TD Jakes - The Transplant
The leader is the heart of the organization. For God to say that he is getting rid of Saul is a heart transplant. It's a heart transplant. That's a major dadgum surgery. That's a major surgery, a heart transplant. To put me to sleep and take my heart out? Destabilizing all activity, don't move, anesthesiologists, total control. We are going to have to go through this transition, because you can't just snap my heart out and put the other one in without skipping a beat. So, my text is right in the middle of a transplant, and the reason I'm preaching it to you is that you're going through a transplant.
Oh, my God, some of you have been in a coma. You've been in a financial coma. Some of you, you've been in a love coma. You haven't had the affection that you needed, the love that you needed, the finances that you needed. God had to put you up under anesthesia because he has to get to the heart of the matter, and he's doing a heart transplant, because you were ruled by the wrong stuff. You were ruled by your dysfunction. You were trying to prove things to people that didn't even matter. And God has put you up under anesthesia and brought you to this church, so that he could do a heart transplant in your life, so that he could pull you together and so that he could do a new thing in you, so that he could do a new thing in you.
The former things are passed away. God said I will do a new thing in you. Glory to God, glory to God. You're gonna have a new heart. God's about to do a transplant. Oh, help me preach this word. See, that old heart was the root of the problem. That old heart has to be taken out. That old heart was out of rhythm with God. That old heart is getting a pulse beat from your childhood. That old heart is getting a pulse beat from your ego. That old heart is getting a pulse beat from your low self-esteem, and God has to do a heart transplant. He has rejected the old heart. He says I will do a new thing in your life, a fresh thing.
Who am I preaching to this morning? Oh, I couldn't wait to get to church, because I've got a word from the Lord for you this morning. I don't care if you don't dance, I don't care if you don't shout. I don't expect you to shout, we're in surgery. We're in surgery. We're in surgery. Something is about to happen. Touch everybody you can reach, and tell 'em, "Something is about to happen". Am I preaching the right word to the right people? Hallelujah. Put your friends out, send 'em to the waiting room. They cannot go through this with you.
This is a heart transplant. You don't need to have to entertain people while you're going through a heart transplant. This is not about you, Boo, go into the waiting room. I'll be back in a minute. God has to do some surgery in my heart and in my life to get my head on straight. Something is about to happen in my life. He's about to fix something that's been out of rhythm for 30 years. For 40 years, I've been aching in this area, I've been swelling in this area, I've been broken in this area, but God is about to do a transplant. Somebody give him two minutes of crazy praise.
Throw your hands up and say, "Get to the heart of it". Get to the heart of it. Get to the heart of it. Get to the heart of it. Get to the heart of it, and say, "Something is about to happen". It's because a heart transplant is a process. It's a process. It's a long, hard, difficult surgery with hours and hours of intensive care, and recovery is going to take a while. You're gonna have to go through something to get... you can't get over this in a week. This is a deep surgery. This goes back to who your daddy is, and who your mama is, and where you came from, and what you thought of yourself, and what you went through. We're gonna have to cut out them secrets, and some of those sorrows, because they're setting your heart off rhythm. They're making you call right wrong and wrong right, and I gotta get to the heart of the matter.
Can I go deeper? In my text, Samuel, Samuel is crying, because this is gonna be a tough surgery. I wrote down three reasons we grieve the past, three reasons we grieve the past. I think these are worth talking about. We grieve the past because the investment seems not to yield a return. For all that Samuel had put into Saul, he had anointed Saul to be king. He had nurtured Saul and trained him. He had poured into Saul and invested in him. He had spoken the word of the Lord to Saul, and for Saul to now be rejected, it makes Samuel weak.
Anytime you invest without adequate return, you grieve the past. Whether it be a child, or a marriage, or a job, or a career, or a mentee, anytime you say, "I put that much into it, and this is all I get back"? it makes you weep, because the return don't match the investment. I spent hours with you for you to do this"? "I took a second job to send you to school for you to skip"? "I gave you my heart, my mind, myself, my body, my flesh, you left"? You grieve the past because the investment does not match the return. Samuel could not act like this is Saul's business because Samuel had poured into Saul. You can't pour into somebody and not care about 'em. You can't do that.
There's no... trust me, I've tried it. There is no safe way to do this. You have to be all in. There's no way I can walk you through your pain, and your problems, and your childhood, and your past and not feel you, and not lay in the bed and worry about you, and not tear up when I'm talking to you. I can't help you from a completely safe place. I have to care to connect. You won't let me in if I don't care.
There is no way that Samuel could have anointed him, and mentored him, and trained him, and not grieve him. You grieve most areas in your life where you feel cheated. Where you invested the most. Some of the people you're angry with, you're not really angry with them, you're hurt because you've invested. Investing in an area in your life where you don't see return will cause you to be stuck. Stuck in bitterness, stuck in anger, stuck in pain. How could you do me like that? I gave you all I had. I gave you my time. I took time from my kids to help you. I took time from myself to help you. I gave you money I needed. I came to your rescue at the expense of my own. That's why Samuel's crying.
Number two, the reason we grieve is the agonizing death of what we had in mind. Whoo, whoo, that hit me. It's my stuff and it still hit me. The agonizing, ugh, ugh, ugh, the agonizing, slow death of what you had in mind. This is not what Samuel had in mind for Saul. And the reason you grieve is because it hurts to see what you had in mind die. And it won't just, like, die. See, the problem with Saul, God rejected him, but he was still on the throne. He's still driving my car. He's still going on. He's still on Facebook. The agonizing death of what you had in mind is tormented by the survival of the person who's been rejected.
I got to look at you. You killed my dream. You killed how my story was supposed to end. The death of what I had in mind will make me cry when nobody's looking. You were in my story, ha, ha, ha. The prophet, y'all don't get this, the king ain't crying. Ain't that a trip? The guy who lost the kingdom ain't crying, the prophet is crying. Why is the prophet crying and the king not crying? It's because the prophet had more vision than the king. You will get healed when you let go of what you had in mind. You will not be healed because you let the person go, or the place go, or the city go, or the ministry go, you will only be healed when you let go of what you had in mind.
I don't care how many new years you have, if you still got old ideas, you won't have new years. This is the death of what Samuel had in mind. And I'm gonna tell you personally what I know. What you had in mind don't die easy. I'm telling you, first giving honor to God, especially if you're a strong-willed, tenacious, relentless person, and you're just gonna make it happen. Come hell or high water, I'm gonna ride or die. You can't ride by yourself. So, Preacher, don't tell me that I gotta kill what I had in mind and not tell me how to kill it.
Okay, I had this conversation. Maybe I shouldn't. I won't even tell who... it's interesting who I had it with, but I won't tell that in public. But I had this conversation with this person, and they were talking about "I Surrender All," the hymn. "All to Jesus I surrender, All to him I freely give" You know that? I'm out of tune, but you know what I'm talking about. "I surrender all, I surrender all, All to thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all, all my life", I've known that song since I was a child. All my life, when I hear that song, I hear an altar call. And whenever I sing it, I'm inviting people to Jesus. But my friend is not as churchy as me, so she doesn't hear what I hear. She says, "I love the song because I surrender all to Jesus. My future, my plans, my goals, my thoughts, I surrender what I had in mind".
And I've never heard the song the same again, because now I realize that it's not just about coming to Jesus, it's about giving him what I had in mind. "I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior I surrender all".
So, Jackie, I got one more point and I'll close. I promised you three points. The third point is we grieve because of the ties we make outside his will. Samuel is tied to somebody that God never even wanted to be king. How can it be a failure when God never even wanted him to be king in the first place? If God never wanted him to be king, and he's taken away the kingdom, how can this be failure? This is not failure, it's correction. What you call failure is simply correction. You didn't lose 'cause you never had. He wasn't God's king in the first place, he was a filler, he was a substitute.
That wasn't your job, that wasn't your place, that wasn't your ministry, that wasn't your calling. You didn't lose. All of your life, you've been processing this as a loss, this is not a failure, this is a correction. This is a correction. God cared enough to make sure you get this right. He loves you enough to stop you and make sure you get this right. He loves you enough to confront your strong, stubborn will and bring you to submission, so that he can give you what he has for you. You have never had what he has for you. All those people and things that went were supposed to go. They were not the ones.
Do you hear me? No, no, no, no, do you really hear me? So, in my conclusion, God walks up to Samuel, God walks up to Samuel and says, "Why weepest thou over what I have rejected"? While you were weeping, I was searching. While you were weeping over what wasn't even it anyway, I was searching. Go and get your horn and get ready, 'cause I found your future. Go get your horn, you got some anointing to do. I have found your future. And I cannot give you your future if you're still married to your past.