TD Jakes - Trusting Beyond Knowing (08/28/2022)
In the Triumphal Entry of Matthew 21, Jesus rides a donkey amid "Hosanna" praises yet heads to the cross as our scapegoat carrying sins away, teaching us to balance life's extremes, give sacrificially from the heart (not just palms or praise), and trust God beyond knowing when expectations disappoint.
The importance of balancing the extremes—He is the Lord of glory, but He is sitting on a horse. The extremes of the donkey waiting and the Master's urgency—a waiting donkey and an urgent Master.
This text is full of extremes: the coronation, "Hosanna to the Son of David"—the Crucifixion, "Crucify Him." Praise is in the air; palms are on the ground; resistance at Gethsemane; submission at the village.
It is the oxymorons of life—the highs and the lows, the north and the south, the east and the west.
Balancing Life's Polarities
Everybody in here has polarities in your life. If you show me this side, I will think you are amazing—if you show me that side, I will think you need to be saved.
Do not sit there with your holy self and do not act like you do not have a side you do not want nobody to see—because everybody in here has got a side that contradicts the other side. And how you balance those two sides is how well you do in life.
You cannot kill either side, but you can control the other side so that you can be the best version of yourself.
Who am I talking to? I am in here—I am in here.
They think He is headed to be their king. After all, He has sweated until blood has come through the pores of His skin. He knows He is headed to the cross—and they are all experiencing it together.
He knows that He has to fulfill what is called a scapegoat. In the Bible, a scapegoat is sent into the wilderness after the Jewish priest has symbolically laid the sins of the people upon it.
When John saw Him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world"—He is both the Lamb of God and the scapegoat of God.
It was the custom in the book of Leviticus to pray the sins on the scapegoat and send him into the wilderness. That is why—after the Holy Ghost had fallen upon Jesus in the Jordan River—they sent Him into the wilderness—because He is our scapegoat, and He carried away our sins.
Jesus going into the wilderness is a shadow of Jesus going to the cross. So He is riding on a donkey because He is carrying away the sins of the world.
To God be the glory—look at how much God carried away out of your life. He carried away stuff out of your life that you have been guilty about, that you have been worried about, that you have been in turmoil about—God has carried away.
Since God has carried it away, why are you still carrying it? I am going to ask you over here: since God has carried it away, why are you still carrying it?
Three Levels of Giving
There are three levels of giving. There are those who gave their coats—some put them on the donkey, and some put them on the ground—but they gave something that they had an investment in to the kingdom of God.
If you do not invest in the kingdom, how dare you ask the kingdom to invest in you. If you are not willing to give something that costs you something—that you sweated for, that it took you months to make, that you had to be fitted for, that was made for you—but you gave it to Him—that is sacrifice.
It is not sacrifice when you buy me something—it is sacrifice when you give me something you wanted. The giving of the coat is something that was for you—but when you saw Him, you counted it as done, and you threw it down for Him.
The second level is the cutting of the palm tree—which cost you nothing, but you wanted to do something. So the only effort you expended was cutting down what was easy.
Some of you have never given an offering—all you have ever given was palm trees. You just reached up and cut down something that was close anyway. You did not have nothing invested in it—it did not cost you nothing—but it looked good in the crowd. You cut down the palm tree and laid it down at His feet.
And you thought you had done something big—but to the folks who dropped their coat, your palm tree does not mean nothing at all—because you cut down what did not bleed; you cut down what you cared nothing about—and you gave it to God as if you were doing something big—all based on what you thought He was going to do for you.
You cut down the palm trees because you thought you were going to get double for your trouble. You cut down the palm trees because you thought you had a new King—the Son of David.
I gave my coat because I esteemed who He was to be greater than what He did. If You do not do anything else for me—if I can do anything to make You more comfortable—if I have to give You something, I will give You the shirt off my back—because I love who You are, not what You did. If You are going to die, I am going to die with You.
Notice—most of the coat givers were disciples. They knew He was going to die. Most of the branch cutters were people who lived under the illusion that He was going to set up His kingdom.
Because as long as you only serve God for what He can do for you, you will give something—but it will cost you nothing. But when you have fallen in love with God—and when you esteem Him above your chiefest joy—it changes the way you give because your value changes.
So—one, you had coat givers; secondly, you had palm cutters; and then you had lip service: "Hosanna." You did not cut nothing; you did not give nothing—you just making noise.
Lip Service vs. True Sacrifice
I have learned over the years—the loudest folk in the church do the least giving. Them people that get out of control and run all over the place—that you cannot do nothing with them—and they dance and break their shoe—and they are hollering and falling all over top of everybody—do not give $10.
The people who make all the noise—"Hosanna to the Son of David; Hosanna to the King of kings"—where is your branch? Where is your coat? Where is your sacrifice?
"Wherein hath a man robbed God?" "With your mouth you draw nigh unto Me, but with your heart you are far from Me." Hallelujah.
God does not just want your lip service—He wants your sacrifice. Somebody shout "Yes." That was cute—but I said shout "Yes."
So this is my point, and I am closing. They did all of that giving—the three levels of giving: the coats, the palm trees, and praise—and they were good with it until He got to the Sanhedrin court—until He was apprehended by Pilate—and then He was apprehended by that which they thought He was going to apprehend.
So the same people who said "Hosanna"—you get it?—now that I see that You are not going to do what I thought You were going to do, now I got no more use for You.
Watch out for people who throw you away. Stop crying over who threw you away—because you did not lose nothing in the first place.
The Bible said, "Thomas, you have believed because you have seen"—or in other words, you believe and trust because of what you know—but "blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
All of these other folk lost their blessing because their "Hosanna" turned to "Crucify Him." But there were a few people left at the cross that said, "Though He slay me, yet shall I trust Him. If He dies, I am going to trust Him—if they bury Him, I am going to trust Him—if they put Him in a grave, I am going to bring frankincense and myrrh."
Ooh, I feel like preaching this word. Does anybody want to hear this word?
Trust Beyond Knowing
So I asked God—I said, "Since they did not start celebrating Palm Sunday until the fourth century after the early church—and it did not get big until the eighth century—800 years after the resurrection before Palm Sunday became embedded in Christian theology—so before it was a tradition, why did You spend so much time articulating the text to me?"
He said, "Because I want My people to have trusting beyond knowing—to trust Me when you do not know how things are going to turn out."
This is important—please—God told me this is important. He said, "I want somebody to trust Me before knowing—to trust Me when I make a U-turn—to trust Me when I had something in mind different from what you had in mind—to trust Me when you had bad theology—to trust Me when you thought I was going to do something one way and I did it another way—to trust Me when you understand that you think of earthly kingdoms, and My kingdom is not of this world—and sometimes I have to disappoint you to elevate you."
Here is our great challenge: it is to not be like the palm throwers and the lip service people. To be like the disciples means they gave their coat to a Savior that they knew was going to die.
Now that is worship—to trust beyond knowing. That means I give You my coat if You do not restore the kingdom. That means I give You my coat if I keep on living out my same old normal routine—as long as I got You.
That means that I keep on praising You—married or not, boyfriend or not, big house or not, mutual funds or not. That means that I praise You—job or not.
That means if my hair stops growing, I will praise You with a bald head. That means if my hair turns white, I will praise You up into my old age.
That means if the building is empty, I will still praise Your name. If there is no crowd, I will still praise Your name. If I have to preach in a jailhouse, I will still preach Your Word—because it is not about dollars and cents; it is about purpose and passion.
And I want to raise up somebody who trusts beyond knowledge.
Stand to your feet—I will close with this.
The ways of the Lord are high and lifted up. Even the people who are supposed to know what He is doing do not know. Even the people who think they know do not know.
I tell all the preachers all the time: "Do all the teaching you are going to teach down here—write all the books you are going to write down here—there will be no bookstores in heaven."
If you are going to be a professor, be a professor down here—because there will be no professors and there will be no universities in heaven—because all of our knowledge amounts to foolishness.
When He shall appear, there will be none of us teaching Him theology, hermeneutics, homiletics—all of these man-made names, pneumatology. We will not be teaching nothing—we will sit down at His feet.
We will sit down at His feet—and He will say, "I love you because you trusted Me beyond knowing."
It's Okay Not to Know
Now there are people in this room that are dealing with all kinds of stuff—and you deal with the stress of not knowing how it is going to turn out.
You do not know if you are going to get the home back together or not. You do not know if the kids are going through school or not. You do not know if they are not blowing your hard-earned money smoking up their tuition. You do not know if they are coming home pregnant or HIV positive. You do not know for sure if you are going to get laid off tomorrow.
You cannot have faith based on knowing—because I am going to tell you the truth, man—I am going to tell you the truth.
Sometimes I do not know. I do not know—I do not know if everything is going to be okay. I do not know if I will not have to cry. I do not know who I will have to say goodbye to. I do not know if this is the last time. I do not know.
I do not know if the market is going up or down. I do not know if my house will sell or not. I do not know if I will finish my strategy or drop dead when I walk off the stage. I do not know.
But the beauty of my peace is that I can trust beyond knowing.
To all of my brothers and sisters who have to know everything—"Where we going to stay? Where are we going to live? What are we going to eat? What are we going to do? How much money we going to make? Let me see how we are going to pay—let me see if it makes sense to me"—to all of you people who have to know everything, you are canceling out a chance to walk with God.
Because to walk with God is to be cool with uncertainty—to be cool with uncertainty.
You do not know whether your patients are going to live or not. You do everything you know how to do—and you pray and you sow and you give—and you are great doctors—but you do not know. Do not nobody know but God.
You look at all the evidence and make a decision as a judge—but you do not know. We do not know.
It is okay to not know—stop trying to know everything.
They saw the colt and they thought it was the kingdom—but the kingdom was not of this world. And the reason they could with such venom say "Crucify Him" is because they were disappointed.
And the reason they were disappointed is because they expected something that was not in God's plan.
What have you expected that is not in God's plan? And you got the nerve to tell God He let you down—how dare you say He let you down like it is His job to fulfill your desire.
God does not work for you. God does not work for you—you work for God. God does not work for you—and it is not His job to fulfill your desires.
You have carried that boss thing too far. You have run up on the real Boss now—the real Boss, the Ruler of the universe.
And His thoughts are above our thoughts, and His ways are above our ways.
And He told me to tell you—and I do not know who it is for; I do not know whether you are in the room or in the back or in the balcony or you just got in or you are logged on—but God says He is not going to let you know—so stop asking Him to make you know.
He said He requires of you that you trust beyond knowing.
My third close—He will not stop talking to me.
He told Abraham to get up early in the morning and take the son that he waited 100 years to have—and He said, "Take him to a place I will show you."
So Abraham loads up the wagon and takes his son—and his son, "Where are we going?" "I do not know—but I will know it when I see it."
That is how you live your life. You want to know—you cannot know. You have to follow on to know.
You have to just—"Where we going, Daddy?" "I am not sure," he said. "It is somewhere out here—and I will know it when I see it—and I trust beyond knowing."
And the Bible said he was three days off from the place—and he looked up and he saw the place. He said, "That is it—now I know the place."
And so he starts up the hill—and he says to the servants, "Stay here—me and the lad are going yonder to worship."
And he starts up on the hill to go from one not knowing to another not knowing.
The boy says to him, "Daddy—I see the knife and I see the wood—where is the sacrifice?" He says, "I do not know—I do not know where it is. I just know that God Himself shall provide the sacrifice."
Here is God's word to you—here is God's word to you worriers: it will be there when you get there.
Abraham goes up on the mountaintop—raises up his knife to slay. You have to have a son to understand this is unthinkable—this is just unthinkable. I cannot hardly even preach it.
To lay my son on the altar and raise the knife to stab my son is—I cannot even preach it.
And Abraham raises his hand to slay his son—and all of a sudden he heard "Baa." "Abraham—stay your hand. Behold—I have a ram in the thicket."
You did not know it—you did not know it.
God says you do not know what He has in store for you. You have to trust beyond knowing—because you do not know what is coming up the other side of the hill.
While Abraham was coming up this side, the answer was coming up on that side.
And faith is not about what you know—it is about what you do not know.
"Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe."