TD Jakes - Defying The Urge To Quit
In this message from the "Rise Above" series, the preacher urges believers to defy the urge to quit, emphasizing that true victory and self-respect come from fighting a good fight, keeping the faith, and finishing your course—no matter the pain, contradictions, or temptations to give up, just as Paul and even Jesus did.
Introduction: Defy the Urge to Quit
Greetings, Christian brothers and sisters, what a joy, what a delight it is to share the Word of the Lord with you. Our series, Rise Above, is changing lives and I think you are going to be blessed as you rise above the things that are holding you back. God has so many things for you, and yet, there are times that, I have to confess, even in my own life, there have been times that I almost threw up my hands and walked away from everything, said, it is all going crazy, it is too much for me.
Listen, the message today is to defy the urge to quit. We all have them. We do not talk about them, but we have moments where we felt like, oh, take me away, I am sick of it, but you have to fight that urge to quit, because, I always say, you will win if you do not quit. Take a look at this, it will bless your life.
The Value of Finishing
Until you have had the taste of finishing, you will not respect yourself. Until you follow through, until something is done, come hell or high water, tears and struggles and pain, and you go through it anyway and you show up and you continue to fight on, no matter the circumstances, after a while, something begins to wither inside of you. Love beareth all things. I have not been taught to take anything. I was the baby of my family. My brother and sister were not raised like this, but I was.
They did hard time in prison camp. They were shocked when my mother came in my room and said, baby, what do you want? I had not been nurtured to bear anything, to take anything. And being a man was hard work because I did not have anybody to show me, and it is hard to be what you cannot see. See, some people quit because things are out of control. Nobody quits what you can control, but the moment you get into something where you do not get your way, or you get reprimanded, or you get corrected, or you go through this, or you go through that or you go through the other or it is bad conditions or bad circumstances, the first thing the immature mind says is, this is ridiculous, I quit. And it is a hard thing.
Sins of the Spirit: Weakness and Quitting
See, when you come to church, we are always talking about sins of the flesh. Not being a whoremonger and coming out of adultery and stop lying, we give those things so much stage that being a weakling in the spirit can go undetected. If you are not doing drive-by shootings and muggings, you can pass for a Christian and really, you really get it done, as long as you do not do anything horrific, I mean, if you did not climb down a pole to come to church this morning, you can pass for a mother in Zion.
As the truth of the matter, nobody will know that you can be well as it relates to visible sins. The Bible calls them sins of the spirit. The Bible talks about sins of the flesh and sins of the spirit. There are some things that attack your flesh and there are some things that attack your spirit and I am going to do like Paul and say this I say, but not the Lord. This is something that I have noticed that some people who have a terrible time controlling their fleshly sins can have real good character as it relates to other areas of their life and other people who do not smoke and do not drink and do not chew and do not run around with them that do, you cannot find out what is wrong with them until you marry them or get on the job with them or interact with them.
Character Defects Hidden in Plain Sight
They will pass for holy until you find out that they do not keep their word, that they will give up easy, they do not complete their assignments, you cannot trust them to stand by you, and no, they would not take a drink for nothing in the world, but they would not fight with you in a lion's den, and sometimes, you have a choice, oh, God help me. You would almost rather have the other person in a dogfight than to have somebody who is morally good and their character is so defected that you do not know what they are going to do from one moment to the next. Can I preach this this morning?
A Story of Finishing a Difficult Marriage
I never will forget of the young minister, newly married, I had a friend of mine who was much older than me who was going through a real tough time in his marriage, and I did not even support or believe in, for that matter, divorce at that time, but his marriage got so bad, I told him, you ought to get out. I said, you ought to just get out. I watched him suffer so bad, I thought, you ought to quit. He was so lonely that he got a dog and named it Friend. Oh, no, no, I am not being funny, I am being serious.
See, you do not know what people go through behind the scenes, trying to cope with life. And I watched him take so many blows in his heart, in his masculinity, in his character, that it was so hard to watch. I wanted him to divorce her so I did not have to see it. He stayed, and things got worse, and then they got better, and then they got worse, and then sickness came in and then it got really bad. Throwing up on him, urinating on him, cleaning her up. You can go through stuff and never know what is going to happen down the road or who you are going to need. My mother used to say, you never know who is going to have to pass you your last glass of water.
Finishing Outside of Convenience
And he stuck it out to the end, I mean, to the end. And I was at the funeral, listening to him scream and cry over a person who I knew had broken his heart into pieces, over and over again and yet, there was some bond between them deeper than what my young eyes could see. And I remember thinking, you finished. I had never seen it before. You finished, you went all the way to the end, for better and worse and sickness and health and richer and poorer, you went through all of that stuff all the way to the end. It was amazing to see somebody who finished outside of convenience.
Paul's Testimony: I Fought a Good Fight
Paul writes to Timothy and says, I fought a good fight. Letting him know, being me is not easy. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not in my suits. You can get suits like me, but they will not make you stand like me. I fought a good fight, baby. I fought one hell of a fight. Are there any fighters in here? Slap somebody, tell them, I fought a good fight. I fought my way up, I fought to get to work, I fought to get up on my feet, I fought to stand, I fought to carry on, I fought to love, I fought to live, I fought to get out the bed, I fought with my fears, my doubts, my anxieties, my insecurities, I fought with haters, liars, backbiters, and betrayers. I even had to fight with family, and many times I laid in the bed, I could not go to sleep because I was fighting with myself. I fought!
High five somebody, tell them, I fought a good fight. I mean, I fought such a good fight, that when I look at what other people call a fight, what they call a fight is what I call normal. My whole perception of what a fight is has been revolutionized, that is not a fight. I fought a good fight. The old man tells the young man, I fought a good fight. You might not have seen it, you saw the glamor, you saw the healings, be healed, be healed, be healed, but let me tell you what you did not see. I fought to do that. Fought a good fight.
Keeping the Faith Through Loss
I kept the faith. I kept it. I lost a lot of stuff. I lost a lot of friends. I lost a lot of strength. I lost a lot of courage. I lost a lot of time. I lost a lot of money, but I kept down on my knees, I was still believing, broke I was believing, lonely, I was believing, betrayed I was. I kept. Touch three people, tell them, keep the faith, keep the faith.
If you lose a job, keep the faith. If you lose a spouse, keep the faith. If you bury your child, keep the faith. If you have to downsize, keep the faith. If you have to move in with your mama, keep the faith. If you are at your wit's end, keep the faith. If you have to catch the bus, keep the faith. If you have to thumb, keep the faith. If you get sick, keep the faith. If you lose your kidneys, keep the faith. If you got heart trouble, keep the faith. You might not get a new heart, but you have got to keep your faith.
Finishing Your Course
It says, the old man says to the young man, I finished my course. I am concerned because we are living in a world that has become comfortable with going to school and getting an incomplete. The danger of living a life of incompletes. Three or four sets of families, three or four sets of kids. Nobody can count on you to stay. Forget winning. Forget winning. To stay. You do not have to be a superhero. Nobody can count on you to stay. To stick it out. To endure. Nobody can count on you past happy.
They used to come into my office and say, I am leaving him because he is beating me. I am leaving him because he abused my children. I am leaving him because he is homicidal. Now, they come in my office, they say, I am leaving because I am not happy. You are not happy? Who told you you was going to be happy? What does that have to do with anything? Who do you know in your life that is happy all the time? You quit because you were not happy? To the person who keeps quitting, you have to live with that infection that you carry, that propensity to never finish.
The Grace to Endure
Paul says, I finished my course. I did not finish yours, I did not finish yours, I did not finish yours, I am not into your business. I am not trying to get in your business. People who are trying to finish their course are not nosy. Because they are so focused trying to finish what they started. I do not have time to worry about what is going on in your house. I am so busy trying to manage what is going on in... It is just, it is all I can do to finish my course.
Somebody in this room, you have quit so many things that you have lost respect for yourself. Somebody say, give me the grace to endure. Do not misunderstand it, you cannot be no wimp now. The apostle Paul got into trouble. Lord, remove this thorn from my flesh. He had to pray, he had to go through some tough times. He said, I got so depressed, I got so discouraged, I wanted to die. I pray after seeing people get healed and delivered, I have raised people from the dead and could not get the thorn out of my own flesh.
Contradictions of Power and Pain
The contradictions of being powerful outwardly and conflicted inwardly is enough to make you quit, and still, he finished the course with a God who said no to his own prayer. Oh, you all do not want to talk to me. What do you do when you are better on the outside than you are on the inside. I can get rid of your thorn, but I have got to bear. Oh, my God this is so good, I am going to get my own CD. I am going to get this. Is it not amazing how good you can be at fixing other people's lives? You know exactly what they ought to do.
Even Jesus Struggled to Finish
Even Jesus struggled with finishing. He goes to the garden of Gethsemane, he says, I do not know, I do not know. Daddy, this is tougher than I thought. He labored in prayer until sweat like blood, blood like sweat poured through his skin, saying, can I get out of this? Can I get out of this? Can I, can I get on a horse and ride away? Can I take a camel and ride away from a cross? Jesus says, daddy, can I quit?
I have never seen the Potter's House so quiet. Three times he prayed. Help me to finish. Is there a way that I can get out of being me? Is there anybody in here who has ever prayed, Lord, is there a way I can get out of being me? Being me is not going so good. Being me is not what it is cracked up to be. Daddy, can I quit? Finally, he says, not my will. That is where it is. That is the whole thing, not my will means not my way, not my preferences, not my pleasure. Not my style, not what I wanted, not what I liked. But thine be done.
Conclusion: Victory in Resisting the Urge
I have got to stop, I hate to stop right there, but I have got to do it. I want you to hold onto that word, because I believe that is a relevant word, defying the urge to quit is what it is all about. It is not always about how many steps you gain forward, sometimes, resisting the temptation to cave in is victory. Defy that urge.