Leaning into Uncertainty - Bishop T.D. Jakes

[Music] wow are you ready i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready so i want you to get your bibles go to the book of romans that's where i'm going to be working tonight the 8th chapter of the book of romans and open up your heart for the word of god and to those of you that just logged in if you did not get an opportunity to give to help the class the prompters are going to come up giving you an opportunity to sow into the word the rich soil of the word that i'm going to be sharing tonight i believe it's going to bless you i'm excited about sharing it uh don't miss the opportunity uh to become one with the text by allowing the word to uh to not only attach in your spirit and in your heart but affect the way you give it the way you live okay we're going to be in romans chapter 8 uh verse 18 through 30. and uh if you're ready we're gonna we're gonna work through this and it's gonna be uh good i got my bibles out i got my pads out i got my no pants out i'm ready to get down in the word of god now uh i'm gonna be talking about leaning into uncertainty and that's not something we normally want to lean into that's something we normally back away from but i want to talk to you tonight about leaning into uncertainty and what happens in the life of a believer when we lean into uncertainty we got a lot of ground to cover tonight so let's start i'll be reading out of the niv okay and uh and i think you'll be blessed romans 8 18-30 i consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us for the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of god to be revealed for the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and the glory of the children of god we know we know we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time not only so but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship the redemption of our body for in this hope we were saved but hope that is seen is not hope at all who hopes for what they already have but if we hope for what we do not yet have we wait for it patiently in the same way the spirit helps us in our weakness we do not know we do not know we do not know what we should we ought to pray for but the spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans and he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for god's people in accordance to the will of god and we know that in all things god works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose for those god for knew those god foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters and those he predestined he also called and those he called he also justified and those he justified he also glorified now tonight brothers and sisters the ladies and gentlemen christian friends and those who are just observing out of curiosity we're going to be talking about leaning into uncertainty but as a preamble to it i want to point out that we are we are dealing with the book of romans and and that alone that paul is writing to a church it is a church a group of believers uh in rome that he looks forward to seeing most people think that he wrote this while he was in corinth in anticipation of his journey to the roman church and he writes to them and it is originally called the epistle of saint paul to the romans and then it has later been abbreviated to the book of romans we we understand when we look at this text that this is more than just a letter uh it is much more than a letter it's almost a dissertation as it were to the roman church but what i want you to notice is the the term romans itself really flies in the face of the way that we think about faith today to think that faith ignores culture it transcends culture but it does not ignore culture or we wouldn't have books like the book of hebrews and the book of romans that are cut to the continuity of nationalities and yet we as christians and believers are often offended or or we raise our eyebrows at the african methodist episcopal church or or or some of the national association of african uh uh national association of colored people we we raise issue to anything that is specific to a nationality or specific to an ethnicity or specific to a culture but our bible is specific to cultures being able to speak the same truth but in the language that is accessible to different types of people yeah yeah that's that's something to think about that's something to think about and when we have these contemporary debates around uh black christians and white christians and so forth and so on and we have this notion of god's colorblindness uh we ignore the greek orthodox church we we ignore the fact that god doesn't have to go blind to what he created he can speak to the continuity of each of us and love all of us equally without having to look over anybody's uniquenesses to reach them hence we have the book of romans because there are better there are certain examples that are given to the roman church that would not be necessary to be given when writing the book of hebrews or some other epistle and paul has the ambidextrous ability to become all things to all people that some might be saved some people can't do that some people aren't multifaceted enough to speak to different types of people and still be true to the core mission of the church and the soundness of the gospel but paul exemplifies it to us in in writing to the romans period he bypasses to mail all the other cultures and goes right into the substratum of the unique nuances surrounding the romans because paul is graced that way and he says i became all things to all people that some might be saved because he has the ability uh to be translucent as it were in his thinking and his theology to be able to blend into various settings do do do you it's important to think about but but let me stop playing around and get down to business but before we get too deep into it i often wrestle with uh what effects of samos do do we as christians affect the culture without the culture affecting us or are we affected by the culture and why am i talking about this he says i consider uh that this this present suffering the let me put it right in the language that he uses i consider that our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with glory that shall be revealed in us and i wanted to talk about our present sufferings and and then and how do we experience god he's one god there's no question about that behold or israel the lord thy god is one and besides him there is no other but how we experience him has a lot to do uh with where we are seated let me let me go down into this a little bit i noticed when i was a little boy uh used to sing songs like i'm going through i'm going through with the lord's despised few it's a hymn you might not know it but it was a hymn that we saw uh you can have this whole wide world but give me jesus i'll take jesus for mine uh long as i got king jesus i don't need nobody else all of these songs are born uh toward or in the midst of the depression and and we almost almost demonize success as if it were success or christ one or the other give up the world and come on and give up the world meant give up stuff and the church sung a lot about that when they were broke but when when times got better people stopped singing those kinds of songs and they started singing songs like i am the seed of abraham that i'm blessed in the city i'm blessed in the field i'm blessed i'm blessed i'm blessed and we start singing about blessings and i wondered as we took that turn and nobody's singing i'm going through and nobody's talking about uh silver and gold have i done and nobody's talking about uh suffering i i wonder if if the culture affects how we experience god let's go deeper can you think with me tonight come on think with me tonight i know several ceos of fortune 100 companies that are christians that really love the lord but how they experience god versus this other group i know for example who are incarcerated and locked up in prison and they're only let out at certain times to to worship the lord uh and from a cell block is different from how somebody in a third world country who may be on the lower end of the economic spectrum of that country they're all praying to the same god but how they experience that god has a lot to do with where they are seated and i suggest to you my brothers and sisters that the sufferings of this present time not being worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us is is a declaration of where we are seated because this suffering of this present time and this whole notion of god being the god of the oppressed and i embrace that fully and he cares about the oppression he cares about the downtrodden please don't misunderstand me i absolutely get that i am a proponent of it i believe it i understand it my only question about it is is when the oppressed cease to be oppressed does god cease to be their god if he is the god of the oppressed when the oppression is over are they then forsaken so the reality is while we have one god we sit in different perspectives and and the bank president experiences god in a different way from the job applicant who is believing god for a job okay and the president is believing the same god but not for a job and their faith is pointed in different directions and what they are happy about and what they're excited about and what they claim to be a great message has a lot to do with where you were when you heard it the greatest sermon you ever heard came from not so much the lips of the preacher but it was great because it was ministering to where you were seated at the time paul writes about the sufferings of this present time and i thought it was interesting to talk about it tonight because of the sufferings of this present time and even in this present time in our country in our world the sufferings of this present time depends on where you are seated whether the sufferings of this present time is severe that that your retirement your 401k plan is going to be eaten through or whether the sufferings of this present time is that you lost a job and your children haven't eaten in two days we don't even suffer a lot but we all suffer yes the successful sufferer of the unsuccessful sufferer no one escapes suffering when it's suffering time and i want to suggest to you that the suffering is more paramount in this western culture that we live in because we have for years taught and expressed a god that almost started to sound like santa claus it's yours you know it's it's mine uh what god has for you is for you i'm not against any of that those sons i'm not against any of them but i'm talking about how we experience god and how we express that experience has a lot to do with where we are seated when god says to moses i am that i am uh it certainly embraces the fact that god can be and do whatever he wants to do that he's sovereign that he's absolute but it also expresses the fact that he is not definable because how we experience god is as diverse as the eyes that behold him and paul writes in this text about the suffering of this present time he he rips the western world scab away from our thinking that that that experiencing god is all about stuff though god does bless his people it's not it's not a transactional relationship you know it's not a transactional relationship it's not the kind of relationship where i give you my life you give me a car i give you my life you give me a house i give you my life you you give me a degree i give you my life you give me a wife no no no no no no no no this is not transactional and i talked about this previously whether you you have really learned how to abase and abound this relationship cannot be based on circumstances that might be occurring at this moment in your life and paul now centers into uh in in obviously i consider but i like the king james language here he says i reckon that the sufferings of this present world and listen he's showing you how he thinks about suffering so so when he's showing us how he thinks about he says i couldn't stop the suffering but i changed the way i thought about it i reckon i reason i rationalize that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared on a scale on a scale compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us i want to get down into this because i think it's important that you understand it because this is a time that all of us are experiencing some degree of suffering whether it's anxiety whether it is reality whether it is impending danger whether it is past trauma whether it is the loss of loved ones whether it is the uncertainty the ambiguity of what's going to happen next we're not sure we we think that we have a vaccine coming how that's going to work we're not sure how it's going to work on different age groups and different types of body conditions we're not sure uh will there be any kind of side effects we're not sure how long will it take to get it we're not sure we think it will bring the economy back we're not sure the the ambiguity the uncertainty is itself is tortured to a soul that likes to settle into absolutes but what do we do when we're going to a time where there are few absolutes and we are uncertain and we don't know when the phone rings what what's going to be on the other end when we open up an email we don't know what it's going to say we when people text us we have certain anxieties because we're uncertain because we're living with uncertainty but paul says if you can't change anything else change how you think about it he says i reckon i decided i think about it this way that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us he said i couldn't change the suffering but i changed the way i thought about the suffering are you getting anything tonight i couldn't change the fact that my husband left me but i changed the way i thought about being left i couldn't change the fact that i lost my business but i changed the way i thought about losing my business i couldn't change the fact that we had to downsize our dream home and now i'm back into apartment but i changed the way i thought about it i reckon that the sufferings of this present world i couldn't change the fact that i had been infected by the virus but i changed the way i thought about it i could change the fact that i had a miscarriage but i changed the way i thought about it he said i waited on a scale and decided that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in other words i don't know how he was suffering i don't know what was going on in the country at the time i don't know what was going on in corinth that precipitated the writing of this letter and i definitely don't know what was going through his mind at the moment that he picked up his pen and talked about the suffering of this presentation because he's suffering in a way that he doesn't tell and some of us in the bible class right now are suffering in a way that we do not tell it's just the sufferings of this present time becomes a catch-all category for things that are not even mentionable he doesn't tell us with specificity what the sufferings were but he does tell us with great clarity how he thought about the sufferings of this present time i reckon so the text starts out with how he thinks about it that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us he threw his anchor forward so so what he what he does is is saying better is coming better is coming better is coming and better is so much better that it's not even worthy to be compared to the sufferings that i'm going through right now are are miniscule they're the they're myopic in comparison to the magnitude of the glory that shall be revealed it's it's god giving us double for our trouble it's it's increase it's abundance it's it's the harvest being bigger than the seed it's it's it's the fruit being bigger than the root he says whatever i'm going through right now doesn't even compare to the glory that shall be revealed in a so so so watch it so i i may have lost some things i may have lost a limb i may have lost some time i may have lost some friends i may have lost some opportunities but i refuse to give up my hope hope centers around the glory that shall be revealed in us now what kind of glory that is i cannot describe to you i do not know whether that glory is tangible or spiritual i do not know whether that glory uh encapsulates the way that i suffer i don't know that god is going to return it to me in the currency of my suffering or if the suffering is going to be uh the economic currency of a transition that is to say i'd take currency and use it to get other things i don't know whether god is going to reward me in the way that i suffer or the way that i suffer is a down payment on a glory that is much bigger and more important than how i suffer he said but i know it is not in vain my suffering is not in vain my suffering is not abuse my suffering is not that god has turned me over to the enemy and allowed him to have his way with me my suffering is going to have a resolve i tell you what i like to think about it's it's like the suffering you have before surgery is very painful i generally don't get a surgery unless there's enough pain that drives me to the hospital and makes me have to have a surgery and at the point that i get ready to have suffering you have surgery i have suffering to trade pains i know when they roll me into the operating room i am going into the room because of pain and i know that if the surgery is successful i will still have pain afterwards but it won't be the same pain the pain before the surgery is a pointless endless pain the pain after the surgery is a pain of recovery and it's a little different in the way i process that pain because now i know that that pain is healing and not just aggravation does that make sense to you are you are you tracking with me are you tracking with me tonight because because because where we're going with this uh he goes on to talk about the creation uh waits in eager expectation for the children of god to be revealed and and then he goes into this whole uh syllable as it were about the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain the whole creation is lurching imagine a woman on a birthing table with her legs up and her knees pointed toward heaven and her feet planted down on the floor and she's riving in pain and her stomach is rolling and rocking he said that's what's going on with the whole earth it's travailing but look at how he describes the pain of the whole earth he says that the world has gone into travail good god of mercy you can say what you want to but the world has gone into travail lurching and rhythming and earthquakes and and and and hurricanes and tornadoes and fires and the world has gone into travail and and ethnicities ethnos against ethnos the bible says generation in the last days generation shall be against generation the the greek word there is ethnos against ethnos ethnicities fighting with ethnicity that the world has gone into a travail travailing the world is travailing the economy is travailing the stock market is travailing the financial health as well is travailing the the the interaction between nations is in travail the whole earth travaileth in pain until now and not only they but we but we ourselves let me let me find it in the niv i'm quoting out of king james but let me find it uh in in the niv he goes on talking about but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly they've grown outwardly but we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our abduct adaptation to sonship the redemption of our bodies he says even the church doesn't escape we're seeing the outer travail of the world but we ourselves also grown inwardly i want to talk to some people tonight who have been groaning inwardly we have the first fruits of the spirit but that does not mean that we do not groan inwardly that does not mean that we are not in the marches of transition and that we are not dealing with uncertainty the whole earth is is travailing yes it's travailing with uncertainty destabilization those things that used to be established are now shaking those things that used to be absolute are now abstract those things that used to be uh uh uh certain and trusted influence have not had ambiguity and are questionable and everything now is debatable everything everything is debatable everything is debate you can't say anything on any platform that doesn't raise debate with somebody somewhere there's going to be a fight about it if you say it's a beautiful day somebody's going to say not to me whatever it is good morning who says good morning why are you saying everything is debatable today because the whole earth is groaning and in travail and people are not polite when they're in pain and we ourselves even those of us who have the first fruits of the spirit we also groan not so much outwardly but inwardly we grown we grown because of the uncertainty we groan because we're waiting and we're in a holding pattern and the glory hasn't been revealed yet and we're in the middle of the suffering and we crouch down into our faith because that is all we have it's the thing that we hope for that this is going to make sense in a minute that the sufferings of this present time will not compare to the glory they shall be revealed in us and so we who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the for our adaption to sonship which he defines as the redemption of our bodies i won't get lost into eschatology i really could but but the groaning ultimately you realize it's what i'm groaning for is to be out of this this shell i'm in this decaying shell i'm in decaying physically decaying emotionally decaying financially there's always some kind of way of reminding me that this is not it shh don't tell him but the acquisition of this whole wide world is not it and so we grown within ourselves designed to be clothed with something that is not in conflict okay i am now covered with something that is the container is in conflict with the content the content is i have this treasure but i have it in earthen vessels and the content and the container are in constant conflict the content is holy the container is human the content is divine the container is fleshly the content is supernatural the container is natural the content loves god the container loves the world and there's a conflict between the content and the container that creates a discomfort and an uncertainty because at times i yield to the content and at times i yield to the container oh wretched man that i am who shall deliver me from the conflict that exists between the content and the container there is a wrestling match so i'm tired when i lay down and i'm tired when i get up how i desire to be clothed with that which is from above so that there won't be any conflict between the container and the content leads me in conflict and part of the conflict exists around the uncertainty what do you do when you need to be sure but you are not sure what do you do when you need stability but everything is shaking the whole earth is travailing what do you do when you need to be able to anchor into something that is absolute and yet everything around you is trembling and that's why i'm talking tonight about leaning into uncertainty the only way you can lean into uncertainty is to put your hope in god when everything the bible said everything that can be shaken will be shaken so that those things that cannot be shaken will remain and all around you everything is shaking and you need something solid i've i've read the uh the the the the the stats on on the nuns uh in the church that people are moving away from their faith that people are moving away from god and they're saying that judeo-christian principles are becoming antiquated and so forth and so on and that might be true but it's not my experience i'm seeing people run to church and running online and i'm seeing numbers escalating every day as people are running away from the shaking of the world trying to find something that is solid to hold on to so i've read the reports and thank you barnes for your reports and the stats and all that you offered up but my experience says to me whether people want to accept the labels we put on them that's a different conversation they don't like the labels but the solidness of having a solid faith when everything around is shaking is important to dealing with the uncertainty of the times hebrews 11 and 1 uh tells us uh about these times it says now faith is the substance of things hoped for it is evidence of things not seen it is the evidence of things not saying it's the only proof i've got left that where i'm at will not last that the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed and i embrace that by faith so when i lean into uncertainty i lean into the uncertainty not because i lack uncertainty but because i have faith as an anchor that has gripped into what i'm hoping for and not what is shaking and falling apart my faith is the substance the substratum the ingredients of the thing that i hope for my faith is the eggs the butter the milk and the sugar of the cake that i hope for that if i've got the raw ingredients of faith i've got the ability to deliver the thing that i hope for it is the evidence admissible in court of the things not saying i submit my faith so paul says this is how you think in times of uncertainty he says you've got to reckon that the sufferings of this present time don't even compare to the glory that shall come out of it i like what they say in exodus the bible says that when pharaoh got ready to persecute the children of israel that he learned something that the more he afflicted them the more they grew so in other words the greater the suffering the greater the growth the more he tried to make it hard on them the more they exploded and multiplied and if the enemy the prince of this world had been wise he would have never crucified the lord the bible says for had he been smart he wouldn't have crucified the lord because suffering brings increase for i reckon so this is how i think about it but the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us are you getting something out of this tonight so we started out talking about what paul thinks that he reckons this is how he thinks about it and the reason height thinks about it is important because how you think deals with where you groan inwardly can be best combated not by what you say outwardly but how you think about it because you're not groaning on the outside you've grown inwardly visit that again it's important that we understand that the whole creation has been groaning as in childbirth in this present time not only so but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adaption to sonship the redemption of our bodies for in this in this hope we were saved but hope that is seen is no hope at all who hopes for what they already have but if we hope for what we do not have we wait for it patiently in the same way the spirit helps us in our weakness the spirit watches now he's he's now showing you the advantage that we who have the first fruits of the spirit have is not that we don't groan it's that we've grown inwardly while they've grown outwardly we've grown inwardly but he goes on to tell us in the same way the spirit helps us in our weakness to hear the spirit helps us in our uncertainty the spirit helps us in our ambiguity the spirit helps us in our crisis the spirit helps us in our pain the spirit helps us in our trauma the spirit helps us in our depression the spirit helps us in our fear the spirit helps us in our anxiety the spirit helps us in our frustration the spirit helps us in our worry it's not that we don't have it but the spirit helps us is there anybody out there that the spirit helped if you're out there and you're listening at me and the spirit helped you i want you to type right now the spirit helped me the spirit helped me i would have lost my mind but the spirit helped me i would have thrown in the towel but the spirit helped me i would have committed suicide but the spirit helped me it helped me in my weakness oh bless your name i'm about to get happy now in the same way the spirit helps us in our weakness we do not know what we ought to pray for we do not know say that we do not know we do not know what we ought to pray for we do not know we do not know what we ought to pray for we do not know everything is so uncertain that we don't even know what to pray for we don't know whether to pray to keep the house or whether it be better to let the house go we don't know whether to pray to keep the marriage or it'd be better to let the marriage go we do not know i can't tell you how many times i'm talking to people right now who don't even know what to pray for i don't know whether to pray for my daughter to come back home or pray for or not to come back home i don't know whether to pray for my son to come out or you might come out here and get killed i don't know what to pray for we do not know we do not know we do not know we do not know all of this is about information we do not know we do not know it's funny because in verse 22 the bible says clearly we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in pains of travail so in verse 22 we're talking about what we know but now in verse 26 we're talking about what we do not know how do you balance what you know with what you do not know and every last one of us has things that we know simultaneously with things that we do not know we know that the whole creation is growing we do not know what we are to pray for but the spirit itself intercedes for us through wordless growthies the spirit intercedes for us it's not just your prayer partner it's not just your pastor it's not just a church mother the spirit of god itself intercedes for us in our weakness as we deal with what we do not know as we deal with leaning into uncertainty we can lean into uncertainty because we have higher intelligence the spirit itself intercedes for us why does it intercede for us because we do not know we we do not know we do we do not know but he knows we do not know what we ought to pray for but the spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groanings and he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for god's people in accordance to the will of god so that the perfect prayer comes from within my soul not out of my head in my soul not out of my head when the spirit takes over when the language of the spirit takes over when when the intelligence of the holy spirit takes over the perfect prayer comes from the spirit because he knows what is the will of god for me whether this is to be endured or rebuked whether this is to be uh suffered or whether it's to be stumped on the spirit itself knows and it makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered are you with me verse 28 and we know wait a minute we know in verse 22. in verse 26 we do not know in verse 28 we know we know we do not know we know we know that the whole earthquake we do not know what to pray for as we are and in verse 28 and we know that all things god works for the good of those who love him so here we have we know that the world is travailing okay we do not know what to pray for as we are because we're in our weakness but we do know that all things work together for the good of them that love the lord that when the shaking is over there's something coming out of this there is a reason that paul says that the whole creation groaneth as travail on a woman that's pain with purpose travail on a woman's pain with purpose that's not just pain because of brokenness that's pain with purpose we know that the whole creation growneth in pain and we ourselves also without ourselves grown waiting for the adoption of our sonship we know we know that we they've grown outwardly we've grown inwardly but everybody's groaning we do not know what to pray for we cannot use our prayer life as manipulation we cannot use it like witchcraft we cannot do it use it like name it and claim it and blebbing and grab it we some because we don't know now what to ask god to do we do not know so the spirit itself praying in the spirit lifting your hands you should do it right now lift your hands and start just praying in the spirit because when we start praying in the spirit we bypass our intelligence and our opinion and our uncertainty and our ambiguity and the spirit who knows what is the will of god prays for us if the devil thought you were in this by yourself he's crazy because you have inside intelligence you have classified information available to you through the spirit and the spirit is praying for the will of god in your life the spirit is not praying for you to get a car like your sister the spirit is not praying for you to show all of your haters how good you are and how god is blessed no the spirit is not praying from your perspective and from where you are seated or as a result of your culture as a result of your background or even as a result of how you experience god based on your condition whether you're the janitor or the president no the spirit doesn't have to deal with your circumstance it prays according to your destiny and your purpose because he knows what is the will of god we know we do not know but we know that all things work together for the good of them that love the lord who are the call according to his purpose one more knowing and i'm done for those god for knew he also predestined we know that all things work together because god foreknew us what does fort know me he knew me before the sufferings of this present time he knew me before i made the mistake i made he knew me before i got in trouble he knew me before i got here he told jeremiah before i formed thee in the belly i knew thee i ordained me to be a prophet unto the nations i did not ordain you to sit in a state of depression and give up and die i foreknew you and here the bible says for those god for knew he also pre-destined pre-destined pre before the fifa prefix before destiny in before end god pre-destined he fixed the end before because he foreknew you for we know for we know not 28 for we know that all things work together why do we know it because verse 29 because he foreknew us and so we can deal with the uncertainty of the process because we know that he predestined the end from the beginning and those that he predestined he did it without them even knowing it he did it before they ever even got here and eventually they then he called them made them aware and those he called he also justified them made them clean see this is romans 8 where paul is teaching there's therefore now romans 8 1 no condemnation to them that are in christ jesus he had to justify me because i wasn't even good enough for what he called me to so those he called he then turned around and justified and those he justified he also glorified for i consider that our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory with the glory that shall be revealed in us we started with the hope of the glory and we ended with those he justified he also glorified if you don't see glory yet it ain't over if you haven't got to the glory it's not over if you haven't seen the glory from the suffering it's not over so lean into the uncertainty because you don't have to make this happen it's okay it's okay not to be okay it's okay not to be sure it's okay in your weakness because the spirit itself make us intercession for us when we're worried when we're tired when we're stressed when we're fatigued when we're uncertain he that is certain is praying for me right now did you know that he that is certain the holy spirit is praying for you right now and you don't have to know about tomorrow he already knows about tomorrow and you don't have to know about the next child he already knows about the next child and you don't have to know about this and the other i know you want to know i want to know too i want to know everything he knows but nothing before it's time he knows how to get me through this uncertainty so i won't back up from it i'm going to lean into it because he knows somebody i'm talking to right now you've got some decisions to make and you can't seem to make them to save your life and you're going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth get out of god's way and let the holy spirit make the decision because he knows what you have been predestined to do and stop making decisions out of discomfort i'm just uncomfortable i can't put up shut up the sufferings of this present time how about were they to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us if i would have given up on my life in times of great suffering i would have never made it to any level of glory that i have gotten to see up to this point if i would have believed in the sufferings of my present moment at different stages in my life i never would have made it to the next glory who knows how close you are to the next glory if you faint right now you're gonna miss it so tonight i talk to you about leaning into uncertainty and i know he goes against the greater everything that you are to lean into not being in control and lean into not having a definite plan and lean into having to depend on the invisible power of god but isn't that what being a believer a christian is all about is to lean into the cross believe it for the resurrection lean in lean into it get comfortable with it know that god knows and that's enough and those of us who have the spirit of christ will guide us into all truth god close your eyes right now close your eyes right now close them and just reach out your fingers and say lord guide me i can't see i'm blind i don't know what tomorrow's going to bring but you start reaching out with your fingers and say guide me guide me got my finances got my business got my marriage got my life i don't know i'm through talking like i know i'm through fake it like i know i'm through pretending like i know i'm through trying to manipulate other people's lives like i know i'm an imposter i'm a phony i'm a fake i admit it i'm blind i can't see i don't know but i do know that all things work together for the good of them that love the lord and i do know that he that prays within me knows what i have been predestined to do and i do know that i don't want to live my life doing what i wanted to do or what other people assigned to me to do i want to live and then finally die knowing that i have finished my course and i have kept the faith and i have done what you created me to do can i pray for you tonight i know you feel like you're groping in the dark i know you don't like the lights off i know you like control i know you tantrum having tantrums and fits because you can't see but i want you to lean into this uncertainty and trust god as the holy spirit guides you through thank you lord many of us are facing times of uncertainty how we see god is a direct reflection of where we are seated where we're seated in the stadium of life right now sometimes we don't even know what you're doing we don't even know what to ask you to do we just know to ask you to do it we can't give you direction but we're ready to take orders order our steps in your word in your will and in your way the time is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever and ever and ever and ever never ever never and ever and ever amen what i was saying forever and ever and ever i was seeing things falling off you fall and fall and fall and fall and fall and fall and follow thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever and heaven and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever spirits falling off for you like rain amen amen amen again my brothers and sisters thank you for allowing me to share with you leaning into uncertainty it's been a joy i hope you got something out of it may the lord god bless you real good that's our bible class tonight i hope something that was said tonight lingers after this moment lean into it it's uncomfortable but lean and do it it's against how you were taught a raise would lean into it you've been calling the shots all of your life but lean into uncertainty god's got this oh that blessed me i hope it bless you too have a great night thank you for the opportunity to share the word of the lord with you if you have not had a chance to invest into the kingdom of god before this night is over if god gave you clarity about something if he spoke directly to you if you cleared up some painful place and change the way you reckon the way you think don't let this in without sowing into the kingdom of god because where else can we go to get this but here this is not at the mall it's not in the school it's not at the fair it's not at the bank it's not at the grocery store it's only for here but the people of god and if you value it don't take it for granted i'll leave that to your integrity have a wonderful night a peaceful sleep fluff your pillow up under your head and get comfortable with we know we know not we know we are foreign [Music] you

Channel: T.D. Jakes

Views: 427,452

Rating: 4.8875928 out of 5

Keywords: td jakes, faith, potters house, bishop jakes, The Potter's House of Dallas, TPH Dallas, td jakes sermons, bishop td jakes, inspiration, td jakes motivation, motivation, sermons, td jakes ministries, motivational speaker, motivational speech, gospel, motivational, td jakes 2020, td jakes sermons 2020, tdjakes, wnbs, leaning into uncertainty

Id: 19uYkB5C35U

Length: 59min 52sec (3592 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 03 2020