TD Jakes - The Loyalty of God (01/26/2021)
Paul addresses the question of whether God has forever abandoned Israel, emphasizing His unchanging loyalty and faithfulness even amid national chaos, personal failure, and feelings of abandonment—like Rome's turmoil mirroring today's divisions. Ultimately, God's integrity remains, He remembers those He foreknew, and He has unseen resources and blessings for those who turn to Him by faith, not feelings.
God's Unchanging Loyalty
And Paul is saying, "Has God forever forgotten his people Israel?" Are we cursed, are we under a bondage? It is to this issue that he addresses the longevity of the fact that God will stand with you through changes. Now, it is important that we understand that because we need to understand that God is right when we are wrong, that God is strong when we are weak, that God is there when we stray, and it is only the integrity of God that establishes our faith.
Our faith is not built on a man, our faith is not built on a preacher, our faith is not built on a building, our faith is not built on a denomination. Our faith is built on the integrity of God. And that integrity includes a loyalty, a loyalty so strong that it is beyond human comprehension. And it is about that loyalty that we are preaching about today—and it is hard to preach about something for which there is no metaphor.
When Jesus comes and preaches the kingdom, He keeps saying the kingdom is likened unto this and the kingdom is likened unto that. But when it comes to the loyalty of God, I am unable to find a metaphor that rightly depicts the strength and the power of the loyalty of God.
A Promise Kept to the Dead
What can I say about the loyalty? The only thing I could think of to say is that God kept His promise to Abraham when Abraham was dead. Abraham was dead for 400 years, Israel was enslaved in Egypt, and God still brought Israel out of enslavement from Egypt because He had given His word to a dead man.
You have a God that says, "I am not a man, that I should lie, or the son of man that I should repent. Have I not spoken it? Will I not make it good?"
And the reason I am sharing it with you today—because just as turbulent as times were in Rome, just as indecisive as the times were in Rome, that same indecisiveness exists today in our country and other countries around the world where you do not know from day to day what is going to happen. This one fighting against that one.
In fact, Rome was on the brink of civil war—a civil war where there would be fighting between traditional Jews and the Roman Empire that almost split the country.
Division and Disloyalty Today
And now, at a tribal time in our country where everybody is mad at everybody and everybody is fighting about everything, and everybody is at war with everybody else. It is one thing to disagree, but now we hate people that are not on our team, that are not on our side—and you wonder if we are not going to run into what Rome ran into.
Internal corruption ended up destroying the Roman Empire. And when I look at America today—I want to talk directly to America today—you are on the brink of total destruction, not because we have disagreements but because we have disloyalty and disjointedness, and because we have divided. And "a house divided against itself shall not stand."
It is in the midst of that division that God sends a Word. I love God because God does not need a perfect situation to send a perfect Word. He will send a Word into a chaotic situation. He will remind you that He is still God in the midst of it all.
And I wanted you to understand that Rome was going through what America is going through, what other countries around the world are going through—anarchy and deceitfulness and betrayal and denials and uncertainty. And every day you woke up in Rome you did not know what was going to happen next—and still, in the midst of all of that, God was still faithful.
Unfinished Business with God
He had not cast away His people, even when His people cast Him away. For the Bible said that, "Jesus came unto His own and His own received Him not." But in spite of the fact that they did not receive Him, God still had a commitment to be loyal to them. In fact, one writer says that God is married to the backslider.
I want to talk to somebody who has drifted away or turned your back on God and gone into another direction—and now you are guilty and full of shame, and you have done some things of which you are ashamed. You have had an abortion, you have had a baby out of wedlock, you have gone this way or that way into perversion or idolatry or other religions. I want you to know that God is still right where you left Him and you have unfinished business with God.
This text is about unfinished business with God—that "God is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness." He is still waiting on you to come to yourself—and that God has not forever cast you away.
I know the devil wants to tell you that God has cast you away. I know the devil wants you to feel hopeless so that you will have an excuse to go further and further into your own degradation—but the devil is a liar.
God Waits Like the Prodigal's Father
God is still right where you left Him. Ask the prodigal son if the father will not out-wait you. He will stand right where He stood and say you are still my son, and I still love you and I am right where you left me—and if you come to yourself I will bring you up out of the muck and the mire.
I want to speak to America and say if we just come to ourselves, God is waiting on us to come to ourselves and understand who we are so that we can begin to stand in the power and the grace and the anointing of God.
"I am the Lord thy God, I change not." I change not. My mercies are new every morning. I am consistent, I am stable. Your mama is shaky but I am stable, your father is shaky but I am stable, your husband is shaky but I am stable, your wife is shaky but I am stable, your job is shaky but I am stable, your finances are shaky but I am stable, the stock market is shaky but I am stable, your friends are shaky but I am stable.
I am God, I am a rock, I am a stone, I am a sure place, I am an absolute in a chaotic world.
God Remembers What Others Forget
I do not have Alzheimer's. I have not forgotten you. I know you, I know you. You think it is about you knowing me. No, it is not about you knowing me—it is about me knowing you. I know you. In fact, I knew you—the text says, "I foreknew you." God has not forgotten those He foreknew.
Nothing about the times, nothing about the world, nothing about the violence, nothing about the chaos, nothing about the plagues, nothing about the diseases, nothing about the presidency, nothing about the leadership, nothing about the election, nothing about the nation has caused God to forget who you are to Him.
By the way, our nation is not of this world, our kingdom is not of this world, our king is not of this world. We have a King—His name is Jesus—and He said, I am still here, "the same yesterday, today, and forevermore." "I am the Lord thy God, I change not." I am going to say that again: "I am the Lord thy God, I change not." "I am the Lord thy God, I change not."
Lord, that is good news. That is good news when you live in a world where you do not know. You meet the same person you met on Monday, and wonder Wednesday, "Is that the same person?"
The person who promised you love on Wednesday has got your divorce papers on Tuesday. You do not know what is going to happen from day to day. The company who said they appreciated you and let you go next week—you do not know what is going to...
God said I am not like any of them. I have not forgotten you because I foreknew you.
Coming to God by Faith
I foreknew you like Jesus foreknew John before He met him in the Jordan River. He had met him in his mother's womb—the babies had leaped when the women had kissed; they were filled with the Holy Ghost.
God said your relationship with me did not start with your birthday. I foreknew you. "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, I ordained thee and I sanctified thee to be a prophet unto the nations."
I am your God, not your buddy. I am your God, not your friend. I am your God, not your daddy. I am not a deadbeat dad. I am not somebody that will reject you. I am not a woman who did not want to have a baby. I will not abort my promise concerning you.
I am your God—and I am in it when you are out of it, and I am standing here when you fail, and I am strong when you are weak, and I am healing when you are sick, and I am life when you are dead, and I am peace when you are confused. I am God, I change not.
At this point in the text, he begins to teach the people of God to understand from a 40,000-foot view that God has a plan for His people. And he weaves throughout the book of Romans the plan of God—talking first about the Gentiles, and then about the Jews, and weaving it together.
And about chapter 3 or 4, he concludes them all in unbelief and makes both the Jew and the Gentile come into one door—and that is the door of faith.
Faithful When We Are Foolish
Why do we come to God by faith? Because if we came by facts we would have to have intelligence in order to come. He had to fix the door where the illiterate and the intellectual would come through the same door.
I am proud of your degrees, I am proud of your accomplishments, I am proud of the many accolades that have been bestowed upon you—but you do not get to God because you are smart. You get to God because you believe—and if you believe God it is counted unto you as righteousness.
If you are going to impress God, it is not your money that impresses God—it is your faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
That is the God that we are talking about right now. That is the God that is before us in this text—who is faithful when you are foolish.
I said He is faithful when you are foolish. I know you need to act like you have never been foolish—but the truth of the matter, there is not a person listening to me right now who has not been foolish and walked in your own way, and walked away from God and did your own thing, and had to come stumbling back to the cross asking God for mercy—and He was right where you left Him.
He was there all the time—He was there in your pain and in your suffering and in your agony.
God has not forgotten His people. Say that with me: God has not forgotten His people. Say it again: God has not forgotten His people. Say it again: God has not forgotten His people.
Overcoming Feelings of Abandonment
I have to tell you, this blesses me. I do not know what it does for you but it blesses me because—I admit—sometimes I feel forgotten. I feel forgotten by everybody and everything. I have helped people who forgot, I have loaned money to people who forgot, I have comforted people who forgot, I stood by people who forgot, I opened doors for people who forgot—and I have to admit that sometimes it just gives me comfort to know that God has not forgotten me.
God has not forgotten. The Bible said, "God is not unjust to forget your labor of love... in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister." That God remembers when other people forget.
God has not forgotten—you know why? God is loyal. God is saying I am still with you.
"Seek the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is yet near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts."
I am not like your father—I will not abandon you. I will comfort you as a hen gathers her chicks, I will comfort you.
I am fighting against the feeling of abandonment. Every time you see somebody shot down, you feel abandoned. Every time you see the wrong person adjudicated and dismissed from being apprehended and seeing justice not work, it makes you feel abandoned.
Elijah's Story: Anointed Yet Alone
Every time you cannot get in the grocery store and buy what you need and you have to watch everybody else getting what they want, you feel abandoned. Every time justice walks past your house, you feel abandoned. Every time people look over top of you as if you are not a person, you feel abandoned.
God said I am not like them—I will not abandon you.
Somebody type, "God is loyal." God is loyal with you in the storm, and in the test and in the trial. And God says you cannot afford to walk in your feelings. You cannot afford to walk in your emotions, you cannot afford to walk in your abandonment, you cannot afford to walk in your childhood, you cannot afford to walk in your trauma, you cannot afford to walk in your strife. God is loyalty—we are talking about the loyalty of God.
Then the writer goes further and he starts giving the example of Elijah who has the feeling of abandonment—not because he is not anointed. You can be anointed and still feel abandoned. Elijah is anointed—he called down fire on Mount Carmel. He overcame all the prophets of Baal, he rose up against them, he called down fire, swallowed up 450 prophets of Baal—and turned around and ran like a little girl.
Because you can be anointed and still feel abandoned. And he said I am running not just because I am afraid of Jezebel, I am running not just worried about Ahab—I am running because I feel alone.
God Has Unseen Resources
And I want to talk to some people who feel alone—alone in your house, alone in your apartment, alone by yourself, alone in your marriage (yeah, you can be married and still be alone), alone in your ministry, alone in your faith—and you feel abandoned and forsaken and you are by yourself.
That is what made Elijah run—and that is why Paul brings him up in the text. Elijah was running from a feeling—it was not just a woman. He said I am running because I am alone and I am by myself. I killed the prophets, I got the victory—but what good is victory if I am abandoned?
I want to talk to people who have great victory and you feel guilty because you are not enjoying your victory because you feel abandoned and you feel forsaken—and you thought victory would be better.
And you got the job and you got the house and you got the car—and you have forgotten how blessed you are because none of it brought you the joy that you thought it was going to bring you. And there you begin to recognize the house is just a bill and the car is just a note to be paid—and all of a sudden you have got all of this stuff but you are wondering why you are running.
You are running because you feel alone. And Elijah was feeling alone—and he gets up under the juniper tree and he says I am alone. I am anointed but I am alone, I am gifted but I am alone, I am powerful but I am by myself. There are none left but me, I am by myself.
And God says to him, Are you crazy? "I have got 7,000 that have not bowed to Baal, nor kissed the nasty image." I got people you have never met yet, I got doors in front of you that you have not even seen yet, I got blessings you have not even touched yet, I got revelations you have not even seen yet, I got power you have not even touched yet, I got victory you have not even laid hands on.
Do you not know I am God? I am still God—I am God in the face of Ahab, I am God in the face of Jezebel, I am God in the face of Rome, I am God in the face of America, I am God in the unemployment line, I am God in the time of trouble, I am God in the hospital room, I am God in a time of trouble, I am God in the time of agony, I am God in your affliction, I am God in your divorce, I am God in your crisis. I am God.
Look to the Unseen
We are talking about the loyalty of God and we are weighing it against the feelings of men—and the feelings of men say, "I am alone, and I am abandoned, and I am forsaken, and I am here by myself." And the loyalty of God says, "That is a lie—I have got resources you have not touched yet."
And to somebody listening to me right now, I am calling on a revolution in your mind—to stop coming to God talking about how you feel and start talking to God about who He is.
Stop going to God and talking about, "I feel like quitting, I feel like giving up, I feel like walking away, I do not feel appreciated, I do not feel..." This is not—you do not come to God by feelings, you come to God by faith. And in order to have faith you have got to start talking God-talk.
You cannot be talking man-talk—you have got to talk God-talk. You cannot be telling God what is wrong—God already knows what is wrong. If you are going to come to Him, you have got to come by faith.
Stop whining to God—God is not your therapist, God is not your counselor. God will know when you were potty trained—He does not need to know when you were potty trained. You do not need to bring your doubt—bring your faith.
God, I thank you You are loyal. God, I thank you You are faithful. God, I thank you You are consistent. God, I thank you You are able. God, I thank you You have got power. God, I thank you You have got mercy.
God, I know who You are. I may not see it but I know You have got help, I know You have got prophets, I know You have got help, I know You have got resources. God said I have got 7,000 prophets, man, that you have not even seen.
I want to close talking to you about what you have not seen. You keep praying about what you see and God keeps talking about what you do not see.
Elijah is running because of what he sees—God is talking to him about what you do not see. "I have got 7,000 prophets that have not bowed to Baal, nor kissed the nasty image."
You are not in this thing by yourself—I got help you have not touched yet, I have got resources you have not built into.
God wants to talk to you about the unseen. The Bible said, "Your eyes have not seen, your ears have not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has in store for them that love Him."
If you are going to climb out of this ditch, you are going to climb out in the unseen.