TD Jakes - An Eternal Pairing
God humbled Himself by becoming man, stripping away His divine glory and power in the incarnation—a crushing that began long before the cross—so that through His vulnerability and suffering, we might find redemption, purpose, and ultimate resurrection joy.
The Wine Press of Incarnation
And when the angel came to Gideon, he found him in the wine press. The wine press is the strip club of grapes. It is the place where grapes disrobe and uncover themselves, for it is not the skin of the grape that is the most important thing. It is what is behind the skin that makes it important. We know that about grapes. I wish we would learn that about people.
In the wine press, the grape strips itself and becomes vulnerable down to its soft parts so that it might become wine. Imagine what it must have been like to be an angel in heaven and suddenly hear God say that He is going to strip Himself of His glory and His honor and His preexistent glory and His omnipotence and His omnipresence and His omniscience, and that He will humble Himself down to His soft parts and find a virgin and become a man.
You think that the real crushing was the cross, but the crushing started when God became man. When God became man, He crushed Himself from all of the benefits of being God. For the first time in all of the ages and all of the eons and all of time itself, for the first time, God took a nap. As God, He neither sleeps nor slumbers, but as Jesus, He will sleep in the bow of the ship.
As God, He is in all places and at all times, but as Jesus, He says, "Let us cross over to the other side." God never has to journey. He is already there. All of these benefits of being God, Jesus surrendered that He might be encapsulated, incarcerated in human flesh—God incarnate. The staggering, amazing reality that God would put Himself in the jail of flesh, the very thing He hated, the very thing He despised.
Experiencing Human Weakness
The very thing that Paul says is in enmity against God, Jesus wrapped Himself up in it. It was a crushing experience because it meant that He would have to be hungry. After He fasted, the Bible says Jesus hungered, but as God the Father, He had never hungered. Now He knows what hungry is, and now He knows what tired is, and now He knows what betrayal is.
So that whenever you get ready to pray, you cannot bring up a feeling that He does not understand. He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. He could not have done that before because He did not know what it felt like to be human.
When Adam fell into sin, God asked His first question: "Adam, where art thou?" That was the day the teacher went back to school because what Adam had fallen into, God had never fallen into. Adam had fallen into sin, and God had never sinned. So when He says, "Adam, where art thou?" it is not just merely a geographical location. He is trying to feel him.
So Jesus comes to find Adam. In the sight of God, there are really only two men: the first man Adam and the last man Adam. Everybody else was born in one or the other. If I was born in Adam, I was born in sin and shaped in iniquity. That is why Jesus told Nicodemus, "You must be born again," because this time I am being born in Christ, outside of the curse of the law and sin and death, free and liberated.
The Humbling and the Crushing
In Him I live and move and have my being. It was so important that He win me that He was willing to allow Himself to be stripped of the royal diadem and the host of heaven and the command of angels and the moving of mountains. All of His Godliness was incarcerated in humanness.
He humbled Himself. In order to go through a crushing, you have to humble yourself. You have to give up some of your power and some of your will and some of your influence and some of your opinions. You have to shut up and humble yourself and be still and know that God is God.
He humbled Himself and became poor that through His poverty we might be made rich. He humbled Himself and became finite and died. Can you imagine the shock of heaven when Jesus gives up the ghost and dies? All of heaven stands aghast because they had never prepared a funeral for God.
Maybe that is why He did not buy Joseph's tomb. He only borrowed it because He knew He was not going to stay there. The reason I wrote "Crushing" was to tell you: do not believe the crushing that you are in as if it is your final residence or place of abode. You may have to live there for a little while, but borrow it. Do not buy it because you will rise again.
You will rise again. Do not own that pain. Do not own that suffering. Do not own that agony. Do not own that grave. Do not own that depression. Do not own that suicide. Do not own that loneliness. Rent it if you must, but do not own it because by Sunday morning you will be out of it.
Discovering Your Purpose
The age-old question, as old as time itself—as soon as man had a voice to speak or letters to write or tone to talk or speech to be made—was to form a question that threatens to fulfill us and validate us and encourage us and identify us. The question deep down in the hearts of every human being living is: "Why am I here?" "What is my purpose?"
How can I sound successful if I do not know why I am here? I can say I am busy, but I cannot say I am successful because I am only successful when I am doing the thing I was created to do. The problem is, most of the time we ask one another the question, and it is like a blind man asking another blind man, "Which way should I go?"
We cannot answer your question because we are trying to answer our own. The answer that is true for me might not be true for you because my purpose might not be your purpose. So in order to get the answer, we have to go back to the Manufacturer. He is the reason that we seek Him because He has the answer—not to who He is, but to who I am.
Really, at the heart of worship there is a degree of selfishness because I seek Him that I might know me. I do not just seek Him that I might know Him. I seek Him that I might know me because He is the only one who knows me. I do not even know me. I have done things that shocked me. I have said things that shocked me.
I have reacted in unpredictable ways. The older I get, the less I know about myself because I have seen so many different sides of me. But God knows why I am the way I am. He knows where the bolts go and where the screws should be and how to handle me.
Returning to the Manufacturer
Paul says, "Oh, that I may know Him and the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection." Then he says, "Oh, that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended." He is chasing God because God knows him—what he can do, what he can build, what he can handle.
If I do not go back to the Manufacturer, I am just playing with screwdrivers, seeing what works, only to spend hours building something dysfunctional and frustrated because it did not work. The reason we go back to God is because He is the Master, and He put everything in the box we needed to be successful at what we were created to do.
I do not have to wish for stuff that He put in your box because I am not supposed to be you. I am supposed to be me. He gave me everything in the box I needed to do everything I was created to do if I seek Him. This is not about self-control. This is about God-control.
Self-control does not take grapes and turn them into wine. The vine-dresser has to do that. If you ever hope to be what God created you to be, you have to submit yourself into His hands and know that He knows exactly what tools to use to bring out the best in you. I refuse to die until He brings out the best in me.
Oh, what fun it has been to see what He brought out of me. I did not know that was in there. I did not know I could be that, say that, write that, have that, become that, do that, withstand that, endure that, survive that, overcome that, make it through that.
Embracing the Valley
When you go back to the Manufacturer, He shows you what weight you were created to handle, what loads you can stand, how fast you can move, how much you can accomplish. He designed you for the life He wants you to live. If your life is unbearable, it might be because you are living someone else's life.
When you surrender to Him, He will show you how to best be you. So strip yourself from all your pride and all your envy and all your competition and all your need to measure up to other people you were never designed to be. And do you, boo.
We want to follow Him through our crushing, but like the children of Israel, we struggle to wait and hope and remain faithful. Have you ever wanted something so long that you resolved in yourself that this will probably never happen? Have you ever declared death to a dream to have a moment's peace, to survive the torment of waiting?
The Master gives us mountain peaks and visions but then hides us in valleys and dark places and lonely places and frustrated places. We cannot be so intent on our comfort that we forget our calling. The Master is not in the business of torturing His children through delays. He is not playing games with you.
He has not forgotten you. He has a plan for your life. He wants to seize our attention in the valley so that we will make it to the mountain. You cannot control what life throws at you, but you can control how you respond. Will you trust God, or will you doubt Him?
Trusting Through the Night
God uses the valley to prepare us for the peaks in life. If there were no valleys, there would be no peaks. He holds His treasure until we are ready to handle it. Just because God gave you a word does not mean it is for right now. Until you have been faithful over where He placed you, you do not earn the right to the promotion.
It was not time for David to be king, but God told him to deal with the sheep a little longer, working the kinks out of him so that when He put him on the mountain, he would not fall in disgrace. I am convinced that God made me who I am in my low places, not my high places.
Whenever I am in a fight with the enemy, I do not tell him about my accomplishments. I tell him how I made it with no lights and no water, when I lost my car, when I thought I would never get up. My strength comes from my low places. I am afraid of people who have no low places because they will run out on you in the middle of one.
When you have not had low places, your character has not been established. The nights I cried myself to sleep. The days I could not hear God's voice at all. We trust Him because we have no choice. There is nothing else you can do but trust Him.
We are as helpless as the clay without the potter, as a grape without the vintner. We need Him to direct our steps. Do not lose your hope because He took His time. It is only an indication of how masterful the vintner is, that He is given to details.
Joy Comes in the Morning
A novice skips over details, but the more proficient you are, the more detailed it is. My mother taught me to check the lining of a coat, the hem of pants, the depth of fabric in the curve. The deeper the fabric, the more valuable it is. Do not lose hope because He put more fabric in you and added more stitches.
He knows exactly what to give you to make you who you are to be. Everything in this life is temporal. Everything you got, everything you accomplished, you will leave. You came into the world naked; you will leave naked. This is just a moment to train for what is next, to prepare for what matters.
The Bible says, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." This can be longer than a normal night—months, years—but the promise remains that joy comes in the morning. I am praying with you for morning and for strength to endure however long the night lasts.
I have experienced the crushing pain of life, and I have seen the bright awakening of morning. Father, bless my brothers and sisters right now as they face that dark midnight season in their marriage, finances, business, heart, home, with their children, with bereavement. Lift them up, and let the early shadows of daybreak begin to appear above the eastern sky. I thank You for it now in Jesus' name, amen.