TD Jakes - Mission Accomplished
Now, Joseph has to pass this final test. All of his life, he'd wanted his family back, wanted to see his father again, wanted to see Benjamin again, wanted to see his brethren again. All of those objectives had been met. Will Joseph, in the absence of Jacob, kill his brethren? Will he allow bitterness to rise up inside of him and make it all about him, or will he understand that his blessing is their blessing?
God will give it to you if he can get it through you. This is my deal with God. Everything you teach me, I will teach them. Everything you show me, I will show them. Every gift you bless me with, I will use it for them because I recognize how much he loves you, so that means anything I learn about leadership, I'm gonna teach it. Anything I learn about development, I'm gonna share it. I'm not gonna be one of the pastors who finds this secret key and won't tell you. Everything I learn, as I learn it, I'm gonna give it away because I have learned that the more I give it away, the more it comes back to me, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. The moment I get stingy, I stop the cycle, and I need somebody to give it to. I need somebody to give it to. I need somebody to give a revelation to. I need somebody to give knowledge to. I need somebody to give love to. I need somebody because the more I give it, the more I create room to receive it.
So Joseph has said, "Yeah, I could kill you and take all your stuff. I got it like that. I got favor with the Pharaoh like that, could knock you off, have you beheaded and eat your dinner tonight," 'cause helping you is always a sacrifice of me because I'm giving you something I could have ate myself. Kill you, there's more for me, so can you be trusted to sacrifice on the level you're living on? Now that you're favored, you still have to realize that you can't seek fairness because you're favored. Your family's not gonna give back to you like you give to them. It don't mean that they don't love you. I hate to shoot you like that. It don't mean that they don't love you, but you are the most favored, so you can't seek fairness. Yes, they're gonna use you 'cause you're talented like that, and you're gifted like that, and they're gonna use you over and over again, and you're gonna feel used, but don't let it make you bitter because you have been gifted for the reasons that you might be a blessing to them. It was never about you. It was about them. If God can get it through you, he will give it to you, pressed down, shaken together.
The problem is it is humans that are favored, and it is human to want fairness. I don't mean where you do a big thing 'cause I did a big thing, but if I took you to dinner, could you take me to breakfast? I know you're not stacking like I'm stacking, but see, you understand what I'm saying. I'm gonna break it down where you get it, but you see, what you need to understand, because you are derelict to give back at all, it makes me feel unloved, so when you're favored, and your family doesn't give back to you, it means you have to live with feeling unloved, not that you are unloved, but you're gonna feel unloved because your life isn't fair. They're gonna use you and use you and call on you over and over again, and on your days off and your time off and time you could be getting some rest, they're gonna keep calling on you because you're favored, and favored means not fair.
So the burden of being trusted is can you live, can God trust you to walk in his favor and still keep serving hurt? Can you serve wounded? Can you keep giving love to somebody even though the little things that they could do back, they don't do it? Can you find it in your heart to be big enough to serve something that's not serving you? And Jacob is dead. Jacob, you know, a lot of stuff you do 'cause of, 'cause Mama was looking. I did it for my daddy. I did it for my mom. Jacob is dead. "Now there ain't nothing in between me and you. I've got nothing to prove". When you lose someone you were trying to impress, it destabilizes your character because everything you did, you did for them. "See, Daddy"? Daddy's gone.
Now the brothers feel vulnerable because they understood that part of Joseph's motive was his love for Jacob. Joseph is the one being tested. Joseph is being tested between doing right and being right. You can do right and not be right. You can do the right thing and still be bitter. You can do the right thing and be angry. You can do the right thing. I can send you flowers and secretly resent you. I can help you and still be hurt over you not helping me. I can be upset. I can come and rescue you and, all of the way over, be thinking, "You called me again. You didn't help me. If the shoe was on the other foot, you wouldn't do it".
I'm going beyond doing right to being right, to doing it and having a good attitude about it, to doing it without being stripped and wounded and suffering and bleeding, to do it with a peace. "Oh, that's all right. You meant it for evil, but I'm good. I'm good. I'm good". I have learned that I may not reap it where I sowed it. Whoo, if I sat down right now, if I didn't say anything else, if I walked out the door right now, I have already preached because some of you are so hurt. You put so much into them kids. You put so much into that marriage. You put so much into that church, and you never got it back, and you're still hurt about it. God brought you here this morning to say, "I didn't say I'd give it back where you sowed it. But I make it up to you".
I am a message. I am a message meant. I am a seed sent. I am a voice heard. I am a defense to creed. So are you. You were sent here. You didn't wander into this world. You are not an accident. You are not an incident. You are not a mistake. I don't care whether you know your daddy or not. I don't care if your mother was a whore, and she can't figure out which one was your daddy. I don't care what the situation is. I'm not talking about your mother. I'm talking about God sent you here to live at this time, to grow old at this time, to be a part of this era, this generation. You were sent. This didn't just happed. You didn't just come here. You're on a mission, you're on a mission, you're on a mission. You don't do 1.000 things to accomplish one.
Out of all the things that Abraham did and all the things that Abraham accomplished, the most important thing was, in his barrenness, in his emptiness, in his pain and his frustration, he birthed something. It wasn't even about him. It was about him having a son. It was for that one kid. He had other kids, it was for that one: seed of the promise, heir to salvation. "I sent you here on a mission. You produce a seed. Isaac, all you've got to do is pass that seed. Jacob, I'mma make you crazy wild because I want you to multiply the seed. I'mma put a wife in each house and have you running from tent to tent, and I sent you here". That's the facts, baby. That's the facts. Read the book. It's in the book. "I sent you here and wired you like that because I anointed you to multiply the seed.
Joseph, you were sent here to have a dream, be rejected, be thrown into a pit. Your life is a shadow of my Son coming thousands of years later, and you were sent to go through all the hell that you went through just so that you could move into Egypt and end up in Egypt so that, when the famine came, your brothers would have somebody to run to who was kin to them because you're gonna be a kinsman redeemer. I needed you to be on the inside because you are a shadow of Jesus, who goes into heaven, having been resurrected from the dead, who took on him the nature of sinful flesh that he might condemn sin in the flesh and now is seated on the right hand of the majesty on high so that, when I get ready to get into heaven, there's somebody up there that's kin to me.
Touch your neighbor and say, "He's kin to me. He was wounded". Let me stop, let me stop, let me stop, let me stop. He was bruised. The chastisement of my peace was upon him, and with his stripes, I, they beat him and healed me. They wounded him and delivered me. This ain't about you. Touch three people and say, "I'm on a mission. I'm on a mission. Don't mess with me. Don't mess with me, I'm on a mission. Don't get in my way. I'm on a mission". God will move everything out of your way to accomplish your mission. No weapon formed against you shall prosper because of your mission. Who am I preaching to?
Let me show you something. I'mma show you this and I'll be out your way. Get your Bible. Go to Isaiah 55, verse 6 through 8, Isaiah 55. Ooh. I'm on a mission. Yeah. I'm on a mission. I'm on a mission. "So, seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man, his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy, and he will have mercy, and he will have mercy, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts," this is God talking. "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways,' saith the Lord". Good God of mercy. "For, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts". Good God of mercy.
Watch this, "For, as the rain cometh down, I'm on a mission, and the snow from heaven and returneth not thither but watereth the earth and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. I'm on a mission". I want you to see this. I want you to see this. It's good. Can I give you this? Can I give you this? What God is saying, he said, "My Word is like water, and water is like my Word". He said, "When the rain comes down from heaven, so is my Word". It's gonna come down from heaven, and when the rain comes down from heaven, it's on a mission, and because it's on a mission, it gets admission. When you're on a mission, you get admission. You get access into things that other people can't have access into because you're on a mission.
He said, "My Word is like your water. It cometh down from heaven on a mission, and the earth gives it admission into another realm so that the earth can water the seed that buds. So shall my Word be. It will not return unto me void. I will not send you and lose you. I will not send you and waste you. I will not send you and let you fail. My Word will not return unto me void. It will accomplish. It will accomplish the thing whereunto," I said I feel like shouting right now. I feel like shouting right now. I feel like shouting and dancing right now. I don't even know if you can handle this. Slap three people and tell them, "You can't fail". "He that had began a good work in you shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ". You may have setbacks. You may have delays, but, "My Word will not return unto me void".
Slap somebody and say, "I'mma do that thing. I'm gonna do that thing. I may be hurt, but I'm gonna do that thing. I may have to cry, but I'mma do that thing". But watch this, there is a cycle of favor. The rain goes down, waters the ground. The sun comes out, gets hot. The steam goes up. There's a cycle. Clouds get dense. It rains again. There are cycles to the rain. There are cycles to the Word. There are cycles to the water. There are cycles of favor. Cycles are circles, and circles are seasons, and you're coming into your season. Watch this, you had a season of turbulence. You had a season of setbacks. You had a season in pits in Potiphar's house, a season of not being appreciated, a season of being rejected. Oh, y'all don't hear what I'm saying. A season of being forgotten, a season of being imprisoned, a season of being overlooked, but somebody turn around just real quick. Your season is turning. I'm talking to you: your season is turning.