TD Jakes - And It Came to Pass
The Bible says that he looked out and saw two boats. He saw two boats, and one of them belonged to Peter. And he said to Peter, "Hey man, you're over there washing your nets. Let me use your boat". And this is where it gets juicy, because Peter loaned Jesus his boat. He saw a boat, but Jesus saw a platform. Now, the boat was a tool for his occupation. He ran a fishing business. It must have been fairly successful, 'cause you don't have partners if you're not fairly successful. People don't partner with failure. So, Peter was a businessman. He had a ship, but he had enough resources to follow Jesus for three years. How many of you can stop working for three years and go hang out with Jesus? Lights be off, water off, kids got the big belly, suffering from malnutrition. You gotta keep on getting it, don't you?
Yeah, Peter could go and spend three years with Jesus and his business still be intact. So, for all of you who say that if you have any level of success, God can't use you, that's kinda weird because Peter had built a boat that Jesus saw as a platform. Ooh, I could stay on this all day. God will give you anything if you will give it back. God wants to use your platform today. You think it's a boat, you think it's a degree, you think it's a personality, you think it's a talent, you think it's a voice, you think it's a technique, you think it's intellectualism, you think it's cyber security, you think it's a job. God sees it as a platform.
And it may be that you will never discover the power of your boat until you see your boat as a platform. The boat comes into the text as a boat, but it passes through as a platform. Peter is washing his nets, just got off the boat. He thought he was finished with the boat. He had not caught anything. He was tired. He was on his way home from work, washing his nets, getting ready to chill out, and Jesus says, "Your boat is my platform". I want you to think this one. I want you to think about how your boat could be his platform, how whatever he gave you, whatever influence, whatever integrity, whatever gift he gave you, can he use it as a platform? He said, "It was never given to you to fish. I didn't mind you fishing, but it was never given to you to fish. I knew when you got it, I knew when you bought it, that you were buying my platform. You thought you were buying a boat, but it came to pass, as my platform.
I let you get that job because I needed a platform right there. I moved you to Dallas 'cause I needed a platform right there. I sent you to that university because I needed a platform right there. I let you be the first in your family to get a degree because I needed a platform. Your degree is my platform. Your ability is my platform. Your talent is my platform. Hey, can I use your boat? And so, Peter says, "Sure," you know? "Sure, you can use my boat". If Peter would've said no, he would've lost his entire purpose. He discovered his purpose arbitrarily, just by saying yes, just by being generous, just by being nice. It opened up a door to change it like... Nasty will close some doors right in your face.
I'm telling you, it will lock you out of prosperity, opportunities, anointing, refreshing, sensitivity, because God doesn't always promise to come through people you now know. I told you, I evaluate character by watching how you treat people you think you don't need. I'm not impressed when you treat big people good, 'cause anybody sees that as an opportunity. I watch how you treat the bus boy, the maid, the waiter, the sky cab, and the janitor. That tells me how you would treat me if I ever got down.
Peter was a sinner. He did not see Jesus as significant. What does Jesus have to do with fish? Some of you only become involved with people based on what they can do for you. But the test comes when you are the blesser. Hey man, can I use your boat? Look, we just cleaned the boat. I'm getting ready to go home. I'm tired. I've been working night. I had to pull a double shift. I don't have time to fool with you. Go away. Would've shut the door on what was about to come to pass. Something is about to come to pass in your life that is important enough that God wants you to hear this message, and your next few series of decisions will determine how it comes to pass in your life. There's one thing you're gonna say yes or no to that's gonna open or close a door in your life. And whatever the yes is, you have the power of it. You have the control over it. You could say no, but if you say yes, it's gonna set off a chain of events that's gonna change the trajectory of your destiny.
Hear me well. Hey, can I use your boat? So, Jesus thrust out a little from land so that he could minister to the people. He got the boat for the people, not the people for the boat. He got the boat because it created a platform for him to effect change with people. You think God sent you on that job to make money? And the reason the enemy attacks you on that job, and gets on your nerves, and wants you to act out like a heathen is because you see it as a job. The enemy knows it's a platform and he's trying to destroy the platform. He wants you off the platform. And when you succumb and act like the people God sent you to serve, you have lost your platform.
"So, having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, with your loins girded about with truth". Put on the whole armor of God, because God gave you the job, not for the money, but for the platform. God let you graduate, not for the degree, but for platform. God let you find favor, not so that you could be important, but for the platform. God gave you influence, not so you could stick your chest out, but for the platform. And as long as you understand that this is really his, you can have it. Oh God, that's so good. As long as you understand that this is really his, you can have it. But if you try to hold it, you will lose it, because it is really his all the while, and you gotta be open enough for it to come...
Whoo! If my mama hadn't met my daddy and said yes to him, I wouldn't be here today. Their marriage was God's platform. Oh, I can see the way you're looking at me. 'Cause I can see you looking at me and thinking back through your life at all the things that you might not have been looking at correctly, that all you saw was a boat, but God wants you to rethink it at this moment because your boat is his platform. Your suffering is his platform. Your winning is his platform. Your struggle is his platform. Your influence is his platform. Oh my God, hallelujah. He lets you stay alive in the earth as a platform, just so that your kids and your grandkids would have somebody to talk to. Your life is a platform. Whoo! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
So, listen, so, let me go, 'cause I've got five more points. He thrusts out a little bit from land. He preaches. This is what's so cool about this text. The text never tells us what he preached. Can you imagine if you were a reporter covering Jesus. You're a reporter. Can you imagine covering Jesus and not telling us what he said? Luke didn't see what he said as important. How could you not tell me what Jesus said? That was what the boat was all about? And yet, he writes about everything except the sermon. Give me his notes or something. I'm a preacher. Don't you know I wanna hear what Jesus preached about? None of the writers in the New Testament share his message. They don't tell us what he said, they tell us what he did, because what he said is in what he did. He is the Word made flesh. He is a voice walking through the cool of the garden. Oh my God, it really doesn't matter what you say. It matters what you do.
When Jesus had finished preaching, no comment about what he preached, he comes on back and he says, "Hey, man, by the way, thank you for the boat. You ought to launch out into the deep". Oh my God, I'm having a good time. I wish I was having as good a time as I've ever been. Such a good time. I had a good time. When he gave it to me, I had a good time. I had a good time. 'Cause Peter did not, in any way, have in his mind trying again. Do you hear me? Do you hear what I said to you? He did not have in his mind trying again. The Bible says he was washing his nets. He thought it was over. He thought he was finished. It didn't happen, it didn't go good, nothing was working. He's been toiling all night, nothing had happened. He had decided, "I quit". I'm getting a divorce. I'm quitting the job. I'm through with it. It's not working. I'm done. I'm washing my nets.
The Lord sent me here to tell somebody who is about to give up on something. God said, "Do not give up on it yet". He is about to do a new thing in your life. Oh my God, I don't know who I'm talking to. Stop washing your nets. You think it's over, but it's not over until God says it's over. Not only is it not over, not only does he want you to go back, but he wants you to go deeper. Launch out into the deep. Are you crazy? I've been out there all night. Ain't nothing out there, Jesus. I tried everything I could with this child, Lord. This child crazy. I can't stand this woman. She ain't got no sense. God said, "Go deeper". Oh, y'all ain't shouting now. Y'all ain't shouting now. You didn't mind him using your boat, but you don't wanna go deeper.
This is faith at its apex, to go deeper into something that ain't working. Oh, I knew it was gonna get tight in here when I got to that. I don't mind going deeper when it's going good, but I sure don't wanna go deeper when it's not going good. I already invested my strength, I invested my energy, I did all I know how to do. The business still went bankrupt. I went down, and now you want me to go deeper? What God has for you is in the deep. What God has for you is in the deep. Touch your neighbor and say, "What God has for you is in the deep". He is not a shallow God. He is not "I'm gonna try this and see if it works" God. He's not a God who just sticks a foot in and see what's gonna happen. He said, "If you're gonna get what I have for you, you gotta be all in". Slap somebody and say, "I'm all in". I'm throwing everything I got at it. I'm throwing everything I got at it. I'm throwing everything I got at it. Launch out! Ooh, good God.
He said, "I can preach in shallow water, but I'll only bless you in the deep". See, did you see that? He thrusts out a little from the land to do his preaching, but he said, "Hey, Peter, go out into the deep". What God has for you is in deep water. My only regret in my adult life, my biggest regret, is that I didn't go deeper. That's my biggest regret. That's my biggest regret, that I didn't believe in me enough to go deeper. My only regret is that I was, many times, too careful. When my daughter wrote, "Don't Settle for Safe," that's what this text is all about. What I have for you is in the deep. Launch out into the deep.
Somebody said, "How could you say that that's your only regret? Look at how God blessed you". Look at what I left in the deep. He blessed me to the level of my investment into the deep. If I'da struck harder, I'da went further. If you strike harder, you'll go further. You're washing your nets at a time that God is calling you into the deep. And the Bible said that when Peter launched out into the deep, he dropped his nets, only doing it because Jesus said so. Ooh, I need time. Can I have time? He's a fisherman. He knows the waters. He was raised in the waters. He was trained in the waters. He wouldn't be washing his nets if all of his experience didn't say, "It's not gonna happen today". In order to go out into the deep, he had to fight through everything that his experience said about that situation.
God is about to give you something for which you have no point of reference. It's gonna go against everything in your background. It's not gonna make any sense to you. Everything in your experience is saying it doesn't work that way, but it's gonna come to pass in your life, not based on your experience, not based on your background, not based on what your daddy told you, but nevertheless at thy Word, at thy Word, at thy Word. Nevertheless, at thy Word. Nevertheless, at thy Word. I want 30 seconds of crazy Holy Ghost... Yeah, yeah! Touch everybody you can reach and tell 'em, "Stop washing your nets". Stop washing your nets. Stop washing your nets. God is not finished with you yet. God is not finished with you yet. God is not through blessing you. God is not through healing you. God is not through raising you. God is not through moving. Where you are is about to pass into a brand-new dimension. Stop washing your nets.
Whoo! What I'm trying to tell 'em is that God is going to use what you have put away. Get your nets back out. Get your vision back. Get your fight back. Get your joy back. Get your strength back. Get your enthusiasm back. You have had a give-up spirit. I come against every given-up spirit. I come against every I-can't-do-it spirit. I come against the spirit of failure. I bind it in the name of Jesus. You've got to get out of there. Get out of there. Turn that woman loose. Turn that man loose. Somebody in this house, give my God some praise!