Lecrae — Joy Through Sacrifice

[Music] Wow this is a black man blushing right now is what's happening oh my gosh thank you all so much thank you pastor rich for your love in your hospitality and on Cherie as well I'm just I'm extremely grateful to be here I the warmth the love the the affection is very evident in this place and I've experienced it firsthand as just a spectator I wandered in here unbeknownst to pastor rich one Sunday my first time here and the people out front didn't quite recognize me I wasn't disguised but they didn't quite recognize me but they treated me with such hospitality and love and graciousness and I said there's something special going on here at vous Church and so I'm extremely grateful to be here y'all and thank you for that warm welcome yeah [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well man I I I want to I want to you know get into this amazing word that I believe God has for us all and you know I think he's doing something incredible in culture in the world and man I just want to you know jump right into it if that's okay with Joe so Hebrews is one of my favorite books and I want to I want to just take a peek into Hebrews chapter 12 verse 2 and if y'all yeah yeah be seated it's just have a seat oh sorry y'all standing up like a concerts about the happiness no apologize as I said it's one of my favorite books and and then I do think that there's something special here that we oftentimes miss and I want to I want to talk about joy and I want to talk about pain and how joy and pain work together hand-in-hand and I think God is is saying something about that in this particular text in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 2 says looking upon Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith for the joy set before him he endured the cross despising its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God who church let's pray father God you're good you're so good that you would use broken imperfect people to speak on your behalf and I'm one of those broken imperfect people but God I pray that by the power of your spirit you would use my words to say what you want to say to your people to say what you want to say to anybody who's just in here spectating that they may leave out here different than how they came in in in the best way possible so Holy Spirit would you take these words would you take what is said today and allow it to be transformational in the hearts in the minds of the listener we asked this in the precious powerful mighty glorious name of Jesus amen amen so a lot of y'all know me as an artist right I have no idea why they let me preach I don't know so we're just gonna figure this out together okay you know me as an artist and as an entertainer or you don't know me at all you're like who's I don't know whose guys it's fine um but but many people don't know me as Lecrae the family man the husband I have an incredible wife I have three amazing little kids I met my wife as an 18 year old and I'm 19 now and so it's been a it's been a journey you know I met her as an eight we've been together 12 years y'all twelve years yeah and I I still remember I still remember the first year okay I still remember you're wanting any any newlyweds in here anything like that you got some kind of you know you're not claiming them okay anybody school um well I still remember the first year the first year was uh it was special right it was special and and we came upon our first year anniversary and I want to do do it right right I want to do it right so I'm asking questions like what should i do what should I get it and my friends have been married for why I said all the cry you got it you got to go to Tiffany's I said okay whoa Tiffany introduced me to her so I can't ask her what I need to get for her you know so he said no no no crazy it's a store you got to go to Tiffany's and get her something nice from Tiffany's and said okay all right so you know I go to Tiffany's it's beautiful on the outside an amazing-looking doors like a castle I walk inside Tiffany's I look at the prices I walk outside of Tiffany's I said excuse me is that is that Tameka Ora Tasha cuz Tiffany's trippin okay I don't this is not gonna work and so I they said no Cray listen I'm telling you man you gotta do it when she sees the blue box she's gonna go crazy and I'm telling you I said why don't you say that Tiffany I need a blue box how many of the blue box and I'm gonna put you know something a nice little letter in there and the blue box they say cray come on man you just make the sacrifice I know it's gonna cost something but you just do it it's worth it I promise you she's gonna cry I said all right but I don't want any kind of tears I want like a river okay I know you're not supposed to give gifts for responses but I wanted a response I wanted I want like an ugly cry as man one of those kind of Christ so I went on in there a man and I and in my little one-year budget I had okay I got I got our bracelet we just paid it off yesterday so no but I got our bracelet and um and then I brought that blue box to her and I saw the appreciation on her face in y'all nine months later our first child was born us all I'm going to say okay that's it I it's all I'm gonna say no it was a beautiful moment it was a beautiful but but I learned something I learned something I learned that there is joy on the other side of sacrifice there's joy other side of of sacrifice there's greatness on the other side of the darkness right like I learn something like now listen as I said before I don't I don't want to give to get but I did receive I made a sacrifice I gave something to her and the joy that she fell brought me joy right the gift I gave her gifts but I gave myself a gift because her joy was a gift to me and what if I told you that there's greatness on the other side of your darkness that there is joy on the other side of your pain I don't know what you're dealing with in here today but I can assure you we've seen darkness right I know a lot about darkness darkness I remember my first season of darkness actually seven years old was seven years old I was invited into the room of a trusted family member and I was taking advantage of right and I had been taken advantage of had my childhood innocence stripped from me and it was not addressed and because it wasn't addressed I now had to wear those scars on the playground at recess I had to wear those scars on Saturday mornings while I was watching cartoons I had to wear those scars in the presence of the very person that took advantage of me and pretend as if nothing happened I know I had to just push it away and act as if you knows nothing and I learned something very unhealthy as a seven-year-old child I learned something very unhealthy I learned to take trauma and to take pain and to stuff it away and move forward as if nothing happened I learned something that I shouldn't have learned and anything you want to add to that I lived in a home that was that never had a chance of being healthy right because it was fuelled with abuse and drugs it was fuel with immaturity and by four years old I was without my father and I would never hear from him again until 25 years later and if that's not enough to create some emotional turmoil add on top of that drugs and arrests and deep depression all before the age of 18 years old I would often hear people say oh you you look like your daddy you you smell like your daddy you sound like your daddy you remind me of your daddy and whether they meant that as a compliment or an insult or just a mere observation it didn't matter to me because all I heard them say was I reminded them of my estranged addicted reckless father and I wanted nothing to do with that so I took it as an inspiration to become nothing like him now there's nothing wrong with not wanting to be like somebody who you think is reckless but I took it as an inspiration and never be like him but I didn't know who I wanted to be like I didn't have an example and so I had this self-determination and made-up idea of what I was supposed to be like and not falling into my father's pitfalls consumed me I did it consumed me and and so now I'm just working hard not to be him but but guess what I wasn't doing I wasn't addressing all the trauma and all the pain and all the failures in my life I was just plowing forward and I was pretending like it didn't exist now let me tell you something I was succeeding externally externally I was doing great I graduated high school I got scholarships I went to college I was on a Dean's List I graduated college I I got an internship I got a corporate job then I started my own business I threw myself into my own business I was doing well externally but internally I was headed for disaster I was headed for disaster see I learned to take the worst circumstances of my life and push them deep down into this internal closet I was bleeding internally and thinking I was fine you see when you have a vital wound you can ignore it all you want it's still coming to get you you can ignore that ulcer and say oh it's nothing no it's an ulcer and it wants to get you and my D Day was coming so I'm moving a million miles an hour a marriage three kids multiple businesses successful music career I'm winning Grammys New York Times best selling author and then it all came to a head oh it all came to a head in front of the world I was this level-headed god-fearing man who's navigating everything well but behind the scenes I'm a ticking time bomb I'm a ticking time bomb ignoring all of the trauma he experienced his whole life and during this time I remember watching a video of a young 15 year old boy on YouTube waving around a gun in Chicago frivolously and I remember hearing about the murder rate in Chicago and it broke my heart see the trauma from losing my friend at 13 years old a gun violence was triggered a couple years later I remember hearing about a young Trayvon Martin being killed and and I I was affected but I didn't address it I just I just stuffed it I tucked it away I didn't I didn't talk about that right it it broke my heart yes yes I've been the victim of injustice and racism I sure have I still remember my mother when I was a kid seeing a man named Rodney King being beaten down and and in hearing the verdict of his attackers be not guilty and the pain and the anguish that she fell I still remember that and then a few years later after Trayvon it was a young lady named Renisha McBride who had got into a car accident it was was was wandering through a neighborhood trying to find some help and knocked on a door and the door was open and her life was taken because they thought she was trying to break in on them and then after Renisha it was Eric and after Eric it was Mike and after Mike it was Walter and then and then and then and then and then and then there were riots and all this time I'm watching this scene unfold and it is destroying me internally I'm watching what looked like my sister my niece my cousin my uncle my brother life being taken it's crushing me internally and then add on that my closest friend and my DJ that same year lost his life so I'm a mess internally I'm trying to hide away the trauma that I'm experiencing and move forward I found myself in the streets of Atlanta in a protest and as I'm wandering around I'm seeing young lost angry confused people looking at me to lead them and I'm just as helpless as they are and at the same time you know I'm this well-respected seemingly conservative artist and many of my supporters did not like the idea of me getting myself involved into what to them looked like a political affair and a liberal one at that so here I am trying to be a leader but the truth of the matter is I hadn't fully formed my own identity I knew who I didn't want to be I didn't know who I was called to be I'll stay with me stay with me see I I knew that I had let my identity be forged by the approval and the acceptance of people it wasn't that I was wonderfully and fearfully made in the hands of God Almighty it wasn't that I was God's workmanship created for the things that he pre-planned I was who you needed me to be I didn't know who I was supposed to be I knew what I didn't want to be and now I have made these these leaps because I felt like it was right I felt like I needed to be out here being a leader and supporting and doing all these right things but I was conflicted I was confused and I was I found myself a lot like another individual in the scriptures a wise leader named Moses many you are familiar with Moses in Hebrews 11 actually verse 23 through 26 I'm gonna read that it says this is Moses story by faith when he was born he was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king's edict by faith Moses when he was grown up refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin he considered the reproach of Christ a greater wealth in the treasures of Egypt for he was looking for the reward see I felt like Moses in the situation now Moses is a part of this Egyptian aristocracy he's a part of Egyptian royalty but he he realizes hey wait a minute I'm Hebrew and my Hebrew brothers and sisters are being treated unjustly what do I do we took a he took a radical step and he killed a guy in order to to stand up for the people that he was supposedly representing in order to be associated with the people of God I mean let me give away everything let me sacrifice everything that I have in this royal family here to be a light and so like Moses I took a radical step I didn't kill anybody I just tweeted a lot but but I said things outside the boundaries of what people expected of me I went on national television I wrote articles and the result was on adulterated rejection I was hated I was despised I lost support regularly I was about to learn a very powerful lesson that if you live for people's acceptance you will die from their rejection but you all I got ugly I mean I I felt like I stood for something but I lost everything I worked so hard not to be my father to be respected and successful and accomplished and accepted and now I was hated I mean in days I lost hundreds and thousands of social media followers enough to drive a fifteen-year-old crazy okay daily I was bombarded with messages of people telling me how they lost respect for me people sent me images of them burning my music with real fire at least they bought it uh-huh but at its worst at its climax myself for my family received death threats it was ugly I didn't understand why people couldn't hear my pain and sorrow I didn't understand why they didn't want to hear my voice I mean some of us would be expected right there like we've all seen the athlete who has something to say about something in society we're like just talk football we don't want to hear your views right and I understood that that was gonna be a reality but still I found myself in a daze a downward spiral of anger and depression anxiety I had panic attacks I feared for my family's life on a regular basis I thought this must have been how my father felt when he turned to drugs to ease his woes and here I was at my father's crossroads now I didn't know what was real anymore I lost faith in people I lost faith in God I lost faith in faith now while I tell you all that maybe maybe you can't relate to how I got there but you know what it's like to be where I was right you know what it's like to be in a lonely dark place you know what it's like to want to quit you know what it's like when the pressures overwhelming when people expect your best but you're at your worst what do you do how do we keep going in the middle of that chaos how do we keep pushing in the middle of all that how do you maintain a family in a career how do you keep dreaming how do you keep hoping who I wish I could tell you I just woke up one day and I just made up my mind I live a life for the joy I wish I could tell you I just dug deep down inside and found some courage and I super he rolled my way about that mess that's not what happened I had to open the closet that closet that I have been stuffing pain and fear and failure and depression in my whole life I had to open up that closet I had to stare at all dead in the face I had to walk to the mirror look at myself in the mirror I had to cry I had to go half-crazy I had to be I was depressed not for days not for weeks not for months but for over a year I had to face it I had to embrace that trauma and resolve to face it and that's the difference I resolved to face it see I had to embrace the trauma let it mold me into someone new I woke up and I accepted the darkness I woke up and I accepted the darkness see the shift is being willing to die so whatever we were before the pain to birth the person that we're becoming that's the shift the shift is is when we're too attached to who we've been when we're too attached to who we've been were held back from what God wants us to be [Applause] we gotta be willing to walk through the door of all of it we got to be willing to let go of it all to become our future self we've got to be willing to to take on the the the disrespect and the fear and the judgment and the ridicule the scripture says for the joy set before him he endured the cross despising the shame for the joy set before him see y'all wearing his social media were hoping for likes but let me tell you something if you woke up this morning and you loved yourself and you knew God loves you any additional like as a bonus it's a bonus likes don't change the world relentlessness does the power of God is what changed the world yes it is scary yes it is lonely you're standing on the edge of something and you're afraid to jump I know what it's like to be afraid to jump I was a at Hillsong conference in Australia I left the conference we zipped on over to New Zealand they sent the Craig you got to go to the 700 foot building and jump off a base jump it's amazing it's a great experience I said no thank you they said no trust me you got to do it they hiked me up they gas me up we got to the building I saw a video of Beyonce doing it I said huh if Beyonce can do it so can I hold up hold up first of all there's a million things Beyonce can do that I can't that was terrible logic still I found myself on the top of the 700 foot building I got to the edge of it I looked down I saw Tupac and Michael Jackson waving like come on [Applause] I don't want to do this I don't want to do this I said you know what I don't think I can do this said there's no problem can you get out the way so this 11-year old girl can jump I said oh no I said oh no oh no we're jumping I jumped and I'm here today to tell you the story all right I wouldn't even have the story to tell you how died not jumped in it was invigorating it was thrilling it was great but we're afraid to jump because we're so focused on how far the drop is we're so focused on what it feels like to fall God got you see we got a look on trauma in the face we got to embrace the pain in the darkness and allow it to mold us the dark times are when we build higher dream harder push further love deeper we got to become something new we take those traumas we take that pain and we allow it to beat make it become a part of who we want to be of who God has called us to be right right they Forge you into a new person you take those terrible events in your life and you create a new story of triumph and I was in San Quentin State Prison not not as an inmate as I was visiting San Quentin and I met some incredible people incarcerated there one of them was rasaan Thomas and her son was given a 55 year to life sentence for taking a man's life and you know for 15 years so far he's had to sleep in a 4 by 9 foot cell every day someone tells I'm gonna wake up when they go to bed he's never been his son's football game never taught him how to drive he never used an iPhone okay here's the course of his life has changed because of a decision he made as a youngster and now he's got to deal with that so when he got the prison he was bitter he was angry he was sad he was depressed it literally took years for him to accept his new reality and allow it to make him into something diff something different he realized he was gonna have to endure this solitude he was gonna use it to become a new version of himself he took courses on everything from writing to financial literacy and began to write for the only inmate run newspaper the san quintin news his story and his writing has ended up in media outlets such as vice and GQ and if fate is on his side or God is on his side along with the governor um he's gonna he's gonna sit in front of the parole board and he's gonna go home with a career in journalism and a financial bedrock do to stock investments he made while he was in prison see what he did was he he allowed the darkness to mold him into something new he embraced the pain and said this is not going to stop me for the joy set before me I endure the cross despised the shame yeah I've never been faced with a life sentence but I have been abused I've been threatened I've been treated inhumanely and I I took the strength that I gained from other people in those circumstances and I gave it back to them see those are my scars and my scars or the evidence that healing is real see when Thomas said I I need to see those scars you say oh you can see them see it's real Thomas what I've endured is for you the joy set before me how is there possibly joy Jesus on the other side of this cross because I know on the other side of this darkness on the other side of this pain on the other side of this turmoil is me at the right hand of the Father because I know I know on the other side of this darkness on the other side of this pain there's no hope for y'all outside of it I know that these people will become co-heirs with Christ with me I know these people become children of God if I go through this sacrifice if I go through this pain see I know you're going through something I know you're dealing with something I know it's ugly but now it's a part of your new grand narrative don't you be ashamed of your story because God is writing it be ashamed of your story use it use your story learn how your past affects your present right but you got to live for something greater than yourself you see you're going through pain you're why matters right you can't just be motivated by anything you can't be motivated by your own insecurities that's not okay you got to be motivated by something greater something bigger you're why matters see before my why was my motivation was just trying not to become like my earthly father but now my why is becoming an honoring like my Heavenly Father right you'll burn out otherwise you'll burn out otherwise tell you something this three is three kind of boats in the water I know about water that's Miami it's three kind of boats in the water there's a speedboat right in the speedboats views it's going and some of us are speedboat and I was speedboat to like just making it imma go imma go i'ma go but guess what happens eventually you're gonna run out of gas powered by yourself you're gonna run out of gas and then you're just sitting in the middle of the water helpless hopeless empty there's a raft some of us on a raft right now you just letting life take you wherever he wants to no plan no hope no George is floating just float what that's dangerous to no Direction no direction you are just waiting for a storm to take over your situation but there's another kind of boat in that water and that's a sailboat let me tell you about a sailboat so you got to do some work with the sailboat it's not just free free free just floating in the middle of nowhere no no no you do some work you mess with the rudders you raise the sail up and down but see the key the key to to navigating that sailboat is you're always conscious of which way the wind is blowing you're always conscious of where the wind is going to take you so you can navigate and be that where are we going today where we going to see we have to be conscious of where the Spirit of God is trying to take us conscious of Father which way do you want me to go I hear you I'm not gonna speed through this thing I'm not just gonna float out here I'm working in tandem with the Spirit of God guide me lead me take me where you want me to be let me tell you something y'all you have to embrace the trauma you have to say you know what God this is what you're doing there's there's joy on the other side of this pain there's greatness on the other side of this darkness since I stepped out I have a new vocabulary I have new muscles that I didn't have before and when I embrace this person that God is now creating III yeah I lost hundreds of thousands of social media followers but I gained way more friends and allies in that process and this new authentic me is being asked to come to places like Yale University to speak in vous Church [Applause] some of us want so badly to eliminate the pain we don't see the joy in becoming something new do not despise the cocoon that turns a caterpillar into a butterfly it's join the other side of that pain tell you this fly close I was at a track meet for my oldest son a little superstar if anybody ever been to track meets they're long and they're hot so basically just cheer and burn and cheer and burn but I might attract me and uh my daughter who's eight my youngest son who's five we're sitting there and we're bored and what I'm trying to keep him entertained and I asked him I say hey woody what do I want to do with your life I noticed a heavy question for little kids but but my daughter talked about becoming an author but my youngest son he struggled his high daddy I don't I don't know I just want to be like you you don't know what I wouldn't even be the me he wants to be like had I not allowed the storm to change me mold me shape me [Applause] yo Jesus has already gone through the darkness on your behalf you have a hope and a model in him I pray that you will go through your darkness because on the other side is greatness I pray you a trust that he went through the darkness so that on the other side he's secured for you greatness family go through the darkness come out on the other side something new and allow that person to change the world let's pray [Applause] father thank you for your goodness and your mercy thank you for enduring the cross for the joy set before you for despising the shame so we are not alone in our pain in our dark seasons whatever they may be you've already experienced it on our behalf so God we counted a joy to endure like you have we counted a joy to be made and they be molded into something new yes we've been through the fire but we are coming out forged as something new allow it to work in and through us in Jesus mighty and magnificent name amen [Music] [Applause]

Channel: VOUS Church

Views: 221,284

Rating: 4.9494557 out of 5

Keywords: rich wilkerson jr, vous church, lecrae, joy through sacrifice, trauma, rejection, sermon

Id: jb4EUgsVIcw

Length: 34min 32sec (2072 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 20 2018