TD Jakes - Grasping The Moment (11/06/2020)
Using the story of Jacob and Esau from Genesis, the preacher shows how the old fleshy nature must serve the new spiritual nature, and that life's pivotal changes come not just through prayer or struggle, but through discerning and grasping critical moments where our choices—rooted in what we truly value—determine our destiny and blessing.
The Elder Shall Serve the Younger
He grasps Esau by the heel—the position is not lined up right—and the Bible says to his mama, Rebecca, that “the elder shall serve the younger.” Now let us translate this out of the context of the text into the turbulence of you. You, the human you and the divine you. The human you and the divine you are still you—they still wear the same suit, they have got on the same tennis shoes, they are wearing the same shirt. They came out at different times.
I was born June the ninth, 1957. I was born again September 1972, and the trial of my life is to make sure that the elder serves the younger. The Bible said that “the elder shall serve the younger,” so I am trying to make the old me serve the new me.
This is the moment—this is a moment. Some of y’all missed it when I told you to praise the Lord. Some of y’all just looking around. The subject of the sermon is “Grasp the Moment.” That is what is wrong with you now—when other people are taking action, you are looking around.
When I say “Praise the Lord,” let everything that hath breath praise ye the Lord. Slap your neighbor and tell them, I am getting ready to grasp the moment—so if you are nervous you better get out of the way.
Bringing the Flesh Under Subjection
You will not get this until you make your flesh serve your Spirit. You have got to bring your flesh under subjection, you have got to bring your lust under subjection, you have got to bring your pride under subjection, you have got to bring your selfishness under subjection—because the elder shall serve.
Now watch this because this is important. They fought in the belly, they fought in the birth, and they fight over the bowl. The belly, the birth, the bowl—all this text is talking about dimensional warfare. In order to bring things into divine alignment there will be dimensional warfare.
It does not talk about them growing up—it goes from the birth to now they are grown and describes how different they are. They were different in the belly, different in the birth, different at the bowl.
Differences Between Jacob and Esau
It says that Jacob was kind of a mama’s boy. He had to be—his daddy did not like him. The anointing you respect is the anointing you receive, so Jacob can do what Rebecca can do. Jacob is important because Jacob is the one that spreads the lineage—it shall not come through Esau.
Isaac does not pay much attention to Jacob, though Jacob is serving Isaac. According to the Talmud, the particular meal he prepared is in honor of his father—meaning he is a mama’s boy but he has Daddy hunger.
Esau comes in the house hungry. We pass over all of their childhood experiences—we come down to their hunger. The power of choice is always based on your values. How you choose—the decisions you make—will always tell me what you value.
The Hunger of the Flesh
Esau comes in hungry. Flesh is hungry. Flesh is always hungry—your flesh, my flesh, young flesh, old flesh. Flesh is always hungry. Later in the New Testament it will use Esau as a type of fornication and lust because flesh always wants something.
Esau is so hungry and he values flesh over Spirit, so he says, “Give me some of what you have got in that pot.” Jacob was cooking. Do not despise your gift because your gift is going to make room for you. It may not be a gift that people want to recognize, but it is a gift that God is going to use to open up the next dimension.
This is a prophetic word for somebody who wishes you had a gift somewhere else. No—God is going to take the gift that he gave you and it is going to make room and bring you before great men. Though it looks like you are not doing nothing, sitting around in the house cooking beans—who would have thought that God would take a bowl of soup and turn it into a moment?
The Red Soup and the Birthright
While he was stirring the pot, Esau busts in the door. He said, “Hey Jacob, man, I am hungry.” Jacob said, “You know I can cook. You know this is good. You smell it, don’t you?” And then the Bible tells us something that seems unnecessary—it tells us that the soup is red. The red man wants red soup.
When Esau saw the soup, the red soup cooking in the pot, the boy who was born red values what he is. Flesh always values what it is. You are no greater than your choices. Your choices are built off of your values. Whatever you value is what you are going to choose.
Esau chose what he was. The red man chose the red soup and he did not value his birthright. He said, “What good is my birthright when I am hungry like this?” He had something that he did not value, and any time you have something that you do not value, you will always lose it.
Any time you have something or somebody or some job or some place or some opportunity that you do not value, you will always lose what you do not value.
Choice Determines Change
Your choice determines your change. God is going to offer it to you—your values will determine whether you are worthy of it. Jacob is cooking soup. Esau has a birthright that will affect thousands of years and all of his children, and Jacob is over there just cooking.
This is the moment—the moment is determined by choice, not who they liked the best, not who came out first, not how they struggled. This is the moment that all of heaven is peeking over the balcony to see the choice, because the choice determines the change.
You are not going to get to your next destination just by prayer. Prayer will not be enough—it will be by choice.
I thought Esau’s name changed to Edom—from which came the Edomites, which means red—at birth, but it did not. It happened at the bowl, when he looked at the red soup and thought it was more valuable than his birthright.
The Consequences of Valuing the Wrong Thing
When he looked at the depreciating asset and did not value the appreciating asset, when he looked at the gratification of the moment rather than the reality of the process—our choices reflect our values.
We end up with the man we deserve. We end up with what we value. Our presidents are nothing but a reflection of what we value inwardly.
A choice is coming and you have to be strong enough to go long enough in pain for a greater vision of what God is about to do in your life. This choice changed his name, changed his children. Had he not made this choice, God would later tell Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau.”
But for a bowl of soup—the Jewish Talmud said that Esau spent the rest of his life trying to get that birthright back, even in death bringing gold and silver trying to get the right to be buried in the sepulcher of his fathers.
The Power of the Moment Is Not Retroactive
The power of the moment is not retroactive—there are some moments you will never have again. There are some things that once you lose them you will never get a do-over again. The Bible said, “Esau sought repentance with many tears and found it not.”
Repentance always works, but not this time—because this time it is the power of the moment. Doing the right thing at the right time will determine the right outcome if you do not miss the moment.
All of heaven is suspended—the chronicles could not be written until the choice was made. This choice will determine the rest of the book.
He chose on the level he was, not on the order of his birth. He was a soup guy in a prince’s place, and so he valued low and he missed his moment.
Grasp the Moment God Gives You
There is a moment. Stand to your feet—there is a moment. Hear me good, church, please hear me. There is a moment that God will give you that will determine how your story ends.
There is a moment that God will give you that if you discern the power of that moment, no devil in hell can stop you from your destiny in that moment.
Who would have thought that after all of Jacob’s fighting he would win the battle with a bowl of soup? Some of you that have been struggling for years for what is rightfully yours—and all of your fussing and fighting has not got it done—God is going to use your gifts.
After years of struggle, after years of inequity and injustice and misfortune, after years of being stepped over and overlooked, after years of crying yourself to sleep and saying, “Why does not Daddy like me?”—after years of not getting what he knew inside of himself was really his—everything shifted in a moment.
You do not even see it coming. You have decided, “I am going to make the best of how things are.” No it is not—no it is not. It is about to shift.
God is going to give you a moment, and what you do with that moment is up to you. My subject is “Grasp the Moment.”
Jacob was a fighter in his mama’s belly, a fighter in the birth, a fighter in the bowl, a fighter even when God confronted him—he wrestled with God, he wrestled with Esau. You have had to fight all of your life.
After years of struggle and being tough and sucking it up and dealing with what you have got to deal with, God said, “I am about to give you a moment and if you will grasp that moment, I will open up the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing.”