TD Jakes - Trusting Beyond Knowing
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. Everybody in here has polarities in your life, if you show me this side, I'll think you're amazing, if you'd show me that side, I'll think you need to be saved. Don't you sit there with your holy self and don't act like you don't have a side you don't want nobody to see, 'cause 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 can't 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'm in here, I'm in here. They think he is headed to be their king, after all he has sweated 'til 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's why after the Holy Ghost had fallen upon Jesus in the Jordan River they sent him in the wilderness, because he is our scapegoat and he carried away our sins.
Jesus going in the wilderness is a shadow of Jesus going to the cross, so he's riding on a goat 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'm gonna ask you over here. Since God has carried it away, why are you still carrying it? 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 don't invest in the kingdom, how dare you ask the kingdom to invest in you. If you're 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's sacrifice. It ain't sacrifice when you buy me something, it's 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 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've ever given was palm trees, you just reached up and cut down something that was close anyway. You didn't have nothing invested in it, it didn't 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 don't mean nothing at all 'cause you cut down what didn't bleed, you cut down what you cared nothing about and you gave it to God as if you were doing somethin' big, all based on what you thought he was gonna do for you. You cut down the palm trees 'cause you thought you was gonna get double for your trouble. You cut down the palm trees 'cause you thought you had a new King, the Son of David. I gave my coat 'cause I esteemed who he was to be greater than what he did. If you don't do anything else for me, if I can do anything to make you more comfortable, if I have to give you something, I'll give you the shirt off my back because I love who you are, not what you did. If you're gonna die, I'm gonna 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 up 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 ain't cut nothing, you ain't gave nothing, you just making noise.
I have learned over the years, the loudest folk in the church do the least giving. Them people that gets out of control and runs all over the place, that you can't do nothing with them, and they dance and break they shoe, and they hollering and falling all over top everybody don't 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 a has a man robbed God"? "With your mouth you draw nigh unto me, but with your heart you're far from me". Hallelujah. God don't 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'm closing. They did all of that giving, the three levels of giving, the coats, the palm trees, and praise, and they was good with it 'til he got to the Sanhedrin court, till 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're not gonna do what I thought you was 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 'cause you didn't lose nothing in the first place. The Bible said, "Thomas, you have believed, because you have seen," or other words, you believe and trust because of what you know, but, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet they believed".
All of these other folk lost their blessing 'cause their, "Hosanna," turned to, "Crucify him," but there were a few people left on the cross that said, "Though he slay me, yet shall I trust him. If he dies, I'm going to trust him, if they bury him, I'm going to trust him, if they put him in a grave, I'm gonna bring frankincense and myrrh". Ooh, I feel like preaching this word. Does anybody want to hear this word? So I asked God, I said, "Since they did not start celebrating Palm Sunday until the fourth century after the early church, and it didn't get big till the eighth century, 800 years after the resurrection before Palm Sunday became embedded in the 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 don't know how things are gonna 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 gonna 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's 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 gonna die. Now, that's worship, to trust beyond knowing. That means I give you my coat if you don't 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 stop growing, I'll praise you with a bald head. That means if my hair turns white, I'll praise you up into my old age. That means if the building is empty I'll still praise your name, if there is no crowd I'll still praise your name, if I have to preach in a jailhouse I'll still preach your Word 'cause it's not about dollars and cents, it's about purpose and passion. And I want to raise up somebody who trusts beyond knowledge.
Stand to your feet, I'll close with this. The ways of the Lord are high and lifted up, even the people who supposed to know what he's doing don't know, even the people who think they know don't know. I tell all the preachers all the time, "Do all the teaching you're gonna teach down here, write all the books you're gonna write down here, there will be no bookstores in heaven". If you're gonna be a professor, be a professor down here 'cause 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'll be none of us teaching him theology, hermeneutics, homiletics, all of these manmade names, pneumatology. We won't be teaching nothing, we'll sit down at his feet. We'll sit down at his feet and he will say, "I love you because you trusted me beyond knowing".
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's gonna turn out. You don't know if you're gonna get the home back together or not, you don't know if the kids are going through school or not, you don't know if they're not blowing your hard-earned money smoking up their tuition, you don't know if they're coming home pregnant or HIV positive, you don't know for sure if you're gonna get laid off tomorrow. You cannot have faith based on knowing. 'Cause I'm gonna tell you the truth, man, I'm gonna tell you the truth.
Sometimes I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if everything's gonna be okay, I don't know if I wont have to cry, I don't know who I'll have to say goodbye to, I don't know if this is the last time, I don't know. I don't know if the market's going up or down, I don't know if my house will sell or not, I don't know if I'll finish my strategy or drop dead when I walk off the stage. I don't know, but the beauty of my pace is that I can trust beyond knowing.
To all of my brothers and sisters who have to know everything, "Where we gonna stay? Where are we going to live? What're we gonna eat? What are we gonna do? How much money we gonna make? Let me see how we're gonna pay, let me see if it makes sense to me". To all of you people have to know everything, you are canceling out a chance to walk with God, 'cause to walk with God is to be cool with uncertainty, to be cool with uncertainty. You don't 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're great doctors, but you don't know, don't nobody know but God. You look at all the evidence and make a decision as a judge, but you don't know, we don't know.
It's okay to not know, stop trying to know everything. They saw the coat 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's his job to fulfill your desire. God don't work for you, God doesn't work for you, you work for God, God doesn't work for you and it is not his job to fulfill your desires.
You done carried that boss thing too far, you done 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 don't know who it's for, I don't know whether you're in the room or in the back or in the balcony or you just got in or you're logged on but God says he's not gonna 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 won't 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 don't know but I'll know it when I see it". That's how you live your life. You want to know, you can't know, you have to follow on to know. You have to just, "Where we going, daddy"? "I'm not sure," he said, "It's somewhere out here and I'll 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's 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's the sacrifice"? He says, "I don't know, I don't know where it is, I just know that God himself shall provide the sacrifice". Here's God's word to you, here's God's word to you worriers, it'll 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 can't hardly even preach it. To lay my son on the altar and raise a the knife to stab my son is, I can't 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 didn't know it," you didn't know it.
God says you don't know what he has in store for you, you have to trust beyond knowing, 'cause you don't know what's 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's about what you don't know. "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet they believe".