TD Jakes - Intimacy
All lovers need a place. Where you gonna meet me at? All lovers need a place. Love has to express itself, it has to express itself. It can't hide itself, it will show itself. All lovers need a place. Where we gonna meet at? That's what the Garden of Eden was. He created the garden, so we would have a place. "The earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein". He said the whole world is mine, but the garden is gonna be our meeting place. Whenever we get ready for the hookup, I don't want you wandering all over the world trying to find me, this is gonna be our place.
This garden, we'll call it Eden, it's gonna be the spot that you and I get together and become intimate, and become affectionate, and this is the place of intimacy. This is the place where humanity hooks up with divinity. This is the place where the human connect with the divine. It is in the Garden of Eden. When sin came, we lost our place. That's 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 looks 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're always afraid. I hid myself, and I made these little fig leaves to cover... Oh, Adam, what have you done, boy? Don't you know that's not gonna cover you? What's wrong with it, Lord? I have been working on it all night 'cause I knew you were coming. It'll never be by works. I've been sewing on it all night. All that man can make is religion, but he can't make relationship.
Number three, the third problem with the fig leaves is, you had to pull it to sew it. You separated it from its life source to sew it. The problem with the fig leaves is the problem with you. The fig leaves are separated from its source, and you are separated from me, in spite of the fact that the leaf looks green right now, it's withering because it lost its relationship. I'm gonna preach to you, baby. 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 won't do, I'm gonna find something that'll fix you, and he went out, and he took the bloody skins of an innocent animal, and he said, "Put this on, I got you covered".
I don't know who is naked, and afraid, and hiding yourself, but I want you to know God said, "Put this on, I got you covered. I got you covered". I saw your shame, I got you covered. I know your secret, I got you covered. I know what you're afraid of, I got you covered. Don't let your fear cause you not to have intimacy with me, put this on. We still gonna get together. We're still gonna get together. Put this on and come on and meet me, 'cause I got you covered. I got you covered. You can't cover yourself, I got you covered.
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, and the tabernacle was there as a meeting place. What the tabernacle is in the wilderness, Eden was in the world. It's a meeting place. It's a place to hang out. That's why it is in the middle of the camp and all the tribes surrounded, saying that God's saying I won't be happy until I'm in the center of your life. You've been using me like a chick on the side. I'm your Sunday morning date. God said I'm tired of dating you once a week, I wanna 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 he Garden of Eden was. It's a place where lovers meet.
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'm gonna give you the ultimate meeting place, the rendezvous place, and he went down and told a girl named Mary. He said, "I need to make it out of your womb, so it's kin to me, and the next place I meet you is gonna 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. He is the place of the connection. He is the place of the union. He is the place of 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. The meeting place was leaving, and he was going away. And he was going away from people who took him serious, who had walked away from their livelihoods, their families, and their jobs, "Just to be close to you". For 3 1/2 years, they'd done everything together. They walked together, they ate together, they washed together, they did everything together, and now he says I'm leaving. The text jumps in to this goodbye speech. Transitions are always tough. He says, "I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another comforter".
I wanna talk about the praying Son and the giving Father. I am here today because he prayed for me. He got me stuff I couldn't 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. "Ever good and perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights in whom there is no variable, there is no shadow of turning". That came from the Father. That skirt came from the Father. That you got on, that come from the Father. This pocketbook come from the Father. That chair come from the Father. Those shoes come from the Father. Your voice came from the Father. Your mind come from the Father. Your strength come from the Father. All of it, 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".
Can I teach a little bit more? He says I'm going, but it's okay, because he's 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 allos in it. Allos is a plant that looks like this. It is from this plant that allos 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's gonna be another of the same kind. It's gonna be me in another way, glory to God. We getting ready for the hookup. It's gonna be me in another way, another of the same kind. He says he will give you another comforter, comforter, comforter. Come here, Jackie, let me comfort you, aww. 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, okay, one who stands alongside to help. The comforter is help.
A parakletos on the loading dock, when you got something really heavy and you can't lift it, there's an apparatus called a paraclete. The paraclete makes you able to lift stuff that you couldn't lift, because it leverages. Stay with me, I'm going somewhere. If I tried to lift it in my own strength, I couldn't 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 got help. You see, that's what the Holy Ghost is. When something is too heavy for you... You better pay attention this year, 'cause some of the stuff you're gonna grab, you're not gonna have the strength to lift, but don't give up on your vision. You gotta call on the paraclete.
Say I couldn't lift this in my own strength, but I have a comforter that is a paraclete, that gives me strength that's not my own, and he says when you go in, I'm going in with you. When you go after it, I'm going after it with you. When you get in the fight, I'm in the fight with you. I'm gonna stand alongside you to help. And when you run out of strength, that's when I'm gonna kick in. I will not leave you comfortless.
There are some people in here that are getting ready to do some superhuman things. You're getting ready to do some things that are out of your category and above your strength. You are like Elijah when God said, "Eat, the journey is too great for you". What God is about to give you is too great for you to lift. You gotta get this paraclete down. You're not gonna get it 'cause you got the money, you're not gonna get it 'cause you got the smarts, you're not gonna get it because you got the training, but out of your intimacy. While they're playing games, while they're playing politics, while they're doing office tricks, God said if you'll meet me in the garden I'll lift the weight up off of you. I'll give you the strength to handle it. I'll make you stronger than you've ever been in your life.
Touch your neighbor and say, "He's gonna help you with this". He's gonna help you with this. He's gonna help you. 2018, some of the stuff you gotta lift is gonna be big, it's gonna be heavy, it's gonna be too much for you. If you try it in your own strength, it's gonna depress you. You're not gonna have what it takes, but don't give up, call on your Holy Ghost power, because he stands alongside you to help you in your time of need. Touch three people and say, "I got help".
So, he said, "Bishop, I want you to get my people ready". He said, "The problem with my people is your eyes have been on it". You've been seeing how hard it is. You've been talking about how bad it hurts. You've been talking about how tough it is. He said, "Tell my people all eyes on me, not on it". You're not gonna get it by looking at it, you're gonna have to look at me, and the more you worship me, and the more you praise me, you're gonna need to make a decision. It's gonna come out of your worship. You're gonna have to step off the bench, go in your secret closet, and when you start worshiping God, allos parakletos is gonna give you wisdom you didn't even have.
Who am I preaching to this morning? You got help. I got help. Some of you are exhausted, 'cause everybody looks to you. Everybody looks to you. Whenever there's anything 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're saying, "Lord, I can't keep on like this," and he said, "No, you can't, and you don't have to". He says, "I'm gonna help you in this season to have a strength that doesn't even make any sense". The strength is going to come, watch this, not through exercise, it's gonna come through intimacy.
And here's the problem, you've forgotten how to be intimate with me. You come to church, but you don't come to me. If your strength is coming through intimacy, can I measure your ability to be intimate? Ooh, it got quiet. I thought y'all left for a minute. I thought y'all had walked out. You can't just worship him at church. Intimacy, I see you in the worship service, but you don't worship, 'cause you don't see the value of intimacy. You see the value of winning. You want power, you want results, you don't see the value of intimacy, so you endure the intimacy, you wait on it to be over, so we can get to the point.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, some of y'all wait 'til it's over and come, because all you wanna really get is the Word and go home, but the breakthrough isn't gonna come through the Word, it's gonna come through the worship. But because you don't know how... Hey! I feel like something's about to break in this place this morning. See, you are coming to him for what you want, but I'm trying to tell you what he wants. He's been looking for you. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
I heard them praising me, but not you. You say a few things. You lift your hands a little bit. When was the last time you worshiped 'til you forgot what you had on? When was the last time you worshiped 'til tears started rushing down your face, and God got to clean out your heart and soul? When was the last time that you worshiped 'til it didn't matter what people thought, it didn't matter what they said about you, it didn't matter what you looked like, it didn't matter who was talking about you? Adam, 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 gonna teach you how to open it up.
This is going to be a season where there are certain breakthroughs that only true worshipers are going to get, people who can get in his presence and get lost in his glory. It's gonna be your parakletos. It's gonna be your comforter. It's gonna be your help. It's gonna be your leverage. It's gonna be your edge. It's gonna open doors. You're gonna worship God 'til he gives you favor with men. They didn't hear what I was saying. Pastor Robinson, they don't hear me. You're gonna worship God 'til he gives you favor with men. You're gonna worship God 'til he makes your enemies your footstool. You're gonna worship God until that blood pressure goes down. You're gonna worship God until healing comes in your body. Let's just try it. For 60 seconds, everything in here, everything in here.