TD Jakes - Rightfully Mine
Nature teaches, history teaches, the period teaches that the firstborn should have the right to reign. And so, when they brought Esau to his father, Isaac, Isaac loved Esau, but God hated him. Put a pin right there. Why does God hate Esau? That's a strong word. Why does God hate Esau? Now, add that to Jacob is pulling at him, coming out of the womb, and they called him Jacob because he had his hand on the heel of the firstborn child. And the old man has purpose to bless his firstborn, but the prophecy said that the blessing would be on the younger of them. Have you ever been in a situation where you weren't even in line for the blessing? Where it didn't look like it was going to be you. You were not the favorite. You were not the most likely. You were not the preferred. You were not the one, not only in your family, in your neighborhood, in your school, in your house, in your life.
Have you ever believed God for something, and the odds were against you? The odds were against Jacob. The odds are against him, but they forgot that old Jacob is a fighter, and the fight started in the womb. And what we do not know is what happened in the womb. We don't know who was supposed to be first. We only know who came out first. That's all we know. We know who came out first. Now, when we look at this next deposit that we're gonna make, this next phase, we're going to get down to the birthright in Genesis 25:29-34. We're going to begin to understand that the fight that started in the womb now continues outside the womb, 'cause Jacob say it ain't over. Somebody, say "it ain't over". "Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, 'Quick, let me have some of that red stew. I'm famished.' That is why he was also called Edom. Jacob replied, 'First sell me your birthright.'"
Let's finish what we started. "'Look, I am about to die,' Esau said. 'What good is the birthright to me?'" They still fighting. "But Jacob said, 'Swear to me first,' so he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentils,'" and some corn bread, and some collard greens, and some rice, and some potato salad, and some sweet-potato pie. "He ate and drank, and then got up and left". So Esau despised his birthright. He gave away his birthright, but the Bible said that it wasn't his in the first place. Wonder why the Bible says, "Esau sought repentance with many tears and found it not"? See, sometimes somebody else has got something that is rightfully yours. Y'all gonna get it in a minute.
Let me put it in biblical terms. I'll give you houses that you didn't build. I'll give you vineyards that you didn't grow. Somebody may be living in what's gonna be your house. Somebody may be driving what's gonna be your car. Somebody may be in an office that's gonna be yours. They just don't know it yet. You may have to fight for it, but God said it's rightfully. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. All I know is the way Jacob handled it is totally opposite to what the angel said to Rebecca. For the angel said to Rebecca that the younger one, that the older one would serve the younger one, and that reversed the order. Hear me right now. God is getting ready to reverse the order. You got to be careful in this season who you walk passed, because God is getting ready to reverse the order. You got to be careful who you look down on, because God is getting ready to reverse the order. Just 'cause I don't seem like I have it doesn't mean that I'm not about to get it. The last shall be first and the tail shall be the head.
God is about to reverse the order. And I admit, I've never really liked Jacob. I think Jacob was an embarrassment to the family. I always preached Jacob from a negative perspective, because it is his trick he pulled. Him and his mama got together and scammed the old man out of the birthright. She had him dressed like he was hairy. She had him change his voice and come into the room, and the old man couldn't half see, and he fooled around and blessed the wrong son, or was it the wrong son? Isn't it funny how God will move whatever he has to move and manipulate whatever he has to manipulate to put you in the place to line you up for what's next in your life? I want to talk to some folk that got a strange testimony.
I want to talk to some people that wasn't born to be what you ended up being, but God just kind of started moving things around and switching things up, and you ended up someplace, and you say, "I don't even know how I got here". Jacob finds himself in a place with his brother, that even though he has the birthright, it doesn't feel right. He has the birthright, but it doesn't feel right, because Esau hated Jacob over what happened, which put a cloud over the birthright, and he also got the blessing. And the problem with the blessing is Jacob was dying when he gave him the blessing, and he gave him the blessing, and he told Esau, "I only had one". So, the Jacob that we see in our text has the birthright and the blessing, but he hasn't lost the struggle, because he has it up under the cloud of, "Is It authentic? Is it rightfully yours"?
Don't look confused, because some of y'all have some stuff right now that your haters say is not rightfully... Jacob is still trying to figure out, "Is this me, or is this God? Is this my manipulation, or is this divine intervention"? Bear in mind, Jacob never heard what the angel told his mama. So, he climbs up on the mountaintop, and he climbs up on the mountaintop, and makes up in his mind, "I'm not comin' down until I feel justified". There is nothing more for him to get than the birthright and the blessing. The only thing left to get is to authenticate the blessing, and only God can do that. Have you ever gotten into something, let me talk to the folk on the Zoom. Have you ever gotten into something that only God could get... no, no, no, y'all ain't real. I want to find some people who have prayed the prayer, "Lord, if you get me out of this, I promise"... there's ten people in here, ain't but ten.
Lord, if you just get me out of this, I promise I will. Jacob is wrestling, and wrestling, he's been wrestling in the womb, he's been wrestling with his brother, and now he has gone from wrestling to running. He is running from Esau, because Esau is trying to kill him, and his mother has to get him out of the house, because his brother is trying to kill him. You thought you had problems in your family? Y'all doing good. We are about to see the sin of Cain and Abel repeating itself in Jacob and Esau. That's when your brother tries to kill you because of your blessing. You see, Satan doesn't have any new tricks. All he has is old tricks. And if you live long enough, you start to notice, "I've seen this before". The names have changed, but this is is that same old devil I had to fight ten years ago. Because the devil is not a creator. He is an imitator.
Jacob is wrestling with God, and God is visiting. He can't stay, 'cause he hasn't been born of a woman. And he says, "Let me go, for the day breaketh". And Jacob says, "I won't let you go until you bless me". Wait a minute, you already blessed. You already have the birthright. Do you know you can be blessed and not know that the enemy can make you feel in such a way that you don't really know that you have what you got? Listen at the schizophrenia of their conversation. Jacob wrestles with the angel, but when the angel sees that the day breaketh, the angel now says to him, "Let me go, for the day breaketh," and Jacob says, "I won't let you go until you bless me". The angel says, "What is your name"? Who wrote this? What is my name? We in a fight. We're in a fight. Me and Beanie in a fight, and we rollin' all over the pulpit, and I stopped in the middle of the fight, and say, What is your name?
Wouldn't you think I was pretty stupid to stop in a fight and the angel asked him, who is actually Christ, and already knows, "What is your name"? And he answers, "I am what they call me. I am Jacob". See, the blessing was in figuring out who he was. The blessing wasn't the boat, it wasn't the car, it wasn't the house, it wasn't the cattle, it wasn't the sheep, it wasn't the property, it wasn't the land, it wasn't any of that. The blessing was, Do you know who you are? So I wanna ask you this morning, Do you know who you are? We have come to this mountain alone to wrestle with God, and the first thing he tells Jacob is, "You are not who you think you are. Your name shall no more be called Jacob". Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans, and have overcome".
Israel, you are a prince not a fighter, not a wrestler, not a trickster, not a con-artist, not a liar. You did some of that, now, you did it, you you did it, you did it, you did it, but you are not it. This is a higher calling. I press toward the mark of a higher calling. I press toward the mark of a higher call on my life than the gravitational pull of my history. I press toward the higher call up my destiny. I'm moving towards something that you may not even see in me. I'm a prince without a palace. I'm a prince without a throne. I'm a prince without a princess. I'm a prince, I'm a prince, it don't look like it riding on this donkey, but I'm a prince. You don't treat me like it, but I am wrestling with God to find out what is in me. And he smote him at his hip joint, and Jacob never screamed, and he never yelled, he just comes hopping down off that mountain. He'd never cried out. He never hollered. You know why? It is worth the struggle. It is worth whatever the struggle was to find out who you are, and what you've got, and what you can do, and what you can be.
And Jacob comes down off... Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel comes down, Jacob, Israel, Jacob and Israel, Jacob, Israel, Jacob, Israel comes down, he's limping off the mountaintop, only one leg, only one leg, the Jacob leg. Only one part of him is limping, is wounded. Jacob will never recover full strength, because Israel, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What got smote was the Jacob side. It got smote. Oh, y'all don't wanna fool with me. I feel like preaching. I feel like preaching. What got smote is the Jacob side. He hit the part of me that was controlling me, and knocked it out of joint, so it wouldn't have the power that it used to have in my life. So, Jacob, Israel, all throughout the rest of his life, the names interchange back and forth, all the way to the grave, sometimes in the same sentence. One moment they call him Jacob. The next moment they call him Israel, because he still has that Jacob background, but he has that Israel future. Y'all didn't get that.
If y'all got that, y'all would tear this place up. Somebody in here tryin' to act like you don't understand. You know you still got that Jacob background, but you got that Israel future, and you're just dragging that Jacob. You're just dragging that Jacob. C'mon, Jacob, we're goin' this way, we're not goin' that way, we're going this way. And he comes down off the mountain. Daybreak has come. The night fight is over. Every fight he ever had was a night fight. Fighting in the womb, fighting in the dark, he's had night fights. Anybody had night fights? Went to bed tired, woke up tired, night fights, night fights, night fights. I want some real saints that can talk to me about some night fights. 3 o'clock in the morning and you're having a night fight, 4:15 and you're just lookin' at the clock. You up, you don't even know why you up.
What Jacob and Israel is having a fight at 4 o'clock in the morning, and it's been a night fight, and it was morning time, because weeping can only endure for a night, joy, but joy cometh in the morning. And what is important, if you'd give me a minute, what's important for you to see is this. Both of 'em came down off the mountain, but one of them had been smote. And Jacob never fully recovered his strength in Israel's life. There are some things that are still there, but they're nowhere near like they used to be, 'cause God has smote the hip joints, and you're walking with a limp 'cause of what you've been through, and where you came from, and how you had to wrestle with God, and you had to wrestle with man, but you're still moving forward.
That's why you prevail, because you've been through hell, but you're still moving forward. You're crying all night, but you're still moving forward. You're lonely half the time, but you're still moving forward. And God gave you a limp to show the world that you're a fighter. You've been with God. And the first person he runs into when he gets to the bottom of the mountain is Esau. That which he has been running from, he is now ready to confront. And he comes limping down off the mountain to say I'm not scared of you no more. I'm not gonna run from your no more, because I found out who I am, and I know who I am, and I know what I can be, and I know what I can do, and I know where I can go, and I know what he's done in my life. And I know that I have a destiny. And I know that what's in front of me is greater than what is behind me. And I know that nations shall come out of my body.
That my 12 sons shall become the 12 tribes of Israel, and out of the 12 tribes of Israel shall come the Lion of the tribe of Judah. And I know who I am. You can't mess with me, 'cause of what God put down inside of me. I now realize what a birthright really is. And by the way, you ain't got no blessing to give me no way. I've already been blessed. I've been blessed by God. I've been called by God. I've been directed by God. I've been sent by God. I got the anointing of God. I got the Word of God. I got the power of God. The Lord told me to tell you to stop struggling with what he's given you. Just stop feeling unworthy of what he's given you. Just stop wrestling with what he's about to release in your life.
The Lord told me to tell you to stop feeling ashamed because of the mistakes of your past, regarding what he's about to do in your life right now. The Lord told me to tell you that the blessing is rightfully yours. It is rightfully yours. Somebody, holler "it's rightfully mine". So I'm going to be bold in it, I'm going to stand up in it, I'm gonna walk in it, I'm going to live in it, because today I realize that if God would've wanted Esau on the mountain, he would've put Esau on the mountain. If God would've wanted to give Esau the blessing, he would've given Esau the blessing. If God would've wanted Esau to have it, he would have given it to him, and he would've never allowed the trick to work in his life. But God chose me. I may have showed up late, but he chose me.