Dharius Daniels - I'm Not Going Back

Next Sunday, I guess two years old is what everybody is, and I assume you don’t like your church. I said two years old, so come ready to celebrate. Bring somebody with you; it’s going to be incredible. Next week, we’re closing out the «I’m Too Smart for This» series. Come for the series finale, amen. Don’t say all next year we’ll spend the block; we’re doing Ecclesiastes next year, so we’ll be back in wisdom literature then. All right, let’s go to the Word of God: Proverbs 26, verse 11. I have a short time and a long way to go, so don’t hold all your amens until the middle—throw them out at the beginning! Here it is: this is Solomon. He says, «As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.» I want to stop the reading of the scripture and talk from the topic, «I’m Not Going Back.» Clap your hands, everybody, if you’re with me: «I’m Not Going Back.» Can we do this? Can we take a stroll down memory lane? Amen. Can we take a stroll? Y’all say what’s up to our New Jersey family. Let’s say, «What’s up!» to our New Jersey family.

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane. Y’all know I was raised in a small town called Kilmichael, Mississippi, but I went to college at a small liberal arts school in Jackson, Mississippi, called Millsaps College, where I played basketball. In my freshman year, I didn’t get on the court much; I was on the team. Why y’all laughing? Karen, why are you laughing? I was on the team, but I wasn’t on the court. So, after my freshman year, I thought, «Man, I need to get better. I need a trainer,» but the way my finances were set up, I couldn’t afford a trainer. It wasn’t a big Division I school; it was a small Division III school, so there weren’t many resources in the athletic department. I was in this quandary: I needed a trainer, but I was so broke my wallet texted me saying we were breaking up.

One of my cousins, who was almost like a brother to me, was going into his third year at Morehouse College. We were having a conversation, and he said, «Hey, you’re trying to improve your skills to get on the court more. Why don’t you come to Atlanta? I have an apartment in East Point.» I’m not even asking what that means—anyway, I’m like, okay. He said there’s this place open 24/7 where some of the best basketball players come to play in the offseason. It’s called Run and Shoot. He could get me access to Run and Shoot so I could play with some of the best players in the South; it would improve my skills. He also had two jobs for me: I worked at a summer camp in Marietta from 9 to 5, and then from 8 to midnight for a company contracted by UPS to load and unload planes.

I said, «Okay, I’m in.» So, I came to Atlanta the summer after my freshman year of college. I worked during the day at the camp in Marietta and then at night for that company contracted by UPS. If you’re wondering about the sermonic implications of this story, being raised in Kilmichael, Mississippi, I didn’t see a lot of planes. In fact, at that point in my life, I had never been on one. My professional experience was also practical education for me because I looked at the planes and noticed something back then that has implications for us right now.

Somebody asked the preacher, «What is it?» I noticed that planes couldn’t go backward on their own. If a plane went backward, it had to be pushed. When a plane landed, it could go forward on its own, but it could not go backward on its own. Here’s the lesson: the things that fly high don’t go backward easily. I want to know if I’m talking to anybody in the room who has a revelation of your existence and realizes and recognizes that you have not been called to be a car; you’ve been called to be a plane. I want to fly high emotionally. I want to fly high relationally. I want to fly high spiritually. I want to fly high professionally. I want to fly high mentally. I want to fly high financially.

Well, here, ladies and gentlemen, is something we need to consider if we want to live at high altitudes. If you want to go high, you can’t go back. Did you hear what I just said? Pastor, where did you get this from? I got it from Proverbs! I was reading a statement made by this sage named Solomon in Proverbs 26, verse 11. Solomon says something so interesting here. Are y’all ready for this? I said, are you ready for this? I didn’t say it; this is what Solomon said: «As a dog returns to vomit, so fools repeat their folly.» Now watch this: Solomon is not calling people dogs; he’s using dogs as an example, an analogy, a metaphor to get humans to evaluate their behavior. He’s not calling them dogs; he’s saying when a dog does this, that’s the equivalent of you doing that. So he says, «Dogs…» Watch this; he’s saying dogs, especially in the ancient Near East…