TD Jakes - The Danger of Entitlement
Jesus' parable of the vineyard in Mark 12:1-12 shows how God lavishly prepares everything for us and entrusts it to our stewardship, but the vinedressers' greed and entitlement led them to withhold the owner’s fruit, beat his servants, and kill his son; the preacher warns that the spirit of entitlement—thinking we deserve God’s unearned blessings without humility or gratitude—destroys stewardship and invites judgment, while true blessing comes through recognizing grace and responding with deep gratitude.
Jesus Speaks in Parables to a Hostile Crowd
In the Gospel of Saint Mark 12:1-2, he records a parable that was given by Christ in response to an adverse crowd who was trying to trip Him up. You must understand that most of Jesus' ministry was not done amongst His fans, His friends, or His congregants. Jesus did most of His miracles amongst unbelievers and people who were doubting and scoffing and trying to trip Him up.
You cannot pick the crowd God sends you to. You have got to be ready to do whatever God says do. I have got a podcast with my daughter one day and then the next day, starting Monday, I got a podcast with Jeezy. You have got to reach all—the Bible said all souls are mine. Not just the ones that sing in the choir. All souls are mine.
Are you hearing what I am saying? And you ought to be strong enough by now that you can share your truth and listen to somebody and still come out and know who you are. Let them be who they are and let you be who you are. And you would be surprised at the people that do not come to church, but it does not necessarily mean that they do not come to the Lord. Amen.
Some of us make it hard for people to come to church. Thank you, Jesus. Anyway, it was good. It was good. It is good. It is good.
Then He began to speak to them in parables. He is speaking to them in parables because they are trying to trip Him up. He is delivering truth to them in a way that they can handle it. If He talks to them directly, they will become offended and escalate the crucifixion before it is time.
And He knows ultimately they are going to try to destroy Him, but not yet. And sometimes you have to behave yourself wisely because people cannot handle you at full strength. And so He speaks in parables because it is easier to behold the beam in your brother’s eye than to admit the mote that you have in your own. And so when I tell it in a story, it makes it more palatable for you to understand it.
The Parable of the Vineyard
Then He began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a place for the wine vat, and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country.
Come on. Now, at vintage time, when it was fruit time, when it was harvest time, pastor said, «We are coming into harvest time,» he sent a servant to the vinedressers that he might receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vinedressers. And they took him and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.
Again, he sent them another servant, and at him they threw stones. Now these are people that the owner sent, but you know when people throw stones. They wounded him in his head and sent him away shamefully treated. And again he sent another, and him they killed. It got worse and worse.
All they were coming for, you must understand, is to get the master’s portion of the vineyard. They were sharecropping in a situation where the master had set them in a situation that there was a harvest to be harvested. And yet when the time came to give him his portion and keep their portion, they wanted it all. Look at your neighbor and say, «Are you greedy?»
And again he sent another, and him they killed. They found it easier to kill the man than to be a good steward. And many others, beating some and killing some.
Therefore, still having one son, his beloved, he also sent him to them last, saying, «They will respect my son.» But those vinedressers said amongst themselves, «This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours. We will not have to worry about splitting with anybody. You cannot do good business with bad people.»
So they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard. Therefore, what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vinedressers. You are not going to win. And give the vineyard to others.
Have you not even read this Scripture: «The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.» Sometimes rejection is direction. I know it hurts. I do not like it. You do not like it. We do not like it. But sometimes rejection is direction.
This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
And they sought to lay hands on Him, but feared the multitude, for they knew He had spoken the parable against them. This is what the Pharisees—they wanted to kill Him, but they were scared to kill Him because there were so many people that were for Him.
That is why when you force somebody, you have got to speak up. That is why you have got to get away from these two-faced people who grin in your face and stab you behind the back. You need some people around you that stop what the enemy has got planned for you because the enemy is not scared of you, but he is scared of them.
How many folks got a them? You have to come through them to get to me. God will hedge you in with the them. Not everybody in your life ought to be trying to get something from you. There ought to be some people in your life that give something to you. And those that you cover, they also cover you.
They sought to lay hands on Him, but feared the multitude, for they knew He had spoken the parable against them. So they left Him and went away.
The Danger of Entitlement
I want to spend a little time this morning talking about the danger of entitlement. The danger of entitlement. Can you say amen?
Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on us today. Open up the light from heaven and shine a little light on our soul. If You find anything that should not be, take it out and straighten me. I want to be right. I want to be whole. I want to be free. I do not want to be entitled in Jesus' name. Amen.
You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. Let us go to work.
My God, today there is so much to be understood. About 20 years ago, I had a conversation with a young man and I was telling him how much it unnerved me 20 years ago to see these young upstart preachers with security. It just bothers me. It is just my personal pet peeve.
I do not understand why you need security when nobody knows you. And they had security, they had bodyguards, they had briefcases, they had all of this stuff that they did not even need yet. And I told him for us older folks, it kind of—older then was 40. That is gone. Anyway, Jesus, now if you are 40, you are a young man.
But I said it kind of unnerves us a little bit. A lot of times you are walking in a grace you have not earned. And he told me something that educated me. He said, «We were not trying to irritate you all. We were trying to imitate you. We did not hate you. We admired you. When we came along, that is where you were. But we did not see how you got there.»
And when you see somebody in a place, but you did not see the journey they went through to get there, it creates what appears to be entitlement because you underestimate what it costs to get there. And anytime you underestimate what it costs to get there, you feel entitled for something that you do not own.
Unspoken Rules and History
We were guilty. Number one, we had unspoken rules. And if you broke one of them, we would fall out with you. And they are not written down anywhere, but we had unspoken rules. You could not wear sunglasses in church. You could not wear a hat on your head if you were a man. We had all these unspoken rules. There is no Scripture for it. Do not look for it in your Bible, but it is just rules we got.
You put your finger up when you are getting ready to walk out of the crowd. The ushers shut the door when somebody gets ready to pray. Come on, somebody. Y’all know what I am talking about. We had rules. Church people understand it.
People who are not in the church who always got something to say about the church are quick to say things about something they do not know the history, the origin of where it came from and how it came about.
I did not understand why we swayed from side to side till I was in Africa and Kenya and I saw the peculiar tribe and they were swaying from side to side and I remember thinking so that is where we got that from. There is something about tracing your history that unveils your destiny. If you lose sight of your history, you do not understand the origin of what it took to get you to where you are.
What Is Entitlement?
Entitlement refers to a mindset, a mindset or a belief that a person inherently deserves certain privileges, benefits, or special treatment that they deserve it. I am not fussing because they got it. They think that they deserve it. And if they do not get it, they get angry because they are entitled often without having earned it, without considering the responsibilities that it takes to maintain it.
We like the title, but we do not like the work. We want the mantle, but we do not want to walk the mileage. That is why Elijah told Elisha, «If you are still with me when I get through my mileage, you can have my mantle. You cannot just have my mantle because you want it. There is some mileage. There is some walking. There is some serving. There is some humility. There is some humbleness that earns the mantle.»
And then when I look around and there is nobody else to hand it to but the person who was faithful, you earned the right to walk in the glory. And when you smite the waters, they will part for you. When you did not freeload and get it, but you received it rightfully, it is really yours—cannot nobody take it anyway.
I thought at least the women would shout me down. When it is really yours, cannot nobody take it anyway. You are not afraid for somebody to come up and talk to somebody that is really yours. Because you know when you get them car keys rattling, they are coming on home with me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You can win the shop all you want to. But when I get ready to start that car, if it is mine, they are coming on home with me. Thank you, Jesus.
When you are insecure, you will jump in and fight and wrestle because you do not really understand the difference between ownership and stewardship.
Ownership vs. Stewardship
What is happening in this text is an argument between ownership and stewardship. Ownership has entered into a covenant with stewardship and says, «I am going to set you in a situation that is already set up before you got there. I am going to build the tower. I am going to dig the vat. I am going to build the hedges. I am going to own the property. I am going to buy the land and then I am going to set you into something that costs you nothing and you have to be levelheaded enough to walk into it and not be entitled and yet be confident.»
Oh, I am prophesying to somebody. Let me break it down into church language. I am going to give you houses you did not build. I am going to give you venues that you did not grow. I am going to set you over into stuff that you do not even know what it is made of or how it got there, but I am going to set you in there.
But when you get there, do not feel like you own it. You are a steward of this moment. You are a steward of this opportunity. You are a steward of your life, of the breath in your body. You do not own it. I am going to come take it one day, but I am letting you use it right now.
Do not act entitled like I had to wake you up this morning. I woke you up this morning and started you on your way. But somebody else, I did not even wake them up.
Do not you feel entitled to have an opinion and have an attitude? Because if I did not let you, you could not catch your breath.
So there is an attitude that comes along with entitlement that is disgusting. It is irritating. It is aggravating. Especially when the owner has given you so much and you think you deserve it and it has been given to you. It has been lavishly bestowed upon you.
God’s Gifts Are Not Earned
The health you have got, the breath you have got, the mind you have got, the understanding you have got, the gift you have gotten, the ability to be able to navigate through the education you got. It is that—that was a gift. That is not you. You are not really that smart. That was a gift. God just gave you a supernatural understanding.
You cannot figure out how to bake cookies and you can do a heart transplant. That is a gift God gave.
There are some gifted people in here that know that you did not get here by might. You did not get here by power, but you got here by the Spirit, said the Lord.
And God has set you in the place and called you a baker and you never took a bakery class. Called you a pilot and you only took a six-week course. Called you a leader and you never led anybody but two fish and five loaves of bread.
God has a way of setting you in situations and making you fit. And He will make people respect you. As long as you do not think you deserve it, He will make people respect you. But when you start thinking you deserve to be respected and you start acting entitled, the bigger you are, the smaller they see you. The smaller you go, the higher they perceive you.
In other words, if you humble yourself, God will exalt you. But if you exalt yourself, God will humble you.
I do not know who I am talking to, but the tallest people are the smallest people. The greatest people are the lowest people. The more you are humble in your own eyes, God told Saul, «When you were small in your own eyes, I blessed you. But now that you think you are important and you think you are somebody, now I am going to take away everything you got.»
And there Saul is down there ripping at the feet of Samuel trying to get back what he lost because God had made him a king. He was not a king. God made him a king.
And when you know God made you something, you know who you are. You know the stuff that runs through your mind. You know how filthy you are. You know how nasty you are. And here God made you something and you have fooled around and believed your own press. It is entitlement. It is entitlement.
The Cost of Entitlement
I gave you strength to run. I gave your body agility. I gave your mind acuity. I put you into a place of opportunity. I put you into a place of opportunity that people who were more talented could not get in. And I let you in. And I let you in even though you had less talent. I let you in because you had humility.
And if you have humility, I can give you the talent. But if you have the talent and you do not have the right attitude, I have to deny you because you feel entitled.
When you entitle a property, you entitle ownership. You entitle rights, you entitle certain privileges that come with entitlement. In fact, the value of the property goes up with entitlement.
There is something that when you are in the process of buying property that when the property is entitled, the whole valuation of the property accelerates because it has been entitled. And you cannot entitle your own property. Entitlement has to come from somebody on the outside who perceives it at a higher value, but you are trying to entitle yourself.
And that is why the door keeps closing in your face and your nose gets busted and your lips are bleeding because I wish I could buy you for what you are worth and sell you for what you think you are worth. I could live off the profit the rest of my life. That is entitlement. That is entitlement. That is entitlement.
Slap somebody and say, «Humble yourself.» Humble. If you think God is going to take you up, humble yourself. If you think God is going to give you wisdom, if you think God is going to give you talent, if you think God is going to give you wealth, humble yourself. If you think God is going to make you a leader, humble yourself.
And the more He takes you up, the lower you have got to go. The more you get good at what you do, the lower you have got to be about it. The more talented you become, the more doors He opens, the more ways He made—the God only blesses you according to His eternal purpose. He did not bless you according to your ambition. He did not bless you because your mama told you you were cute. He did not bless you because you got all kind of alphabets behind your name.
God blessed you according to His own good pleasure. And He chose to bless you. So that is why you ought to have a praise because it is just His choice. He chose to bless you. You did not earn it. You did not deserve it. You did not dig the ditch. You did not build the vat. You did not build the tower. You did not set the hedge. You walked into all of that stuff. You stepped into it.
Stepping Into God’s Finished Work
Who am I talking to? Blessed people know what I am talking about. Have you ever walked into something and you do not even know yourself how you got there? You are sitting up there trying to look like you are supposed to be there. But when you go home at night, you say, «Lord, what in the world are You doing to put me in a situation like that?»
And you have got to be humble because you know you could mess it up at any moment and for fear of failure. It is better to lay on your face than to fall on your face.
All God wanted them to do was to be a good steward over what He has given you. What has God dressed and bought and dug and prepared and built and put it within your reach and gave you proximity to things that you never would have gotten on your own.
And now that you are in them, can you stand to be blessed? Can you handle being blessed? Can you handle favor? Can you handle what you are asking for? Or are you so full of ego that you are entitled?
I should be the one up preaching. When are they going to use me? I should be the one leading the song. That is why you are not. It does not have nothing to do with your voice. It has something to do with your attitude.
When you humble yourself and say, «Lord, I do not even have no right to be standing up here singing no song in front of all those people because you know what I did last week and you know what I did last month and you know what ran through my mind while I was getting dressed and yet You choose to bless me.»
And when I sing, I start crying because I recognize that the real testimony is that You did so much with so little. That is my real testimony. You did so much with so little.
And when you see somebody trying to be big, they are real little. Oh, this is so good. I am going to say it again. When you see somebody trying to be real big, it is a sure sign they are real little.
Entitlement rests in the hands of people who never did anything to earn what has been given them. And they are acting like they dug, like they built, like they had the vat, like they built the tower. They are acting like they own something that they are just a steward of.
The truth of the matter is God has brought them into a place of favor. He has brought them into a place of grace. I wish I had some people who had just stumbled into some grace. And the other people are in there because they knew somebody. And the other people are in there because their uncle was somebody. And you do not even know how you got in there.
You are walking around like Gomer Pyle saying, «Golly, golly, I do not know how I go. I cannot believe I fooled around and earned that property. Golly, I cannot believe I got out of debt. Golly, I cannot believe I finally got more than one credit card. Golly, I bought me a new car. Golly, I am headed somewhere. Golly, I got different streams of income.»
There was a time I could not hardly feed myself. I was eating beans and rice. Golly, see, you have got to remind yourself. You have got to come against this because this entitlement is a spirit.
Entitlement Is a Spirit
Can I go deeper? Entitlement is a spirit. The Bible calls it pride. And it said pride comes before a fall. And of all things that God hates, God does not just hate pride. He hates a proud look.
If you look proud, if you look up, if you walk around with your nose up in the air, God hates your face. He hates the way you look. He hates the way you stand.
All that is in the world is not about dancing. It is not about going to a strip club. That is not what He is talking about. That is worldly, but that is not what He is talking about. All that is in the world is the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
And we preach about the lust of the eye. And we preach about the lust of the flesh because those are the sins you can see. But we do not say anything about the pride of life. Because the pride of life can hide itself in a choir. The pride of life can hide itself behind Scriptures. The pride of life can hide itself behind fake humility, nice deeds, doing things to help people, trying to get credit as if you were benevolent. But you know you do not like people. You did that for you.
The pride of life hides out. The pride of life loves to hang around church. And God said, «I hate pride so bad that if you look like you are proud, I despise the way your face looks. I despise the fact that you will not cry. I despise the fact that you will not lay prostrate on the floor. I despise the fact that you got the nerve to be important when you could be in jail.»
When you could be locked up, when you could be sleeping up under a bridge, if I had not intervened in your life, you would be a drug addict with a needle hanging out your arm. And now you too proud to worship me.
You ought to beat everybody on the floor. You ought to be down on your face. I do not know who I am preaching to. You ought to be the first one to hit the floor while everybody else is doing dancing. You ought to be laying out on the floor because you know if it had not been for the Lord who was on your side, you would have been swallowed up.
You had no right to have a sense of deserving. You had no right to fuss at somebody. That is my seat. What do you mean that is your seat? You were going to hell in a handbasket and you got the nerve to have a seat. You ain’t got no seat. Shut up. Sit down wherever you can sit down.
That is my chair. I am somebody. I need to be brought in this way. I need to be handled that way. Shut up. God knows you. He saw you up under the bush. He saw you up under the tree. You act like you are entitled. You act like you have a right to this. But you know the truth. And because you will not tell the truth, you will not be free.
That is why you cannot worship. That is why you cannot praise. That is why you cannot lay prostrate because you are trying to look big to people. But when you give up on trying to impress people and humble yourself before God, it is funny. The lower you go, the more God will raise you because God knows He can trust you with a blessing.
He knows He can put you in a vineyard that you did not grow. He knows that you do not have to dig every well. You do not have to build every tower. You do not have to handle every issue. You do not have to plant every hedge. I will put boundaries in your life.
You know, you did not always have no boundaries. God put boundaries in your life. And if He removes the boundaries, you will do everything you ever did and some more on top of that. If you got any willpower, it is because God put hedges in your life.
And do not you act entitled or above anybody else because there but for the grace of God—there but for the grace of God. I do not get no glory out of watching anybody fall, watching anybody go down. I do not think that is fun. I do not think that is entertaining because I always know it could have been me.
And it will be you because the same people that are with you today will cut your throat tomorrow. And you have got to stop rejoicing in other people’s downfall. You need a spirit of humility, not entitlement.
It is about time. She had it coming. She had that coming. She deserved every bit of that. Who are you to be handing out sentences to somebody? If you got what you deserve, you would be burning up right now. We would have to get a fire extinguisher to put out the fire. You would burn up the whole pulpit if you got what you deserve. Hallelujah.
How dare you sit up and talk about what somebody else deserves. I am just in the first verse. I have not got out the first verse yet because I am locked up in the grace. I am locked up in the grace. I am locked up in the grace of God.
I am locked up in the fact that these fellas put no work in and yet they are in charge of everything. Look at you running stuff you did not have to pay for. You did not have to pay for none of it. And God put you in that office suite. God opened up that door. God gave you that opportunity.
God gave you a child when the doctor said you would never be able to have a child. God opened up your womb and gave you a child. And to be anybody else is a baby. But every time you rock it, it is a miracle because you know God did something supernatural.
Who am I talking to in this place? I am talking to somebody. I do not know who it is. That is why you shout over stuff that people do not understand. They do not understand why you are shouting about it. Because your miracle is somebody else’s normal. I said your miracle is somebody else’s normal. Hallelujah.
God’s Habit of Preparing Growth Environments
So what I am after is to tear down that sense of automatic deserving. Someone with a sense of entitlement feels the good outcomes, respect, success, resources, attention should come to them by default. It is not about fair reward for effort. It is an assumption of owed benefits.
Just because your husband is good to you does not mean that you deserve it. Just because your wife is kind to you does not mean that you deserve it. It is an assumption because you think that you are worth more than you are. You think that you are in a place of uniqueness. It is a spirit of entitlement.
And God has taken these people. And what I want you to see out of this first verse is that—oh, there is so much I want you to see. There is so much. First I want you to see that the first verse of this text is really just a type of the Garden of Eden.
I want you to see that what God did for them in the parable is a picture of what God did for humanity in the Garden of Eden. That He built the garden and finished the garden out and put a system of irrigation in the garden and put a place of fruition in the garden before He created the man.
He did not create the man until the sixth day. And by the sixth day, the stars were already in heaven and the sun was already shining and the days were passing in order. And He had already established an environment that had oxygen enough for you to breathe, that had night enough for you to rest, that had ability enough for you to think.
And God did not bring you into an unfinished earth. He finished the earth and then made you out of His finished work and brought you into the finished work of God. In fact, you were the last thing God did. The only thing God did after creating man was to pull the woman out of the man. Hallelujah.
And the woman did not come till everything was done. That is why y’all ask so many questions. Where we going? What time we going to get there? Who is going with us? What do they serve on the menu? What part of town is that in? What are they going to be wearing? What are you going to be wearing? What time does it open up? What time does it close?
The reason you ask so many questions is that you did not come into anything unfinished. You were created in the finished work of Jesus Christ where all the questions could be answered before the woman came forward.
God did not bring you in. You were the crescendo of the creation. And He brought you in at a time that all questions could be answered. And He did not bring you in until the man was enamored with you. He did not bring you in until there was a man saying, «Whoa, man. Good God almighty. Look at that woman right there. She is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.»
He did not bring you in until there was somebody to adore you. And that is why you need to be adored. You need to feel beautiful. You need to feel appreciated because you were created in an environment of growth.
So if you are taking notes, I want you to understand that this is a habit of God of creating you into an environment of growth. He did it in the Garden of Eden. He did it in the tabernacle. He did not start the ordinances before He finished the furniture.
He made sure everything was overlaid and all the artisans had completed their work. And then He brought the priests into that which was finished. He did not bring the priests in the work that the artisans needed to do. The artisans did a work that they did not get to stay in. And the priests got to stay in a work that they did not get to do because God is a provider.
And God will provide for you everything you need before you need it and let you step into something. He will let you step into something. He will let you step into something.
I wish I had some really blessed people that could admit that you just stepped into something. You were just having some coffee and you stepped into it. You were not even on the job interview and you just stepped into it.
And that is why you got so many haters because they feel like it ought to be them and they feel entitled, but you were not entitled. You just stepped into it. And that is why when you think of the goodness of Jesus and all that He has done for you, your soul cries out, «Hallelujah, because you stepped into it.»
Somebody stomp your foot. I stepped into it. God said, «Everywhere your feet trod, I am going to give it to you. I am going to let you step in the stuff where people had more preparation and less opportunity. I am going to put you in a position of growth.»
And that is why you have got to be little because you have got to grow into it. I am going to put you into a position where the grapes are growing. They are not finished. I am going to give you a tower before I give you a grape. I am going to give you a vat before I give you a grape. I am going to open up doors for you and build hedges before I produce grapes. So you will grow into it together.
I do not know who I am talking to, but somebody in this room is growing into something and you are wondering why the grapes are not there yet. When you are ready, the grapes will be ready. Oh, God.
God’s putting you in a place of growth. He is putting you around people that are saying stuff that you do not even understand and you having to Google up under the table trying to figure out what the conversation is doing because you are going to grow into it.
God has put you into a place of growth to stretch you, to enlarge you, to increase you. God knew you were tired of traveling around behind the twelve yoke of oxen, plowing behind that that you have already mastered. And He put you in a place of growth.
How many people in this room are in a place of growth right now? You are in a place of growth. You are in a place of uncertainty. You are in a place where you are not sure of yourself. You are in a place where you are not established. You are in a place where you have got to build a brand for yourself.
You are in a place where you are dealing with people who are used to what you are just stepping into. You do not have the lingo right. You do not have the movement right. You do not have the fortitude. You do not have the attitude. But God put you in a place of growth and then gave you the grace to grow in that place.
I do not know who I am talking to, but somebody will admit that God gave you the grace. You got on that job, did not even know how to do it. And God gave you grace while you were trying to figure out how to do it. God gave you grace.
That is why you on Sunday morning after being dignified all week, you have got to code switch and come in and start dancing and praising the Lord because you and Jesus know that you do not even have no business making that kind of money.
You know you did not grow up with no money. You know you grew up eating beans and rice. You know you grew up eating macaroni out of a box and now you are a connoisseur of that which is exquisite.
Humble yourself and come on back down and come back to earth. You ate everything. You ate weenies. You ate some rice patties and went to bed hungry and now it has got to be this or you cannot touch it. You are too high. Come down.
To be in a place of growth is such a grace. When a plant has outgrown its pot, its roots overflow the parameters of its pot until the roots are growing down the side. And then if you are wise and you are careful, you will unpot it from what was too small and put it into something that was much bigger. Not just so the plant can grow, but so that your roots can stretch.
God is stretching somebody. Slap three people and say, «God is stretching you.» He put you in a large place. He opened up some door. He put you in a place of growth. He put you in a place you have got to stretch out.
He knew you could not reach the size. You thought you were going to be over here like you were over there. But this is not that. This is a large place. It is a bigger place. It is demanding more from you. It is stretching you because God knew the potential of your root was bigger than your situation.
So God pulled you out of your situation and put you in a larger situation. Now you got more dirt than you got root. Now you got more room than you got water. Now you are in a situation where you have to grow into it and you are scared.
And I know you are scared and God knows you are scared. And hell knows you are scared and demons know you are scared. But God knew what you could do before He put you in that big environment. And if you will let Him stretch you, He will stretch you in areas that you begin to grow into things.
Words begin to come to you. Vocabulary comes to you. Humility comes to you. Grace comes to you. The grace of being placed in a room full of growth.
You want to be a big fish in a tiny pond. And then when God puts you into something bigger, you get an attitude because you are not getting the reaction. You have got to grow into it.
You do not see the stewards participating in the building. The owner did that. The steward’s job is to grow into that which is finished. And now you are stretching for it. Now you are reaching for it. Now you are thirsty for it.
God gave you something to make you thirsty. God gave you something to make you pray. God gave you something to bring you to your knees. God gave you something that stopped you from being so independent and made you need somebody’s advice.
God put you in an environment where you did not know so much. God put you into a place where you needed somebody’s experience to help you to navigate in the water.
That is why we cannot have ego in the room. Because ego will shut you up from being open to direction. In the multitude of counsel, there is safety. And you will not get counsel when you have fooled yourself into thinking that you deserve something that you just stepped into.
If I am preaching to you, make some noise.
Greed in the Atmosphere of Growth
It is the atmosphere of growth. But the problem was He put greedy people in the atmosphere of growth. And when you put greed in the atmosphere of growth, greed will not grow in the atmosphere of growth because it is only interested in what your growth can do for them.
So because your motive is not right, you will not see the growth that you really need because that greed has kicked in. And when that greed kicks in, now when it is harvest time, it does not show. Greed does not show up. Nobody is coming. Nobody is bothering. Nobody is knocking at the door. As long as there is not harvest time.
When it is harvest time, that is when you know what you got. When it is welfare time, you do not know what you got. When it is food stamp time, you do not know what you got. But when you get two or three little zeros behind your check, now you are starting to find out what you got.
And they were greedy. And so when the man came—this is another way to detect greed. They were threatened. They were threatened by their own agreement that they had made with the owner that he would give them all of this if they would set aside just a portion for him.
Now they are not satisfied to have all of this. They want his portion, too. You cannot help some people because they are not satisfied with their portion. They want your portion, too.
Greedy people are dangerous. Greedy people cannot be trusted. Greedy people cannot be left alone in a place of growth because they will steal. Will a man rob God?
A lot of blessings God will not give people because He cannot trust them with the blessing. And the church is always preaching about the wilderness. They do not preach about the place of growth.
And you are talking to people about the wilderness as if I am going to spend my whole life walking through sand when in reality God keeps testing me with growth to see if I have grown up enough to stand to be blessed and I will not get beside myself.
God keeps dipping you in favor. I do not know who it is, but God keeps dipping you in favor to see, can you handle it. God keeps giving you opportunity to see if you can be responsible enough. God keeps dipping you in the opportunity to see if that greed has died out yet.
If in the process of growth, did you grow inside? You grew outside. You got all the implications of growth. You have got all the trinkets of growth. You have got all of the bracelets and the necklaces and the clothes of growth. But on the inside, you are just as broke as you were when you were a little girl.
And God keeps testing you to see if there is any growth on the inside. Because when you grow on the inside, greed has got to go. Growing on the inside creates humility. Growing on the inside means God does not have to watch you. Growing on the inside means you will deliver to Him what is His.
Give unto God what is His. Give unto Caesar what is His. Growing on the inside means God can give you more because you grew on the inside.
Some of y’all just now coming into stuff that God talked to you about 10 years ago, but you just now grew into a place that God could bless you like He really wants to bless you.
And I know you have got to sit there and act like you do not know what I am talking about, but me and God know that you know exactly what I am talking about. If God would have given you that 10 years ago, your head would have been so big, you could not have got through the door.
He had to wait for you to shrink down to be able to receive the blessing that He had for you. It was not that you were waiting on God. God was waiting on you. God was waiting on you to come to a place where you could handle what He had for you.
Some of you, God is still waiting on you to grow up enough so that He can give you and He keeps showing you something that is not manifesting in your life. And you keep saying, «Why are You showing me this and I am not coming into it?» And your answer has come today. He is showing it to you to let you know it is yours. He is withholding it, waiting on you to grow into it.
Greedy hearts corrupt expansion. Greedy hearts corrupt expansion. Greedy hearts make you not satisfied to be a steward. You have got to be an owner.
Greedy hearts. Woe unto him who prospers with that which is not his. I am going to say it again for the people in the back. Woe unto them who prospers with that which is not his.
The problem with taking God’s part and using it to make you look good is that what you call prosperity is really robbery.
You said God increased. You know you spent them tithes. You spent that offering. That is not increase. You increased with something that was not yours.
Years ago, I had a person on staff whenever I got ready to pay for dinner. They said, «Oh, no. I got it. I got it. Do not worry about it. I got it.» I did not know they were using my credit card.
It is easy to be generous when you are using somebody else’s money. Oh, y’all are not going to help me. Ain’t nobody going to help me in here. Do not nobody know what I am talking about in here.
It is easy to be generous when you are using somebody else’s stuff. They told me to put my money in my pocket like they had it handled. And then they whipped out my corporate card and paid for the bill and lied and said, «I got it.» No, you do not. If you got it, use your credit card.
The problem with envy and greed is that it never feels the satiety of enough. The satiety is the thing that God put in your body that lets your brain know you are full. And doctors teach us it takes about 20 minutes for your neurological system to convey to your brain that your stomach is full.
And that is why they tell you to eat slow because you can be full and not know it. And by the time you know you are full, you are stuffed and you have overeaten everything because it took you that long for your brain to realize that you are blessed.
The reason I am preaching like this is some of you it has not hit your head yet. That God has blessed you. That God has opened doors for you. That God has made ways for you. And you say you are not going anywhere and you forgot where you could have been. You forgot where you should have been.
You are looking at all this stuff on Instagram and on TV and comparing yourself with that. You need to look at where you came from and see how far God brought you and start thanking God.
I want to be the nerve system that carries to your head that God has been good to you. That sister next to you that keeps jumping up and down, that gets on your nerves, it ought to get on your nerves because you ought to knock her down giving God the praise for what you did not go through, for what God did in your life.
You ought to push her over in the floor and say, «Get out of my way. You cannot tell it. Let me tell it. What the Lord has done for me, where the Lord brought me from.»
Oh, girl, you do not know nothing about praising God. You do not know nothing about it. I know what it is to be on the back porch picking peas with my grandmother. I know what it is to smell cow dung in the backyard.
You do not know nothing about praising God. Let me show you how to praise God. I know what it is when I had to do my hair myself and bergamot grease and a hot comb was on the stove and mama was frying my head.
Now if your beautician ain’t in town, you cannot even go to the beauty parlor. Ain’t you cute with your fine self? You have forgotten where you came from.
You ought to knock that girl down praising God. How dare you let somebody out-praise you? How dare you let somebody out-praise you?
As good as God has been to you, how dare you let them sit there and give God more glory than you did. You owe Him a praise. You owe Him honor. You owe Him a supernatural praise. You owe Him a shout. You owe Him some victory. You owe Him some rejoicing. You owe Him a dance.
If you praised Him right, we would have to shut the service down.
A Call to Praise and Gratitude
When you look back over your shoulder and remember all the things that God did for you, it will make you praise in the balcony. It will make you dance down them steps. It will make you run the aisles in the back of the church.
When you think right where God brought you out of. When you think about where you could have been. When you think about the domestic violence you were in and how the gun did not go off and how they did not kill you and you made it out alive and your children came out alive.
How dare you sit there and not praise the Lord when they were trying to blow your brains out and God delivered you. When you think about you were sleeping with somebody’s husband and they did not kill you and God kept you alive while you were wrong in your sins, in your dirt.
You ought to beat everybody in here praising the Lord.
In fact, I am going to give you a chance. It is going to be a quick chance. You can take it or you can leave it. But I am going to give you five minutes to get up on your feet and praise God like He is really good.
Praise God like He is really good. Praise God like He can do anything. Praise God like He can do everything. Praise God like you know for yourself where He brought you from. Praise God like you are not ashamed. Praise God like you acknowledge the fact that God brought you through stuff.
That He did not give you what you deserve. That He did not take you out when He could have. Praise Him out your mouth. Praise Him with the fruit of your lips. Praise Him with the singing in the heart. Praise Him with the dance. Praise Him with the clapping of your hands. Praise Him with the leaping of your feet.
You owe Him a praise. You could have been in a mental institution. You should have been in an insane house. You should have lost your mind. You should have had a breakdown. But God who is rich in mercy wherein He loved you.
When you were talking out of your head, God preserved you. When you thought about killing yourself, God brought you through. If you had had your way, you would have blown your brains out.
I am going to give you two more minutes to give Him the praise. I am going to give you two minutes to come out of your pride. Come all the way out of your pride. Drip down out of your pride. Come down out of your foolishness and start praising God like you ain’t got no sin.
Because do not nobody know like you know what the Lord has done for you. He held your head together. He held your mind together. He held your feet together.
I got to quicken. I feel the power of God standing up in my soul. I feel the anointing in this place.
There is somebody in this place that has got a praise down in you for stuff He did 10 years ago, stuff He did 5 years ago, stuff He did 20 years ago. You owe Him the praise.
He kept you in the earth to praise the Lord. He kept you in the earth so that somebody up in the balcony would know that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God.
Is there anybody in the balcony that is not afraid to praise the Lord? Is there anybody up there that is not afraid to lift Him up?
Is there anybody online that wants to give God a praise for what He has done in your life? Is there anybody in there that knows how to glorify God?
Is there anybody in here that will lift Him up in the beauty of holiness, in the beauty of righteousness, in the beauty of survival?
Is there anybody in here that slept with the lions and God brought you over? Would you give Him the praise?
Is there anybody in here that they threw in the furnace and you came out and you were not even smelling like smoke? Would you give God a praise?
Is there anybody in here that should have died of COVID? You had multiple reasons to die of COVID, but God kept you alive.
Is there anybody in here whose mama got sick and you were worried about it and you were halfway across the country, but God sent His angels in like nurses to raise your mama up.
Is there anybody in here? God kept your kids from being mugged in the street.
You ought to open your mouth. You got one minute left. You got 60 seconds left. You got 59 seconds left. You got 58 seconds left. You got 57 seconds. Uh, you got 55 seconds to give God the praise.
You got 54 seconds to give God the glory. Come out of your cute self and praise Him for what He has done. Praise Him.
I do not care who do not understand it. I do not care what it looks like. I do not care if your co-workers are here. You ought to give Him the praise for what He has done.
You got four seconds left. For the next four seconds, take the roof off this building. Take the roof off the building and give—I cannot hear you.
Two seconds left. Open your mouth.
He is watching you. He is watching you. His eyes are going all over the building looking for your praise. He is waiting on you to praise Him.
You that He healed from cancer. You that He brought out from kidney failure. You that He brought through grief and despair and turmoil. He is waiting on you to give Him the praise.
The eyes of the Lord are sweeping through the crowd. He is going through the crowd looking for somebody who recognizes it was God all the while. It never was me. It never could be me. I could not heal myself. I could not save myself. I could not touch myself. I could not help myself. I could not stop myself. I could not raise myself.
But to God be the glory for the things He has done. He has done it. He has done it for me. If He do not do it no more, He has done it for me. He has done it. He has done nothing—done it for me.
I got nothing to prove. He has done it for me. And when I think of the goodness of Jesus and all that He has done for me, I do not need a cheerleader. My soul cries out, «Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord.»
I got to thank You. I got to thank You because I cannot let pride take root in my soul.
I got to thank You for my couch. I got to thank You for my living room. I got to thank You for my guest bedroom. I got to thank You for my garage and a car in the garage.
I got to thank You for strengthening my body. I got to thank You for my heart pumping blood. I got to thank You for my lungs and tissues. I got to thank You for my corpuscles.
With all of my might, I must give God the praise.
Am I by myself? Is there anybody that will help me? Is there one person in the room that has got something to praise God for? Shout yes. Shout yes. Shout yes. Shout yes. Shout yes. Shout yes again.
I will not get to point four, but I will give you point three. Point three is gratitude.
From Greed to Gratitude
So, we went from growth to greed to gratitude.
I want you to understand the difference between praise and gratitude. Praise is an action. It is something that you do. Gratitude is an attitude. It is something that you are.
You do not have to move anything to be grateful. You can still drive the car down the road and be grateful. You can still answer the phone and be grateful.
And if you praise Him, you are going to have to hang up on him because praise is an action and you have got to praise Him with the fruit of your lips. But gratitude do not have to say anything because it is an attitude.
Gratitude is an appreciation for what He has done in your life. Gratitude says, «I recognize. I recognize that I do not deserve where You brought me and I owe You so much and I give You so little.»
I murmur and complain and fuss and carry on and do not want to be bothered with nobody as if I had the right to be there. When if it was not for the grace of God, I would be on the other side of the problem. I would rather give the answer than to be the problem.
And I have gratitude. Gratitude will make you sing a song that has no words. Gratitude will make you dance in the shower. Gratitude will make you giggle in the car by yourself. Gratitude will make your neighbors think you are crazy.
Gratitude will let you sit up and let somebody insult you and you will be smiling at them and they think you lost your mind. They do not know you. You heard what they said, but it did not hit you because you had your umbrella up—the umbrella of gratitude.
Gratitude will increase what God has given you. It will open up doors for you. It will change your behavior after your attitude.
You have been asking God to change your behavior when what you need to do is to ask God to change your attitude. Your behavior is a derivative of your attitude. And your attitude is a derivative of the way you think.
If you change the way you think, it will change your attitude. If you change your attitude, it will give you increase. It will enlarge you. It will build you up.
You are not fighting a demon. You are not fighting a demon. You think you are fighting demons. You are not fighting demon. You ain’t even ready for a demon. You have not done enough good to attract the devil.
It ain’t no demon chasing you. It ain’t no demon keeping you up at night. It is you keeping you up at night. It is you and not being willing to give up that attitude and lay down in gratitude.
When was the last time you got in your bed and thanked God for your bed? When was the last time you had gratefulness to tears? You whine and cry about everything else. When was the last time that you could not find a word to express how differently your life could have turned out?
Are you hearing what I am saying to you?
I am almost done. I want you to stand up on your feet.
There is something in this place, in this room right now that we need to pay attention to that we really need to give the most earnest heed to.
People who are entitled do not know they are entitled. The signal has not gone from the stomach to the brain yet. They do not know they are entitled. In fact, they feel like the victim. They feel like they are being mistreated, that they are not getting what they are worth because they think so highly of themselves.
Anytime you try to bring them back to earth, they think you are trying to pull them down.
So, it is possible for this message not to hit you anywhere because you do not know God is talking to you. You do not know you are entitled.
It is like kids raised with so much that it is their normal. Your ceiling is their floor. They leave the milk out. They leave the lights on. They go shopping in your house—go to the grocery store in your pantry because what you worked to build is their normal and they do not know that they are entitled and you are frustrated because you do not feel appreciated and you do not feel appreciated because you know how much it cost you to make it possible.
You know how many times you had to go out when you wanted to stay in? They do not know because they stayed in while you went out.
So entitlement does not announce itself. Do you hear what I am saying? Entitlement does not announce itself. You can be secretly entitled and not know it. Yes, sir.
Because the blessings that you have enjoyed have become normal to you. And you think you are supposed to have it.
Look at the stuff you think you are supposed to have. You talking about where you supposed to be? Who told you you was naked? Who told you where you were supposed to be?
That mark you conjured up in your mind about what you deserve. How dare you? Are you serious?
I am not getting what I deserve. Stop. You right. You are not getting what you deserve. You deserve to go to hell. Yes, sir. Y’all going to have to edit this tape.
You deserve to be completely ignored. Yes, sir. You deserve to lead no one, teach nobody, say anything. Hallelujah.
You deserve to be mistreated and ostracized. All the people you hurt. And you talking about that hurt my feelings. It did not hurt when you were giving it out. Pain ain’t pain till you feel it.
And here you are entitled now.
God, I tried to preach. Lord, I tried to preach what You gave me. I know I did not finish. But I tried to tell them.
I asked for a great revelation to hit this place, which means a great unveiling. And I cannot do that without You, to turn the flashlight around backwards where it shines on me rather than shining on everybody else. And I can see that I am handling my life in a spirit of entitlement. And I am sorry.
You must be so disappointed to have done so much for me and gotten so little credit. You must feel like some of our parents feel who have done so much. And you get the complaint, but you do not get the appreciation.
I am always on my knees asking You for something else. I am sorry. I ate of my half and ate of Your half. I spent my stuff and Your stuff and it still was not enough. I ripped You off. So I could have a dress to impress somebody I would never see again. Because they were more important to me than You.
I would rather offend You and impress her than offend her and impress You. I am sorry. My priorities have been in the wrong place.
If it were an action, I could stop doing it. But because it is an attitude, I need Your help. I can have an attitude and not even know it. I can say that is just how I am.
We can weave it into my personality profile and use it to describe myself, to convince myself that I cannot change myself because I own it to myself. And that ain’t how I am. I picked that up hanging around other folks. I did not used to be like that.
I used to be grateful when You brought me out that hospital. I was grateful when You pulled me out of that jail. I was grateful when the doctor said I would be dead in three months and I lived through my fourth month. I had a party for 30 days over another month to breathe the air.
That is not who I am. I have lost myself in this crazy world trying to be like them and they are not happy today.
Lord, I cast down the spirit of entitlement. If you are listening online, I want you to literally reach up and pull it down. Entitlement. It has got to come down. It is coming down to the floor.
If you are in this room and this message hits you anywhere, me and God have been walking the floor with this text. We have been walking the floor with this text. And I know I am in the right place at the right time talking to the right people.
And there is somebody in this room, you started not to come, but God pushed you to be here. He pushed you to be here because He wanted you to hear this because He is tired of you praying for the same thing as if He had not been good to you.
And if you suspect that you have been acting entitled, get down to this altar. Get down to it now. And let us fix this attitude.
If it was the praise break and I asked you to jump it down, you jumping now. You can do that real good because it is an action. But gratitude is an attitude. My attitude needs adjustment.
I am sorry that I could receive so much and acknowledge so little. I have been a spoiled brat. And I told everybody, it is just how I am.
This is not me. I refuse to own this spirit another day.
When the master came back, he killed all of the sharecroppers. They did not need to die. But they did have to reap what they sowed. I am trying to save you judgment.
The Bible said, «If you judge yourself, you have no need to be judged.» I am going to say it again. It said, «If you judge yourself, you will have no need to be judged.»
I am going to say it to you right now. You watching on television, if you judge yourself, you have no need to be judged.
There is somebody you need to call and apologize. They do not owe you nothing. It is the danger of entitlement. I do not want it on me.
I told God when I was sitting over there dying, I said, «If this is it, I am cool with it because You have already been good to me. You have been so good to me. You do not have to do nothing else. If You want to take me, take me. You want to keep me, keep me. Ain’t none my business.»
Because if You would have dealt with me the way You could have, should have, would have, I would be gone. So whatever way You bless me, Lord, I am cool with it. I just wanted You to be okay. I was okay. I really was. I was okay.
To live is Christ, to die is gain. I was a gainer. I have been all around this world. I have been places my mama only read about. I met people that I never thought I would meet. I did things that I was not even trying to do.
If I am going to be ungrateful, what kind of example do I set for you? I am teaching you to be greedy, not grateful.
Close your eyes a moment. Discipline your thoughts for a moment and think only of the things that God has done for you. The things you know He did for you. The things He did for you personally. The ways He made, the people He did not let curse you and He did not let kill you and they had plots to destroy you and God brought you anyway.
I want you to think about it. I want you to think about it. I want you to think about yourself as if you are God’s favorite child. As if He dropped His coat of many colors on you and you are Joseph. And the prison cannot make you forget the favor of God is on your life.
And I want you to be grateful. I want you to be so grateful. Hallelujah.
You are watching online. I want you to be so grateful till tears run down your face. Mastectomy and all. Be grateful. Double mastectomy. You are sitting there with a double mastectomy, but they got all the cancer. Be grateful.
You did dialysis yesterday. But you are still here. Be grateful.
You got to take your insulin shot before dinner, but be grateful.
Lift your hands. And give all of that entitlement back. Give it back. Give it away. Cast it on Jesus so He can carry it to the cross.
Holy Spirit, I thank You for this moment. I thank You for this second. I thank You for my children and my wife and my grandchildren. I thank You for my mama and daddy that raised me.
I thank You for standing up in me when I wanted to run away. I thank You for healing me when I was sick. I thank You for touching my mind when I was distraught. I thank You for bringing me through dangers seen and unseen.
I thank You for favoring me, for favoring me. I thank You because You have been a fence all around me every day. You protected me and kept me all along this way. I thank You.
I want to thank You. I want to thank You for what almost happened and could have happened and should have happened and would have happened.
I want to thank You for a place to sleep. I want to thank You for a car to drive. I want to thank You because I can breathe real good. I want to thank You because I am oxygenated. I want to thank You for my energy. I want to thank You for my drive.
Thank You, Jesus. I am almost 70 and I thank You. I got enough energy to run all over this church. I thank You, Jesus.
My legs work. I thank You my knees are working. I thank You, Lord, I can bend my knees and they do not ache. I thank You, Lord, for the activity of my limbs.
I thank You that I got my right mind and I can still think and I can still learn. Father, I thank You.
I am so grateful. I am so grateful. I am so grateful. I am so grateful.
I meet people that are my age that cannot move. I am so grateful.
I meet people that are my age who lost their children. I am so grateful I am not burying my children today. I am so grateful.
I do not think—I am so grateful. I am so grateful. I am so grateful. I am so grateful.
I am sorry for being spoiled and having little pity parties and temper tantrums. I am sorry.
I give all of it to You. I renounce it. I repent of it. I am so grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful.
Lift your hands and open your mouth and give Him the sound of gratitude. It does not have to be a word, just a sound of gratitude.