Hey everybody, I’m so excited to have this opportunity to share the Word of the Lord with you. I believe this particular message is powerful and life changing. The message is called “It Works for Me”. Some people don’t understand why it works for you, they criticize and they don’t get it. They don’t understand that your faith, your walk with God, you are a living testimony to what Jesus can do. Don’t let detractors distract you from what God has given you. Take a look at this word and let it speak to your life.
My heart bleeds for the blind man because he has been blind all of his life. He has never had his sight, and yet he lived in the midst of people with sight. Now, if all people had no sight, then being blind is normal. But if you are surrounded by sighted people and you cannot see, he’s not only dealing with the agony of being blind, he’s dealing with the agony of being different. No matter what you say, all of us, to some degree, want acceptance and we want to fit in.
You’d be shocked at the people who are in financial trouble right now, have been in financial trouble most of their lives, their parents were in financial trouble, and they think, “If I just had $1 million, if I just had $2 million, if I just had $500,000, all my troubles would be over. I would be just fine”. And they have no clue that the ending of one problem is the beginning of another. You cannot make them understand that to save their life because we worship the idea of getting what we don’t have.
There are people in this room right now who have been single 20, 30 years, and they said, “I hate being alone, and I hate being single, and look at all the other people who are happy. I hate Valentine’s Day. I hate all of this, I hate that, I hate the other. I hate being alone. If I could just be married”. They don’t know that right behind them, there’s a married person sitting there saying, “Oh my God, I’m so sick of this joker. If I could just…”
I want to talk to the people in this room, that as soon as you get through with one thing, here comes something else. If it’s not this, it’s that. If it’s not that, it’s the other. I want to talk to the people who had blessings that you didn’t even get to enjoy because there were so many circumstances. Oh, talk to me, somebody. Have you even had something wonderful that happened to you, and you didn’t really get to celebrate it because you walked into another situation, or it created a situation, or you had haters over your situation, or you had to defend something that you wanted to be happy about? Let me try this middle section, maybe they’ll be real. Have you ever had to fight through your own celebration?
I want you to understand that this is an important moment in this man’s life. It is a moment he has been waiting on all of his life. And he finally gets to this moment, and he can’t even enjoy it because he’s got to fight. And they begin to say, “Is not this the man who has been begging? Oh wait, begging. Isn’t he the beggar”? Excuse me, I just thought about something. What is this guy’s name anyways? We don’t even get to know. He is treated like a non-person. Either they’re calling him the blind man or the beggar.
It’s a bad thing when what you are going through has robbed you of who you are. I want you to understand that if he was a beggar, you never beg if you’re not broke. Whether you’re begging for money, or begging for attention, or begging for love, or begging for recognition, people who are full of something never beg for it. I wouldn’t beg you for a glass of water if I had a whole lot of water. If I’m begging you for something, I don’t have it. He is the beggar, the blind man, the broke man. The beggar, the blind man, the broke man. Everything in his life has been affected by this one thing.
The blindness has nothing to do with the brokenness, but it does. Because he cannot do this, it has affected that. Economically, he is affected. Number two, his identity is affected. We don’t know who he is or what he’s been through. His name is swallowed up by his conditions. A name is a lot to lose. I’m going to say that again, a name is a lot to lose. Let me tell you something, when you don’t have a good name, it will go ahead of you. A bad name will close doors you haven’t even got to yet. By the time they meet you, they’re already preset to dislike you because of a bad name. A good name, on the other hand, will open up doors you don’t even want to open.
I want to tell somebody in here the devil has been after your name for years. He’s been after your integrity, he’s been after your credit, he’s been after your name. But God is about to restore your name. Open your mouth and praise him if you receive it. I want you to declare it by faith. Shake hands with somebody and tell them, “I’m about to get my name back. I’m about to get my name cleared up. What my ex-husband said, what my old girlfriend said, what my high school teacher said, I’m about to get my name back. My credit is coming back, my integrity’s coming back. Everything that the devil stole from me, I want it back. I’m not going to make do, I’m not going to get by, I’m not going to get along”. Somebody reach up and say, “Give me my name back”.
So, it affected his economy, it affected his identity. And when they can find nothing else wrong with him, then they attack his methodology. They kept asking this guy over and over and over again to tell the story. He said, “It’s just like I just told you”. Then they took him to the Pharisees, “Tell him again. Now tell it again”. It’s interrogation. They weren’t even interested in whether he could see or not. They were using him to attack Jesus.
Some of you are up under battle right now, and the battle isn’t even about you. They are using you to attack somebody else around you. You might be going through a battle that’s not even yours. Because if they could get him to say the right thing, they could use his mouth to kill his master. And when the enemy is out to assassinate someone who is gifted, or anointed, or promising, he will always try to use somebody’s mouth. Are y’all going to talk to me or not?
They don’t care whether he’s blind or whether he could see. They don’t care whether he got a job or doesn’t have a job. They don’t care whether he has a future or doesn’t have a future. They just keep asking him the same thing a different way, trying to get him to say something that they could use to attack Jesus. They don’t care that he’s blind, or that he can see, or that he’s not healed. They’re trying to get him to say something. And then the Bible mentions that Jesus did it on the Sabbath day. And from the fact that he healed him on the Sabbath day, they concluded he is a sinner.
It’s not like Jesus was washing clothes, or mending fences, or working on the Sabbath day. Jesus had a conversation, and he spit. That’s all he did on the Sabbath day. And from that, they said, “He is a sinner”. Once people put a name on how they hate you, once they give that hate a name and the name is hateable, they want to find a category to put you in so that they can hate you better.
When I came here to pastor this church, the Lord told me to call it The Potter’s House. In the early days of the church, new members were coming to me and they said they want to know what kind of church it is. “Is the Potter’s House Baptist? Potter’s House AME? Potter’s House Church of God in Christ? Potter’s House Apostolic Church? What kind of church is it”? So, I went to God and I prayed about it. I said, “The people want a name for the Potter’s House. They want to know what kind of church it is”. And the Lord spoke something to me I will never forget. He said, “Son, don’t give them no name because if they can’t fight you, they’ll fight the name you gave it”.
Now, I’m really going to dig down on something. Y’all with me? Have you ever been doing something good, with good intentions, meant right, really trying to help somebody, and got kicked in the face for doing something good? It’s not like you’ve never done anything bad. You’ve done things bad before and got away with it. And then did something good, and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose, and you’re saying, “How in the world could you attack me? You, you going to attack me after I paid your rent, talked for you to get a job, opened up a door? I don’t mind being attacked, but you”?
When they found out it was the Sabbath, they said, “He is a sinner”. When they called him a sinner, the blind man said, “I don’t know”. He said, “I don’t know whether he’s a sinner or not”. He said, “I don’t know anything about his doctrine. I don’t know anything about his theology. I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know what y’all are talking about. I never read the book of Revelations. I don’t know what his stance is. I don’t know whether he’s Democrat or Republican. I don’t know whether he’s got two wives, or a dog, or a billy goat. All I know”. Can I get a witness up in here? Can I get a witness? “All I know is that when I met him, I was blind. And when he finished with me, I could see. Now, the rest of it, y’all can fight all day long, but all I know is that it works for me”.
Touch your neighbor and tell them, “It works for me”. You are in a season in your life that you don’t have to prove anything to anybody. All you got to do is tell them that, “All I know is that it works for me. I don’t know about your God. I’m not going to argue with you about your religion. I don’t care if you worship Buddha. I don’t care if you serve the moon and the stars. I don’t care if you pray to Pluto. All I know is that it works for me. This man, Jesus, healed me. This man, Jesus, set me free. This man, Jesus, broke yokes in my life. This man, Jesus, stopped me from killing myself. This man, Jesus, picked me up off the ground. This man, Jesus, gave me a second chance”.
When I think of the goodness of Jesus and all that he’s done for me, my soul. Wow, radical, sanctified, Holy Ghost praises, to open your mouth and give God the… some people don’t like your Bible, but tell them, “It works for me”. Some people don’t like your church, but tell them, “It works for me”. When you think about what God has done in your life, give him a grateful praise right now. Some people who are not used to the way we worship, they don’t think it takes all of that. They think that you should come to church, and the pastor should speak, and you should sit there and be quiet. But the problem with that is, as long as I speak and you don’t say anything, it’s a sign you’re not of age.
They came to the boy’s parents and asked the parents to speak for him. But the parents said, “He’s of age. He can speak for himself”. You don’t need Bishop Jakes to praise your God. You are of age; speak for yourself. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. If he healed you, if he delivered you, if he blessed you, if you’re of age, speak for your… hallelujah.
The Bible said that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. Run over and shake somebody by the hand, and tell them something that you know that you know that you know that God did in your life. I know he did it. You can’t make me doubt him. It works. It works for me. You can laugh at me, you can make fun of me, you can say, “It doesn’t take all of that”. But you wasn’t the one that was blind. You wasn’t the one that was down. You weren’t the one that was suicidal. You weren’t the one that was at your wits end. Look at me now. Devil, how do you like me now?
I got to stop right there. It’s been a real joy to share the Word of the Lord with you. We all have an area of blindness in our life, some area that needs to be touched, or healed, or delivered. God is going to restore your name, integrity, favor, and make new opportunities for you. Remember, the best is yet to come. Thank you for this opportunity. May God bless you.