The Inescapable Role of Service – Bishop T.D. Jakes
The Inescapable Role of Service
When you look through the world’s eyes, it’s easy to think service is for the weak and worthless. “Submission” is viewed as a dirty word.
Many lust for power instead of caring for people. But Jesus showed us what true service is. By emptying Himself to become human and die for our sins, God the Son exemplified the strength and confidence it takes to serve. So let’s change our attitudes about service! Let the Spirit of God make you strong and secure enough to serve others. It’s no good to be a lion when God is seeking to bless lambs.
This morning, I want to talk to you from the subject, the inescapable role of service.
The inescapable role of service. You can’t get around it.
Been a capable role of service. Go to Philippians chapter 2 verse 4 through 11.
I’m gonna read it in the Amplified Bible because I love how the Amplified Bible takes truth and just just amplifies it in such a way that your understanding is increased because this text is rather complex It is self explanatory in many ways and amplified by them.
So I chose that way to present it this morning when you have it saved, man.
You gotta have it because we we’re gonna put it on the screen for all you people who fake it and keep fighting Philippians.
We save you from being a liar when we put it on the screen.
I got it. I got it over in Matthew faking it there.
Listen carefully.
Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others.
Have this same attitude in yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus.
Look to him as your example in selfless humility.
Who, although he existed in the form and unchanging essence of god, as one with him, possessing the fullness of all the divine attributes the entire nature of deity did not regard did not regard, did did not regard equality with god a thing to be grasped or asserted as if he did not already possess it or was afraid of losing it.
He wasn’t intimidated. But emptied himself, he felt safe enough, strong enough to become vulnerable enough to empty himself without renouncing or diminishing his deity, but only temporarily giving up the outward expression of the the divine equality and his rightful dignity by assuming the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men He became completely human, but was without sin being fully god and Uh, there you have it.
Afterwards, he was found in terms of his, terms of his outward appearance as a man for a divinely appointed time 33 years.
He humbled himself still further.
If that were not low enough, he went down lower than that by becoming obedient, to the father, to the point of death, even the death on a cross.
For this reason.
Also, because he obeyed and so completely humbled himself god has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name the name.
The name. The name, which is above every name.
So that at the name of sees us.
Every knee shall bow.
Uh, oh, in submission of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
And that every tongue will confess and openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is lord sovereign god to the glory of god, the father.
Can you say, man?
Let’s pray while we’re standing up under the banner, the canopy of his word, the auspices of his deity.
The transparency of this humanity.
You are covered under the cloud of his divine power and omnipotence.
Father god in the name of Jesus. Let the word be made flashing us today.
Not just something that we read or studied or heard or listened to politely, but let it take on flesh in us today.
Let it become tangible. Let it become material. Let it become maternal.
Let it become matter in us let it become physical in us until the nature of Christ becomes the habits of men in Jesus’ name we pray somebody’s child, amen.
Yeah. You may be seated. I got in about midnight and got in the bed about one that’s landed from Virginia.
Determined to be here this morning.
Because I’m on assignment.
I’m on a mission.
And it’s a tough mission because I am I am fighting the galing winds of the sociological push that is sent on us today to undermine the spirit of humility, which is supposed to perpetuate itself in the children of god.
Words like Servant Hood are not popular today.
Even we ourselves have a leadership conference but we’ve never had a follower conference.
I I’ve never had a follower call.
I don’t know anybody that’s having a servant conference because who would come because people are attracted to the idea of leadership not servitude.
But number 1, if everybody’s leading, who’s following.
And so we all like to think of ourselves in a certain light because we don’t want the vulnerability of not being number 1.
So if you wanna wreck a church real quick, use something like something like I’m the 1.
Out of 8,000,000,000 people on the planet, you the 1.
We like to think of ourselves in that light because we have been taught to be enamored By success, consequently, servinthood is unpopular even with children.
I know I sound old, but I grew up in an era where the children were the dishwasher.
I heard somebody say their mama didn’t have no dislocation.
My mama had 5. 3. I got it. 5. Yeah. Yeah. We were the dishwasher.
Servin hood was in bread and the nature of how we were raised.
Now your little Udi booty is too cute.
I’m alerting to sodas, Mommy, and we are not taught to be servants.
Words like submission are are are the disdain for the word submission has exceeded cursing words.
You don’t believe me.
Get on get on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram and say something about submission and watch everybody beat you up.
Caregivers aren’t seen often in a positive light, disdain for it.
Nobody wants to give care. Everybody wants to receive care.
There is today a bloodlust for power.
In almost every area of our society, we have gone nuts for power.
Nobody’s for people anymore. They want power. They wanna make moves.
They wanna be movers and shakers from corporations to marriage.
Everybody’s fighting for power. Nobody’s submitting. The husbands aren’t submitting.
The wives aren’t submitting. The children aren’t submitting. Nobody’s submitting because submission is not popular.
And everybody’s in a fight to prove to the other one that I’m the 1.
So in that fight, we end up with no one.
Oh, I’m gonna mess with you today.
I didn’t expect to get many 8 men’s. I’m I’m hoping for a few outages.
When you start talking about careers, people are only interested in seeking protection so that they can climb the ladder, in corporations, in businesses.
Everybody’s trying to get higher. How how can I go? What promotions are available? What can I do next?
I wanna go everybody wants to go up. Nobody wants to go down. Everybody wants to be higher.
Everybody wants to be bigger. Everybody wants to be greater.
And no matter what method we choose, whether it’s the best look at the best dress, the best style, the best, this, the best that, the most educated, the most intellectual, the most articulate Everybody’s trying to get it further along than the people beside them because all that is advertised to us is grandeur.
And opulence and accessiveness. And so here we are.
In a fight between political powers, between racists, between family members?
Yeah. Between genders? Yeah. It’s a fight. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed it or not.
It’s a war going on between men and women.
We used to like each other, wanna get with each other.
Now we’ve turned our guns on each other.
God help us to have some children because all in and and and the church is not exempt from this.
There is an insatiable desire amongst many even in the church for status, titles, and recognition.
And to get it, they’ll do anything.
Say anything, undermine anybody, kill your reputation, destroy your influence, go after you by enemies necessary, so that they can get to the top.
And I’m starting to wonder if there is any substantial difference between the church and the world because everybody is trying to get up.
Nobody’s trying to get down. Nobody’s trying to be low.
Even when we do the right things, we often do them for the wrong reasons.
I’m after you this morning.
We do right things for the wrong year.
To be sure of those who put others’ needs above their own often do the right thing, but they do it for the wrong reasons because they wanna medicate low self esteem.
And they do so to their own detriment.
They become people pleasers.
In the hopes that they will get something back from the people that they seek to please that validates their own existence they are self medicating their pain by false missions of humility because they think so little of themselves.
That they do the right thing, but it’s for the wrong reason.
It isn’t their service that is toxic. They give great service.
It is the motive of being people pleasers that is the problem.
The antithesis, however, is we have become so against being people pleasers that we no longer serve.
We seek only to be served.
We have this vision, this idea, this philosophy, that being served elevates us into positions of authority.
And so if we can’t have that, we would rather be alone. Didn’t serve anybody.
We would rather be lonely and alienated and go to bed every night hugging our pillow rather than to serve anybody.
And the children cannot learn how to serve because they cannot be what they do not see.
Are you hearing what I’m saying Somehow it has been made more significant in our minds to meet a ravenous need for acceptance.
This this this kind of good deeds and service giving, uh, it is fictitious. It’s phony.
It’s fraudulent. It it it it’s it’s it has a a negative motive behind it because it seeks grandeur by doing self-service in the spirit of manipulation.
This is an exercise in total futility because people will eventually come to see your kindness as weakness, they will use you till they use you up, and it still won’t elevate you to the place that you need to be.
I know I ought to get an amen right there.
Cermontu cannot be done for what you can get out of it for how you can be acknowledged or how you can be recognized or how you can be validated by it.
You cannot medicate, uh, a a a low self esteem of fear uh, a vulnerability by hiding your vulnerability by acting like you care about people, but you really don’t.
You really just wanna be seen in a certain light.
The real test is would you do it if nobody was looking?
Would you do it with the lights off and the camera’s gone?
Would you do it if the boss didn’t see I’m not worried about the people who serve in this church when I’m here.
I’m not worried about the people who come to church when I’m here.
I am suspect of people who only do it when I’m here.
You couldn’t be doing it for the right reason if you only do it when I’m looking.
I’m not worried about the staff member who performs well when seen.
And say they love you, but they really don’t love you because they’re really killing you because the only way they will do their job by which they get paid for all the time is when you’re looking.
I’m a set it off in here this morning.
Real servitude must come from a sincere place, an authentic place of strength.
I know you don’t associate servitude with strength, but you have to be strong to serve.
Uh, yeah. Yeah. I’m a shock you with this.
I know you think all the people who are serving or serving either because they’re ignorant or because they’re stupid or because they’re weak, and they should have got more this or more than that, or they should have been more ambitious or more degrees or more education or more this or that or the other, but you have to be strong to serve.
Do not allow the menial tasks that we do to blind you of the absolute strength it takes.
To give yourself away.
You have to have strength and you have to feel safe enough to become vulnerable enough to be of service to others.
And the reason some people will never serve is because they’re too weak to serve.
Because they’re afraid if they lay it down, they’ll never get it back.
So they would rather fight you for the position than serve you because they’re weak.
It’s really weakness.
I have learned over the years that arrogant people are the weakest people I have ever met.
They are arrogant because beneath that disguise, that’s why I want his camouflage, the be beneath his camouflage, and I liked it, and I think it’s cute.
But I gotta keep it 100.
But but but but but because somebody, I’m not the only one wearing camouflage in here.
It’s a whole lot of people wearing camouflage here.
With the false sense of importance because they don’t have the strength to serve.
You have to be strong to serve.
You have a have a sense of self and identity in order to be a good servant.
You have to know who you are.
If you don’t know who you are, you can’t lay down what you don’t know.
I don’t do it because I’m weak.
I serve because I’m strong. I’m here because I’m strong.
Just because I’m on a stage doesn’t mean I’m not serving.
See, see, you think getting into a higher position isn’t service.
That’s the problem. It’s like people who start companies because they’re lazy.
I’m gonna be an entrepreneur so I can I can sleep in in the morning?
You’re gonna be broke. You’re gonna starve to death.
Cause if you start a business, you’re gonna work twice as hard for half as much trying to pay the people, and you are the last one to get paid because you have to be strong enough to be the boss.
You gotta pay the cost to be the boss. Come on. Top back to me.
I wish you would. I’m ready for you.
So you have to feel safe.
And you have to be strong to serve.
And a lot of us don’t feel safe because we have been used or misused or abused.
And we have allowed the behavior of the recipient to change who we are as a person, to protect ourselves from somebody who is no longer present.
Somebody who is gone has disrupted your future over something they did in the past.
And now you are camouflaging your propensity to give your gift and your service and your time and your love into a false sense of arrogance because you’re too weak to be healed.
Because heal people can be vulnerable. Yes. Yes. Yes. It would.
Heal people can help people heal people conserve people.
Heal people understand that the only job in the kingdom is slave.
Why do you think in god’s green earth did Jesus on the last night of his life get up from the table, gird himself with a towel, stoop down on the floor and washed the feet of the people who were his disciples.
And then said, if I’m being lord, know how to serve, how much more on you to be able to serve.
And yet, you won’t give up your seat. Somebody sitting in my chair.
Jesus got out of his chair and washed other people’s feet But when I say you’re not a Christian, you get hot mad at me over a parking space.
Oh, let me get off of this, lord.
It ain’t going good, Jesus. It’s not going good because what I’m teaching about affects every area of your life, your peace, your happiness, your mental well-being, how you see yourself, how you relate to yourself, how you relate to your family, how you relate to your friends, your spouse, your coworkers, your laborers, has to come from a place of strip and safety where you do what’s got to be done, whether it’s in your job description or not, when you see something that needs to be done, You just jump in there and help get it done.
You’re not after the credit. You don’t need the recognition. You don’t need the glory.
You don’t need to be acknowledged.
You do it because it’s within your power to be of help to your fellow man because you love the lord like that.
And you are so blessed to be alive and blessed to be here that you don’t mind giving whatever service you can give to if I can help somebody as I pass along.
If I can help somebody in a word or so, Then my living would not be in vain.
So that means that all the camouflage is vanity.
All this fake strength, I see. I’m just strong. I’m just strong.
I’m just a strong person. And they can’t deal with me because I’m strong. No.
We can’t deal with you because you’re arrogant. We can’t deal with you because you’re nasty.
We can’t deal with you because you’re hateful. It’s not your degrees. That’s the problem is your attitude.
Somebody hurts you so bad.
That you don’t feel safe enough to serve.
And then you wonder why. You are so alone.
This camouflage is killing you.
It is so heavy. Because you act tough around everybody and go home and cry.
It would be easier to get healed into a place that we are not constantly fighting over who’s the boss and who’s the smartest and who’s the greatest and who’s the most talented and who can sing the best and who can preach the and who can do the it doesn’t matter.
The best preacher I ever heard is the one god was using.
I’m gonna say that again for the people in the back.
The best preacher I ever heard is the one that god was using, and he never uses the same person all the time.
And you’ve got to learn out whether you are up or down.
I can tell what kind of preacher you are how you act when you’re not preaching.
Because if you really love the word, you love the word. I don’t care who’s delivering the word.
If you only love the word when you got the mic, you don’t love the word.
If you only worship when you got the mic, You’re not a real worshiper.
A real worshiper will fall out in the floor even when somebody Being a capable role of service means that no matter how high up the ladder you go, all you run into is service.
The guy who drove into the airport last night said, thank you for your business.
I said, thank you for your service.
I got on the plane and laughed to myself.
He sees me as a customer and a client. That’s okay.
He thinks he’s serving me, but he doesn’t realize that he’s serving me so I can serve.
Because the only job available is service.
Are you of any?
Service, or are you like the tree that takes up space and draws water and takes up sunshine and produces no fruit?
And the Bible said, why come within the ground? Why are you taking up space if you’re not going to?
Why are you in this house if you’re not gonna serve?
I serve and nobody. I went to school too long to live, get out.
I’d let I’d rather live in a trailer with somebody who’s got some sense than to live in a mansion with somebody that I gotta come home and fight at a home, like I fight at work, I fight at church and fight everywhere.
I gotta have some place to leave my head.
You power tripping.
I just ask you for some coffee.
We got to fight over a cup of coffee.
I didn’t go to school all the easier to make your coffee, make your own coffee.
You mean you went to school all these years and you can’t make a cup of coffee?
You should go back to class.
You flunked I was in DC and I was in an elevator coming from a preaching engagement.
I was tired and headed back to my room. I’ve been giving service.
Uh, our team was on Elevator with me, and a stranger got on the Elevator we didn’t know.
His white guy in a pair of blue jeans, a t shirt tennis shoes.
And asked us where where we we were coming from because we, in our tradition, we church folk, we kinda dressed up.
He he thought maybe we’d been or something. I said, we came from church.
And the guy said, really? I said, yes. He said, what do you do?
I said, well, I’m a preacher. He said, you preach, I said, yes.
He said, uh, where is this at? I I would like to come. Uh, I said, really?
He said, yeah. I said, cool.
So I had one of the brothers said, well, it’s with me to slip one of the flyers because we had flyers back then up under the door so he would know where to come.
Didn’t think it really come, but I wanted to make sure that I had made the way.
Because that service that service didn’t matter who it was.
That was service. Best of my soul he came. He came to church at any time.
I did not know that he was the owner of what was in called the Atlantic monthly.
And it ended up leading to an invitation to me to for me to come and speak at the Aspen Institute of their Ideas Festival.
And to this day, and Jan is waving at me because she was there and she knows all about it.
To this day, I wonder what would have happened if I thought myself too high to give the man a flyer that I didn’t even know But in humbling my tire itself to make sure he still got a flyer, god gave me an opportunity I didn’t even know what the Aspen ideas festival was.
I didn’t know what Aspen was.
Let me be honest, if you don’t hear black people talking about asking, it’s just not where we go.
We go to New Orleans.
We’re going to Aspen, dear.
I I had to ask Jen. Where what is Aspen? She said, take it, crazy.
That’s a big deal, stand up, Chad. She’s been my publicist for years.
She my my literary agent for years. She said, take it. That’s a big deal. That’s that’s important.
You should take that engagement. I didn’t know what Aspen was. It was there that I met Colin Powell.
I spoke out to Allen Greenspan at the time.
And and and was interviewed by Bob Shaffer in front of a audience of thousands of people that started on an elevator.
Colin Powell was sitting on the front row.
I knew who he was, but I didn’t think he knew who I was. He probably didn’t.
I had never seen him before.
And afterwards, he struck up a conversation with me, and I thought, pinch yourself in both And, I mean, it wasn’t polite talking.
He was, like, really talking, like, really having to come out of the park, really.
You know, I didn’t wash my hands for about 6 weeks, we did.
We didn’t have COVID back then, so you could afford to just kinda Keep it real.
Later on, a relationship ensued, and we would text back.
We’ll email back and forth from time to time, and I took my oldest son to DC to to to meet him because I was writing uh, a book called mama made the difference.
And and I did I wanted to know who was your mama.
I know you’re you’re a general, 5 star general, but who’s your mama?
What what what what’s the story?
How’d you how’d you get to be He was he was born in April of 1937 in Harlem, but he he was he was His family was immigrants from Jamaica who snuck over here on a fruit boat.
In hopes of a better life and made it to New York, went to school.
He said, I lived in a day when my mama and her sisters raised me.
If you got a whipping from 1, you got a whipping from everybody.
Somebody know what I’m talking about.
And you had to pass by all your relatives’ houses to get to school, And then they would say, hurry up, or you gotta keep going, you gotta get it get in that extension.
Hey, colon? He graduated from the City College of New York in 1958 with a degree in geology, and he told me about the skin of his teeth.
By the skin of his teeth, and he decided to to take our OTC for some extra credits and the rest was history.
He served in the US army for 35 years, achieving the rank of a 4 star general, Serve 2 tour 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, tours of duty in Vietnam and earned the military honor of a purple heart.
He was appointed as national security adviser to president Ronald Reagan all the way back in 1987.
He became the 1st African American chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in 1989.
Up under George president George H W Bush.
He played a very pivotal role in the military operations during the Gulf war in 1991, right on the land that we are hoping to remodel for housing is where he bonkers.
Are you hearing what I’m saying?
He retired in 1993 and published his autobiography, my American journey in 1995.
He was appointed as US Secretary of State under President George W Bush in 2001, and that’s when I took Jamara up there.
My oldest son because I wanted my oldest son to be in the room with greatness.
Because if you could just get them in the room, just just get them in the room.
Just get them in the room. Just get them in the room.
And so you had to go through magnometers and all of stuff. And they escorted us up there.
And me and Jomar is going up there to meet Colin Powell’s amazing moment for for me.
And I’m writing a book about him called Mama made the difference.
And I’m interviewing him with my son in the room.
Because I want him to be in the room.
And though he had some slips of Hubble in the war in Iraq and when some changes and struggles and all of that.
He still remained to his depth, one of the most amazing leaders in our country.
And like we do with all military, as I was leaving out of his office, I said, Thank you for your y’all don’t get it.
The duties in secretary of state is a 4 star general.
And at the height of his career, I said, thank you for your service.
Protected by the FBI, covered by the CIA going through all kind of magnometers to get to see him.
And I said, thank you. Y’all don’t get it.
When when you saw his picture, you all clapped in the room, not re you see him as a great leader.
What you don’t realize is that you cannot escape giving service if you want to be great, serve.
If you want to go go low. If you want to go up, go down.
If you wanna make yourself indispensable, serve everybody anybody, even strangers in an elevator with Blue jeans and tennis shoes and t shirts, you never know what’s gonna happen if you give your light to service.
That’s what this text is all about.
This text is about the example Jesus teaches us about service.
Put my text to my card. When you understand the text, you will understand humility.
Folivia is true for an 11 is a message, not just in divinity, not just about the god.
Head, not just that he thought it not robbery to be equal with god, not just that he was both fully god and fully man.
It is a message in the humility.
It is the it is given to us in the hopes, the writer that writes the Philippians, writes to Philippi, a diverse society of, uh, a cosmopolitan group of people that he might bring them into a place of unity because you cannot have unity without humility.
And the reason we don’t have any unity in this country though we call ourselves the United States of America is that we have lost our mind to power, and nobody has the humility And without humility, you can never have unity.
If you want unity in your house, you got to have humility.
If you want unity in your country, you got to have humility.
If you want unity in your office, You can’t everybody can’t be walking around with a t shirt that says I’m up.
The the Bible says do not merely look out for your own personal interests.
But for the interests, of other people. Forget about you.
This narcissistic attitude that it’s all about you. They did it to you.
Your daddy left your mom, and you said he did it to you. No. He left your mama.
He he left your mama. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt you.
I’m not saying it didn’t change your life, but he wasn’t aiming at you.
Everything is not about you.
Everything bad that happens is not about you, and everything good that happens is not about you.
Can I go deeper? The Bible wants you to have the same attitude as Jesus.
The same attitude. The Bible cares about your attitude. Your attitude determines your altitude.
I don’t care how smart you are If you have a bad attitude, it will stunt your altitude.
I don’t care how fine you are.
They will be attracted to how cute you are But as soon as they meet you and discover your attitude, you can’t be cute enough to camouflage a bad attitude.
You don’t stay married to people for 50 years because they’re fine.
You’re staying married to somebody 50 years because their attitude is one of service.
You’re working on the wrong thing.
If we could take some of the money, you spend on them eyelashes that are as long as Egypt.
I’m not saying you can’t have them put them on.
I’m just saying you’re working on the wrong stuff.
If we could take some of that money that you’re putting on other things to camouflage and understand that the beauty that you have is if you would understand that last longer.
In all fairness and baldness and beards and biceps and triceps.
We go to the gym every day.
We hardly ever read bible or help anybody along the way because we every selfie We’re working on things that do not work.
You have to have this attitude and the Bible wouldn’t tell you to have it if it were automatic.
So it is not just natural to have a good attitude because I never have to ask you to be what is natural to you.
I would never have to ask you to be black because that’s inescapable.
If I ask you for something, it only indicates that you have an option.
Your attitude is within your control. You can change your attitude.
If there’s anybody in here that’s ever had to change your attitude, you ought to shout me down right now.
So the Bible says, look to Jesus.
As your example in selfless humility, the old King James version said, who thought it not robbery to be equal with god, but made of himself no reputation.
And Trump owned himself the form of a servant, not because he didn’t know who he was, but because he knew who he was, he was strong enough to lay down who he was and put on the form of a servant, which is why he put on the towel anyway, because the towel is a type of him showing what he was when he took on flesh.
He came to serve. The lion became a lamb. The divine became a servant.
He who set up high, came down low and was born in a manger that he might show us that he’s stronger as a lamb than he was as a lion.
I feel like preaching this gospel in this place. We are headed in the wrong direction.
Everybody’s trying to roar, but who god wants to bless is a lamb where there is a lamb that was slave from the foundations of the world.
He said, I know I’m god.
I don’t need you to tell me I’m god.
But I took on the form of a servant. Now look at how opposite that is.
We are servants acting like gods And he’s a god.
Acting like a servant.
And he said, if you get my attitude, I will change your whole life.
The Bible said, that he took on the form of a servant. That’s his birth.
And then became even more obedient to his father and died.
It was amazing that god would become a man That’s humble all by himself.
For the first time, he got sleepy.
As god, he never took a nap as god, he never got rest.
As god, he sat on the circle of the earth. As god, he commanded winds and waves as god.
He said, let there be light, and there was light. But as man, he needed milk.
As man, he needed a manger. As man he needed a woman.
As man, we find him sleep on a boat.
He took on the form of a servant And that’s what he’s acting out.
When he wraps himself up in a towel, he’s showing you that he wrapped himself up in flesh What do you need to wrap up in?
To change the trajectory of your life?
And he became obedient unto death.
And death is the trip switch.
If you can die to your own ego If you can die to your own significance, if you can die to your own selfish needs, If you can die to your visions of Grand View.
If you can die to the point that you stop thinking more highly, of yourself than you are, if you can just die.
Nobody’s preaching about dying anymore. In in the old church, we used to breathe.
If I die now, I don’t have to die no more. And we’d be shouting about that.
Ain’t nobody shouting about dying now because nobody wants to give up nothing.
Everybody wants to gain some what can I get from knowing you?
Jesus said, if any man shall be my disciple.
Take up your cross and follow me. You become my disciple at the point you die.
Because if you can get your ego, and your pride to get healed enough to find a dying place.
To find a dying place.
Maybe the reason you’re going through the trouble you’re going through right now is that god is trying to kill your pride and your ego so you can find a dying place.
I’ve gotta find a place that I can die.
The Bible said that when they hung him on the cross, no man takes my life. I lay it down.
And if I lay it down, look at how bad he is. I can pick it back up again.
That’s how come I can get down.
Cause if you mess with me, I always know I can get up.
He says he had sat his face to go to Jerusalem.
He won more rest till he found his dying place.
Where Samson rested in the lap of Delala, Jesus, the ultimate judge, rested his head on the cross.
And they hung him high, and they stretched him wide. And he hung his head.
And for me, For me, he died.
And the Bible says because he went so low.
God has highly insulted him.
Watches.
You trying to get a great name and gave him a name that was exalted above everything.
Every name. Every name.
That at the name, of Jesus, ever in league, shall bow, and every tongue, uh, shall confess.
Jesus how did you get a great name?
He said, I didn’t get it by trying to be high. I got it by going down low.
And I got so low that I didn’t have to exalt myself, but god became my booking agent.
And he have highly exalted me and gave me a name, uh, that at the name of Jesus at the name of who, at the name of Jesus, Everett needs shall bow, and every tongue shall confess whatever you’re wrestling with.
If it’s got a name, there’s a name above it. The name of Jesus.
Is greater than the name of any president.
The name of Jesus is greater than any king.
The name of Jesus is greater than any witch.
The name of Jesus is greater than bail. The name of Jesus. It’s greater than Buddha.
The name of Jesus is better than Sharabh. The name of Jesus is greater than Diana.
The name of Jesus. Is greater than Zeus. The name of Jesus is greater than cancer.
The name of Jesus is greater than leukemia. The name of Jesus is greater than Hitler.
The name of Jesus is greater than any name. I’ve seen the pharaohs come.
And I’ve seen the pharaohs go, but the name of Jesus is a strong tower where the righteous they’re in, uh, and are safe.
If you know anything about it, uh, somebody called his name.
I’m I’m about to take my seats.
I’m about to sit down.
I’m about to get out of your way, but I will not apologize for being a little old school in the old church.
We got around the altar, and we didn’t just say glory.
And we didn’t just say a hallelujah, but we get down on the floor and say, Jesus, Jesus.
Jesus. Jesus. She teaches us. She teaches us.
She teaches us. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
And the more we called him, uh, the more we got set free.
The more we called him, uh, the more the will fail.
If you could call on Jesus right now, every demon in your house, would have to run for the door.
Because at the name of Jesus, every need shall bow, and every time chunk of press.
You wanna do some spiritual warfare. Open your mouth and call his name out loud.
He had been highly exalted above every name that’s in the earth.
And under the earth. And above the earth, I don’t care where you are.
The name still works. Somebody call him. Black to know him. Call him.
Black to be him. Call him. Black. He’s got all power.
I dare you to hope it’s your mouth.
If you’re calling He’ll deliver you.
If you call him, he’ll set you free.
If you call him, He’ll bring you out of your camouflage.
If you call him, he’ll bring you out of your disguise.
If you call him, he’ll bring you out of your pride.
If you call him, he’ll bring you out of your ego.
If you call him, uh, somebody call him, uh, anybody call him, uh, my folks call him.
White folks calling. Uh, Ukraine calling. Uh, Trentman calling. Uh, somebody say Jesus.
Hey, people.
Which is wrong.
At the sound of his name, somebody calling Get down.
I need to change.
Jesus. I need to drop my disguise. Jesus. I need to hop ourselves.
Jesus. There’s not an area in your life.
That’s under attack that wouldn’t have been a
The inescapable role of service. You can’t get around it.
Been a capable role of service. Go to Philippians chapter 2 verse 4 through 11.
I’m gonna read it in the Amplified Bible because I love how the Amplified Bible takes truth and just just amplifies it in such a way that your understanding is increased because this text is rather complex It is self explanatory in many ways and amplified by them.
So I chose that way to present it this morning when you have it saved, man.
You gotta have it because we we’re gonna put it on the screen for all you people who fake it and keep fighting Philippians.
We save you from being a liar when we put it on the screen.
I got it. I got it over in Matthew faking it there.
Listen carefully.
Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others.
Have this same attitude in yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus.
Look to him as your example in selfless humility.
Who, although he existed in the form and unchanging essence of god, as one with him, possessing the fullness of all the divine attributes the entire nature of deity did not regard did not regard, did did not regard equality with god a thing to be grasped or asserted as if he did not already possess it or was afraid of losing it.
He wasn’t intimidated. But emptied himself, he felt safe enough, strong enough to become vulnerable enough to empty himself without renouncing or diminishing his deity, but only temporarily giving up the outward expression of the the divine equality and his rightful dignity by assuming the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men He became completely human, but was without sin being fully god and Uh, there you have it.
Afterwards, he was found in terms of his, terms of his outward appearance as a man for a divinely appointed time 33 years.
He humbled himself still further.
If that were not low enough, he went down lower than that by becoming obedient, to the father, to the point of death, even the death on a cross.
For this reason.
Also, because he obeyed and so completely humbled himself god has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name the name.
The name. The name, which is above every name.
So that at the name of sees us.
Every knee shall bow.
Uh, oh, in submission of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
And that every tongue will confess and openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is lord sovereign god to the glory of god, the father.
Can you say, man?
Let’s pray while we’re standing up under the banner, the canopy of his word, the auspices of his deity.
The transparency of this humanity.
You are covered under the cloud of his divine power and omnipotence.
Father god in the name of Jesus. Let the word be made flashing us today.
Not just something that we read or studied or heard or listened to politely, but let it take on flesh in us today.
Let it become tangible. Let it become material. Let it become maternal.
Let it become matter in us let it become physical in us until the nature of Christ becomes the habits of men in Jesus’ name we pray somebody’s child, amen.
Yeah. You may be seated. I got in about midnight and got in the bed about one that’s landed from Virginia.
Determined to be here this morning.
Because I’m on assignment.
I’m on a mission.
And it’s a tough mission because I am I am fighting the galing winds of the sociological push that is sent on us today to undermine the spirit of humility, which is supposed to perpetuate itself in the children of god.
Words like Servant Hood are not popular today.
Even we ourselves have a leadership conference but we’ve never had a follower conference.
I I’ve never had a follower call.
I don’t know anybody that’s having a servant conference because who would come because people are attracted to the idea of leadership not servitude.
But number 1, if everybody’s leading, who’s following.
And so we all like to think of ourselves in a certain light because we don’t want the vulnerability of not being number 1.
So if you wanna wreck a church real quick, use something like something like I’m the 1.
Out of 8,000,000,000 people on the planet, you the 1.
We like to think of ourselves in that light because we have been taught to be enamored By success, consequently, servinthood is unpopular even with children.
I know I sound old, but I grew up in an era where the children were the dishwasher.
I heard somebody say their mama didn’t have no dislocation.
My mama had 5. 3. I got it. 5. Yeah. Yeah. We were the dishwasher.
Servin hood was in bread and the nature of how we were raised.
Now your little Udi booty is too cute.
I’m alerting to sodas, Mommy, and we are not taught to be servants.
Words like submission are are are the disdain for the word submission has exceeded cursing words.
You don’t believe me.
Get on get on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram and say something about submission and watch everybody beat you up.
Caregivers aren’t seen often in a positive light, disdain for it.
Nobody wants to give care. Everybody wants to receive care.
There is today a bloodlust for power.
In almost every area of our society, we have gone nuts for power.
Nobody’s for people anymore. They want power. They wanna make moves.
They wanna be movers and shakers from corporations to marriage.
Everybody’s fighting for power. Nobody’s submitting. The husbands aren’t submitting.
The wives aren’t submitting. The children aren’t submitting. Nobody’s submitting because submission is not popular.
And everybody’s in a fight to prove to the other one that I’m the 1.
So in that fight, we end up with no one.
Oh, I’m gonna mess with you today.
I didn’t expect to get many 8 men’s. I’m I’m hoping for a few outages.
When you start talking about careers, people are only interested in seeking protection so that they can climb the ladder, in corporations, in businesses.
Everybody’s trying to get higher. How how can I go? What promotions are available? What can I do next?
I wanna go everybody wants to go up. Nobody wants to go down. Everybody wants to be higher.
Everybody wants to be bigger. Everybody wants to be greater.
And no matter what method we choose, whether it’s the best look at the best dress, the best style, the best, this, the best that, the most educated, the most intellectual, the most articulate Everybody’s trying to get it further along than the people beside them because all that is advertised to us is grandeur.
And opulence and accessiveness. And so here we are.
In a fight between political powers, between racists, between family members?
Yeah. Between genders? Yeah. It’s a fight. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed it or not.
It’s a war going on between men and women.
We used to like each other, wanna get with each other.
Now we’ve turned our guns on each other.
God help us to have some children because all in and and and the church is not exempt from this.
There is an insatiable desire amongst many even in the church for status, titles, and recognition.
And to get it, they’ll do anything.
Say anything, undermine anybody, kill your reputation, destroy your influence, go after you by enemies necessary, so that they can get to the top.
And I’m starting to wonder if there is any substantial difference between the church and the world because everybody is trying to get up.
Nobody’s trying to get down. Nobody’s trying to be low.
Even when we do the right things, we often do them for the wrong reasons.
I’m after you this morning.
We do right things for the wrong year.
To be sure of those who put others’ needs above their own often do the right thing, but they do it for the wrong reasons because they wanna medicate low self esteem.
And they do so to their own detriment.
They become people pleasers.
In the hopes that they will get something back from the people that they seek to please that validates their own existence they are self medicating their pain by false missions of humility because they think so little of themselves.
That they do the right thing, but it’s for the wrong reason.
It isn’t their service that is toxic. They give great service.
It is the motive of being people pleasers that is the problem.
The antithesis, however, is we have become so against being people pleasers that we no longer serve.
We seek only to be served.
We have this vision, this idea, this philosophy, that being served elevates us into positions of authority.
And so if we can’t have that, we would rather be alone. Didn’t serve anybody.
We would rather be lonely and alienated and go to bed every night hugging our pillow rather than to serve anybody.
And the children cannot learn how to serve because they cannot be what they do not see.
Are you hearing what I’m saying Somehow it has been made more significant in our minds to meet a ravenous need for acceptance.
This this this kind of good deeds and service giving, uh, it is fictitious. It’s phony.
It’s fraudulent. It it it it’s it’s it has a a negative motive behind it because it seeks grandeur by doing self-service in the spirit of manipulation.
This is an exercise in total futility because people will eventually come to see your kindness as weakness, they will use you till they use you up, and it still won’t elevate you to the place that you need to be.
I know I ought to get an amen right there.
Cermontu cannot be done for what you can get out of it for how you can be acknowledged or how you can be recognized or how you can be validated by it.
You cannot medicate, uh, a a a low self esteem of fear uh, a vulnerability by hiding your vulnerability by acting like you care about people, but you really don’t.
You really just wanna be seen in a certain light.
The real test is would you do it if nobody was looking?
Would you do it with the lights off and the camera’s gone?
Would you do it if the boss didn’t see I’m not worried about the people who serve in this church when I’m here.
I’m not worried about the people who come to church when I’m here.
I am suspect of people who only do it when I’m here.
You couldn’t be doing it for the right reason if you only do it when I’m looking.
I’m not worried about the staff member who performs well when seen.
And say they love you, but they really don’t love you because they’re really killing you because the only way they will do their job by which they get paid for all the time is when you’re looking.
I’m a set it off in here this morning.
Real servitude must come from a sincere place, an authentic place of strength.
I know you don’t associate servitude with strength, but you have to be strong to serve.
Uh, yeah. Yeah. I’m a shock you with this.
I know you think all the people who are serving or serving either because they’re ignorant or because they’re stupid or because they’re weak, and they should have got more this or more than that, or they should have been more ambitious or more degrees or more education or more this or that or the other, but you have to be strong to serve.
Do not allow the menial tasks that we do to blind you of the absolute strength it takes.
To give yourself away.
You have to have strength and you have to feel safe enough to become vulnerable enough to be of service to others.
And the reason some people will never serve is because they’re too weak to serve.
Because they’re afraid if they lay it down, they’ll never get it back.
So they would rather fight you for the position than serve you because they’re weak.
It’s really weakness.
I have learned over the years that arrogant people are the weakest people I have ever met.
They are arrogant because beneath that disguise, that’s why I want his camouflage, the be beneath his camouflage, and I liked it, and I think it’s cute.
But I gotta keep it 100.
But but but but but because somebody, I’m not the only one wearing camouflage in here.
It’s a whole lot of people wearing camouflage here.
With the false sense of importance because they don’t have the strength to serve.
You have to be strong to serve.
You have a have a sense of self and identity in order to be a good servant.
You have to know who you are.
If you don’t know who you are, you can’t lay down what you don’t know.
I don’t do it because I’m weak.
I serve because I’m strong. I’m here because I’m strong.
Just because I’m on a stage doesn’t mean I’m not serving.
See, see, you think getting into a higher position isn’t service.
That’s the problem. It’s like people who start companies because they’re lazy.
I’m gonna be an entrepreneur so I can I can sleep in in the morning?
You’re gonna be broke. You’re gonna starve to death.
Cause if you start a business, you’re gonna work twice as hard for half as much trying to pay the people, and you are the last one to get paid because you have to be strong enough to be the boss.
You gotta pay the cost to be the boss. Come on. Top back to me.
I wish you would. I’m ready for you.
So you have to feel safe.
And you have to be strong to serve.
And a lot of us don’t feel safe because we have been used or misused or abused.
And we have allowed the behavior of the recipient to change who we are as a person, to protect ourselves from somebody who is no longer present.
Somebody who is gone has disrupted your future over something they did in the past.
And now you are camouflaging your propensity to give your gift and your service and your time and your love into a false sense of arrogance because you’re too weak to be healed.
Because heal people can be vulnerable. Yes. Yes. Yes. It would.
Heal people can help people heal people conserve people.
Heal people understand that the only job in the kingdom is slave.
Why do you think in god’s green earth did Jesus on the last night of his life get up from the table, gird himself with a towel, stoop down on the floor and washed the feet of the people who were his disciples.
And then said, if I’m being lord, know how to serve, how much more on you to be able to serve.
And yet, you won’t give up your seat. Somebody sitting in my chair.
Jesus got out of his chair and washed other people’s feet But when I say you’re not a Christian, you get hot mad at me over a parking space.
Oh, let me get off of this, lord.
It ain’t going good, Jesus. It’s not going good because what I’m teaching about affects every area of your life, your peace, your happiness, your mental well-being, how you see yourself, how you relate to yourself, how you relate to your family, how you relate to your friends, your spouse, your coworkers, your laborers, has to come from a place of strip and safety where you do what’s got to be done, whether it’s in your job description or not, when you see something that needs to be done, You just jump in there and help get it done.
You’re not after the credit. You don’t need the recognition. You don’t need the glory.
You don’t need to be acknowledged.
You do it because it’s within your power to be of help to your fellow man because you love the lord like that.
And you are so blessed to be alive and blessed to be here that you don’t mind giving whatever service you can give to if I can help somebody as I pass along.
If I can help somebody in a word or so, Then my living would not be in vain.
So that means that all the camouflage is vanity.
All this fake strength, I see. I’m just strong. I’m just strong.
I’m just a strong person. And they can’t deal with me because I’m strong. No.
We can’t deal with you because you’re arrogant. We can’t deal with you because you’re nasty.
We can’t deal with you because you’re hateful. It’s not your degrees. That’s the problem is your attitude.
Somebody hurts you so bad.
That you don’t feel safe enough to serve.
And then you wonder why. You are so alone.
This camouflage is killing you.
It is so heavy. Because you act tough around everybody and go home and cry.
It would be easier to get healed into a place that we are not constantly fighting over who’s the boss and who’s the smartest and who’s the greatest and who’s the most talented and who can sing the best and who can preach the and who can do the it doesn’t matter.
The best preacher I ever heard is the one god was using.
I’m gonna say that again for the people in the back.
The best preacher I ever heard is the one that god was using, and he never uses the same person all the time.
And you’ve got to learn out whether you are up or down.
I can tell what kind of preacher you are how you act when you’re not preaching.
Because if you really love the word, you love the word. I don’t care who’s delivering the word.
If you only love the word when you got the mic, you don’t love the word.
If you only worship when you got the mic, You’re not a real worshiper.
A real worshiper will fall out in the floor even when somebody Being a capable role of service means that no matter how high up the ladder you go, all you run into is service.
The guy who drove into the airport last night said, thank you for your business.
I said, thank you for your service.
I got on the plane and laughed to myself.
He sees me as a customer and a client. That’s okay.
He thinks he’s serving me, but he doesn’t realize that he’s serving me so I can serve.
Because the only job available is service.
Are you of any?
Service, or are you like the tree that takes up space and draws water and takes up sunshine and produces no fruit?
And the Bible said, why come within the ground? Why are you taking up space if you’re not going to?
Why are you in this house if you’re not gonna serve?
I serve and nobody. I went to school too long to live, get out.
I’d let I’d rather live in a trailer with somebody who’s got some sense than to live in a mansion with somebody that I gotta come home and fight at a home, like I fight at work, I fight at church and fight everywhere.
I gotta have some place to leave my head.
You power tripping.
I just ask you for some coffee.
We got to fight over a cup of coffee.
I didn’t go to school all the easier to make your coffee, make your own coffee.
You mean you went to school all these years and you can’t make a cup of coffee?
You should go back to class.
You flunked I was in DC and I was in an elevator coming from a preaching engagement.
I was tired and headed back to my room. I’ve been giving service.
Uh, our team was on Elevator with me, and a stranger got on the Elevator we didn’t know.
His white guy in a pair of blue jeans, a t shirt tennis shoes.
And asked us where where we we were coming from because we, in our tradition, we church folk, we kinda dressed up.
He he thought maybe we’d been or something. I said, we came from church.
And the guy said, really? I said, yes. He said, what do you do?
I said, well, I’m a preacher. He said, you preach, I said, yes.
He said, uh, where is this at? I I would like to come. Uh, I said, really?
He said, yeah. I said, cool.
So I had one of the brothers said, well, it’s with me to slip one of the flyers because we had flyers back then up under the door so he would know where to come.
Didn’t think it really come, but I wanted to make sure that I had made the way.
Because that service that service didn’t matter who it was.
That was service. Best of my soul he came. He came to church at any time.
I did not know that he was the owner of what was in called the Atlantic monthly.
And it ended up leading to an invitation to me to for me to come and speak at the Aspen Institute of their Ideas Festival.
And to this day, and Jan is waving at me because she was there and she knows all about it.
To this day, I wonder what would have happened if I thought myself too high to give the man a flyer that I didn’t even know But in humbling my tire itself to make sure he still got a flyer, god gave me an opportunity I didn’t even know what the Aspen ideas festival was.
I didn’t know what Aspen was.
Let me be honest, if you don’t hear black people talking about asking, it’s just not where we go.
We go to New Orleans.
We’re going to Aspen, dear.
I I had to ask Jen. Where what is Aspen? She said, take it, crazy.
That’s a big deal, stand up, Chad. She’s been my publicist for years.
She my my literary agent for years. She said, take it. That’s a big deal. That’s that’s important.
You should take that engagement. I didn’t know what Aspen was. It was there that I met Colin Powell.
I spoke out to Allen Greenspan at the time.
And and and was interviewed by Bob Shaffer in front of a audience of thousands of people that started on an elevator.
Colin Powell was sitting on the front row.
I knew who he was, but I didn’t think he knew who I was. He probably didn’t.
I had never seen him before.
And afterwards, he struck up a conversation with me, and I thought, pinch yourself in both And, I mean, it wasn’t polite talking.
He was, like, really talking, like, really having to come out of the park, really.
You know, I didn’t wash my hands for about 6 weeks, we did.
We didn’t have COVID back then, so you could afford to just kinda Keep it real.
Later on, a relationship ensued, and we would text back.
We’ll email back and forth from time to time, and I took my oldest son to DC to to to meet him because I was writing uh, a book called mama made the difference.
And and I did I wanted to know who was your mama.
I know you’re you’re a general, 5 star general, but who’s your mama?
What what what what’s the story?
How’d you how’d you get to be He was he was born in April of 1937 in Harlem, but he he was he was His family was immigrants from Jamaica who snuck over here on a fruit boat.
In hopes of a better life and made it to New York, went to school.
He said, I lived in a day when my mama and her sisters raised me.
If you got a whipping from 1, you got a whipping from everybody.
Somebody know what I’m talking about.
And you had to pass by all your relatives’ houses to get to school, And then they would say, hurry up, or you gotta keep going, you gotta get it get in that extension.
Hey, colon? He graduated from the City College of New York in 1958 with a degree in geology, and he told me about the skin of his teeth.
By the skin of his teeth, and he decided to to take our OTC for some extra credits and the rest was history.
He served in the US army for 35 years, achieving the rank of a 4 star general, Serve 2 tour 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, tours of duty in Vietnam and earned the military honor of a purple heart.
He was appointed as national security adviser to president Ronald Reagan all the way back in 1987.
He became the 1st African American chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in 1989.
Up under George president George H W Bush.
He played a very pivotal role in the military operations during the Gulf war in 1991, right on the land that we are hoping to remodel for housing is where he bonkers.
Are you hearing what I’m saying?
He retired in 1993 and published his autobiography, my American journey in 1995.
He was appointed as US Secretary of State under President George W Bush in 2001, and that’s when I took Jamara up there.
My oldest son because I wanted my oldest son to be in the room with greatness.
Because if you could just get them in the room, just just get them in the room.
Just get them in the room. Just get them in the room.
And so you had to go through magnometers and all of stuff. And they escorted us up there.
And me and Jomar is going up there to meet Colin Powell’s amazing moment for for me.
And I’m writing a book about him called Mama made the difference.
And I’m interviewing him with my son in the room.
Because I want him to be in the room.
And though he had some slips of Hubble in the war in Iraq and when some changes and struggles and all of that.
He still remained to his depth, one of the most amazing leaders in our country.
And like we do with all military, as I was leaving out of his office, I said, Thank you for your y’all don’t get it.
The duties in secretary of state is a 4 star general.
And at the height of his career, I said, thank you for your service.
Protected by the FBI, covered by the CIA going through all kind of magnometers to get to see him.
And I said, thank you. Y’all don’t get it.
When when you saw his picture, you all clapped in the room, not re you see him as a great leader.
What you don’t realize is that you cannot escape giving service if you want to be great, serve.
If you want to go go low. If you want to go up, go down.
If you wanna make yourself indispensable, serve everybody anybody, even strangers in an elevator with Blue jeans and tennis shoes and t shirts, you never know what’s gonna happen if you give your light to service.
That’s what this text is all about.
This text is about the example Jesus teaches us about service.
Put my text to my card. When you understand the text, you will understand humility.
Folivia is true for an 11 is a message, not just in divinity, not just about the god.
Head, not just that he thought it not robbery to be equal with god, not just that he was both fully god and fully man.
It is a message in the humility.
It is the it is given to us in the hopes, the writer that writes the Philippians, writes to Philippi, a diverse society of, uh, a cosmopolitan group of people that he might bring them into a place of unity because you cannot have unity without humility.
And the reason we don’t have any unity in this country though we call ourselves the United States of America is that we have lost our mind to power, and nobody has the humility And without humility, you can never have unity.
If you want unity in your house, you got to have humility.
If you want unity in your country, you got to have humility.
If you want unity in your office, You can’t everybody can’t be walking around with a t shirt that says I’m up.
The the Bible says do not merely look out for your own personal interests.
But for the interests, of other people. Forget about you.
This narcissistic attitude that it’s all about you. They did it to you.
Your daddy left your mom, and you said he did it to you. No. He left your mama.
He he left your mama. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt you.
I’m not saying it didn’t change your life, but he wasn’t aiming at you.
Everything is not about you.
Everything bad that happens is not about you, and everything good that happens is not about you.
Can I go deeper? The Bible wants you to have the same attitude as Jesus.
The same attitude. The Bible cares about your attitude. Your attitude determines your altitude.
I don’t care how smart you are If you have a bad attitude, it will stunt your altitude.
I don’t care how fine you are.
They will be attracted to how cute you are But as soon as they meet you and discover your attitude, you can’t be cute enough to camouflage a bad attitude.
You don’t stay married to people for 50 years because they’re fine.
You’re staying married to somebody 50 years because their attitude is one of service.
You’re working on the wrong thing.
If we could take some of the money, you spend on them eyelashes that are as long as Egypt.
I’m not saying you can’t have them put them on.
I’m just saying you’re working on the wrong stuff.
If we could take some of that money that you’re putting on other things to camouflage and understand that the beauty that you have is if you would understand that last longer.
In all fairness and baldness and beards and biceps and triceps.
We go to the gym every day.
We hardly ever read bible or help anybody along the way because we every selfie We’re working on things that do not work.
You have to have this attitude and the Bible wouldn’t tell you to have it if it were automatic.
So it is not just natural to have a good attitude because I never have to ask you to be what is natural to you.
I would never have to ask you to be black because that’s inescapable.
If I ask you for something, it only indicates that you have an option.
Your attitude is within your control. You can change your attitude.
If there’s anybody in here that’s ever had to change your attitude, you ought to shout me down right now.
So the Bible says, look to Jesus.
As your example in selfless humility, the old King James version said, who thought it not robbery to be equal with god, but made of himself no reputation.
And Trump owned himself the form of a servant, not because he didn’t know who he was, but because he knew who he was, he was strong enough to lay down who he was and put on the form of a servant, which is why he put on the towel anyway, because the towel is a type of him showing what he was when he took on flesh.
He came to serve. The lion became a lamb. The divine became a servant.
He who set up high, came down low and was born in a manger that he might show us that he’s stronger as a lamb than he was as a lion.
I feel like preaching this gospel in this place. We are headed in the wrong direction.
Everybody’s trying to roar, but who god wants to bless is a lamb where there is a lamb that was slave from the foundations of the world.
He said, I know I’m god.
I don’t need you to tell me I’m god.
But I took on the form of a servant. Now look at how opposite that is.
We are servants acting like gods And he’s a god.
Acting like a servant.
And he said, if you get my attitude, I will change your whole life.
The Bible said, that he took on the form of a servant. That’s his birth.
And then became even more obedient to his father and died.
It was amazing that god would become a man That’s humble all by himself.
For the first time, he got sleepy.
As god, he never took a nap as god, he never got rest.
As god, he sat on the circle of the earth. As god, he commanded winds and waves as god.
He said, let there be light, and there was light. But as man, he needed milk.
As man, he needed a manger. As man he needed a woman.
As man, we find him sleep on a boat.
He took on the form of a servant And that’s what he’s acting out.
When he wraps himself up in a towel, he’s showing you that he wrapped himself up in flesh What do you need to wrap up in?
To change the trajectory of your life?
And he became obedient unto death.
And death is the trip switch.
If you can die to your own ego If you can die to your own significance, if you can die to your own selfish needs, If you can die to your visions of Grand View.
If you can die to the point that you stop thinking more highly, of yourself than you are, if you can just die.
Nobody’s preaching about dying anymore. In in the old church, we used to breathe.
If I die now, I don’t have to die no more. And we’d be shouting about that.
Ain’t nobody shouting about dying now because nobody wants to give up nothing.
Everybody wants to gain some what can I get from knowing you?
Jesus said, if any man shall be my disciple.
Take up your cross and follow me. You become my disciple at the point you die.
Because if you can get your ego, and your pride to get healed enough to find a dying place.
To find a dying place.
Maybe the reason you’re going through the trouble you’re going through right now is that god is trying to kill your pride and your ego so you can find a dying place.
I’ve gotta find a place that I can die.
The Bible said that when they hung him on the cross, no man takes my life. I lay it down.
And if I lay it down, look at how bad he is. I can pick it back up again.
That’s how come I can get down.
Cause if you mess with me, I always know I can get up.
He says he had sat his face to go to Jerusalem.
He won more rest till he found his dying place.
Where Samson rested in the lap of Delala, Jesus, the ultimate judge, rested his head on the cross.
And they hung him high, and they stretched him wide. And he hung his head.
And for me, For me, he died.
And the Bible says because he went so low.
God has highly insulted him.
Watches.
You trying to get a great name and gave him a name that was exalted above everything.
Every name. Every name.
That at the name, of Jesus, ever in league, shall bow, and every tongue, uh, shall confess.
Jesus how did you get a great name?
He said, I didn’t get it by trying to be high. I got it by going down low.
And I got so low that I didn’t have to exalt myself, but god became my booking agent.
And he have highly exalted me and gave me a name, uh, that at the name of Jesus at the name of who, at the name of Jesus, Everett needs shall bow, and every tongue shall confess whatever you’re wrestling with.
If it’s got a name, there’s a name above it. The name of Jesus.
Is greater than the name of any president.
The name of Jesus is greater than any king.
The name of Jesus is greater than any witch.
The name of Jesus is greater than bail. The name of Jesus. It’s greater than Buddha.
The name of Jesus is better than Sharabh. The name of Jesus is greater than Diana.
The name of Jesus. Is greater than Zeus. The name of Jesus is greater than cancer.
The name of Jesus is greater than leukemia. The name of Jesus is greater than Hitler.
The name of Jesus is greater than any name. I’ve seen the pharaohs come.
And I’ve seen the pharaohs go, but the name of Jesus is a strong tower where the righteous they’re in, uh, and are safe.
If you know anything about it, uh, somebody called his name.
I’m I’m about to take my seats.
I’m about to sit down.
I’m about to get out of your way, but I will not apologize for being a little old school in the old church.
We got around the altar, and we didn’t just say glory.
And we didn’t just say a hallelujah, but we get down on the floor and say, Jesus, Jesus.
Jesus. Jesus. She teaches us. She teaches us.
She teaches us. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
And the more we called him, uh, the more we got set free.
The more we called him, uh, the more the will fail.
If you could call on Jesus right now, every demon in your house, would have to run for the door.
Because at the name of Jesus, every need shall bow, and every time chunk of press.
You wanna do some spiritual warfare. Open your mouth and call his name out loud.
He had been highly exalted above every name that’s in the earth.
And under the earth. And above the earth, I don’t care where you are.
The name still works. Somebody call him. Black to know him. Call him.
Black to be him. Call him. Black. He’s got all power.
I dare you to hope it’s your mouth.
If you’re calling He’ll deliver you.
If you call him, he’ll set you free.
If you call him, He’ll bring you out of your camouflage.
If you call him, he’ll bring you out of your disguise.
If you call him, he’ll bring you out of your pride.
If you call him, he’ll bring you out of your ego.
If you call him, uh, somebody call him, uh, anybody call him, uh, my folks call him.
White folks calling. Uh, Ukraine calling. Uh, Trentman calling. Uh, somebody say Jesus.
Hey, people.
Which is wrong.
At the sound of his name, somebody calling Get down.
I need to change.
Jesus. I need to drop my disguise. Jesus. I need to hop ourselves.
Jesus. There’s not an area in your life.
That’s under attack that wouldn’t have been a