TD Jakes - Understanding the Blueprint of Faith: Coming Into Agreement
I’m going to talk to you about the power of agreement. If I’m discussing the power of agreement, I must talk about this power couple: Abraham and Sarah. They were a power couple long before anyone coined the term. They are the only couple mentioned together in the Hall of Faith. It recounts what he did and also what she did through faith. Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged Him faithful who had promised. Isn’t it interesting that Abraham didn’t receive credit for the birth of the child; that was given to Sarah. Yet, Abraham is credited for the journey, while Sarah is credited for the birth. However, there had to be an agreement between them; they could not walk together unless they agreed. They reached a level of agreement.
Now, let’s go back and understand some things. God has designed faith to perform at its maximum capacity when we come into agreement. We are in agreement with one another. That doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree—neighbors across the street don’t have to agree. But there must be an agreement concerning what God has promised you, ideally with someone who can touch and agree with you. The Bible says, «If any two of you agree as touching anything on earth, it shall be done.» Coming into agreement means not just two people agreeing with each other—that’s nice—but two people agreeing with God. That’s better. If two people come into agreement with each other, that could be anything; it could lead to murder, homicide, witchcraft—anything. But if the two come into agreement with God, a threefold cord is not easily broken. So, what you want to do is find someone who can agree with you as you believe God for the things He has promised you.
We must not look only for someone to agree with us. That is what is wrong with the world today: we only talk to people we already agree with. We only watch the news that aligns with our viewpoints, and we only befriend individuals who think, vote, dress, and act like us. There is no fruitfulness in sameness. You need differences to come into agreement, enabling you to give birth to new ideas. If Abraham had agreed with Steve, there wouldn’t be an Isaac. If Sarah had agreed with Hannah, there wouldn’t be an Isaac. Because of sameness, there must be differences for fruitfulness to occur. The reason our country is not more fruitful is that we consistently associate with the same people who share our views, thus limiting our potential to create and grow.
When differences come together, they produce fruit. Differences complement each other. We live in a tribal society where people become increasingly tribalistic. All the doctors associate with doctors, all the lawyers with lawyers, the poor with the poor, and the rich with the rich. Until we achieve cross-pollination, there will be no fruitfulness. It’s statistically proven that placing all poor people in a neighborhood stifles growth and development. Mixed neighborhoods lead to greater productivity; children achieve better grades, and individuals become more upwardly mobile due to the diversity of perspectives. What has made America great is our differences, not our sameness. We don’t want to be one simply to be one; we aspire to be one because we are many.
This principle also applies to the Word of God. «If any two of you agree as touching anything on earth, it shall be done.» God has decreed for us to come into agreement. You don’t need to make an agreement with someone who thinks exactly like you. You need an agreement where potential contention exists. We don’t require a contract unless contention is a possibility; you may stray, and I may stray. But an agreement means we agree about certain things even if we don’t agree on everything. You may desire a stucco house; I may want a brick one. But if we agree on the covenant, we will have an agreement, akin to what today is called a contract. When you have a contract, you have deliverables, specifying that this person must deliver this by a certain date. That does not mean that we both have to like meatloaf!
We can have our distinctions and differences, but agreement refers to those areas where we have mutual understanding. We have come into covenant. Abraham and Sarah were able to defy all odds based on their agreement with each other regarding God’s promises in their lives. However, I want to share that agreement doesn’t come easily.
We can bring a man and a woman to us, perform an average wedding ceremony in about 30 or 40 minutes, but they may spend the next ten years trying to come into agreement. The ceremony and the wedding are easier than the marriage and the happily ever after. Coming into agreement is a process. You start bickering about little things: you didn’t put down the toilet seat, you left the toothpaste cap off, you don’t clean up after yourself, and you don’t cook. You come into agreement. The issue is that we want everything immediately, but we don’t want to navigate the arduous process that leads to agreement.
It is a challenging journey that develops over time, enriched by experiences, until we arrive at a point of agreement. «Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!» It is like the oil that ran down on the head of Aaron and onto his beard and skirts, for God commanded a blessing, even life forevermore.
At the point of our agreement, regardless of how long it took us or what we endured, that’s when the blessing began to flow in our lives. While we are undergoing this process, we cannot bear fruit because we haven’t reached full agreement. We need agreement if we’re going to build a church. We need agreement to establish a business, to create a great ministry, to raise remarkable children, and to have a successful marriage. We do not need to be the same; we must have agreement.
My wife and I are as different as day and night on various matters; she has one personality type, I have another. However, we have come into agreement on certain issues. I didn’t have to change into her, and she doesn’t have to change into me. Over the years, we’ve discovered it’s better to let her be her, and I be me, granting us comfort in our relationship while agreeing on critical points. Those areas become fruitful.
Agreements aren’t easy; they require negotiation, maturity, a process, commitment, focus, and time. I often tell my wife that the bigger the business deal, the longer it will take. I’ve never seen anyone pull off a major deal in a short time. Anything that comes together too quickly worries me because big things are complicated, and complications require time. You must give forethought to consider all the details so that if you do the grunt work upfront, you’re less likely to encounter problems when delivering what you aim to produce.
Today, we marry quickly only to date each other afterward. We need to reverse that process. Before walking down the aisle and saying, «I do, ” I should know who I’m committing to. I need to learn about you, your parents, your family background, and your childhood. It may not all be positive, but I need to grasp what I’m agreeing to. I also need to understand what we are agreeing on. What do you mean when you say, „I love you“? What do you mean when you say, „Let’s get married“? What do you mean when you say, „happily ever after“? It’s essential to ensure that we share the same vision because, without a shared vision, we will have division.
Division does not mean we are enemies; it simply indicates that our visions differ regarding our goals. For the first couple listed in the Hall of Faith, they underwent a process to come into agreement. Pastors, don’t be disheartened if not everyone in your church agrees with you. You’ve only been there for a few years; developing agreement takes time. You might not ever have the complete buy-in of your entire church to accomplish your goals, but cultivating enough disciples around you—a quorum that brings about agreement—requires time and investment.
Simply appointing individuals does not ensure agreement with the vision. Having degrees doesn’t guarantee alignment with the vision, nor does talent ensure agreement. The best elements do not always work together harmoniously. Finding that harmonious zone where you can play your note while I play mine, creating a cohesive sound instead of a cacophony of noise that hinders our ability to align, takes time.
Agreement is the harmony of notes that create a sound. A cacophony results from adding a note that doesn’t fit the chord structure, generating noise instead of music. Many of us create noise rather than music because we mix the wrong notes in the chord, obstructing our ability to receive the promises tied to our capacity to come into agreement.
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place and with one accord. Suddenly, a sound came from heaven. The moment they achieved oneness, a „suddenly“ occurred in their lives. They spent 10 days achieving this singular accord—Jesus left on the 40th day, and the Holy Spirit didn’t arrive until the 50th day. It took them 10 days to become one in purpose.
We didn’t wait for 10 days for the sound to come; we are waiting to achieve unity first. How much effort have you invested in attaining this agreement? How much work, communication, and dialogue has gone into your consensus? Is it genuine agreement you seek or control? Is it agreement you desire or domination? Remember, achieving agreement involves negotiation. It may require us to sacrifice our own desires for the greater good of the partnership, allowing us to accomplish God’s purposes.
Are you with me? I don’t know who I’m speaking to or why I’m delivering this message, but God is preparing to bring you into agreements that will unlock things in your life like never before. The reason you’ve faced hindrances is that you’ve connected with individuals who were not in alignment with you, ultimately causing disarray due to a lack of cohesiveness.
Jesus spent more time with the twelve than with the 5,000. You can’t unite 5,000 people to agree on something as simple as carpet color. Yet, He focused on the twelve to guide them into consensus. Agreement is powerful; it can change your life and open doors. Agreement, however, takes time to cultivate. We need to achieve agreement on principles, which necessitates negotiation and the relinquishment of our own selfishness and narcissism. We may have to sacrifice parts of ourselves to make way for a collective „us.“
It also requires growth in our relationship with God, as the differences between Abraham and Sarah are trivial compared to those between them and God. God is eternal, everlasting, holy, and perfect in all His ways. He is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. They are none of these. They are temporal, finite, and human. They are fallen; they are chaotic; they are sinful. They make mistakes. They look—look at what it took for them to come into alignment with a God who is even more different than they are from each other. So when your prayer partner and you come together in agreement, that’s a job. The next job is to come into agreement with God, who sees the end from the beginning, who has an expected end for your life, and who is perfect in all His ways. Coming into agreement with God in the process—how do I do this? By spending time in prayer, being honest with yourself, and being honest with Him.
Stop being religious and pretending to be something you’re not. Open up your heart to the Holy Spirit; allow the Holy Spirit to begin to work in your life. Little by little, the Word is made flesh in your life, and when the Word is made flesh in you, you come into agreement. When the Word becomes flesh in your life, and when you stop being a hearer and become a doer of the Word, you come into agreement. Just because you’re exposed to the Word doesn’t mean you’re in agreement with it. Just because you heard the sermon doesn’t mean you’re in agreement with it. Just because you go to a great church doesn’t mean you’re in agreement with it. It takes time for the Word to penetrate your cold, stony, fleshly heart and to reach that soft place where you can germinate and bring forth the character of God in your life. As a prophet, it’s a process. For Abraham and Sarah, they did not start out worthy of being in the Hall of Faith; they had to grow into it.