TD Jakes - Radical Faith (04/10/2017)
Using the story of Lazarus as a backdrop, the preacher teaches that crises are overcome through radical faith built on relationship with God, involving stages of release, burial (covering the mess), revelation ("even now"), and restoration by rolling away the stone and confronting the "stinky stuff" to hear Jesus call forth new life.
Faith and Your Current Issues
I want you to understand that everything that you are dealing with right now—the issues that you are confronting right now—have everything in the world to do with where you are in your faith walk with God.
That does not mean that if you are going through trouble it is a sign you do not have faith. So before you faint and collapse and fall out on the floor, give me just a minute here to work through this.
I am saying that it might not be the lack of your faith that got you into it, but it is the strength of your faith that is going to get you out of it.
Are you hearing what I am saying to you now?
The Story of Lazarus as Backdrop
When we begin to look at this particular text, there are several things that I want to pull out of this text without taking up a lot of time to completely exegete the text, because I am not as interested in the story of Mary and Martha and Lazarus as I am pointing to the exit strategy that brought them out of their crisis—was brought about by their faith.
So I am just going to use their story as a backdrop to strengthen your understanding about faith, and I am going to give you about five points or so relative to faith itself so that you can begin to understand what is necessary for you to be able to come out more than a conqueror through him that loved us. Amen.
The very fact that we have so much detail about Mary, Martha, and Lazarus is indicative of the fact that there are certain things that God wants us to know.
He does not start the story with Lazarus' sickness. He starts with Lazarus' relationship.
Point One: Relationship
Lazarus had a relationship with Jesus before things went wrong. Not only did they have a relationship with Jesus—he had a relationship with Mary and Martha—and they related to each other prior to the crisis.
So point number one: I want to talk to you about relationship.
I see too many people who are trying to exercise faith who do not have a relationship with God.
The only time they come to God is when they are in dire need and perilous circumstances, and then they look to him to get them out of the crisis.
But they have not built the infrastructure of relationship up under their faith. They are just using God because they are in trouble.
I am always working with people who do business, and they will ask me questions. And in the process of Q&A, there is always somebody who has got something—you know, an automatic pencil eraser or something—that they want me to get behind.
And I got this automatic pencil eraser. I thought that if you and I got together, we could do business. We can market this and go all around the world.
I say, oh wait a minute, wait a minute. My problem is not the eraser—it is you. I do not even know you.
And it scares me that you got this old and the only person you can look to to help you get this going is somebody you just met.
Where are all them people who knew you all your life—who trust your character and understand what you are about?
People invest in things they can trust.
Oh, you got to understand this. You got to understand this.
I am headed somewhere, because some of you are trying to get God to do things for you—you are trying to get God to move for you—that you do not speak to, you do not talk to, you do not worship, you do not serve, you do not live for him, you do not seek him.
And then in the time of trouble you show up talking about do something for me. And if he does not do it, you got the nerve to have an attitude.
But miracles begin with relationship.
Waiting and Release
And they sent for Jesus, but he did not come, and Lazarus died.
Sometimes while you are waiting on God, stuff dies.
What do you do when you have done everything you knew how to do and you sent for God to come, and he does not seem to know that the eviction notice is for the seventh—and all of a sudden bad has gotten worse?
You go into a stage of release. Release. Release is a stage where you simply let it go.
Okay, I have done all I know how to do. It did not work. I prayed—you did not fix it. Here it is. I release it. Turn it over. I am through with it. I release it.
You must understand that release is important for radical faith, because as long as you are holding on to the problem, God is not going to touch it.
As long as you think you can handle it, you are not eligible to receive the radical miracle-working power of God.
You find yourself in a position where you just release it—turn it over to God. Say, I have done all that I can do. I have run out of money. I have run out of resources. I just release it over to you.
And that is what they did with Lazarus. They said we cannot heal him. We cannot fix him. We prayed about it. He has gotten worse. We release him.
Okay, and when they released him over into the hand of God, they did it by burying him. They buried him.
Point Three: Roll the Stone
So we cannot fix him—we buried him. And we got a problem.
Whenever you got a problem and you cannot fix it, you go into step three: you roll a stone in front of it.
You have to roll a stone in front of it. That is how you manage messes you cannot fix. You roll the stone in front of it. You cover it up.
Do not y'all look at me like that, because I know y'all have covered up some stuff in your life too.
Roll the stone in front of it. Said we cannot fix it, so we cover it up.
And there are many, many things in life that you have done all you know how to do—believed as far as you knew how to believe—and it is still stinking.
And when something starts stinking, for survival sake you have to roll a stone in front of it just so you can go on—for survival sake.
Cannot leave Lazarus sitting on the couch because Lazarus is stinking.
I get so tickled at them whenever they got some kind of problem with somebody—the news media, you know—they always talking about who is a hypocrite.
Oh, and he was a hypocrite. And I think, so? Everybody in here is a hypocrite about something.
Come on, I want to look you in the eye when I say it. Everybody—I am talking about you too—everybody in here is a hypocrite about something.
You got some kind of contradiction in your life—something in your life you do not want anybody to know about.
You teaching on health and fitness, and every now and then you eat an ice cream cone. I know, I know you do. I know you do. I know you do.
Every now and then you slip up. Sir, yeah—you know how you slip? I do not do it until like late at night.
I can be holy all day—eating lettuce and boiled chicken and stuff all day. I mean, did good all day.
About midnight—I am telling the facts, baby.
One day Serita told me she said, baby, we got mice. I said, mice in this house? She said, yeah—I woke up, it was crumbs everywhere. I said, it was...
Y'all better set a trap or something in here.
Point Four: Even Now Revelation
Mary said, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died.
Well, Jesus was used to getting good treatment, you know. But when people are up under crisis and they are up under stress—and the stone is rolled in front of them—they have a personality disorder.
Martha was hot too. Do not think Martha was not hot too. Martha—yeah, that is right, girl, tell him. Read it.
That is basically what she said: if you would have been here, my brother would not have died.
But point four: Martha got a revelation. Even now—even now—you got the power to raise him up again.
See, that is what I am talking about—is radical faith that says yeah, it is bad and he is stinking and it is in trouble and it is a mess—but even now.
Somebody in here—God wants to give you an even now miracle.
You have done everything that you know how to do. You have tried everything, and everything has failed—but it is not too late for God. Even now.
Yes—touch three people, tell them I still believe God. I still believe him.
I still believe he is going to do something with my daughter. I still believe God is going to deliver my son.
I still believe God is going to save my family. I still believe God. Hallelujah.
Where are the radical people in here? Make some noise. Radical. Radical. Radical.
I still believe that even now you have the power to raise him up again.
I still believe that the second half of my life is going to be better than the first half of my life.
I still believe that the best is yet to come.
I still believe that my children are going to become everything God said they were going to become.
I still believe that I am going to be the head and not the tail—above and not beneath.
I still—I still believe. My God, I believe.
Believe you—if you are not going to believe God, why come to church?
If all your God can do is stuff that you can conceive, why serve him?
I have a God who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all.
Taking Faith to Where You Quit
The challenge of the believer is to take the faith that you got in here and take it to the place out there.
Because see, I am not going out there—but the word I am giving you, you want to take it to the place where you gave up.
Now let me tell you—that is the hardest thing in the world to do.
Because there is—watch this now—think, think, think, think—there is a peace in quitting.
Come on, there is a peace in quitting and just releasing—just I quit. I am through.
I am through. You ain't going to never be nothing. Your daddy was nothing. Your granddaddy was nothing. You ain't going to never be nothing.
I ain't expecting nothing out of you. You ain't nothing now.
Why do I say that? Because I do not want the pain of expectation.
And sometimes it feels good to quit—then you do not want it no more.
So you start saying stuff—that is just how Mary is. No, do not go in there and say nothing to your mama because you know how she is.
And you have resolved in your mind things are not going to get any better. That is just how it is.
You come to church and get one of these good hard messages—and even though you shouting, the message kind of bothers you a little bit because you do not want to really put the message on that thing that you got buried.
Because you do not want to stir that up again—because you do not want to go through those feelings again.
And Jesus is saying, show me where you laid him down.
The stone that you rolled over to close it—you got to roll it back.
Point Five: Restoration
For point number five: restoration.
God cannot restore it if you are not willing to roll it back and dare to believe again.
They roll the stone back on the stinky stuff.
It takes some radical faith to roll the stone away on your issue.
But you will never get restoration until you are willing to confront the stinky stuff in your life.
So here they are—out here to confront the stinky stuff—and they roll the stone away.
And by now he stinks. And here comes Jesus.
This is what you want. This is a real challenge of radical faith: is to bring the word that you got in here and take it to the place over there where you gave up.
And you are the only person who can do that.
You must direct this word to the place where you quit. I cannot do that for you.
I can come to the house—but in order to get to the place, you have to take this word by the hand and put it on the spot where you quit.
And that ain't easy—because you got to uncover that scab and confront that issue and say I need that word of God.
I am 40 years old, but I need to put that word on something that happened when I was 12.
Jesus Calls Forth Life
And they brought Jesus down to the spot. And Jesus comes down to the spot—and he walks right over to restoration.
Because see, what God wants to do is restore to you the years that the cankerworm, the palmerworm, and the locust ate up.
God wants to give you back what life took from you. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah.
I came to tell you it is not over yet. God is going to restore what you lost—if you can get the courage to confront the stinky stuff, God is going to give it back to you again.
Here comes Jesus down to the tomb. They roll the stone away.
And Jesus says, come here first row. He got all these people with him.
Jesus could have literally thought Lazarus out of the grave—because he said, Father, I know that you hear me—but for the benefit of all of these doubters and all of these haters that do not believe that I can do it, I am going to call Lazarus.
And they roll the stone away, and Jesus starts calling Lazarus.
And there is nothing in the tomb but silence. No noise in the tomb.
Jesus does not go in the tomb. He does not throw oil in the tomb. He does not throw the Torah in the tomb.
He just stands outside the mess and calls.
They listen. They listen.
See, there is a part of faith that when you start moving in faith, you have to have the kind of loud radical faith that stands up in the face of screaming silence.
See, silence screams when you are waiting to hear something and you do not hear any good news at all.
And you are out there on a limb, and everybody is looking at you—and there is a nervous energy in the room—and there is a tenacity—and everybody is about to laugh.
Lazarus—nobody said nothing.
All of a sudden they—he—Mary look to them and say, did you hear something?
Pharisees said, it must have been a rock fall. Sadducees—well, man, I think I heard something.
All of a sudden they heard something.
I have not seen anything, but I heard something.
But I am not walking by sight—I am walking by faith.
And I come to tell the devil: I have not seen anything yet, but I hear a rustling about Lazarus up from the dead.
Yes—here come Lazarus out the tomb.
Why you walking like that, Bishop? His hands was tied. His feet was tied.
But he heard a noise calling him, and he said I am coming out.
I am tied up, but I am coming out.
That is why I do not stop nobody from coming to church—because some folk, when they come to Jesus, they may be tied up—but they are coming out.
I want the devil to know: I hear a noise—start working his way out of the tomb.
And I do not know who I am preaching to—but something that you thought you lost, something that you rolled a stone in front of, something that you thought was gone—the Lord sent me here to preach this message to you about radical faith.
When you leave here and you go to work and they ask you what did your pastor preach—tell them Bishop preached.
What does that mean? Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard—but God—God's got a blessing coming your way.
If you believe it—shout. Ass—sh.
Where are the radical people? Where are the radical people? Where are the radical people? Make some noise. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.