TD Jakes - The Kingdom of Heaven is Like: Explaining the Unexplainable
After many days, I have been seeing entangled roots underground. For me, this message did not start with the text; it began with a vision of entangled roots underground. Regardless of the plant type at the top of the soil, the roots mesh together underground. Whether it is weeds or wheat, if they are planted in the same space, the roots become entangled. For days, God has been showing me entangled roots. Are you ready to go deeper into this? I said, are you ready to go with me? I say, are you ready to go with me? Timing is key—say it again, timing is key.
The text starts with a very common phrase: «The kingdom of heaven is like,» which shows us that kingdom truths are veiled in comparisons. He doesn’t tell us what the kingdom is; He tells us what the kingdom is like. The kingdom truths that I am meant to get from this will come through veiling. Whenever the truths are veiled in comparison, you cannot become so inundated with the comparison that you fail to dig beneath the soil of the text to extract the truth. Why is Jesus telling us this story? It is not just so that we may know the story; it is so that we might understand the truth hidden in the fabric of the story. We can’t just read through it and say, «I’m done with it,» or «I know the story,» because we must understand that the revelation is hidden in the analogy. It hides behind the parable; it is locked up in the parable in such a way that it causes you not only to read but to think.
If you don’t think when you read, you won’t retain what you heard. Some people will hear this message and get nothing because they will not add the necessary quotient of thinking to hearing. If you don’t think, I am not your preacher; I cannot preach to people who don’t think. Not everyone is for me; I’m cool with that. I understand, and I get that. That’s okay. Is God hiding? Let me go that way: Is God hiding the kingdom in parables to avoid exposure? No, God isn’t the one who hides from us His glory. That notion is counterintuitive to who Jesus is Himself. Jesus is God revealed. Isaiah 53 says, «Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?»
Jesus is God revealed to us; He is God extending Himself when He calls. The arm of the Lord is talking about Jesus because Jesus is God extending Himself from divinity to humanity. Jesus came to express God, and we beheld the wonder of His glory, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Why would Jesus come to express God and then hide God? He is the revealer; He is the author of the book of Revelations. John penned it, but Jesus said it; He is the revealer. So let us not think that God is hiding when God is revealing. When we look at this, we begin to understand that it is man who loves darkness rather than light because his deeds are evil. It is man who hid in the garden from God. It is man who walks away from truth and hides his wickedness and iniquity from God.
There is not a person in this room who isn’t hiding something. Oh, you’re not going to talk to me, but I’m going to keep on saying it until I get a response. There is not a person in this room who isn’t hiding something. I have news for the young people who are talking about keeping it 100: nobody keeps it 100. You might keep it about 90. If you want to lose everything, keep it 100. If you want to destroy everything, keep it 100. If you want to lose your job Monday morning, go in there and keep it 100. I don’t even want to be here; I’m sick of all of you. I never liked you in the first place, and you make me sick, and you get on my nerves. That will get you fired, but you’ll keep it at 100.
If you want to get divorced real quick and she asks you, «Do my hips look big in this?» and you respond, «Look like two bears fighting in the woods under a blanket,» I’m just saying. Oh, if she says, «Am I the greatest lover you ever had?» you might respond, «No, you’re about number ten. I just love you, and I put up with it, acting like you’re killing me and driving me crazy.» But the truth of the matter is, I was thinking about what I was going to wear to work. Best keep it 100, and you’ll also be keeping yourself in divorce court. There is not a person in this room who isn’t hiding something. God has nothing to hide.
So when God says, «The kingdom of heaven is like,» we must not think that God is hiding the truth as if He were playing hide-and-go-seek with us. What He is doing, as the master rabbi, is teaching the unexplainable to a far less intelligent being. He is showing us what the kingdom of heaven is like, like a first-grade teacher teaching a student what it is like to be in Paris, what it is like to travel the world. She must consider the age and intellectual development of the student to be effective in teaching. She is not hiding; she is reducing it down to the level of the audience she is speaking to. So when Jesus says, «The kingdom of heaven is like,» it is God stooping; it is God coming to our level.
Can you prove it? Yes. «As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts and my ways above your ways.» If I spoke it to you on my level, you would never understand it. So I speak to you in metaphors, similes, and comparisons so that you can learn what the kingdom of heaven is like. I have to find something that you can compare it to because what I am talking about is so high that I’m breaking it down. In the first line, when I say, «The kingdom of heaven is like,» I’m talking baby talk. Daddy, that’s what Jesus is doing when He’s talking to us. He is breaking down truths through the parable that we must take with us.
I’ve got five lessons I’m going to tell you from this text, and I’m going to discuss them before sitting down. Five things are to be excavated from this text for the purpose of my assignment today. All the times I have ever preached this text, I have never seen the significance of timing in the text. But timing—say it again, say it again!
Before I give you my first lesson point, I want you to think: Why does God have me here this morning? How does this apply to my life? What is God saying to me? Why am I watching this particular message at this particular time in my life? What in my life needs to be better timed? I made my decisions this morning according to time. I took my shower according to what time it was. I got dressed according to what time it was. I had to keep track of time because if I lose track of time, I will always be late. If I am late, I lose because timing is crucial.
Why would I want to be in a service and experience the glory moving while I miss it? If you miss the first song when the choir starts singing, «The Lord is blessing me right now,» and the whole audience is up front, with young people dancing to old music and older people scooting from side to side, you miss one of the building blocks on which I’m standing right now because timing is essential. If you don’t respect time, you will never be wealthy; you will never be successful; you will never be mighty. Only poor folks, inwardly and outwardly, care nothing about timing, because timing is everything.