Guest Columnist
Pastor Adeboye’s New Year Sermon: ‘I SURVIVED KIDNAPPERS’ By Mike Awoyinfa
General Overseer of Redeemed Christian Church of God Pastor
Adeboye’s first sermon of the New Year is a sermon for all Nigerians
who survived 2022 with its attendant calamities that took many lives
who didn’t see 2023. It is also partly a humorous memoir which I
captured for my readers:
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I discovered something while I was preparing for the New Year,
something that we’ve not been doing, that we should be doing from now
onwards. And that is, we have not been celebrating. Many a times, you
wait for people to celebrate you and they don’t show up. I discovered
that scripturally speaking, it is good go to celebrate yourself. You will be
helping yourself by visiting two or three people and telling them:
“Celebrate me, I am a survivor.” The redheaded lizard jumped down
from an iroko tree and nodded its head three times. The elders say what
he was saying is: “I tried. If nobody is praising me, I will praise
myself.”
When you say you are a survivor, let your neighbour know. Ebola
came, I survived. Coronavirus came, I survived. Kidnappers are out
there, I survived. Bandits are out there, I survived. There are murderers
wearing police uniform, I survived. Tell three or four people: “I am a
survivor. Celebrate me, men. I am a survivor. I survived 2020. I
survived 2021. I survived 2022.”
Why do I have to celebrate myself? When you go through Genesis
Chapter One, you have a lesson to learn from God. When He finished
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the work of the first day—because there was nobody around to celebrateHim—He looked at everything He had done the first day and said: “Thisis good. There is nobody to say it to me, so I say it to myself.” Thesecond day: “This is good.” The third day: “This is good.” The fourthday: “This is good.” The fifth day: “This is good.” The sixth day, Hesaid: “Maybe I better create somebody who probably would becelebrating me later on.” When He finished creating man, He said:“Now, this is very good.” And then, He took a whole day off tocelebrate. And you know what? You don’t have to be rich to celebrate.When I graduated in 1967, nobody attended my graduation ceremony,except the girl that I finally married. Other people’s parents werecoming with big cars to come and celebrate with them. Nobody camefor my celebration. The same thing with my best friend. The onlyfellow who came was the girlfriend he too finally married. How did wecelebrate? We went to one Mama Buka. Those of you who don’t go tobuka, you don’t know what you are missing. Mama Buka, can smellwhen the food is right, the salt is right, the pepper is right, everything isjust right. My friend and I and our two girlfriends branched at the buka,bought four big wraps of amala, eight pieces of meat which includedpomo, original raincoat. We finished the thing, came out and rounded itwith a bottle of Coke. Me, I am telling you that we celebrated. On thefirst of January, I saw a booli seller and I said: “This is good.”For us Christians, probably because we do not celebrate, that’s why wedon’t praise God enough. Because as you are celebrating that you are asurvivor, it will dawn on you that you survived only because somebodywas taking care of you. David said in Psalm 18 verse 35: “Yourgentleness has made me great.” You know what he is saying? I amgreat. But that greatness came because of God. I am alive todaybecause new every morning is His mercy. One of my house helps, whenwe are having morning devotion and we ask her to pray, she will include
