TD Jakes - The Vulnerability of Service
When you start talking about careers, people are only interested in seeking protection so that they can climb the ladder in corporations. In business, everybody’s trying to get higher. How high can I go? What promotions are available? What can I do next? I want to go up; everybody wants to go up. Nobody wants to go down; everyone wants to be higher, bigger, and greater. No matter what method we choose—whether it’s the best looking, the best dressed, the best style, the most educated, the most intellectual, or the most articulate—everybody’s trying to get further along than the people beside them. All that is advertised to us is grandeur, opulence, and excess.
Here we are in a fight between political powers, races, family members, and genders. It’s a fight; I don’t know whether you’ve noticed or not, but there’s a war going on between men and women. We used to like each other, wanted to be with each other, but now we’ve turned our guns on each other. God help us to have some children because all the church is not exempt from this. There is an insatiable desire among many, even in the church, for status, titles, and recognition. To get it, they’ll do anything, say anything, undermine anybody, kill your reputation, destroy your influence, and go after you by any means necessary just to get to the top. I’m starting to wonder if there is any substantial difference between the church and the world because everybody is trying to get up; nobody’s trying to get down.
Even when we do the right things, we often do them for the wrong reasons. I’m after you this morning. We do the right things for the wrong reasons. To be sure, those who put others' needs above their own often do the right thing, but they do it for the wrong reasons because they want to medicate low self-esteem, and they do so to their own detriment. They become people pleasers in the hope of receiving something back from the people they seek to please, validating their own existence. They are self-medicating their pain by false missions of humility. They think so little of themselves that they do the right thing, but it’s for the wrong reason. It isn’t their service that is toxic; they give great service.
It is the motivation of being people pleasers that is the problem. The antithesis, however, is that we’ve become so against being people pleasers that we no longer serve; we seek only to be served. We have this vision, this idea, this philosophy that being served elevates us into positions of authority. So if we can’t have that, we would rather be alone than serve anybody. We would rather be lonely and alienated and go to bed every night hugging our pillow rather than serve anyone. Children cannot learn how to serve because they cannot be what they do not see. Are you hearing what I’m saying?
Somehow it has been made more significant in our minds to meet a ravenous need for acceptance. This kind of good deeds and service giving is fictitious; it’s phony, fraudulent, and has negative motives behind it because it seeks grandeur by doing acts of service in the spirit of manipulation. This is an exercise in total futility because people will eventually come to see your kindness as weakness. They will use you until they use you up, and it still won’t elevate you to the place you need to be. I know I ought to get an amen right there. Servitude cannot be done for what you can get out of it, for how you can be acknowledged, or how you can be recognized or validated by it. You cannot medicate low self-esteem, fear, or vulnerability by hiding your vulnerability and acting like you care about people when you really don’t. You just want to be seen in a certain light.
The real test is, would you do it if nobody was looking? Would you do it with the lights off and the cameras gone? Would you do it if your boss didn’t see you? I’m not worried about the people who serve in this church when I’m here. I’m not worried about those who come to church when I’m here. I am suspicious of people who only do it when I’m around. You couldn’t be doing it for the right reasons if you only do it when I’m watching. I’m not worried about the staff member who performs well when I see them and says they love you, but they really don’t love you because they’re killing you. The only way they will do their job for which they get paid all the time is when you’re looking. I’m going to set it off in here this morning.
Real servitude must come from a sincere place, an authentic place of strength. I know you don’t associate servitude with strength, but you have to be strong to serve. Yeah, I’m going to shock you with this. I know you think all the people who are serving do so either because they’re ignorant, stupid, or weak, and they should have achieved more. However, you have to be strong to serve. Do not allow the menial tasks that we do to blind you to the absolute strength it takes to give yourself away. You have to have strength, and you have to feel safe enough to become vulnerable enough to serve others. The reason some people will never serve is that they are too weak to serve. They are afraid that if they lay it down, they’ll never get it back.
So they would rather fight you for the position than serve you because they’re weak. I’ve learned over the years that arrogant people are the weakest people I’ve ever met. They are arrogant because beneath that disguise lies insecurity. That’s why I want this camouflage. I like it and think it’s cute, but I have to keep it 100. Come on, somebody; I’m not the only one wearing camouflage in here. It’s a lot of people wearing camouflage here with a false sense of importance because they don’t have the strength to serve. You have to be strong to serve. You have to have a sense of self and identity to be a good servant. You have to know who you are. If you don’t know who you are, you can’t lay down what you don’t know. I don’t do it because I’m weak; I serve because I’m strong.
I’m here because I’m strong. Just because I’m on a stage doesn’t mean I’m not serving. You think getting into a higher position isn’t service. That’s a problem. It’s like people who start companies because they’re lazy. «I’m going to be an entrepreneur so I can sleep in in the morning.» You’re going to be broke and starve to death because if you start a business, you’re going to work twice as hard for half as much trying to pay the people. You’re the last one to get paid because you have to be strong enough to be the boss. You have to pay the cost to be the boss.
Come on, talk back to me; I wish you would. So you have to feel safe, and you have to be strong to serve. A lot of us don’t feel safe because we have been used, misused, or abused, and we have allowed the behavior of the recipient to change who we are as a person, to protect ourselves from someone who is no longer present. Someone who has come along has disrupted your future over something they did in the past, and now you are camouflaging your propensity to give your gift, service, time, and love into a false sense of arrogance because you’re too weak to heal. Heal people can be vulnerable; heal people can help people; heal people can serve people. Heal people understand that the only job in the kingdom is servitude.
Why do you think, on God’s green earth, did Jesus, on the last night of his life, get up from the table, gird himself with a towel, sit down on the floor, and wash the feet of those who were his disciples? Then he said, «If I, being Lord, know how to serve, how much more ought you to be able to serve?» Yet you won’t give up your seat. Somebody’s sitting in my chair. Jesus got out of his chair and washed other people’s feet, but when I say you’re not a Christian, you get hot mad at me over a parking space.
Oh, let me get off of this! Lord, it ain’t going good. Jesus, it’s not going good because what I’m teaching affects every area of your life: your peace, happiness, mental well-being, how you see yourself, how you relate to yourself, your family, your friends, your spouse, and your coworkers. Your labor has to come from a place of strength and safety, where you do what’s gotta be done, whether it’s in your job description or not. When you see something that needs to be done, you just jump in there and help get it done. You’re not after credit; you don’t need recognition or glory. You don’t seek acknowledgment; you do it because it’s within your power to help your fellow man, because you love the Lord like that and are so blessed to be alive and blessed to be here that you don’t mind giving whatever service you can give. If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can help somebody with a word or song, then my living will not be in vain.
So that means that all the camouflage is vanity. All this fake strength I see: «I’m just strong; I’m just a strong person,» and they can’t deal with me because I’m strong. No, we can’t deal with you because you’re arrogant; we can’t deal with you because you’re nasty; we can’t deal with you because you’re hateful. It’s not your degrees that are the problem; it’s your attitude. Somebody hurt you so badly that you don’t feel safe enough to serve, and then you wonder why you are so alone. This camouflage is killing you; it is so heavy because you act tough around everybody and go home and cry.
It would be easier to get healed than to be constantly fighting over who’s the boss, who’s the smartest, who’s the greatest, who’s the most talented, who can sing the best, and who can preach the best. It doesn’t matter; the best preacher I ever heard is the one God was using. I’m going to say that again for the people in the back: the best preacher I ever heard is the one that God was using, and he never uses the same person all the time. You’ve got to learn that whether you’re up or down, I can tell what kind of preacher you are by how you act when you’re not preaching. Because if you really love the word, you’ll love the word. I don’t care who is delivering the word. If you only love the word when you have the mic, you don’t love the word. If you only worship when you’ve got the mic, you’re not a real worshiper. A real worshiper will fall out on the floor, even when somebody else is delivering the word.