TD Jakes - Intimacy (12/02/2018)
God deeply desires intimate fellowship with His people and has provided meeting places throughout history—from the Garden of Eden, to the tabernacle, to Jesus Himself, and ultimately the Holy Spirit—to restore the connection lost through sin and to empower us with divine strength through worship and intimacy.
The Garden: Our Original Place of Intimacy
All lovers need a place. Where are you going to meet me? All lovers need a place. Love has to express itself; it cannot hide itself—it will show itself. All lovers need a place. Where are we going to meet? That is what the Garden of Eden was. He created the garden so we would have a place. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” He said the whole world is Mine, but the garden is going to be our meeting place. Whenever we get ready for the hookup, I do not want you wandering all over the world trying to find Me—this is going to be our place.
This garden, we will call it Eden, is going to be the spot where you and I get together and become intimate and affectionate. This is the place of intimacy. This is the place where humanity hooks up with divinity, where the human connects with the divine. It is in the Garden of Eden. When sin came, we lost our place. That is why they were driven out of the garden—they lost intimacy. And the voice of the Lord walked through the cool of the garden: “Adam, oh Adam, where are you, Adam? Adam, Adam, where are you? You know you were supposed to meet Me here. Where are you?” And God looks for Adam, not Adam looking for God. “Where are you, Adam?” “Here I am, Lord. I heard Thy voice; I was afraid; I was naked; I hid myself.”
I heard, I hid. I heard, I hid. I was afraid; I hid. Whenever you see people hiding themselves, they are always afraid. I hid myself, and I made these little fig leaves to cover… Oh, Adam, what have you done, boy? Do you not know that is not going to cover you? What is wrong with it, Lord? I have been working on it all night because I knew You were coming. It will never be by works. I have been sewing on it all night. All that man can make is religion, but he cannot make relationship.
The Problem with Fig Leaves
The third problem with the fig leaves is that you had to pull them to sew them. You separated them from their life source to sew them. The problem with the fig leaves is the problem with you. The fig leaves are separated from their source, and you are separated from Me. In spite of the fact that the leaf looks green right now, it is withering because it lost its relationship. You see, the fig had relationship as long as it was connected, but when he pulled it away from the connection, it lost relationship in order to become an apron. What was going on with the fig was going on with the man. He had pulled away from God like the leaves had pulled away from the bush, and both of them were withering together. And God said that will not do; I am going to find something that will fix you. And He went out and took the bloody skins of an innocent animal and said, “Put this on; I have got you covered.”
I do not know who is naked and afraid and hiding yourself, but I want you to know God said, “Put this on; I have got you covered. I have got you covered.” I saw your shame; I have got you covered. I know your secret; I have got you covered. I know what you are afraid of; I have got you covered. Do not let your fear cause you not to have intimacy with Me—put this on. We are still going to get together. We are still going to get together. Put this on and come on and meet Me, because I have got you covered. You cannot cover yourself; I have got you covered.
The Tabernacle: God in the Center
So, the first meeting place was in the garden. The second meeting place, 2,500 years later, is in the wilderness. “Pharaoh, let God’s people go that they may worship Him in the wilderness.” And He took them out into the wilderness, and there He built a tabernacle. The tabernacle was there as a meeting place. What the tabernacle is in the wilderness, Eden was in the world—it is a meeting place. It is a place to hang out. That is why it is in the middle of the camp and all the tribes surrounded it, saying that God is saying, I will not be happy until I am in the center of your life.
You have been using Me like a chick on the side. I am your Sunday morning date. God said I am tired of dating you once a week; I want to be in the center of your life, and everything else you do has got to wrap around Me. Everybody else you meet has got to wrap around Me. Everything else you get involved in has got to wrap around Me, because I am your tabernacle. I am the place of meeting. Incidentally, tabernacle in Hebrew is “המשכן”—it is a tent of meeting. It is what the Garden of Eden was. It is a place where lovers meet.
Jesus: The Ultimate Meeting Place
So, I showed you the garden as a place where lovers meet, and I showed you briefly the tabernacle as a place where lovers meet. And then God said I am going to give you the ultimate meeting place, the rendezvous place. And He went down and told a girl named Mary, “I need to make it out of your womb so it is kin to Me.” And the next place I meet you is going to be in Jesus. Jesus is My meeting place. He is the place where God meets man, where humanity meets divinity. He is the place of the hookup, the connection, the union, the fellowship. In Him I live, in Him I move, in Him I have my being. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.”
The meeting place was leaving, and He was going away from people who took Him seriously, who had walked away from their livelihoods, their families, and their jobs just to be close to Him. For three and a half years, they had done everything together—they walked together, ate together, washed together, did everything together. And now He says I am leaving. The text jumps into this goodbye speech. Transitions are always tough. He says, “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter.”
The Praying Son and the Giving Father
I want to talk about the praying Son and the giving Father. I am here today because He prayed for me. He got me stuff I could not get for myself. He is my intercessor. He says I will pray the Father, and the Father will give—the praying Son, the giving Father. “Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” That came from the Father. That skirt you have on came from the Father. This pocketbook came from the Father. That chair came from the Father. Those shoes came from the Father. Your voice came from the Father. Your mind came from the Father. Your strength came from the Father. All of it comes from the giving Father as a result of the praying Son. The giving Father has blessed you. He says, “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter.”
Another of the Same Kind
Can I teach a little bit more? He says I am going, but it is okay because He is going to give you another. The word “another” in Greek is “allos.” It means another of the same kind—allos. Allos—where have we heard that word before? I heard it at CVS; it was on the bottle of lotion. It said this lotion has aloe in it. Aloe is a plant that looks like this. It is from this plant that aloe is extracted. The reason it is used in lotion is because the skin cells of the plant have a similar cell to the skin, so it is another of the same kind.
Are you all with me? So when Jesus says I will pray the Father and He will give you another Comforter, He says it is going to be another of the same kind. It is going to be Me in another way—glory to God! We are getting ready for the hookup. It is going to be Me in another way, another of the same kind. He says He will give you another Comforter. Comforter, Comforter. When we think about the Holy Spirit, we think of Him comforting like this, but in the original language it is not comfort like this. The word is “parakletos”—one who stands alongside to help. The Comforter is help.
The Parakletos: Strength Alongside
A parakletos on the loading dock—when you have something really heavy and you cannot lift it, there is an apparatus called a paraclete. The paraclete makes you able to lift stuff that you could not lift because it leverages. Stay with me; I am going somewhere. If I tried to lift it in my own strength, I could not do it, and I would fail in my own strength. But if I just take a chain and hook it to the paraclete, I can pull it up easier because I have help. You see, that is what the Holy Ghost is. When something is too heavy for you… You better pay attention this year, because some of the stuff you are going to grab, you are not going to have the strength to lift—but do not give up on your vision. You have to call on the Paraclete.
There are some people in here who are getting ready to do some superhuman things. You are getting ready to do some things that are out of your category and above your strength. You are like Elijah when God said, “Eat, for the journey is too great for thee.” What God is about to give you is too great for you to lift. You have to get this Paraclete down. You are not going to get it because you have the money, or the smarts, or the training—but out of your intimacy. While they are playing games, while they are playing politics, while they are doing office tricks, God said if you will meet Me in the garden, I will lift the weight up off of you. I will give you the strength to handle it. I will make you stronger than you have ever been in your life.
Touch your neighbor and say, “He is going to help you with this.” He is going to help you. Some of the stuff you have to lift is going to be big; it is going to be heavy; it is going to be too much for you. If you try it in your own strength, it is going to depress you. You are not going to have what it takes—but do not give up. Call on your Holy Ghost power, because He stands alongside you to help you in your time of need.
Intimacy: The Source of Strength
So He said, “I want you to get My people ready.” He said, “The problem with My people is your eyes have been on it.” You have been seeing how hard it is, talking about how bad it hurts, how tough it is. He said, “Tell My people: all eyes on Me, not on it.” You are not going to get it by looking at it; you are going to have to look at Me. And the more you worship Me and praise Me, you are going to need to make a decision—it is going to come out of your worship. You are going to have to step off the bench, go in your secret closet, and when you start worshiping God, allos parakletos is going to give you wisdom you did not even have.
Some of you are exhausted because everybody looks to you. Whenever anything is wrong, they all call you. They expect you to be the ever-ready bunny. You have to deal with every problem, every issue, every circumstance, every situation. And you are saying, “Lord, I cannot keep on like this.” And He said, “No, you cannot—and you do not have to.” He says, “I am going to help you in this season to have a strength that does not even make any sense.” The strength is going to come—not through exercise, but through intimacy.
And here is the problem: you have forgotten how to be intimate with Me. You come to church, but you do not come to Me. If your strength is coming through intimacy, can I measure your ability to be intimate? You cannot just worship Him at church. Intimacy—I see you in the worship service, but you do not worship because you do not see the value of intimacy. You see the value of winning. You want power; you want results. You do not see the value of intimacy, so you endure the intimacy; you wait for it to be over so we can get to the point.
True Worship Brings Breakthrough
The breakthrough is not going to come through the Word; it is going to come through the worship. You are coming to Him for what you want, but I am trying to tell you what He wants. He has been looking for you: “Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?” When was the last time you worshiped until you forgot what you had on? When was the last time you worshiped until tears started rushing down your face and God got to clean out your heart and soul? When was the last time you worshiped until it did not matter what people thought, what they said about you, what you looked like, or who was talking about you?
Adam, your help is in your ability to be intimate, but you have become a master at hiding your heart—and your heart is all I want. Life taught you how to hide it, but the Word is going to teach you how to open it up. This is going to be a season where certain breakthroughs only true worshipers are going to get—people who can get in His presence and get lost in His glory. It is going to be your Parakletos, your Comforter, your help, your leverage, your edge. It is going to open doors. You are going to worship God until He gives you favor with men, until He makes your enemies your footstool, until that blood pressure goes down, until healing comes in your body.