TD Jakes - Removing the Barriers to Destiny (04/13/2017)
Drawing from 1 Corinthians 13, the preacher challenges listeners to examine if childish ways of speaking, understanding, and thinking are blocking mature love and God's blessings, urging them to identify, resist, and put away these immature inner systems to step into true adulthood and inheritance.
Are You Blocking Love?
Are you blocking love? This is the love chapter—giving it, receiving it, attaining it. Is there a barrier? Is there a reason people do not like you, or is there a reason that you cannot like them? What is the blockage?
Could there be something that stops you from suffering long, enduring, seeking not your own? Is there something, a barrier?
Right in the middle of a dissertation about love, he says, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things."
"I put away childish things." "I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child."
Testing Your Systems: SUT
Spake, understood, thought—hmm. Spake, understood, thought. S-U-T, SUT. Spake, understood, thought—spake, understood, thought. S-U-T, systems under test.
This is how you test your systems. You test your systems through how you speak, how you understand, and how you think.
If your life is not reaching an expected end, do you have the courage to test your systems? Because your systems need to go under test.
Is it the way you speak, the way you understand, or the way you think that is stopping you from becoming what God would have you be? It is not the way you look.
Look at how much time you spend on how you look. You work so hard on how you look, and there are people who do not have the features you do who are much happier than you.
You fine, but you miserable. You got your eyebrows arched, but you are not happy.
Loyal to Dysfunction
You have challenged the way God made your eyes more than you have challenged the way you think. They look pretty, but can they see?
I am not preaching against pretty. I am just trying to say: have you tested your systems?
Because I find that people are loyal to dysfunction. They will fight you to hold on to a system that is not working.
"That is just the way I am. Speak for yourself—that is me." What if me is not working?
How long will you hold on to a dysfunctional system and let life pass you by?
The system that is killing you is how you speak, how you understand, and how you think.
Now we are getting into it. Now we are getting into it.
An Immature Inner Life
The way you speak, the way you understand, and the way you think is your system, and your system is blocking the rain.
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things." Good God of mercy.
I am trying not to unload it too fast. What we are dealing with is an immature inner life—an immature inner life.
Not outer life—the outer life is maturing, but the inner life has not.
Could it be possible—do not nod, do not nod, do not move, because you do not want nobody to know—that inside, you are still a child?
Reacting to stimulus like a child. Understanding your life like a child.
Childlike Understanding and Blame
A child—the reason that children go through trauma when they are young and people divorce—is that children think it is all their fault.
Are you blaming yourself for things that are not within your control? Do you understand like a child?
Are you carrying weights and crosses that had nothing to do with you, that were completely out of your control? Are you being victimized by you?
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child." That is all cool—you are supposed to.
When you are immature, you are supposed to speak immature, understand immature, and think immature.
The Problem with the "But"
Here is the problem. The problem comes with the but. The but says, "When I became a man"—okay—"I put away childish things."
The but tells me that it is the fact that I became a man and then put away childish things—not I put away childish things and that made me a man.
Come on here. Can you think with me?
Because most people think if I can put away the childish things, I will be a man.
He said I became a man and still had a childish system that had to be put away, because what was appropriate as a system is now inappropriate.
Because I have outgrown the way I speak, the way I understand—oh God, help me—and the way I think.
You Are Bigger Than the System
I have outgrown the way I speak, the way I understand, and the way that I think.
I am too big to be bound by this system. I am too big to be bound by this system. I am bigger than the system.
The system cannot put me away—I must put it away.
And so, this is good—this is good. Y'all think this is good? I think this is good.
See, so what I got down into: when I became a man, since the childish things were there for me to put them away, that means that I can develop to a point that, all of a sudden, I am developed outwardly but not inwardly.
Are you a man or woman loyal to a system of a child, and are you waiting on the system to leave, or would you put it away?
Putting Away Childish Things
The "put away" in the childish things phrase is the same Greek word that is used in verse 10 for "done away" when they are talking about, "We prophesy in part, we see in part, and all of that is done away."
The same Greek word is used here. It carries the idea that cessation has not occurred, but functionality is severely limited.
It is not putting it away like destroying it, but it does mean that I put it away to the point that its functionality is severely limited.
So, the childish speech, the understanding, and the thinking is still existent, but it is severely limited from operating in my life.
I am gonna talk to you in a minute, but I want to put this iPad away. I put it away so I could talk to you.
I put it away means I still know where it is—it still exists—but because it was restricting me from being able to reach you...
If You Don't Put It Away
Grab your neighbor and shake them and wake them up and say, "You can put it away." You can put it away. You can put it away.
You can put it away. You can put it away. You can put it away.
Before you lose this opportunity, you can put it away.
Because if you do not change your system, you will lose the opportunity.
What I am trying to say: if you do not put it away, it will put you away.
If you do not put it away, it will put you away. It will put away promotions. It will put away progress. It will put away love. It will put away life.
No wonder Paul brings this up about love. If you do not change your system, it will put love, life, prosperity—it will all put it away.
Am I making sense?
Defending a Broken System
This is important. "When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things."
I put away the systems.
Now, you cannot put it away if you are holding onto it—if you are defending it.
Are you defending something that is killing you? Are you defending something that has kept...
"Do not take it away—leave me alone. Get out of my face. I am not talking to nobody."
Are you defending a system that is poisoning your water?
Have you ever noticed for how long you have been here you have not accomplished what you think is your destined purpose? It must be your system.
The Power of Understanding
Because I knew God was going to talk to your head this morning, because God wants you to change the way you speak.
But the one I really wanted to get to is the way you understand.
The way you understand a thing determines your expected end.
And let me... I asked God to give me a way to help unearth the way you understand.
Have you ever been mad at somebody about something you thought they meant, and then when you called them up and you talked to them, you found out you were completely wrong, and immediately the relationship was repaired?
It was repaired through understanding. The person is still the same—you are still the same—but the way you perceive the thing has changed, and the relationship is healed.
Look at how powerful understanding is.
Understanding Shapes Your Reality
Understanding is the truth you stand under. It is the truth you stand under.
It is your version of what happened. It is your version of what is wrong. It is your version of what needs to be fixed.
And you could be hindering the blessing of God because of your version of your life.
What you choose to see about your life, what you choose to focus on—because we all remember what happened, but we all emphasize different aspects of what happened.
If you do not believe that, call a family meeting and let everybody have something to say about what happened last September.
We was all there—we all know it—but how we perceive it... oh, wow.
That is why I said, "In all thy getting, get an understanding."
As a minister, as a counselor, as a pastor, I have learned that you cannot help people that you do not understand.
You cannot just start throwing random answers at people—you gotta listen before you speak.
Breaking Old Habits of Understanding
Do you not know that when you go to a counselor, all they do is help you to understand you?
You pay $299 an hour to get them to give you a different perspective on what happened to you.
I am not against counseling—I think it is a wonderful thing. I think it is a very powerful thing, and I would get it before I would miss the rain.
I would get it every day before I would miss the rain.
But you could cut down the learning curve if you would break the habit of always going back to the old system of processing what is going on in your life.
Because I think, in your adult life, your little child is talking.
The Heir Who Lives Like a Servant
I am gonna get out of there. Let us go to Galatians.
Galatians 4:1-2: "Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant."
As long as you are a child, you are differing nothing from a slave. You are a slave to the system.
"Though he be lord of all." He differeth nothing from a slave—though he be lord of all.
He cannot operate in his lordship because of his system. It is blocking the rain. It is blocking the blessing.
He is living like a slave though he be lord of all.
"And he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of his father."
Because of his immaturity, he is under people.
Oh, they cannot handle this. He is under people that he should be over.
You better preach it here. I am going to say it again: he is under people that he should be over.
But until he grows up, he cannot inherit what is rightfully his, and you are following people you ought to be leading.
Put It Away!
High-five somebody and say, "That man is preaching this morning."
I want you to touch seven people—say, "Put it away." Put it away. Put it away. Put it away.
Put it away. Put it away. Put it away. Put it away.
Put it away. Put it away. Put it away. Put it away.
Put it away. Put it away. Put it away. Put it away.
If God is talking to you this morning, give him some kind of signal—some kind of praise, some kind of sign.
Somebody shout "put it away." Good God of mercy—put it away, put it away.
I gotta put it away. I gotta put it away. I gotta put it away.
I gotta put it away. I got to distance myself from it.
I gotta separate myself from it. I gotta get it out of me.
I gotta move it aside. I gotta resist the temptation to react in my old system.
I gotta feel it and resist it until it ceases to be mine.
Slap somebody—say, "Put it away."
How to Put It Away
Sit down. I want to talk to you a minute—one more minute, one more minute.
I gotta get this, because we gotta put it away. We gotta put it away. We gotta put it away.
First, we gotta know that it is not us.
Oh God, can we embrace the fact that it is not us?
The way I speak, the way I understand, and the way I think is not me—it is a system.
I can survive without it.
Until you know that, you will not kill it, because you will think killing it is killing you—which stops you from being the new you.
We are going to a new normal, and in order to go to a new normal, we gotta put away old things—old systems, childish responses.
Steps to Change
How do I put it away? I can hear you saying it. How? How? Go deeper into how do I put it away.
You cannot put away, number one, what you do not identify.
You gotta identify it every time it shows up and say, "You know what? That is not the way I want to understand it. That is not the way I want to speak about it, and that is not the way I want to think."
So, when the thoughts come, I have to resist the thoughts that come.
The Bible said once you identify it—if you resist him, he will flee.
This is resistance training. It is pulling against it that is gonna make you strong.
Every time it comes to control how you speak, how you understand, or how you think—the Bible said if you resist it, it will flee.
The more you resist it, it will flee.
The more you cut the thought off and abort it, it will die.
The less you speak out what you thought, it will go away.
The more you challenge how you understand it and say, "Maybe it is not that way"—the less power it will have to be your truth any longer.
Am I helping somebody? If I am helping, holler at me. Holler at me.
Laying Hold of the New
I was going through—I called a preaching buddy of mine. We were talking about this over the phone.
And I said, for me—this is for me—I have only been able to let go of things to the degree that I had something to lay hold on.
I cannot tell you to let go of a system and not have something to hold onto.
After all, this is all you ever had. This is all I ever had.
So, whenever I get scared, I go back to it—because this is what I am familiar with.
Even if I am familiar with something that is killing me and hindering me and dwarfing me and retarding my growth—it is my normal.
Even though it is not normal, it is my normal. It is my old normal.
It is my old normal, and I cannot let go of my old normal until I embrace my new normal.