Lift your hands and open your mouth and give your God the sacrifice. Oh y'all playin' with me. Give your God the sacrifice of praise. Y'all playing. Give your God the sacrifice of praise. I don't care what I look like, I don't care what I got on, I don't care if I mess up my makeup, I don't care if I mess up my hair. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Open wide your mouth.