TD Jakes - The Conception of Faith - Part 4
There are four classes of people, I want you to get this good so you can figure out which one are you because it tells the kind of ground you are. The first class, the enemy stole it before they could flourish, even to the point of salvation. You hear it, but it never stays. "I listen at you all the time". But is it doing you any good? Did you let somebody steal it before it could flourish? That's the first group. Put that up so they can see it. The second group, the second group is important too. They are most deceptive. They fit in the service real good 'cause they react to the Word just like anybody else. The second group received the Word with joy.
Oh, you couldn't even have church. They just jumping up and down, stepped on your shoe, danced on your pocketbook, ran all up and down the aisles of the church. They receive the Word with joy, but don't let the joy fool you. They have no root. You know how you have root? You know how to test whether you have root? By how you react to the storm. If the tests can destroy your faith, you might have had joy, but you don't have no root. I'm in a season in my life, I cannot deal with people that have no root. You know those people that you gotta call every day to see if they still who they were yesterday 'cause they change like the weather back and forth? I don't have time to take your temperature every morning to see who you are. You have no root. I can't build off of you.
I can pray for you. I can love you, I can like you, I can even have feelings for you, but I can't build off you, 'cause you don't have no root. Where I'm going, there's gonna be some storms. Where I'm going, there's gonna be some wind. Where I'm going, there's gonna be some haters. Oh, yeah, it's gotta be some haters to indicate I have arrived. You gotta have some root. If you only stay with me in the sunshine and run in the rain, you can't be my friend. A friend is a person who runs in when everybody else runs out. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Oh my God, I'm preaching something this morning. So, we covered two, we got, give me number three. The third group allows external circumstances to abort the promise. The three you gotta watch out for is worry, I'm gonna talk about each one of them.
Can I take a minute? Worry is negative faith. Worry is negative faith. Worry is to have faith in what you don't want to happen. Worry is faith turned inside out. Over and over in the Gospel of Saint Matthews, Jesus says it over and over again, "Do not worry. Do not worry. This is not a request, children. It's a commandment 'cause worry is a seed killer". Oh, y'all got quiet. "How do I know what I'm worrying"? When you keep thinking the same thought over and over again, that's worry. The first time, it might be reality, but once you know it, why are you rehearsing it? The more you rehearse it, the more you magnify it. I don't wanna keep talking about what we already talked about, because worry is a seed killer. Many of us lose out in the third category because of worry. Worry chokes faith. Worry is a faith choker.
The next test that's hard to pass is riches. You pray for success, and then when it comes, you can't handle the success you got because it has distracted you from the one who gave it to you. So, the hardest test to pass, I've been broke, it is not poverty. The hardest test to pass is profitability because if you are not intentional about showing God that he can trust you, that you will not idolize what he gave you, you can pass a test. If you don't, what he gave you will choke you. You're thinking about it, you're worrying about it, you're trying to manage it, you're trying to control it. You got rich people's problems with nobody to talk to, it's choking you. And God will take it from you and give it to someone else who will not allow their success to distract them from their service. Ain't many shouters on that one.
By the way, "rich" is a relative term. So, all of you who think I'm not talking to you, it depends on who you talk to because your normal is somebody else's rich, so be careful about talking about rich people 'cause rich is relative. They didn't get nothing I said. They didn't get the words that were coming out of my mouth. If your rich self with a car. Your rich self with a dishwasher. When I was a boy, rich was a doorbell. People that had doorbells was rich people. Window units in the living room was rich people. You know what your problem is? You don't know how blessed you are. You don't know how blessed you are. You watch too much TV.
When you get any amount of stuff at all, everything you got will bring the temptation to worry about it. If you didn't have a car, you wouldn't need no gas. You wouldn't have checked the tires. You wouldn't need no oil. If you didn't have a car, you wouldn't have to plug it up. I covered everybody now. 'Cause that plug's mine, yeah, but getting that electric car meant I had to get an electrician to put in a plug that I wouldn't have needed. Everything you get causes a need, and if you become distracted by it, having it might take you out of the opportunity to have faith. Pleasures of life. He chokes you with pleasure. If I said I was gonna choke you, you would not come up here. Nobody, she said, "I wouldn't". No, if I told you I was gonna choke you, you wouldn't come.
Pleasure does not announce itself as a choker. The pleasures of life can choke you. You can have such a good time that you can't go to work. You can have such a good time you're not worried about being a father. You can have such a good time that you're a bad mother. You can have such a good time pleasures of life will put you in a choke house, chokehold, and all of a sudden, you can't get loose, because you're living for a feeling. You're making decisions based on a feeling, and watch and see if it don't choke you. Watch and see if it don't choke you. Every now and then, you got to cast stuff down that you liked. No, no, no, you praying, "Lord, make me not like it. Take it away from me so I don't want it". No, that wouldn't be a test. The enemy will never test you with something you don't want. You can't be tempted with what you don't like, not producing anything good.
Four, and then I'm gonna get to it. Good soil plus good seed produces in spite of what life may bring. Good soil plus good seed produces in spite of...good God, it produces in spite of what life may bring. If there's anybody in here whose end doesn't line up with your beginning, if anybody knew where you came from and what you've been through, they would never believe that you ended up where you are right now, if there, is there anybody in here that you can't even connect the dots between where you started and where you ended up? That means you got good seed and you got good soil and you develop good roots, and all you got to do is shout 'cause you still here. "I've been through hell, but I'm still here. I've been in a storm, but I'm still here. I've been in a test, but I'm still here". Somebody, shout like you glad about it.
I'm gonna tell you this. I started talking about Sarah last week. I talked about Sarah because Sarah is the first woman in the Bible who made it all the way into the Hall of Fame for her faith. It does not credit Abraham with Isaac. It credits Sarah with Isaac because Sarah is good soil. God waited until Abraham's body was dead and he could not produce a seed, and then he gave him a seed. Now, when he gave him a seed and it hit Sarah's dead womb, it quickened it and brought it back to life. Y'all didn't hear what I'm saying. I'mma prove it, I'mma prove it. I'mma preach Jesus. I'm gonna get in Sarah's belly and preach Jesus. Her dead womb is Mary not knowing a man. Mary is barren because she's never known a man. Sarah is barren because she's never known a man that could impregnate her.
So, when Abraham's seed hit Sarah's dead womb, he brought it back to life again. Row forward 42 generations, and Jesus says, "I am the seed of Abraham. I am what hit Sarah's womb and brought it back to life". And then he says, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live". Sarah's womb was dead, but she believed God, and God brought it back to life again through faith. How did you do it, old woman? "I did it through faith". It took her years to get the kind of faith that produces. She had been barren when she wasn't past childbearing age.
Now she has two problems. Even if she wasn't barren, she had already gone through the change. There is no way in the world that she ought to be able to have a baby. She is barren. She is past childbearing age. When she hears the promise, she laughs inside of herself, but from the same place she laughed, in the same place that she did not believe, in the same place where she doubted God, God allowed her to conceive seed when she was past childbearing age because she finally stopped laughing. Let me tell you this right quick. Whatever God said that you've been laughing at, God says, "Stop laughing". Before the year is out, you're gonna see God do that thing. They don't believe it. I said before the year is out, you're gonna see God do that thing in your life, because you believe God, it's still going to happen. All I'm supposed to do is sow the seed. It's up to you to receive it. I wish I had a hundred people that would receive that seed and just...
Stand to your feet. This is my close. Sarah, I mean the one in the Bible, when she found out that she couldn't have a baby, she decided to get her maid, Hagar, to have a baby for her 'cause she's trying to cover for God that she, it's not just Abraham not able, because at this point, Abraham was able, but believing in Abraham's ableness did not get her pregnant. I know he was able because he got Hagar pregnant. I know he was able because he is the progenitor of three major religions: Christianity, Judaism through Isaac, Islam through Ishmael. In the Koran they call him Ibraham, but it's the same man. All nations of the earth are blessed through this man. It happened for Hagar in time. It happened for Sarah out of time. Check this, somebody in this room, it's gonna happen out of time. She laughs at it. She gets a surrogate because of it.
Now she's old, and even if she wasn't, Abraham's body is dead. It is totally impossible. It is not judging Abraham faithful that gets her pregnant. It is because she judged God faithful. It's not gonna come to your job. It's not gonna come through your gift. It's not gonna come through your talent. It's gonna come through your faith in God. When she judged God faithful, God strengthened Abraham. Good God Almighty. He so strengthened Abraham. Abraham got Hagar pregnant while he was still strong. He got Sarah pregnant when he was impotent, but it wasn't a one-off, 'cause after Sarah is dead, he marries a woman named Katurah and has five more children. God said, Don't think what he's about to give you is temporary. Your fruit shall remain, and whatever God promised you, he's going to bring it to pass. My question to you: The sower has gone forth this morning, sowing seed.
What kind of ground are you? Do you hear it and forget it? Do you receive it with joy but have no root? Do you receive it but your situations, and this is where most of us are. We're in the third dimension. Most of us are in the third dimension, where we are letting worry, success, and pleasure choke our belief system. In fact, the culture says you should change your belief system to adjust to the culture. So, you're trying to develop a theology that fits your fun. Theology has to remain the same. "I am the Lord thy God. I change not". Oh my God, I'm back to my first point. She judged him faithful. That's not a womb thing. That's a head thing. I'm back to the fallopian tube in your ear. She heard the Word. It stuck. It changed her entire marriage and her house. The Word, the engrafted Word of God, saved her soul.