Empty Handed Sarah Jakes Roberts

would you all please turn to me to judges 14 and 3. i was a little bit anxious because no matter whether or not you've grown up you're still preaching at the potter's house so ladies if you would pray that my edges stay late and that i don't trip down the stairs that would really bless me in ways that i cannot define i know it is our custom to stand for the reading of the word if you have it would you say amen if you need a minute say wait a minute wait a minute from the choir amen judges 14 and 3 please then his father and mother said to him is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren or among all my people that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised philistines and samson said to his father get her for me for she pleases me well but his father and mother did not know that it was of the lord that he was seeking an occasion to move against the philistines for at that time the philistines had dominion over israel so samson went down to timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of timna not to his surprise a young lion came roaring against him and the spirit of the lord came mightily upon him and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat though he had nothing in his hand but he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done then he went down and talked with the woman and she pleased samson well after some time when he returned to get her he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion and behold a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion he took some of it in his hand and with a long eating when he came to his father and mother he gave some to them and they also ate but he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion i want to speak to you all today about being empty-handed if you take a moment to pray with me father this is your moment these are your people this is your word move anything that would dispute against that out of the way open our hearts to your spirit and our minds to be transformed father do what only you can do when anointing collides when need collides when destiny decides that we must be pushed into the next level breathe into this room o precious savior let your spirit saturate as only it can do until walls come tumbling down until chains are broken until strongholds come down do what only you can do father hover in this room until generational curses are broken until families rise up until leaders emerge out of this generation father breathe into this room until insecurities are met with your truth until truth rises up and says we've always been blessed in jesus name i pray amen i have to tell you as i was preparing for this message i i wanted to tell you what my father has this saying about slapping a gorilla which i'm not sure if you've heard it or not he said i just slapped a gorilla but i got a new deal and i'm working on it and i was i was going to google it because i wanted to figure out like is this something that people actually say or is this like a bishop jake's ism because those do exist and so i thought i was going to have this deep meaning about slapping gorillas and i was going to preach about slapping gorillas and then i realized that actually no one really says that but bishop so but isn't that how family is we all have these subcultures these sayings these environments that we create that if anyone else looked in them they wouldn't understand what was going on at all it's like i didn't realize that saying smarten up to your children wasn't really something that other people say it's just what my mother said to us smarten up when we were showing out she said you better smarten up like um get your life together so but once again no one else really says that so when i was out in los angeles and i started telling people to smarten up they were like reading books and i was like no i mean your attitude smart like but sometimes the people who create us ingrain something in us that regardless of life circumstances it can't be stripped away from us but what happens when you're like samson and you find yourself going against the grain of your family we see in scripture three that he's searching for a wife and his parents don't understand is there not a woman among the daughters of your brethren or among all my people that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised philistines what happens when destiny separates you from everything you've ever known when your family had one expectation and one road and everyone does it this way and god's place something in your spirit that separates you from the very people who are supposed to understand you i want to talk about the three elements of destiny the first one is that destiny separates you why is it important for you to recognize that destiny separates you because if you aren't careful you'll turn your destiny into a democracy and you'll be waiting for approval and campaigning to make the next move into the next dimension meanwhile your glory is waiting for you so i want to know as we prepare for this message today if you're willing to be separated if what god has for you means that you have to do things a little bit differently if you have to break a few rules if you have to be willing to look like you don't know what you're doing are you willing to be separated you see because what god has for you may look like confusion to the people around you you have to understand that very few people will understand what god is doing in your life even your family even your family not to say they don't love you not to say that they don't mean well and that they don't want the best for you but sometimes god stirs up something inside of you that only you can understand and you got to be careful when he's doing something on the inside of you because when you open it up to opinions it gets infected and now all of a sudden the very thing that you were supposed to be protecting inside of you has now been infected by opinions and fears and their insecurities because they wish they would have been able to go after it the way you went after it so now when stella is celebrating your climb they try to pull you down you got to be careful who you open your destiny up to and so samson has made a decision that in spite of what everyone else has done that he's not going to choose a wife from his tribe or his community that he's going to go into timna and there he will discover his wife the next thing that destiny does is it pulls you out of your father's house you see in order to do destiny you got to feel a little bit insecure i know you've been waiting for this moment where you feel confident and propelled and like i got this and i have it under control but if you don't need god to do it then god's not in it wouldn't it be lovely if when we stepped into the next level we understood all of the nuances when we got that new job that we understood the environment that we understood the culture when we got into that marriage that we just had it all together wouldn't it be lovely if we didn't have to learn before we grow but sometimes growth can only come when we're in an insecure place god can't do nothing with you if you know it all [Applause] you can't be afraid to be a little bit ignorant not ignorant the way we used to being ignorant i do ignorant too but don't be afraid to ask questions because when destiny separates you there's no room for you and your pride and your ego just the talent that god has placed inside of you [Applause] and the willingness to watch that be transformed and grow as he grooms you so he goes into timna that's where he has discovered this wife and to his surprise a young lion comes roaring up against him a young lion comes rowing up against it how is it that we walk in to our destiny and we're prepared for all kinds of outcomes and we'll prepare if this goes wrong i got this and if this goes wrong i got this covered but what happens when god sends something against you that you weren't prepared for at all that some kind of way you forgot to cover the kids in the process and some kind of way you you got the job and you got the house but you didn't realize your marriage was in trouble there's lions tigers and bears all around us all around us there's lions tigers and bears and when they come up against us there's nothing in our hands the text tells us that to his surprise a young lion came roaring against him and the spirit of the lord came mightily upon him and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat though he had nothing though he had nothing nothing in his hands i have a dream i have a vision i know what i want to do but i have nothing i don't have nothing to work with i didn't have the family i was supposed to have i didn't have the job i don't have the education i don't have the setup i don't have nothing i don't have nothing in my hands and there's lions roaring against me every time i turn around is something new and i don't have i don't have nothing i don't have nothing left i don't have nothing have you ever been down to nothing nothing i don't have no fight left i don't have no fight left another lion a young lion strong this thing trying to take me out and i don't have i don't have nothing in my hands and i've been to church and i sing the songs and i'm losing my child anyway and i've been to church and i know the word and my marriage is gone anyway and i can't pay the bills and and i don't have nothing in my hands how how i'm gonna fight the lion it's a lion somewhere with your name on it it's roaring waiting on you you know what else destiny does it doesn't just separate you it isolates you destiny strips you away from every weapon you've learned to use you a smooth talker you talk your way out of anything not this time when you go to the next level you're gonna have to be willing to let go of everything you thought you knew about yourself you're gonna have to be willing to let go of everything you thought would help you win he failed to realize that the spirit of the lord was more than enough for the lion that had his name on it you know i was researching for the message and i needed to understand how you tear apart a lion with nothing in your hands with with nothing in your hands i was wondering how is it even possible see because i need to know because i do live in l.a now and i need to have some moves and if people is out here tearing up lions surely i could be my own security if i could just figure out how you go from nothing to tearing apart lions you know one of the strategies they teach you when you're in the military is not just how to load your gun and how to have weapons they teach you hand-to-hand combat because they recognize that there's going to be some things that happen that they're going to just run up on you in such a way that it's going to be in closed quarters that means that everything you're preparing for happening on the outside may not be what you need to be prepared for you need to prepare for your closest friends to walk away for your closest family to not understand that when the lion comes roaring it might not roar from the outside the roar may come from the inside the roar may come from the inside what if it's not just your inner circle what about the lions that exist within us oh yeah you know the way you talk yourself out of your destiny you know the way you say you want the job but then you sabotage it because you really don't think you're good enough what about the lions that roar on the inside of us that come up against us and make us feel insecure and make us feel like we aren't gonna make it oh yeah it's lions everywhere baby and the greatest lion that samson had to fight wasn't just the one that was on the outside it was the one on the inside as well what i love so much about this text is that it shows us two different versions of samson we see someone confident enough to say go get me that wife i don't care that she's not from where i'm from i don't care that she's not within our group go get me that woman but then we see him isolated and timna in the vineyards and a little bit afraid you see no matter how confident somebody looks on the outside they got a lion to fight too that's why you got to be careful comparing your lives to other people's life because you don't know what they lion look like and god has appointed and anointed your lion because you are the one who has this strategy to take them out even though it looks like you don't have anything in your hands did you know that there are parts of our body that are all connected to our hands oh yeah i did the research yeah if you look at the diagram literally every part of your body just about is represented by some nerve in your hand look at your hand child look at all that nothing in your hands look at all that nothing in your hands look at all that nothing that thing that you've been calling nothing god sent me all the way from los angeles to tell you everything connected to you is in that nothing that everything that's going to take you to the next level is in that nothing that you got heart in your hands that you have confidence in your hand that the hand of the lord is upon you and when the hand of the lord is upon you that he brings his whole body heaven's resources is backing you up you're not going into that room by yourself you're not fighting for that child on your own that nothing is everything baby that nothing is everything baby you better start acting like you got more than enough in your hands that when you look at your hands and you look at that lion you say i wish you would try me do you know whose hand is on my life do you know the spirit of the lord is resting upon me [Applause] it may look like nothing now but when the spirit of the lord is finished with me he's going to turn nothing into something i rejoice when i see nothing i rejoice when it looks like it ain't going to work out cause i realize that when i'm weak his strength is made perfect in me baby you try me if you want to look at these hands i dare you to look at your hands for a minute look at these hands how they've survived trial after trial have they survived storm after storm that when you thought you was down to nothing look at your baby in church worship in any way praising anyway [Applause] you thought it was nothing they thought it was nothing you have survived time after time you waiting to get over the mountain you waiting to feel like you overcame you have arrived we keep waiting for this moment where it feels like i can finally breathe again like i finally got it together i'm finally gonna make it this is finally the destiny is a journey and there is no landing place the mere fact that you hear and that you're breathing again and that you're hoping again and that you hanging on the face even when it looks like nothing [Applause] serves the enemy notice that you gonna have to send more than a lion from me because when the spirit of the lord falls on my life it saturates everything even the things that look like nothing i don't have to have it all together right now baby cause the spirit of the lord is doing something in me and i don't mind waiting because i know those who wait upon the lord so samson tears the lion apart with his bare hands god revealed to him in that moment his potential sometimes you need lions to come up against you to reveal something new about yourself that you wouldn't have known what these hands were capable of unless i sent the lion maybe you have to start stop resenting the struggle long enough to see what the struggle is revealing about yourself what if i told you that every storm is your servant every storm is your servant you're carrying me something you're teaching me something god what are you showing me in this season i i know it's raining and the rain is a distraction and the clouds are a distraction because i know that there's a lesson in here somewhere what are you producing in me through this for the first time in text we see that samson has supernatural strength samson the one that we know now was just being strong and breaking down pillars the one thing that everyone knows about him now he just discovered in this moment what if that thing you're going through right now what it produces inside of you is what others are going to celebrate about you down the road what if i told you had there never been a teen pregnancy in my life that there wouldn't be anointing what if i never had to cry out to god then i wouldn't understand the desperate cries of worship what if what if this storm is teaching you something and you're so busy being upset with god that he sent a lion that you don't see that the lion produced your strength and you don't see that you need the strength to get to the next level what if what if you don't even know who you are what have you been thinking all along that you were one way but god said i want to reveal something about you but you're going to have to be willing to face a few lions and be separated and be isolated and you're going to have to let people walk away from you and you're going to have to wave goodbye when they do it and not hang on to the memory of who you wanted someone to be but let go so that god can do a new thing what if i told you that this is going to take time but it's worth the wait what if i told you that like they saying in the church i grew up in you'll understand it better by and by that you're going to look back on the thing that you're crying about and thank god that you had to go through it there's perseverance and endurance and strength down on the inside of you but how would you ever know that unless it's been tested by storms and and lions and issues and struggles and generational curses and what is god going to break you through unless something inside of you is broken something inside of you has to be a little bit broken so that god can put it back together and make it better because you've learned to function one way before this next level you can't take the way you used to function he's going to have to break up your system and break up your cycle and break up your comfort zone and break up your friend circle and break up the job and break up your finances so that you can learn to be a better steward next time so that you can learn to be in the moment next time so that you can once god gives you that wealth once he gives you that job you know how to work it because i was faithful over a few things so he could trust me with more oh yeah there's lions with your name on it and when the lion gets finished with you the next stage of destiny is going to shock you because it's going to make you look back at where god was with you the scripture tells us that samson after the spirit of the lord fell upon him and he tore the lion apart though he had nothing in his hands that he didn't tell his father or his mother what have you done has god ever done something in your life that you couldn't share with anybody else because you didn't quite understand it fully yourself and so you didn't know how to express to anybody else what it just happened so you had to treasure it in your heart like like mary did when the angels visited her yeah he treasured that thing in his heart and then he went down and talked with the woman and she pleased samson well and after some time when he returned to get her he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion now i can kind of understand this what you need to know is my sister is my amen corner on today can we thank god for my sister i do i thank them so since i was telling them girl that samson turned aside to see the carcass of the lion now i'm not gonna lie if i tore a lion apart i would want to go back just to make sure that i had done that have you ever done that i mean done something so well you shocked yourself i mean yes the spirit of the lord was with you but you was in there too so you wanted to go back and look and so samson goes back to look you know because i tore a line apart with my hands and i just want to see cause i let all the other lions know that i'm not the one like that okay you run up on me you're gonna lent back okay until sampson returns to the place where destiny was revealed inside of him and behold a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion you have to understand that in order for honey and bees to be in the carcass of the lion that it should have taken years it should have taken years for the honey and the bees to be able to be produced in the carcass you see the carcass has to dry out and the it has to decay fully and then once it's dried the bees come in and then they have to create the comb and then and then the honey is produced could it be that god is going to expedite could it be that where there was a carcass that where there was a dead thing new life is going to be produced could it be [Applause] could it be that you needed to kill the lion so that something new could come up from the ground could it be could it be could it be that you haven't lost nothing could it be that he'll restore the years could it be could it be that time is on your side could it be that you've been crying because you thought you lost and you thought that surely i'm too old now and i don't have enough time and i don't have enough energy but could it be that what took someone eight years is gonna take you three years could it be that you right on the edge that you right on the edge of a breakthrough and that you're gonna get everything you lost in one time so you've been thinking that it's gonna take you as long to get it back as it took you to lose it and he sent me here to tell you that it's on the way that it's on the way that it's on the way could it be could it be honey and bees where there was a dead thing a sweet thing that god wants to give you a sweet thing where there was a dead thing maybe you can't give up just yet maybe you needed that thing to die it's time to wipe your tears and stand up and say weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning and i ain't lost nothing that the spirit of the lord won't give back to me so send another lion my way if you will cause i've got a honey and i've got some bees that are ready to make a home and the thing that was dead in my life he's got resurrection power do you know the god you serve do you know the god's return that he will resurrect from a dead thing in your life and create a sweet thing honey and beast oh yeah this is where samson messed up though cause i was shouting like y'all when i was reading the text and i was like lord who you did this thing for me but him he messed up a little bit can i tell you can i tell you where he messed up my my text tells me that he took some of it in his hands and went along eating he took some of it in his hands and went along eating and when he came to his father and mother he gave some to them and they also ate but he didn't tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion i had to read it over can i read it one more time it says he took some of it in his hands we back to these hands again [Applause] he took some of it in his hands the same hands that were powerful with nothing he took some honey he got this isn't very churchy daddy forgive me he got high off his own supply that honey was never for him that honey was for the bees you see samson was most powerful when he had nothing when he had nothing in his hands that's when the spirit of the lord fell the spirit of the lord didn't fall when he had the honey in his hands it was when he had nothing nothing and now he's got fingers you know why you can't have sticky fingers because you start picking up stuff you start picking up stuff you would have never grabbed he got sticky fingers y'all yeah yeah the honey was for the bees sometimes you had to look back and even see here let me break it down it's like when you leave that x and then some time passes and you see him on facebook and you're lonely and you start thinking well maybe maybe it wasn't that bad he got a bible app he played candy crush now she went and got her hair done and she lost maybe but but just because a sweet thing is formed in the dead thing doesn't mean you're supposed to turn back and start eating off the sweet thing what samson should have realized is that he didn't have to go back to the carcass the power was in his hands it was never about the lion it was never about the honey and the bees it was about him being empty-handed empty-handed only man celebrates about the outward experience you know you want to know what makes god rejoice when you're empty-handed that's where that's where god gets to sleep and you see when you get the job and you and you get the career and you you think you got it all together he he's not too impressed with that because that's just the outward thing he wants to know where you're empty-handed he wants to know up underneath all of it that you've been thrown together where is the brokenness where is the insecurity where is the fear you dressed up you look good i appreciate all of that but but where are you empty-handed and you see the problem is that some of us get so excited about what god did that we miss out on what god can do when we're empty-handed these hands these hands these empty hands this nothing this nothing in my hands this nothing you see what happens we get so comfortable that we stop searching for the nothing moments in our life we we start getting in this pattern and this routine and we're so comfortable that we don't start dreaming again and we don't start pushing the limits and and we don't try to excel any further because we don't want to go back to that feeling of having nothing in our hands you know what i love about bishop jakes he don't mind having nothing in his hands my daddy used to dig ditches i have to remember that when we're in production meetings for talk shows that your pastor started with nothing june 9 1957 nothing in his hands it's it's not me just preaching bishop jacks because i want you to know that where there is an anointing from the head that it flows down to everything connected to it that this ain't just about bishop and a talk show this is about your nothing too and i came all the way from los angeles california to let you know that god wants to do something with your nothing and if you don't believe him look at your leadership because he took nothing from charleston west virginia he took nothing from they tried to run them out the city y'all i'm not i was there they laughed him out of meetings so you're going to be a pastor and produce you gonna create movies a talk show a talk show you you think you think you gonna have a talk show you gonna test and that's gonna be cute he had nothing no friends in hollywood no friends who understood hollywood he wasn't allowed to go to the movies he had nothing in his hands you don't need a hook up you don't need somebody who knows somebody stop trying to step over people all you need is a connection with the spirit of the lord you need his hand on your life because through his hand heaven's resources back up your dream heaven's resources back up your destiny banks are going to start telling you yes they're not even going to look at your credit they're going to look at the hand of the lord that's hovering over your life your children are going to turn around and they're going to start calling you blessed and you're not going to have to convince them or buy them or pay them off because god's hand it's one thing to have your hand on the lion it's another to have the spirit of the lord resting upon your hand tearing those lions apart nothing nothing can we thank god for nothing for a minute nothing for these nothing backgrounds no i mean can you really thank god that he's in the business and turning nothing into something i happen to believe that somewhere along the way some of us have gotten sticky fingers that we started stealing feelings and emotions that god never gave us but because we had these sticky fingers life has gotten a little bit more challenging for us the sticky fingers say don't touch anything else don't go after anything else that your best days are behind you so live life with your hands balled up mad at the world mad at your family mad at your cousins mad at the job mad at about living this bitterness because anything god was gonna do has already been done and now you're just supposed to exist i i want there to be a moment at this altar where we sanitize our hands where we ask god to wipe away the stickiness of life and restore our hope and restore our promise and to help us to believe and to break some things off of us because we can't afford to go through life with sticky fingers that our powers in being empty-handed and because we can be empty-handed that that's where god can really utilize our gifts and talents the most and if you just stand with me as i prepare to close daddy would you come up here with me please i want my daddy up here because i'm going to have an altar call and i believe in impartation and impartation is when you lay hands on someone and when you lay hands on someone all that is in you is in parted into them yet we don't just lay hands because it's cute and it's something we saw on television and have learned to do we lay hands because we recognize that there are some things inside of us that you need inside of you and then this man of god there is so many things worth imparting but what i want to press into today is him imparting the spirit of being empty-handed into each of us if this message was speaking to you when you beginning to recognize that your fingers got a little bit sticky that some kind of way you picked up all of these different attitudes and and patterns and struggles and obstacles that were never assigned to you we want to clean your hands off because we believe that your powers in being empty-handed that the only way you're going to win against that lion is if you're willing to go empty-handed would you join me at this altar so that we can have a moment to take back what the enemy thought he stole to restoring you a hope and promise that your latter days are going to be greater than your former that god's not finished with you just because you've been broken and just because you see a dead lion doesn't mean that your life is dead in fact it is a sign that god wants to transform some things in your life but you have to be willing to lift your hands we lift our hands in worship our hands towards heaven and worship no room for sticky fingers our hands towards heaven as the spirit of the lord falls because if it could touch our hands it'll touch our whole body it'll touch our whole life jemele would you put the picture back up for me if it touches our hands i cancer i have to flee if it touches our hands and generational curses will have to be broken if it would just touch our hands then our lungs will come together we'll be able to breathe again if you would just touch our hands touch our hands oh precious savior touch our hands the spirit of the lord fall fresh on this place hover let it saturate this place so god is only you can do glory when i asking you to come to the altar to embarrass you we're asking you to walk away from the lion and have an encounter with your hands to have the kind of encounter that changes your very life to have the kind of encounter that demands change take place in your life oh yeah this is a destiny moment destiny separates it isolates and it tempts you to look back but everything that god has designed for you to do is ahead of you and because it is ahead of you you can't hang on to what you left behind you got to let it go change of being broken right now as you walk away from your seat you're walking into your promise you're walking into your destiny the spirit of the lord is being manifest in this place is there one who's willing to grab the hand of the one unchanging hand in our life the one who said he'll never leave you nor forsake you when they put my jesus on the cross yes they put nails in his in his hands yes he put nails in his hands yes that means his hands have been wounded so yours don't have to be that means that you don't have to bear the weight of that pain anymore that you don't have to bear the weight of that sin anymore [Music] there's power in his hands resurrecting power in his hands and those hands are resting upon this room right now those hands have been covering you since the very day you were born this is my bible i got this bible in 1996. i wanted a vacation bible bible school for the spelling bee i got this bible before i was ever a teenage mother before i ever went through a divorce before i ever dropped out of school before life ever turned its hand on me before any lion ever came roaring up against me this bible was in my life i don't even know how i've had it this long because i i wasn't reading it up until recently i'm not gonna lie there was a time and okay don't judge but anyways listen but this bible is a sign that when the spirit of the lord is on you that it'll chase you down 20 years down the road and open up on 6777 west keys boulevard and produce a word inside of you that would have never been there had a lion never came roaring up against you i'm going to ask my father to pray because he is chief amongst us all and tearing lions apart with his hands

Channel: Sarah Jakes Roberts

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Keywords: sarah jakes roberts, sarah jakes, pastor sarah, pastor sarah jakes, woman evolve, sarah jakes roberts 2019, sarah jakes 2019, Sarah Jakes 2020

Id: gUvPRtFDbAU

Length: 51min 29sec (3089 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 06 2021