Book of Acts Series - Part 38 | What Does God Want You to Leave? — Jim Cymbala

The Book of Acts and the Spirit-Empowered Church

The book of Acts. So what have we been learning? It's the fifth book of the New Testament written by the only Gentile writer of a New Testament book. He wrote two books, Luke and Acts, and he was a physician who got converted in one of Paul, the apostle Paul's missionary trips.

It's the history of the Christian church from its beginning as they waited in an upper room, about 120 of them, they received the promise of the Holy Spirit that Jesus had told them about before he died on the cross, resurrected from the dead, and then ascended back into heaven supernaturally.

The church began and the message began to spread. Very important, as we've been studying, it started in Jerusalem and the only converts were Jewish. The only preachers were Jewish, why? Because the apostles were all Jewish.

So the Roman Empire thought that Christianity was an offshoot of Judaism, some little cult or sect. But then Cornelius, an Italian guy who was in the Roman army as a centurion, over 100 people, his whole household got converted during a visit by Peter, one of the apostles.

And now the gospel is spreading and the church is something no one ever imagined. Jews who hated the Gentiles and called them dogs and Gentiles who looked down on Jews and anti-Semitism as old as dirt.

And here they were together, loving each other, believing in the same Jesus, the promised Messiah of Judaism and the savior of the world for the Gentiles, meeting together. This was unheard of, unthinkable.

Paul's Missionary Journeys and the Universal Gospel

The apostle Paul was a former persecutor of the church, but he was wondrously converted. And now as we've been going through the book of Acts, I'm reviewing all that we've studied, he is making missionary journeys.

Why? He goes through Turkey on his first trip. Why? To spread the gospel and to start churches. Why? Because Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the good news. It's a message you have to share.

You can't be quiet. You're not supposed to circle the wagons. He loves the whole world, but how will they be saved unless they believe? Because whoever believes and calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

But how can they believe if they haven't heard? How can they hear unless someone speaks? How can someone speak unless they go to where the people are to tell them? So Paul is fulfilling that. His second missionary journey, he ends up in Greece and churches are founded in places like Thessalonica and Corinth and Philippi, where we get our letters, Thessalonians, Corinthians, Philippians.

He writes to them later on and they become part of the New Testament. Well now, on his third missionary journey, he is heading back to Jerusalem, where he's been forewarned by the Holy Spirit that he's gonna face trouble.

And sure enough, it happens. Where we left off when we were last talking about this, he goes to Jerusalem and he goes in the temple to worship, even though he's worshiping different than the rest of them are worshiping.

Some Jewish people from other parts of the Roman Empire where he has traveled spot him and they have no love for this guy because he's preaching that they have missed the Messiah, that Jesus was the promised one and that the Jewish people rejected him.

This is not a message that makes them happy. So they grab him and they're about to beat him to death and a riot breaks out. They pull him outside the temple gates because they were very conscientious about these things.

They wanted to kill him, but not in the temple. It wouldn't look good. So they pull him outside the gates. They shut the gates, but then the Roman army that is a fort right outside the temple. So they keep an eye on things.

They run down because remember, they're ruling everything. Israel is part of the Roman Empire and they pay taxes to Caesar and Rome. They come in and say, wait a minute, you can't have riots here. And they grab Paul and save him from probably being killed.

Paul now says to the Roman officer, let me speak to the crowd and he speaks in Greek. And the guy says, you speak Greek? Because Greek was the language of the Roman Empire at that time, the universal language.

Paul was very educated, spoke multiple languages. He said yes. And then always looking for a chance to speak and testify about Christ, he starts to talk to the crowd and he speaks in Aramaic or the Jewish tongue.

And they got quiet when they realized this is not some person who's not familiar with our ways and he gives his talk, which we've been studying. Imagine the emotion of it. Here he's almost killed and now he's speaking to the crowd that tried to kill him.

And the Romans are just holding him and guarding him and he's speaking now to hundreds, thousands. And he tells them basically, listen, I'm not here looking for trouble. You can check who I am. I was raised here in Jerusalem.

I went to school here. I sat under a famous rabbi by the name of Gamaliel. And I was more dedicated to Judaism than any of you guys. In fact, I was so dedicated, I was persecuting people who believed in this Yeshua, this Jesus, the Messiah.

But one day on the road to Damascus in Syria where I was gonna go and arrest more of them because I was beating them down, possibly killing them, having them put in prison, breaking up families. This guy was just making havoc of the church.

He said on the road to Damascus, a light shined down at 12 noon, brighter than the sun. And it knocked me off my mount. And I heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I said to this voice, this appearance, who are you?

And he said, I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting. And we learned by the way that when you persecute the church, you're persecuting Jesus. However you treat Christians, that's how you're treating Jesus. He identifies totally with the church.

Notice, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Saul wasn't persecuting Jesus. Jesus was in heaven. How do you persecute someone in heaven? No, he was persecuting the church, which is the body. So when you talk nasty about a Christian, when you hurt a Christian, you're doing it to Jesus.

That should make all of us get real cautious and kind. Help me say amen, the way we treat one another. And he said, what do you want me to do, Lord? He said, go into Damascus and I'll send someone to tell you what to do.

And he's telling this to the people. Supernatural, and they're listening. No one's breaking in. And then he says, now look, you can check this out. There's a guy named Ananias. He lives in Damascus. Check him out.

He was a practicing Jew, but he was a believer in Yeshua. And the Lord sent him to me and I had been blinded by the light and he prayed for me and I began to see. And then I got up and I got baptized, just like we're telling you.

He said, get up and get me baptized. He told that to Paul, Ananias did. So Paul's telling this story like, hey, what do you think, I'm making this up? I'm trying to make money out of this? I'm only here because I met him.

He changed my life. I realized I had been wrong. You know, it takes a real man, a real woman to say I'm wrong. We're good at telling other people they're wrong, but it takes a lot of grace and humility to say, you know what, my whole life's been based on a lie.

This is the one. So now we pick up the rest of his message and the surprising reaction. Look, I went back to Jerusalem after this all happened, he tells them, and while I was praying in the temple, right where he is standing right then, I had a vision in which I saw the Lord as he said to me, hurry and leave Jerusalem quickly because the people here will not accept your witness about me.

Then Paul tries to reason with them. Lord, I answered. They know very well that I went to the synagogues and arrested and beat those who believe in you. And when your witness Stephen was put to death back earlier in the book of Acts, I myself was there approving of his murder and taking care of the cloaks of his murderers, the ones who stoned him.

Go, the Lord said to me, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. And the people listened to Paul until he said this. But then they started shouting at the top of their voices, away with him, kill him, he's not fit to live.

They were screaming, waving their clothes and throwing dust up in the air, which was a sign of hatred and discontent and possibly the loosing of the garments was, let's get ready to stone him. The Roman commander ordered his men to take Paul into the fort.

And they told him to whip him in order to find out why the Jews were screaming like this against him. And the word there for what was gonna happen to him is called, he was gonna be scourged. And what scourging was, was torture by physical beating until they could elicit what they wanted.

Many people didn't make it through the scourging. They died during the beating to get the information. And if you didn't die, you were certainly gonna be maimed and scarred and disfigured for life. Now this is what they were gonna do to him.

Notice the brutality of it all. What are they screaming about? Scourge him. And the way they scourged him was they made a post, they tied you to the post, they spread you out, and then they started beating you to a pulp.

Paul's Roman Citizenship and Wise Use of Legal Protection

So let's look. As they're about to do this, but when they had tied him up to be whipped, Paul said to the officer standing there, is it lawful for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn't even been tried for any crime?

When the officer heard this, he went to the commander and asked him, what are you doing? The man is a Roman citizen. They were not allowed to be beaten. And you could only bring him to court if you had a charge.

So the commander went to Paul and asked him, tell me, are you a Roman citizen? Yes, answered Paul. The commander said, I became one by paying a large amount of money. He bribed someone to become a Roman citizen.

But Paul answered, but I am one by birth. At once, the men who were going to question Paul drew back from him, and the commander was frightened when he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had put him in chains.

So what, by the way, what do we learn here at the end? That Paul, although he was punished and he suffered for Christ, he never was looking for it. And if he could get out of it legally, he got out of it.

He wasn't a masochist. In other words, he's about to be beat, but he says, yo, well, he didn't say it that way, but he spent time in Brooklyn, so he said, is it right to beat a Roman citizen? And they went, what, you're a citizen?

He said, yeah. They called the commander, and then they realized we can't touch him like that, because you weren't allowed to scourge. You could scourge a Jew. You could scourge someone in some other, any part of the Roman Empire, but not a citizen.

Citizenship was honored, and he must have inherited it from his father, the experts think. So notice, he didn't look for a beating. He didn't glory in suffering for Christ, but when he had to, he suffered for Christ.

But when he could calmly use his citizenship, he did this twice in the book of Acts, he would use that to say, no, treat me with a little more of the dignity that I deserve. So what do we learn here in this story?

It's a fascinating story, isn't it? Why would Luke be inspired by God to take so much time to tell this story about an arrest and all this commotion and all this stuff that's going on, and he claims he's a citizen, and all these things are going on.

It takes up, as his message takes up a good part of chapter 22. I want to add one more verse to this. Look at this verse. The founding of the Jewish people to Abraham. Look at this. The first words ever said to Abraham, leave your country, your relatives, Genesis 12, and your father's home, and go to a land, I'm going to show you, notice.

First words ever spoken to the father of all the Jewish people, and to everyone who has faith. The Lord said to Abraham, leave your country, your relatives, and your father's home, and go to a land that I'm going to show you.

Spirit-Led Witness and the Search for Open Doors

We learn here a couple things. Number one, we learn that Paul is presenting Jesus Christ in the best way that he can, and as he's presenting this message, he does it fearlessly, and the crowd is just like this, but then they get quiet, and he tells them, after my conversion, I'm just telling you straight up.

I went back to Jerusalem, the very place he's standing, right after I got converted, and I was praying in the temple, and the Lord appeared to me, and said, don't stay here and witness. They won't receive it, and he reasoned with the Lord.

Lord, how are they not gonna believe me? I was persecuting the Christians. They know where I was trained. They know who Gamaliel is, my rabbi teacher. How will they not believe it? But Jesus said, no, get out of town.

They're not gonna receive it, which tells us an interesting thing. Not all people are ready at all times to receive the gospel, and you have to be sensitive when to talk and when to be quiet. You gotta know when to hold them, when to fold them.

I don't think that's in the Bible, but it's the same principle, and when to walk away. What it is is that some people are not in a position to hear the gospel. That doesn't mean they're not gonna hear the gospel.

It's just not the right time for them. They're adamant, they're closed, and to give it to them is gonna be nonproductive. That's an interesting thought. You can't witness to people mechanically. We have to share Jesus led by the Holy Spirit.

How many say amen? We gotta look for an open door. See, that's why Paul prayed. Pray that God will open a door. What's an open door? It's an opportunity, it's a chance to speak, but you can't just run up to people, did you know that God loves you and has a plan for your life?

We have to be led, and now he's back in the very city where this happens, and he's used his citizenship as we see later to take, avoid a beating. But let's just bring this part out. Did you notice the reaction of the crowd when he said Gentile?

Prejudice, Christian Witness, and Love for Enemies

Supernatural Jesus, a light at noontime? Yo, I'm down for that. A voice from heaven? Voices don't speak from heaven unless you believe in the supernatural. I'll listen to that. You're knocked off your mount, you're blinded, you're led into a town.

Now you're talking about Jesus who we know was crucified here? They're listening to all of that. We'll give that a hearing. We'll listen to it. Ananias is sent for to come to where Paul is blind and not eating for three days, not drinking anything.

We're down for that too. So then, when he says the magic word Gentiles, which we'll get to in a second, notice their reaction. They go wild. They start taking off their garments like, who's gonna stone him first?

And they start taking dust. You know, tearing the garments back in those days or taking the garments off and flinging them in the air, the commentators are not sure whether it was to take off the garments to pick up stones to kill him or whether it was just a sign of their fury and their hatred of him and what he was saying.

And taking dust and throwing it up in the air, that happened one time to King David by a man named Shimei who cursed him and threw dust up in the air as if to say, just get out of here, I can't stand you.

When people disagree with us, the way we react or when they say something we don't like, the way we react tells us whose side the truth is on. It's the reaction that we have when someone rejects what we say or they propagate a teaching that we don't agree with.

Our reaction tells us if God is on our side because the apostles for the rest of the book of Acts, they're rejected, they're cursed, they're saying, get out of here, we don't believe this. All kinds of things are said to them and they never get crazy, not even one.

What do you mean you don't believe in Jesus? Hey, you don't believe in Jesus, you know what I'm saying? No, they never say that. Someone else preaches about some false god of the Roman Empire and bowed down to Caesar.

What are you talking about, Caesar? I don't believe in Caesar. You're never gonna, never. You never find that in the Bible. But when he preached something they didn't agree with, they said, kill him, which tells you what spirit they had.

So how we react, brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, to people who disagree with us will really tell a lot about our relationship with Jesus. I can't stand the phrase culture wars. Culture wars, to me, are ruining the name of Christianity because I'm around Christians all the time as I travel in different parts of this country who are not weeping over people who don't know Jesus.

They're angry at people who don't know Jesus and people who believe and propose anti-biblical immorality, all kinds of things and same-sex marriage and abortion and all these kinds of things that politicians and leaders are proposing.

We're to disagree with that, but we're not to hate anybody because by hating and reacting with anger, we show that we've lost the spirit of God because Jesus said, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you.

Pray for those who despitefully use you. Am I correct in what I'm quoting here? But see, their reaction shows you, and other religions, their reaction if you don't convert, which we all know about, and the sad parts of Christian history is when the Roman Empire went from pagan to so-called Christian when Emperor Constantine got saved, supposedly became converted in the early 300s, and Christianity moved to become the state religion of the Roman Empire.

It went from persecuting Christians under the previous Emperor Diocletian, and now Constantine supposedly got converted, and now if you're in the Roman Empire and you're a citizen, yo, you're a Christian.

What do you mean you're not gonna be a Christian? They would mass convert people. They would convert people by force. They would take Jewish people and baptize them against their will. That's not the spirit of Jesus.

The way we treat people who disagree tells us a lot about whether we really know the Lord. All in favor say aye. So culture wars and fighting, and the Republicans and the Democrats, and the right wing and the left wing, and tell me something, who's it changing?

Tell me something, who's it changing? The only way to change America is to change Americans. That follows. How could America be different than Americans? Do you wanna change America? Then Americans have to change.

Well, how will you change an American? The only way anybody can be changed is by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and getting a new heart and a new mind. No laws will change him, nothing will change anybody.

The Bible clearly tells us you must be born again. So the way to change anybody, any country, any city, any state is to spread the good news of Jesus. That's the power of God. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul says.

For it, the gospel, is the power of God. Not laws, not protests, not marches. Get people saved, come on, can we put our hands together? Let people know Jesus as their savior. But if they don't wanna believe, we treat them with respect.

And if they preach another message and they wanna build a mosque or anything else, we respect that right. Because we practice here plurality of religions in America, not one religion. We don't believe in forcing one religion, because if we do, and the wrong people get in charge, they will ban Christianity, and then where will we be?

So everyone worships according to the dictates of their conscience. But their reaction, so unlike the apostles, who when they preached and were reviled, never reviled back. So that's a good lesson for all of us.

Because sometimes people, when they talk bad about Christ or something, it gets you angry, doesn't it? Come on, how many honestly admit that? I mean, I get upset. Only about five others plus me? All right.

The Gospel for Jews and Gentiles on Equal Footing

But let's get to the crux of the whole matter. Tell us about the supernatural, fine. Tell us about even this Jesus, that's fine. But when he said that Jesus said, I'm gonna send you to the Gentiles, and that put Jews and Gentiles on the same footing.

It ended right there. Well, we hear about the supernatural. Well, the Pharisees believed in healings, and the supernatural, they believe in the afterlife, the resurrection, the Sadducees didn't. We'll listen to anything, but if you think that we are gonna be on the same footing as those Gentile dogs, you are out of your mind.

We are special, we are superior. We're the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And now you're telling us that this salvation is not just for us, but it's for the Gentiles. We're on equal footing with the Gentiles.

You mean like, you know, everybody join hands and sing, we shall overcome? No, no. Kill him, kill him, get your jacket off, stone him. Why? He says we're the same as Gentiles, which shows you the power of prejudice.

Takes away your breath. They didn't say a word while he was telling about his conversion. He didn't say a word talking about a light at noontime knocking him off his mount. They didn't say a word when he was talking about he was healed of his blindness and got baptized.

They didn't scream until he said the G word. Gentiles, what are you talking about? Gentiles. They lost a chance to have eternal life because of their ingrained prejudice, which they had taken in with their mother's milk.

Just think of the power of it. They won't listen to the message or the messenger because he says something that strikes at the deep-rooted prejudice. Superiority feelings, we're special. And Gentiles still practice antisemitism and Jews to this day, Jewish people tell me behind closed doors refer to Gentiles in derogatory ways.

And in Israel, they have on bumper stickers a curse related to Jesus put as a sticker on there. So it's 2 ,000 years later and nothing has changed. Now, the first word that, as I close, that God ever said to Abraham, Abraham is the father of everyone who believes, the father not only to Jewish people, Paul says that in Romans that Abraham is the father of everyone who has faith.

He's our model. We're like, we're part of the family of faith. What faith? Abraham's faith. And did you notice the first word that God ever spoke to Abraham? Leave. Get away from your family. Get away from your home.

Get away from er of the chaldees and the food you're used to. Get away, leave. I have something better for you. Where am I going? Don't worry, I'll show you. When will I know when I get there? Don't worry about that.

Just leave and go to a place that I have for you. You know what the problem is, brothers and sisters? A lot of us wanna go to a new place in God. We wanna go to a place of greater blessing. How many wanna go to a new place in God?

Greater blessing, greater closeness to Christ. Just lift your hand up if you wanna go to that place. The only problem is to go somewhere, you have to leave where you are. It's an amazing thing. For me to go to my office, I have to leave the platform.

But I like the platform, that's the problem. Most of us are rooted in something that we refuse to leave. See, the Jews of that day, they would not leave. God was doing something new. Jesus had come. It was a new day, a new covenant.

No longer the law and Moses and just Jewish people. It was Jesus and loving the whole world. They would not leave where they were so they couldn't go to the place of blessing and salvation that God had for them.

Leaving Cultural and Denominational Traditions

That's the way it is with a lot of us, even when we find the Lord. Why a lot of Christians don't grow is they're locked in. They're locked into where they are. Their culture, what they're used to. Born a Baptist, gonna die a Baptist.

Born Pentecostal, gonna die Pentecostal. Born Kojic, Church of God in Christ. I'm a white Southerner, I'm dying a white Southerner. Born a black, I'm dying, I'm West Indian, brother. And we can never go where God wants us to go because we won't leave where we are.

Our culture, stuff that's been drilled into us. Most people, when they read the Bible, I talk to ministers around the world, most ministers read the Bible. God helped me and God helped all of us to read it different.

You know how most people read the Bible? They're looking for ammunition for what they already believe. They're not reading to learn. They're not coming like a child to the Word of God. No, no, this is what they learn.

And that they're locked in, they're in their two by four, they're in their little place, and God says, no, I want you to go. I want you to keep going. I have something better for you. For glory to glory and from faith to faith.

I want you to keep moving. But to move, you gotta leave where you are. And we get comfortable where we are. We get locked into where we are. Been a battle all my life, to be honest with you. Because growing up in church, I heard some good things.

A lot of bad things in that church my mom and dad dragged me to. All due respect, mom. A lot of nonsense. I only found it was nonsense when God gave me more light and I read the Bible. You think my wife and I, if we follow the traditions of the people that I was around growing up, who were, a lot of them racist, you think I would be here in downtown Brooklyn?

No. No. To go where God wants you to go, you have to leave your moorings. That's why Abraham never could live in a house. Did you know that? That all the time Abraham lived, God never permitted him to build a house.

He could only live in tents. Why? Because God said, you gotta move. Gotta be ready to move. Gotta be ready to move because I'm doing new things. I wanna lead you a different way. And once you get settled, you get mechanical and you're locked in.

And that's the way I was raised. I was born in Trinidad in Church of the Open Bible or whatever and that's how I was raised or whatever. Is that not true? Spanish Pentecostalism, Church of God in Christ.

Pentecostalism, white, narrow Pentecostalism. Some of you have some other background and we're locked in for life. For life. Oh, we're not gonna say kill someone. Kill someone usually like they did to Paul but we're locked in, we're not ready to move and God says, no, I wanna, your ways are not my ways.

Your thoughts are not my thoughts. My plans are different than your plans but how are you gonna follow them unless you're willing to leave? But if you're locked in and you say, this is the way it'll always be.

I just trying to help a pastor in another place in the country and they're having division in the church because he wanna start a prayer meeting in the church and the board said, listen, this church has existed for 35 years, we don't have prayer meetings here.

Praise God. But he said, that's in the Bible. I don't care what's in the Bible. This is the deacons. I don't care what's in the Bible. We don't do that here. They do that over there and we're not gonna be lifting up our hands like them charismaniacs and all those other people and all that.

Come on, how many know what I'm talking about? Listen, prejudice, if anyone, if Jesus freezes from anything, it should be from this kind of prejudice. Think of the prejudice of this country, the history of white people in this country.

Think of the crusades where Christians went with the cross on their shield and on their chest and massacred and raped Muslim women and on the way there, by the way, when Peter the Hermit and some other people preached up that first crusade and they actually took over Jerusalem from the infidels who were living there, the Muslims.

On the way there, they stopped off in France and Germany, a few places, and killed every Jew that was breathing in some villages. Why? Because those are the Christ killers. You think the Jews have ever forgotten that?

You don't think that's been passed down from generation to generation? You don't think the Muslims have passed down from generation to generation? They did their atrocities. What is it all built on? Ignorance and prejudice.

Slavery in this country. Black prejudice. We have people come to me and say, I got relatives, African American people in our church who say, relatives who make fun of us and say, I can't believe you're going to that church with the man as the pastor.

You going to the plantation? The guy got a plantation going there. But they're going to their church. Woo, shout glory. Woo, yeah. I feel it. I feel the fear in all of them. I think what we all need is a baptism of love.

Can we put our hands together for that? Latinos, Asians, white people, Eastern European, Polish, Ukrainian like me. Oh, God in heaven. People are talking about speaking in tongues and the gifts of the spirit.

I'm happy to talk about those things. They're in the Bible. They're valid. But what good is it if you don't love everybody? What good is it? People are talking, we believe in the Holy Ghost. I believe in the Holy Spirit too.

But the fruit of the spirit is love. And what love gets rid of is prejudice. Imagine when they said the G word, they got lit. And they were going to kill him because their sense of superiority could not even fathom that we all need the same savior.

The Baptism of Love and the Unity of the Church

Who do you and I feel superior to? I watch it, it's so funny. Prejudice is just so ugly, it's so rampant. I've been around it and observed it. I have a special sensitivity to it because I'm sometimes disliked by white people because we have an interracial church.

I'm disliked by black people because I'm not black. But I have a black suit on, you know what I'm saying? And in Puerto Rico, if you're dark-skinned Puerto Rican, they treat you different. You can't get a job at a hotel desk.

No, no, no, no, it's light-skinned Puerto Rico. Oh, what are you kidding me? And the caste system in India and the Hutsis and the Tutsis over there in Africa, two black tribes, they kill each other, why?

Because they're not us, don't you get it? And the West Indians who remind me, I'm not from Jamaica, I'm from Trinidad. I am not, do not call me a Jamaican. I'm not African American either. I'm West Indian, for what?

Look at me, everybody, for what? How many know you take off the skin? We all have a heart that bleeds. Lift your hand if you believe that, right? So, I want to close with this thought. What does God want you to leave so he can get you to the place he wants you to be?

Jaron's been around, he'll tell you. Most people are stamped by the time they're 30 years old. They're just stamped, they're not moving anywhere. They're just staying within that little world, that little microscopic little world that they think is like, this is what God is doing in the earth.

They have no clue what God is doing in the earth. God's doing a lot of things in the earth. Most people are stamped, and that's what they are. No new learning, no changes. White prejudiced churches, black prejudiced churches.

I was so happy last Sunday, I helped a church in Charlotte, North Carolina, pastor there is on a sabbatical, he's going through some kind of physical, emotional problems, and they wrote me a letter that I felt the Lord wanted me to go and try to help them.

And it was integrated, in North Carolina, Charlotte, integrated church, made me so happy. Brothers and sisters, let's leave all that junk. Come on, how many are with me? Let's leave all that stuff and where we're from, and we're from the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and we're at the tab.

Oh no, that's not what we do at the tab, the tab, the tab. Who cares about the tab? I'm asking you, who cares about the tab? I care about Jesus. Does everyone have their own personality? Yeah, but whatever.

I don't want to miss out on God's blessing because I won't leave from where I am to go where he wants me to go. And it's not physical, it's psychological, spiritual, it's your heart, it's the way you think.

So let's die to our West Indian-ness. Let's die to our blackness, our whiteness, our Southerness, our Pentecostalism, our whatever. If someone asks you what you are, take a tip from the pastor here. Someone says, well, what are you, what are you?

I'm a Christian. I know, but what kind of Christian? I'm a Bible-believing Christian. No, I know, but I want a label. Give me what you are, tell me what you are. Are you Baptist, are you this? I'm none of those things because I don't want to defend all the things that have been done under those names.

How many are with me? Say amen. So the best thing to say is I'm a New Testament Christian. If it's in the New Testament, I believe in it, I want to practice it, I believe in the Bible. And if you want to know, if you want to know more, come to the church.