TD Jakes - When Men Fall Short
This sermon from Genesis 35 focuses on Jacob, a flawed «greasy» man from a righteous family, who lived between his old identity (Jacob the trickster) and his God-given identity (Israel the prince). The preacher concludes that even when we fall short and bury our dreams in our «almost» places, Jesus makes up the difference and fulfills the purpose we couldn’t complete on our own.
Jacob: The Do-Wrong Guy in a Do-Right Family
I want to talk to you this morning about a man who fell short. He’s in Genesis 35. His name is Jacob. He comes from a good family, a very strong family. He comes from a family of do-right people. He’s a do-wrong guy in a do-right family. Have you ever been a do-wrong guy in a do-right family? Not living up to the family brand, the family motto, the family ideals, the family concept? Are you the stone that the builders rejected? Are you the misfit person in your family that didn’t fit in with the rest of the people and always were different, stood out? That’s the kind of guy Jacob was.
He was just a different sort of guy. Truth of the matter, he didn’t fit in. He comes from a long line of faith men. Abraham was his grandfather. Isaac was his father. And here comes Jacob along. And Jacob was slick, greasy. He was greasy as a bucket of KFC. There’s some brothers in here right now and you’ve got on them fatigues and everything but you just as greasy. You just as greasy as McDonald’s fries, sitting up there smiling, praisin' the Lord, and raisin' your hands and yet, God does call greasy people.
It is hard to explain. It’s crazy. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but God does call greasy, broken people. Jacob was a trickster, he was a conman. Truth of the matter, he didn’t get there by himself. As my grandmother will say, his mammy was a little greasy too. But they don’t talk a lot about greasy women. They only talk about greasy men because greasy women cannot identify greasy men even when they sometimes help to create them.
We don’t hear much about his mama but if you’re a Bible scholar and you read up on his mama, you find out that her boy didn’t get greasy by his self. His uncle Laban was somethin' other too. I mean, he had some stuff going on in his family background that all contributed to who he was and, whether it was nurture or nature, the composite of them both had created a profile of Jacob.
That profile said, «You don’t fit in with the rest of the family. You’re not like your grandfather Abraham. You don’t have his faith. You don’t have the tenacity of your father, Isaac. You’re a misfit. You’re a trickster. You’re a conman and you’re a scam». And yet God reached out and said, «I want you». What do you do when a holy God snatches a greasy man and says, «You’re in my plan and I have a purpose for your life?
I know you’ve been strung out on drugs. I know you lived a bisexual lifestyle. I know you’ve been a alcoholic, you’ve been a wife abuser, but I got a plan for your life and I’m gonna snatch you out of your background and set you into your destiny». That’s the guy I’m talkin' about. His name is Jacob. Look over at anybody sitting next to you and say, «What’s your name»? Uh-huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s your name?
We’re doin' a grease check in here. We’re gonna check your oil, brother. We’re gonna check your oil. It’s gonna be all right. What’s your name, what’s your name? Praise the Lord, yeah. What’s your name? I ain’t tellin'. He asked me what my name was, I tell him, «I ain’t tellin'. None of your business. You just call me Bishop. That’s all you get». Yeah, yeah. But Jacob didn’t know his name. He didn’t know his real name.
Living Between Two Names
He knew what they called him. He knew what life had made him. He knew what situations had done in his life. He has an encounter with God on Penuel. And God gives him a new name and says, «You think you’re greasy. You’re think you’re slick. You think you’re a trickster». He said, «But you’re a prince and you don’t even know it». He hops down off the mountain, having had an encounter with God that changes his life.
He enters into the twilight zone of living between two names, Jacob which meant trickster and Israel which meant prince. And you’d be shocked how many men in this room are living in the twilight zone, living between their Jacob and their Israel. What is a fantastic, amazing theological conundrum for me is all of his life whenever the Bible refers to him, it vacillates back and forth between Jacob and Israel.
That lets me know he never quite killed either one of 'em. Oh, that’s good. If I walk out the door right now that right there is killer. Because the church tells you if you pray hard enough, if you fast hard enough, if you talk in tongues 3 hours every day, if you read this verse and spin around on 1 foot and holler «Jesus,» you will kill your Jacob. But the Bible tells us that even when the old man was dying, Jacob and Israel were both sitting in the bed together.
The Bible says Jacob began to die and the Bible said Israel sat up and strengthened himself. Y’all not gonna talk to me. I want every man in here to touch somebody around you and tell 'em, «We are both here, Jacob and Israel». And sometimes, Jacob and Israel get into a fight, living in the same body. Sometimes, Jacob wants to quit and Israel wants to stay. Sometimes, Israel wants to live holy and Jacob wants to go to a strip club.
Sometimes, Israel wants to read the Bible and Jacob wants to watch porn. And we are both living in the same… y’all can’t take a real message. You can’t handle the truth. And you say, «How could you be? You’re supposed to be a Christian. Israel is, but Jacob… I still gotta live with Jacob». He hops down off the mountain, with both of them working in him at the same time.
The Journey After Conversion
He comes down off the mountain and runs into Esau and reconciles his strife and his dilemma with Esau because one of the signs of true conversion is working out conflicts with your brother. When you start working out conflicts with your brother, that’s a sign you’ve been converted. Jesus told Peter, «When thou art converted, strengthen your brother». So the moment he has his conversion experience, he comes down off the mountain.
He reconciles himself with his brother, and he’s got this one dilemma left. He’s got this journey after having been to Bethel and had an encounter with God. Bethel, incidentally, means house of God. He’d been to church. He’s had an encounter with God. He’s had an encounter with God so strong that he’s put rocks up there and anointed them with oil to say, «This is the house of God and this is the gateway to heaven».
He has his hand on the spot where the glory of the Lord is. And he still has a problem. He’s got a wife that he loves, named Rachel, who’s pregnant and he’s trying to get her to Ephrata. And he’s trying to get her to Ephrata and you have to understand that Rachel is the love of his life. The love of his life. You know, often in our society we talk about women loving men.
We don’t talk a lot about men loving women. Rachel was the love of his… it was a girlie kind of love he had for Rachel, the kind of romantic love where he saw her at first sight and he said, «That’s my woman». Uh-huh, yeah, girl. I got you. And he said, «Whatever I got to do to get her, I’m willing to do it». And he went to work and he worked 7 years to get her.
And got her sister, Leah, tangle-eyed, knobby-kneed, gap-toothed, bug-eyed Leah. And he said… he did what all men do when you don’t get what you want, you make do. But in his heart, Rachel was still there. He finally got Rachel. He finally got Rachel. He finally got Rachel. And Rachel is amazing. Rachel has this problem, though. Rachel is fine as wine but she can’t have children.
Rachel has to pray to get spiritually what Leah has naturally. Rachel, with all of her prettiness, still has problems. I don’t care how fine you are, you’ve still got problems. With all of her prettiness, she still has pain and she prays to resolve her problem that God would open up her womb. And miracle after miracle, God opened up her womb. And everything that came out of it, Joseph loved it like it was her.
He loved it like it were her. Everything that came out of it, he loved it like it was her. When Jacob looked up and Rachel had had a baby, he loved Joseph. He loved Joseph. He made him the coat of many colors. It was awesome. God opened up her womb again and now she’s pregnant but this time, it’s not going good. Remember that her being able to have children at all was a miracle.
This pregnancy is rough and he is on a journey, not in a jet, not in a plane, not in a cab. He’s in a wagon. And he is trying his best to get Rachel to Ephrata. It’s a struggle. It’s a struggle to lead a family with a problem. Rough road, terrain, obstacles, bad wheels. He’s trying to get her there. The dilemma that he now faces: do I stay with the horses though I hear the love of my life crying in the wagon, or is this a «Be there» moment?
And I’m back in the wagon but, Rachel, if I’m in the wagon, we’re not going forward. And if I’m going forward, then you tell me I’m not there. Meanwhile, in the back of the wagon, Rachel was having a hard time. And Jacob was not there. It implies that Jacob was not there because in the throes of labor, she names her baby that he has to rename.
The «Almost» Place: Burying What We Love
The reason I chose this text is for one little phrase. The Bible says that they were yet a little ways from Ephrata. They were almost there. Almost there. Almost got the house. Almost got the family together. Almost got out of debt. There are so many men in here who are almost there. The problem is they were yet a little ways from Ephrata. She was the love of his life, and she’s dead.
And so, give her to me. He buried the one thing that we knew he loved. He buried it in the place he fell short. And her grave to this day is somewhere short of Ephrata. I wonder how many men have buried something where you fell short. Dug a hole, covered up. It’s not always a Rachel. Sometimes you can bury your fight. You just get to almost and you just bury your fight and the fight is gone.
You got back on the wagon, but your fight didn’t. You got back on the wagon, but your hope didn’t. You got back on the wagon, but your joy didn’t. You got back on the wagon, but your smile didn’t. And nobody knows, not even the horses, that only a half a man got back up on that horse again. That half of you died, surviving where you fell short. And he went on to Ephrata.
«Saddle up! Let’s go»! With what he had. Such as I have. I started out with more but by the time I got to Ephrata this is all that’s left of me. And the story ends kind of sad because Ephrata is Bethlehem and Bethlehem is the house of bread. And he couldn’t get to the bread. He got to the burial, couldn’t get to the bread. And I wanna know from the men, what have you buried in your almost place?
Is it your courage? Is it your integrity? Is it your fight? Is it your dream? Is it your love for the family? Have you stopped loving because you’re scared of the pain that it cost to care? Then every man in here has a shovel. And when life gets crazy, we bury what we can’t fix. Did you hear what I said to you? We bury what we cannot fix. When we bury where we fall short, we miss a miracle.
That’s why Jesus goes to Martha and Mary and says, «Show me where you laid him down. Take me to the spot where you gave up, because I want to be the God of your short places. I wanna be the God who engages where you ran out. I wanna be the God that will touch the area of your fear. If you have enough courage to take me to the spot where you laid him down, I will give you a miracle where you got a mess.
But do you have the courage to take your Jesus, your Savior, to the place where you buried what used to make you get up out of the bed in the morning? Because he can be Jesus in church all day long but, if he doesn’t become Lord over the place you put that shovel, he is not Lord at all.
Why the Bad Ending? The Horses Are Coming!
And I ask myself this question, „Lord, all of this, I’m leery of when the Bible has bad endings. It makes me uncomfortable. There are not many bad endings in the Bible. There’s a few. Few people didn’t get healed. Most of 'em got healed. Bible doesn’t write much about people don’t get healed. Doesn’t write much about people who fall short and never completed a mission and I wondered, whatever it tells, there’s always a reason.
Whenever Jonah is swallowed up by a whale, there’s always a reason. Whenever the cockatrice bite Israel and they have to raise up a serpent to heal them, there’s always a reason. Is always a message in the mess. Why did you let him get so close and fall short? And then I heard the hoof wheels coming. And when I heard the wheels coming and the horses neighing, I heard them coming. They were thousands of years later.
And it wasn’t this time… this time it wasn’t Jacob sitting upfront. It was a guy named Joseph and he had, back in the bunk, a girl named Mary. And they were on the road to Ephrata, now called Bethlehem, and suddenly I’m beginning to realize when I saw Joseph ride past where Jacob fell short, I knew that I did have… you see, Joseph, Mary’s boyfriend, has Mary about to go into labor, and they were trying to get to Bethlehem.
They drove down the road. They were just a little ways from Bethlehem, but where Jacob broke down, Joseph kept riding. O little town in Bethlehem, you’ve got to wake up because Joseph made it to the city and when I saw Joseph go into Bethlehem so that the prophecy would be fulfilled, that out of Bethlehem Jesus would be born, suddenly I realized why Jacob couldn’t get to Bethlehem.
Because if Jacob had have gotten to Bethlehem and had Benjamin who was a king, they would have thought he was the Messiah. But there was one coming after him who was mightier than he was. And so where Jacob fell short, Jesus stepped in and came all the way down. Y’all don’t hear me. I feel like havin' church. Slap somebody and say, „Don’t worry about where you fell short because King Jesus is gonna make up the difference“.
I want you to take 30 seconds and praise God for making up the difference. Touch three people and tell 'em, „He’s gonna make up the difference“. He’s gonna make up the difference. He’s gonna make up the difference. He’s gonna make up the difference. For everything you didn’t have, for everything you didn’t accomplish, for every time you failed, for every time you collapsed, for every time you fell short, Jesus said, „Don’t worry about it.
I got you covered. I’m gonna pick up the slack“. Slap somebody and tell 'em, „God said he’s gonna make it up to you“. He’s gonna make it up to you. I wanna talk to every suffering father. I wanna talk to every bleeding son. I wanna talk to every crippled child. God said he’s gonna make it up to you. If you didn’t get it from your job, if you don’t get it from your kids, if you don’t get it from your wife, God said, „Don’t worry.
The horses are coming“. Touch seven people and tell 'em, „The horses are coming“. The horses are coming to restore unto you the years that the cankerworm, that the palmer-worm, and the locusts ate up. I dare you to believe God for a pressed down, shaken together, running over blessing in your life. Give him 3 minutes of crazy praise.