TD Jakes — Faith To Build
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, our King. I am so delighted to have this opportunity to be in your home, to be a part of your life. That God has allowed both you and I to survive enough obstacles to be where we are right now.
The message that I'm going to share with you is so strong. It's a message called Faith to Build. Faith does not mean that God does your work for you. It doesn't mean that you can just pray, and sit down, and wait for something to happen. Faith is an action word requiring you to get involved and be present, and to put some sweat equity into your dream.
The message is called Faith to Build. Experience it right now. I told you the other week that Abel worshipped by faith, Enoch walked by faith, and Noah worked by faith. So we must understand that in order to have faith, we need to worship by faith. Worship being not this stuff we do like this, but worship being what we offer to God has to be by faith.
Worship, as it relates to Abel, was about offerings. Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, and he did it by faith. His faith was expressed through what he gave. And I told you faith is often expressed through what you give.
When somebody loves you and somebody believes in you, and they don't give you anything, be suspicious. Because if you have faith for something, your offering is a reflection of how seriously you feel about it. You don't give to nothing you don't love. So Abel worshipped by faith. Enoch teaches us the next dimension.
You gotta walk by faith. A walk is a walk. Just 'cause you have faith doesn't mean you don't sweat. If you don't believe it, walk home. Enoch walked by faith, but that doesn't mean he didn't have human reactions to the walk. Don't think that your faith is going to exempt you from human reactions to life. Life is life, but your faith will give you the momentum to take a licking and keep on ticking.
It will resurrect you. It will strengthen you. It will make you survive. Are there any survivors in the house this morning? This third dimension, it comes to us through Noah. And the Bible says Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, moved with fear, built an ark to the saving of his house. Noah worked by faith. Noah worked by faith. His faith affected his intelligence.
Watch this. His faith had now become a communication device. Yes, that's right. Whoever said that had the proper reaction to that point. When I planned to say that, I planned for you to holler just like that. Because Noah, faith caused him to have the intelligence that other people didn't have. What the Bible says, Being warned of God of things not yet seen. When you have faith, God will tell you things are coming before they come.
I wish I had a witness somewhere in here. God will show you things that other people don't see. And since your faith affects your sensibilities, you don't try to live like your neighbors live, because you know some things that your neighbor doesn't know. You have been warned of God of things not yet seen. That's why I don't understand why Christians are shocked about the way the worlds is going today.
If you ever read your Bible, you would understand everything is happening just like God said it would happen in his Word. Everything, just like he said. Just like he--I mean, everything. The very fact that we are not using less and less--using money to purchase things is biblical, setting the stage for the mark of the beast. If you don't have the mark, if you don't have the numbers, you can't buy anything.
How do you think somebody from John's era would describe today? Do you know what a miracle it is for somebody who has never seen the telephone, never seen a cash register, never heard of radio, never saw anything like that, to talk about there's going to come a time that numbers on your body will release money in your life: buy bread, buy houses with the mark. And you're right in the middle of it. No natural affections.
You've got 12-year-old kids going up before judges, looking hard. When we came up, we were scared to go to the principal's office. Now they're coming up looking hard, you know? Going up looking in the casket, and somebody 22 years old talking about, He died hard, man. Keep it hard. Keep it real. What happened to kids being kids? What happened to kids being kids? But the Bible said it was going to be.
All the issues we're dealing with about same-sex marriage, it's all been said in the Bible, in the last day that all of this was going to happen. This is not shocking. What's more, it was going on in Jesus' day. It was going on before Jesus. People have always been people. They always will be people. They're going to do what people do, that's why you cannot build on people. People will change their mind in a minute.
But whatever God said, he said, I'm not a man that I should lie, or the son of man that I should repent. If I said I'm going to be with you, if you make your bed in hell, I'm still with you. If you take the wings and go to the outermost parts of the earth, I'm still with you. Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, moved with fear. As a leader, as a man, as a woman, as a head of a household, are you hearing things from God that affect how you move, or are you moving according to the newspaper? Because the newspaper will change its headlines every day.
God's news is still the same. Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, moved with fear. He got in there*--now this is the first time that we see fear and faith in the same sentence. Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, moved with fear. In fact, it says, By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen. Well, I thought if he had faith, he wouldn't have fear. That's not true.
I told you fear has a next-door neighbor. Faith has a next-door neighbor. They live right across the street from each other, and you have to be able to feel both of them. He moved with fear, but this is not the kind of fear that you have because of intimidation. This is the kind of fear that you have because of respect and reverence. He moved with fear. He took it seriously. He took the warning seriously.
I want to ask you something: are you just here, or do you take this seriously? Do you take it seriously? Being warned of God of things not yet seen, you ought to be walking toward what is ahead of you, not what's behind you. You're spending all of your energy trying to fix yesterday. You can't fix yesterday. W
hatever happened, happened. It is what it is. It's going to be what it's going to be, and it's going to do what it's going to do. The past you cannot fix, but the future you have an opportunity to change. Your future will only live in what you build. God told him what was gonna happen, but he didn't build his ark.
Are we asking God to do too much? Are we asking God not only to tell us what's next, but to build our ark for us? Have you been sitting around waiting on God to come down with hammers and nails and build your ark, and are you disappointed because he hasn't built it for you?
He was never supposed to build your ark. He was not supposed to build your ark. He was not supposed to build your ark. It is your job to build the ark. It was his job to warn you. It was your job to build it. It's time to build your house. It's time to build your house.
I'm talking to you on the Internet, it's time to build your house. It's time to build your house. Stop crying about, Oh, things aren't going right. Things aren't working out. When is the Lord going to do something, because the Lord is sitting up very quietly in heaven? Saying, O God, look at how her life is not working out.