TD Jakes - Opportunity Highlights (09/16/2018)
Sharing his own story of facing a massive press conference amid fear and opposition, the preacher teaches that God often hides huge opportunities in adversity; like Jesus sneaking to the feast or Isaac persistently digging wells, we must shift perspective from risk to divine opening, take bold risks, dig out buried dreams despite failures, and step into the large place God has prepared for revolutionary blessing.
A Moment of Fear and Opportunity
Greetings brothers and sisters in the name of Jesus Christ our King. I am so blessed and so excited to have the opportunity to share the Word with you. I am excited about the Word. I still get excited about the Word. Preaching 37 years. I still love His Word. I love what it does in your life and in your heart. I love how it strengthens you. I love how it helps you. I have got a message that I believe you are going to love. Take a look.
So on one hand, on one hand it is the most miraculous, supernatural, amazing in my life. On the other hand I have had devils I have never met that say hello I came to kill you. My name is going to destroy you. I will bring something out of your past and try to kill you. I have a group of enemies writing about you you do not know. I am writing a book about a guy I never met. All this is coming up at the same time. That is my normal now. But it was not then.
My P.R. person says to me, there are 212 reporters from all over the world coming to the press conference in the morning. 212. Furthest away being the London Times. From the London Times to the Wall Street Journal, they are all here Bishop, for your debut. I got back to the place we were staying and I stretched out. O my God! What have You done? I thought, I must be crazy. I must be crazy.
The media never writes nothing good about preachers. They are going to kill me in the morning. What was I thinking? About two A.M. I called them. Get up out of the bed. Cancel the press conference. I must be out of my mind. To throw myself out on front street under a bus of people I already know are looking for any kind of edge to get to destroy me. I am mama's baby. You do not do nothing to mama's baby. I am going out there for them to eat me alive.
People I do not even know. Some people do not believe in God. You know they do not believe in me. They do not believe in God. The ones that do are so cynical they only take God if He looks like what they are used to seeing Him like.
Seeing Opportunity in Opposition
Everything I said was true until I heard what she said. She said, Bishop Jakes. She said, the whole world has turned its head to hear what you have to say. Do you have something to say or not? This is space and time God has created for you to step into a new dimension. O God. A higher expression of yourself. What does that mean is this stuff that has been shut up in your bowels. Tied up in your belly. Tied up in your spirit. You have finally come to the place of maturity that you can step into what you have been dreaming about and God is about to revolutionize your life.
Touch your neighbor and say, this thing is big. This thing is huge. This thing is gigantic. It is mammoth. It is more than I thought. It sort of revolutionizes how you thought, how you move, how you function. God said He is setting you into a large place. Touch three people and say look for opportunities. Do not watch the clock. Do not look at the calendar. Do not worry about the seasons. Do not worry about what comes in the mail. Do not worry about what somebody says. Do not worry about anything. God is setting before you a large opportunity.
And if you perceive it as a large opportunity you can walk into it and manage it. And the wells of blessings and waters and joys and deliverance are going to flow and it is going to start in you. It is coming out of your belly. It is coming out of your spirit. It is coming out of your creativity. And that is why the enemy wants you distracted. Stressed out. Because this large place starts from a small place.
God said dig out your own wells. Go to the places they have been jammed up and closed down and not been flowing and God said dig them out again. Dig them out. Dig out things you put on the back burner and dig out things you did not have the resources to do it. Dig it out. Because out of those small places, get this, out of small places will come big things.
Small Beginnings, Big Rain
This is how you will know it is a move of the Holy Spirit. It will not be a lot of thunder, it will not be a lot of clouds. It will be small clouds, big rain. There will not be big ovens and big restaurant tours and big servants coming. It will be small things like two fish and five loaves of bread. It will start at a small place. But it will erupt into something real big. O God. He told me to tell you, do not despise small beginnings.
Reason we were having trouble communicating was I looked at it and saw opposition. I was absolutely right too. Everything I said was true. She looked at it and saw opportunity. She was absolutely right. And everything she said was true. The challenge of my life is to co-exist between two things that are totally true yet opposing each other and my perspective is the only thing that makes the difference. You understand what I am saying?
I went to bed that night and thought, o my God. I am laying in bed thinking, is that what this is? Is that what this is? Has the whole world turned its head to hear what I have to say? Is this an opportunity for me to say something through all of these vehicles that reach all over the world? In spite of the risk. In spite of the discomfort. In spite of my own human frailties, is this the opportunity? Hidden in the opposition?
That one premise was the catalyst to changing my perspective on how to manage the rest of my life. I did not know I could not control the variables. I can only control the perspective.
Growth Brings Both Lovers and Haters
This text to me is amazing, because Jesus has done this fish and loaf thing and fed five thousand people and people who ate from Him, loved Him. But the people who did not, hated Him. So as more people love you, more people hate you. You cannot have more lovers and not have more haters. They both grow up together. Little pastor got a few people that love him, a few people that hate him. Got more. Got more people that love you, more people that hate you. Get bigger. All goes together.
The bigger your life gets, everything comes up at the same pace. So Jesus just did this thing with five thousand people feeding them fish and loaves and stuff and they went back eating with Wonder Bread in between their teeth and fish bones in between their gums and man this food is awesome. It is great. People started believing in Him.
The more people that believe in you and like you and support the more people hate you because it creates an opportunity for envy. Your success at any level creates an opportunity for envy. The only way to avoid it is to stay down. If you lay dead even animals will not bite you. The risk of being bitten is the cost of getting up. Do you hear what I am saying to you?
And you have to decide, are you so concerned about being bitten that you lay dead or is there something pumping inside of you that says bite me or not, I am getting up? What is significant to you is God in spite of all the things you have been through and in spite of all the things you have failed to do and in spite of all the things that were done to you, and in spite of all the people who tried to cancel you out, God sustained you, set His angels to escort you. Brought you safely through and He is about to put you in a large place. O my God.
Slap somebody and say, this thing is big. I grown for it. I have cried for it. I labored for it. Like to died over it. But this thing down inside of me is big! If you dig it out, it is going to be huge blessings. It is generational blessings. Isaac dug out his father's wells.
Take the Risk—Sneak Up on Success
Whatever you have been imagining is too small compared to what God has opened up before you. It is massive. It is huge. It is beyond human comprehension. It is simply an opportunity you cannot measure it with a stick. You cannot measure it with a yardstick. You cannot put it in a computer. It is simply an opportunity.
The opportunity is so huge that if you walk into what God is giving you in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, listen, you will never, ever, ever be the same again. I mean a radical revolution is about to take forth. I do not know who I am talking to. I do not know who this is for. Your success at any level creates an opportunity for envy. The only way to avoid it is stay down. If you lay dead even animals will not bite you.
The risk of being bitten is the cost of getting up. Do you hear what I am saying to you? You have to decide are you so concerned about being bitten that you are going to spend the rest of your life being dead or is there something pumping inside of you that says bite me or not, I am getting up. I am going to be the best me. I am going to do all I can do. Even if it risks you hating me. I am going for it.
Let me tell you everything that has been holding you back, everything that has been shutting you down, everything that has been in your way, I came to declare your emancipation proclamation. Praise Him like you are free. Clap like you are free. Talk like you are free. Think like you are free. Build like you are free. Whatever was holding you back, it just broke!
You are doing the right thing in the wrong way. The miracles that the people need to see to believe in you, they do not get to see them because you are always doing them behind closed doors. Time to face the facts. When will you do your stuff on center stage so the world will know you are Lord?
Jesus Changes Course—Keep Digging
Jesus says, I am not going to, read my lips! You go. The world does not hate you. They hate me. And you are advising me into a position where you not at risk. Go yourself. Jesus said, I am not going. Y'all go ahead. What we get to watch in this text is an opportunity. We have an opportunity in this text to watch Christ change His mind.
They shut the door. Boom. Jesus said, let me get dressed. I am going to sneak up there but I am going to Judea. I am going. I am going because it is a feast. Everybody will be there at the feast and I am running out of time. Whatever I am going to do I have to do it now. When you are running out of time you have to understand that you have to take risks.
Because you cannot afford to sit around and say que sera sera. Whatever will be will be. The future is not ours to see. Que sera sera. Notice how they were singing that when you were 18. Ain't nobody sing that now. Because it ain't que sera sera whatever will be will be. You have to make it happen or it will not happen. Get off your hind part and bust a move, or nothing is going to happen in your life! Slap your neighbor and say, take a risk.
So Jesus said, Jesus started putting on his sandals you know and covers himself and brushes back his hair a little bit and says, okay, I am going but I am going at night and go through the rocks and climb through the creek bed and no one will know I am there. Sometimes you have to sneak up on success. You have to sneak up on it. Never let them see you coming.
You talk too much about your success and you will delay your success. You need to shut it down. Your mouth is too big for where you are trying to go. If you hold your peace it will speak for itself. Isaac dug first well and he could not get the blessing out of it. But he kept on digging. Touch your neighbor and say, keep on digging.
Some of the things you tried to do ended in failure and the enemy mocked you and said if it had been of God it would have worked. But the Lord told me to tell you, the devil is a liar. Touch your neighbor and say, keep on digging. So he dug a second well. And when he dug the second well and he finally got some water coming, then the Philistines came out and said, that well belongs to us.
He could have threw up his hands and said, I have given up. I walk away. I am through with it. Do you know what he did? He kept on digging. And the reason the Lord wanted you to be here tonight is because after all the hell you have been through, all the setbacks you have had, all the storms you have endured, every time the devil thought you was going to quit, you just got your shovel out and you kept on digging.