TD Jakes - The Grace To Make Changes - Part 2
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and God saved him because Noah walked with God, because God saw himself in Noah, because Noah was a righteous man. He wasn't trying to keep up with the culture. The culture was drowning, and Noah was floating because he did not idolize his associates. Your problem is you care too much about people and what they think of what they say and whether they like you or not or whether they like the way you look or they like your hair, they like your dress. I don't care whether you like it or not. I refuse to bow down at the shrine of what is only a man's opinion. Back up, give me some room. Give me some space, 'cause I got grace to do this. And God saved Noah and his sons and their daughters, saved by association, saved by relationship.
So if you're not relational, you're in trouble because Noah's sons and daughters got saved by relationship. They didn't have covenant. Their father did, and they became a recipient for that that they did not have because they were connected with somebody that did. Connections is what got the woman with the issue of blood healed. It wasn't attention. It was connections. She touched the hem of his garment. He wasn't even looking at her, but just because she was connected, she got blessed. Are you connected with people that have the ability to change your destiny because you honor your connection? Then don't let no devil tear up your connection. Once God has given you a connection, it will save your life. One of my fondest memories of my youngest son's childhood is watching him in the mirror watching me shave when I was shaving, that he was a little boy. He was a wee little boy.
And I'm saving in the mirror, and he's looking in the mirror at me. You remember this? And, ooh, I can't look at you and tell it. I turned my back to you, and he looked in the mirror and I'm looking at him through the mirror, and he said, "Daddy, you're everything I want to be". And I thought, "Listen, wait". I thought, and that's why I can't look at him. I said, to myself, I said, "That's nice, but you don't know everything I am. You haven't seen me scared. You haven't seen me tired. You haven't seen me fail. You haven't seen me be human. You see me as a superhero, and you love my superhero". And I smiled and I patted him, and I thought to myself, "It'll mean more if when you grow up and you still think that".
And I can't look at him when I tell you that, as a grown man, I brought it up, and I brought it up with some anxiety because I braced myself for him to say that he changed his mind, and he said, "Daddy, you're still everything I ever wanted to be". I ain't gonna be able to do it with him in the room now. What I brought it up about, this personal conversation between me and my youngest child, this personal conversation was had through a mirror. I can look at you now. We never looked at each other. Yeah, we just looked through the mirror. So I'm standing there looking at his reflection, and he is looking at mine, and we are talking to the reflections about each other. Are you watching what I'm saying?
In this little personal private story is a mystery of theology. It will chase away, you see a mirror, every time you see a mirror, you will see it differently. How many people got a mirror on them right now? You got a mirror in your pocketbook, somewhere on your...somewhere? You got a mirror right now? Your mirror will teach you the purpose of God. You don't need your Bible. I wanna preach from your mirror. For, you see, when God made man from the dust of the earth, he made him a mirror of reflection. What God liked about man was he was created in his likeness and in his image. So when God looked at man, he saw himself, and what God has always wanted for humanity is reflection.
That's why when Jesus came, he told us to pray after this manner. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He said, "I want you to be a reflection of heaven. Behold, I give you power whatever you bind on earth have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth, have been loosed in," that's mirror talk. That's mirror talk. That's mirror talk. That's mirror talk. That's mirror talk. That's mirror talk. When Moses said, "God, show me your glory," and he looked at the glory of God until the molecules of his face began to change into what he beheld because you always become what you look up to, and when Moses, when Moses began to look up at God, he became the God he was looking at so much so that the Bible says, in Hebrew, his face shown.
In the Hebrew, it means glory beams were shooting out of his face when he came down off the mountain. It looked like beams were shooting out his face because his face had molecularly changed into what he was looking at. Whatever you look at is what you become. You cannot be it if you don't see it, and the more you see it, you can be it, and Moses was staring at God and turning into God without death. Transforming into divinity without death before the cross required a veil because it wasn't time for it to be revealed what God looked like. And so, when Moses comes down off of the mountain, he veils his face so that the glory of God does not yet appear, because it wasn't supposed to appear through Moses. The law was supposed to appear through Moses, but not the glory.
The glory was supposed to come through Jesus, and the Bible said, "We beheld the wonder of his glory, the only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth". That means that Jesus is to God what I was to Dexter. They're having a reflective conversation. Jesus is God talking to us through his mirror. "No man has seen the Father at any time, save the Son, who have revealed him". "If you have seen me, come on, you have seen the Father, because I'm in the Father, and the Father is in me". This is a reflective analysis because God has always wanted to see himself in his likeness and in his image, and the reason Satan hated man is because he looked like his Daddy, and if you're in rebellion against the Father, you're gonna be in rebellion against the Son.
So when Satan slithers up on Eve in the garden, he's trying to break the mirror. He couldn't break the Father, so he tries to break the mirror, the reflection of his glory, the express image of his person, divinity wrapped up in humanity. "And we beheld the wonder of his glory, the only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth". I was looking at Dexter. I was looking at what I was. He was looking at me as an older man at what he would become. He represented my past. I represented his future, and we were staring through time, and when I looked at him, I looked at where I was, and when he looked at me, he looked at what he would become. So when you see the Son, you are seeing God expressing himself through the Son in his likeness and in his image.
What does that have to do with the text? I'm glad you asked. It has everything to do with the flood because this mutated being that had started to be created out of the lust of the sons of God and the daughters of men had created a mutated being that had destroyed the reflection of who God was, and he said, "Before I'll have my image disrupted, I'll drown them because they are not reflecting me, and I created them to be in my image and in my likeness, and I am seeing a mutation".
Oh, how much of God does he see in you? In the way you talk, in the way you walk, in the way you handle people, and the way you respond to people, and the way you interact with people, how much of it is a reflection of your Father, or are you just showing yourself? Because this determines whether the flood hits you. The purpose of God is not the titles of men. We have confused purpose with titles. So when we have people without purpose, they tell you what they do. I'm a preacher. That's a title. Don't confuse titles with purpose. I am the express image of his person. I am the personification of his praise. I am the Ohel Moed, the Tent of Meeting, where divinity meets humanity. I am an expression of God's ability to inhabit that which is human. I am, whoosh, the wind of God in flesh, the breath of God, the zoe God. My purpose is to reflect him in the earth.
So I try to tell you what he would tell you, speak to you like he would speak to you, handle you like he would handle you. Whether I like you or not, that's beside the point. I am supposed to express him in the earth, and as long as I express him, no weapon formed against me shall be able to prosper, and every tongue that rises against me, God will condemn, and I don't care how high the flood gets. It'll never get me if I express his glory. That's why you clap your hands. That's why you give him praise. That's why you lift him up, so that you can express glory. The Lord told me to tell you that he created you to be a glory machine.
Genesis tells us what. Hebrews tells us why. Hebrews 11:7 says, "By faith," Noah, "when warned about things not yet seen", in King James it says, "moved with fear," in NIV says, "in holy fear, built an ark to save his family. By faith, he condemned the world and became the heir of righteousness that is in keeping with faith". Good God Almighty. Can I spend a few minutes here? And I'm gonna stop. Let's challenge, now, I'm gonna be disruptive, okay? This is a warning, so if you wanna hop offline, hop off right now 'cause I'm getting ready to be disruptive. I'm gonna mess with your theology just a little bit. I'mma mess with it just a little bit. You run around talking about that, if I had faith, I wouldn't have fear, and then you quote the scripture, "A perfect love casts out fear," and then you tell me that God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but the truth of the matter is this scripture brings faith and fear into the same sentence without contradiction. Noah's faith is proven by his fear.
So the text starts out...oh, I feel like teaching this thing now. Come on, I dare you to push me. I'll teach this thing by faith, by faith, nor being warned of God of things not yet seen. Now, he had faith. God warning you is grace. If God warned you, that's grace. If I told you to stop, that's grace. If I gave you a chance to get out, that's grace. If I gave you the plan for the Tabernacle, that's grace. If I gave you the plan for the ark, that's grace. So we see by faith, nor being warned of God, look at your neighbor and say God warned you. If you get in trouble, don't blame God. If you go bankrupt, don't blame God. If they take all your money and run, don't blame God. If you lose your self-respect, don't blame God. If you end up HIV positive, don't blame God.
Once God warns you, grace has done what it was supposed to do. It has warned you of things not yet seen. Is there anybody in here that don't wanna be warned. I wanna be warned. If you wanna be warned, put your hand up. I wanna be warned. I wanna be warned when I'm going too far. I wanna be warned when I'm talking too much. I wanna be warned when I'm in the presence of an enemy. I wanna be warned when I befriended a witch. I wanna be warned when there's somebody out to sabotage me. I wanna be warned when I'm on the brink of destruction. I wanna be warned when I talk too much. I wanna be warned when I need to hold my peace. I wanna be warned when I'm about to mess up my future. That's the grace of God.
Look at your neighbor and say he warned me. I would have been dead, but he warned me. I would have been destroyed, but he warned me. I would have drowned, but he warned me. I would have been with somebody that was abusive, but he warned me. I would have been with somebody that was hitting me over the head with a frying pan, but he warned me. Is there anybody in here that can shout because God warned you? He warned me. He warned me. He warned me. He warned me. The devil thought he had me, but God warned me. The witch tried to hex me, but God warned me. My enemies tried to deceive me, but God warned me. They act like they were my friends, but God warned me. They tried to put me in a trap, but God warned me. To God be the glory.
He brought me out. He brought me out. He brought me out. He brought me out because I believed him, and you know how you know I believed him? Because I moved with fear. Come on, come on, come on. Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, moved with fear. It doesn't say he moved with faith. It said he moved with fear. Because if you really believe God that it's gonna rain, it ought to produce fear because God is not looking for somebody in this season who will gradually build a boat. We are too close to judgment for you to be casual about building an escape route. The enemy is right over your shoulder. If you don't move with fear, you won't move quick enough to stop the enemy from doing what he's trying to do, because fear is a favor from God. It releases your adrenaline. It gives you power to move. It gives you agility. It gives you strength. It causes your body to function in supernatural ways.
God gave you fear so that when the lion roared, you would outrun him. When the baboon beat his chest, you would outstep him. God gave you fear so that when the snake rattled, you would move your foot. I need me some fear to help me escape. When the enemy came in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. Slap your neighbor and say run. Run, run, run, run. I can see the signs of the judgment. You better run. I can see the signs of the times. You better run. Before we can cure one disease, here comes another disease. While we're getting over this disease, here comes another disease.
Slap your neighbor and say "run". If you're going with me, you gotta run. If you're gonna move with me, you gotta run. I can't stand slow folks. They make me itch. They get on my nerves 'cause when I got to go, I got to go, and you got to move at my pace or you can't walk with me. If you don't move with me, somebody, open your mouth and shout "yes". Fist bump three people and say I gotta make changes. I gotta make changes. I gotta make changes. I gotta make changes. God's given me a grace to make changes. I've got the grace to change my circumstance. I've got the grace to change my situation. I've got the grace to come out of bondage. I got the grace to escape the wrath to come. Somebody, shout grace. Grace is what I'm gonna use to change my situation.