Road Rage - Bishop T.D. Jakes

[Music] i want you to open your heart and open your bibles as we go to exodus chapter 17 verse 1 through 7. we're going to stand for the reading of god's word even if you can't read just stand and look important yeah fake it till you make it hallelujah the whole israel community set out from the desert of sin traveling from place to place pay attention to that traveling from place to place traveling from place to place as the lord commanded god put them on the road they camped at refereed but there was no water for the people to drink so they crawled with moses and said give us water to drink moses replied why do you call with me why do you put the lord to the test but the people were thirsty for water and they grumbled against moses they said why did you bring us up out of egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of dust then moses cried out to god find him how to do with these people lord it's been a few times i see it in myself dear jesus they are almost ready to stone me listen to what bothered him about what they did they're almost ready to stone me the lord answered moses go out in front of the people take with you some of the elders of israel and take in your hand the staff which you struck the nile and gold i will stand there before you by the rocket horeb strike the rock and water will come out of it for the people to drink so moses did in the sight of the elders of israel in front of his leadership and he called the place massa and maribel because the israelites quarreled and because they tested the lord saying is the lord amongst us or not this morning i want to talk from the subject road rage [Applause] look at your name and say do you have road rage spirit of god we invite you now come real close engage us empower us enlighten us inform us transform us illuminate your will and plan and purpose for our lives prophesy to us give us the kind of tenacity that is necessary to surge upward and onward into our destiny for you have caused us to travel from place to place [Music] and what is clear to us is that we can stay here no longer change is imminent change is necessary i refuse to be the same person in 2022 that i was in 2021. [Music] i refused to face the same problem and the same predicament that i had travel is imminent set me on the road and give me the courage to move from place to place for the steps of a good man are ordered by the lord and you delight in my way lead me in a plain path because of my enemies i need to see clearly what you would have me to do give me that transitory mentality that's necessary not to fall so in love with what is that i can't catch what's coming have your way in jesus name somebody shout amen you may be seated yeah let's go to work so i basically want to uh just talk to you this morning i want to take you to starbucks and get you a la day and sit down and have a conversation i want to use this text as a canvas on which you and i can paint an illustration that is relevant to you the purpose is not so much to exegete the text alone but to use the tests not only historically but metaphorically so that you can better understand what is happening in your life in this season the text starts out on a very irritating tone it is frustrating the people are frustrated because their norms have been shattered and anytime your norm is shattered you bear an emotional toll whether you express it or not nobody has attacked them at this point no enemy has besieged them at this point but the pressure of the uncertainty of going from place to place takes its own toll you want to know how am i going to make it and where am i going to stay and what am i going to eat and what am i going to drink what am i going to do if you're like me you're the kind of person that likes to have some answers before you make movements but occasionally god will cause you to move without answers and give you answers as you go and it is very difficult to deal with people who are frustrated to lead people who are frustrated it is quite difficult and moses became exasperated with them they were exasperated with him he was exasperated with them and he cries out to god what am i gonna do with these people these people are getting on my nerves often he and god would argue whose people they were the lord told them they're your people moses said no no they're your people yeah he had the kind of conversation and ability to interact with god that perhaps somebody else would have got killed for but moses was a leader he was a leader title or not he was a leader there is a distinction between titles and leadership there's nothing worse than calling somebody by a title and them not be the leader that matches up with the title now to be sure to be a leader is a difficult thing because the expectations rest on you and the expectations rest on you whether it was your fault or not they expect you to fix things that are unfixable change things that are beyond your grasp moses is wrestling with a problem that he did not create and he could not create and he could not uh fix but they charged him as if it was his fault so you cannot be sensitive and be a leader you have to be tough enough to understand that you don't respond to every accusation and allegation because sometimes the question has more to do with the questioner than it does you you're the one that's frustrated you're the one that's at the end of your room and they're complaining about being thirsty and i thought to myself if there was no water than one moses thirsty too [Applause] but we often forget that our leaders are also one of us and we expect them to be superhuman as if they have no need but in reality if there was no water to drink then moses's mouth was dry too and often the challenge with being a leader is that you are exempted and opted out of the opportunity to be human moses is one of my heroes not because he was the perfect leader but he was a powerful leader he was a relentless leader he had found the thing he was born to do and he didn't find it at first it takes a while to find the thing you were born to do most of the time you end up doing the things you have to do not really recognizing the thing you were born to do and then when you find the thing that you're born to do you have to figure out how you're going to do it because there are lots of ways to do it here's the first indication of a leader you must be willing to be unorthodox there's nothing worse than putting a person into leadership who is more worried about fitting in than they are standing out unorthodox really in his origin means to be out of the ordinary not the previously accepted ideology not mimicking the methods of the people who are surrounding you all of our great leaders throughout history were always unorthodox rule breakers if you expect to be written about you got to be willing to break some rules if you're more concerned about fitting in then just be the status quo but nobody writes about people who followed the status quo when martin luther tapped the 96 thesis on the door of the church as history proclaims that he did if he did that he he was willing to be unorthodox and was ridiculed and was criticized and they tried to kill him because he wouldn't act like one of them martin luther wasn't on orthodox leader martin luther king jr was an orthodox leader he didn't quite fit in with malcolm he didn't quite fit in with the pampers he didn't quite fit in with the generation before him his method of courage like the panthers coupled with peace like a christian made him an oddity are you willing to be odd are you willing to be different nobody follows people who follow trends a great leader creates trends [Applause] stands out does things differently moses in my estimation is one of the greatest leaders of the old testament he follows after the patriarchs abraham isaac and jacob but he is a great great leader so much that god protected him all of his life not that he didn't have peril not that he didn't have a rough childhood not that he wasn't denied the right to grow up in a normal israelite family all of that was taken from him but all of that has something to do with how god shaped him he grew up where he was a misfit he couldn't quite fit in as an israelite or hebrew because he was raised like an egyptian and he talked like an egyptian and he was educated like an egyptian and he understood the protocol of an egyptian he had never woken up a day in his adult life living in a slave quarter and yet he is called to lead people that he's kin to but he's not their kind he couldn't stay with the people that he was their kind because he wasn't their kin and so one of the proclivities of being a leader is to have the ability to adapt and become comfortable with being controversial it isn't just that he is the pastorpreneur of the era though he was moses is the leader of the old testament church the very first inkling of an understanding of the church comes through the ecclesia of the called out ones they were called out of slavery to establish not only the old testament church of which he is the shepherd of the sheep leading them he is also the the the head of state when it comes to organizing a nation of people that were once slaves and they have cried out to god for their freedom and moses has come to deliver them from the oppression of pharaoh but he was delivering people that didn't always like him and if you have too much of a need to be liked you can't be a great leader because you're too much of a pleaser i'm just giving you some guidelines if if it becomes more important to you to be liked than it is to lead you're probably not a leader you just have a title and you're in a tough position because something you do is going to frustrate somebody no matter which decision you make can i go deeper now the metrics of leadership is movement you can't be say you're a leader if you don't have any metrics to prove you are moving things so don't go by the title and don't just go by the preaching how much difference are you making and how do you quantify the distance between with you and without you and if without you looks just like with you then you're not a leader you're a placeholder are you hearing what i'm saying so we want to have some measurements what what are the measurements that you measure whether you're a leader not well this is not for me i'm not a leader everybody in this room is a leader in one way or another they have a degree of leadership responsibility because leadership at its core means influence and if you have any influence if it's just over your children if it's just over your sister if it's just over your mama if it's just over yourself you have the responsibility to adapt to as much as possible to an understanding of seeing yourself as a leader if not you have to sit and wait on somebody to follow are you hearing what i'm saying leadership is what the bible calls what the bible calls favor yeah because if leadership is influenced influence is favor it's not a title it's not a stage it's not visibility it may increase your affluence but more stage time doesn't equate to influence there's a difference between affluence and influence the stage gives you affluence but it doesn't necessarily mean you have influence sometimes the people who are not on the stage have more influence than the people who stand on the stage and often hire the people on the stage and yet we have a tendency to desire the light so we'd rather be in the light than on the building [Applause] we would rather be in the light than on the building because whoever owns the building doesn't get seen but they have the influence to make the decision about who stands on the stage [Applause] are you hearing what i'm saying the actor gains affluence can't go anywhere can't go in the grocery store people taking pictures of them everywhere but the studio has influence are you hearing what i'm saying there are many many singers that became very very famous and died very very broke and they had affluence and they had fan clubs and they had fan page and they had to deal with tabloids but they ended up with little of nothing to show for what they had and they had very little to show for what they had because they had affluence does not equate to influence we are not trained to look for influence we are trained to look for affluence so we prosper in areas that give us affluence we want to be preachers we want to be football players we want to be basketball stars we want to be hip-hop artists we want stage we don't want to own the label we don't want to own the company we don't want to own the studio we don't want to own so what we have modeled in front of us is affluence at a time that the world is looking for somebody with influence [Applause] affluence shines on the stage influence shines in the boardroom [Music] are you hearing what i'm saying to you and i feel like god is getting ready to shift some of you into places of influence and your influence is getting ready to increase and you have been disappointed with life because you never got affluence but the lord told me to tell you i didn't give you affluence because i'm getting ready to give you [Music] oh i'm talking to somebody so when i'm talking to leaders i'm talking to you you don't even know it yet because the world has not recognized you as a leader they've recognized you to a degree as a person with talent but they don't see you as a leader and it's because you're getting affluence but you haven't gotten influence and influence is getting ready to break forth in your life like you've never seen it before as soon as you let go of your addiction to affluence [Applause] nothing worse to hiring somebody into an influential position and all they want is affluence [Applause] nothing worse than having a pastor who is a leader and all he wants to do is preach pastoring is much bigger than preaching it is leading it is looking at the metrics and seeing how much distance have you covered and it's not just quantity it's quality it's not always about having a bigger church it's about having a better church we have fallen in love with bigger and not better but the metrics that we might be measured by might not be numerical metrics it might be the depth to which you have influenced the lives of the people that hurt you but you don't want that because you don't get credit for being a great pastor you get credit for having a big church and america in particularly is in love with our fluence we stand for hours to take pictures of people on the red carpet who have affluence and the people who who sign the contract for the people that are on the red carpet walk right past you and you pay them no attention because we do not glorify leadership we glorify light [Applause] but the reason i thought it was important normally i would just teach something like this at a leadership conference and i do have some things that i'm going to teach that but i'm going to give you a little precursor today in case you don't make it or in case you do come you'll come with your head on straight the bible said in luke 2 52 and jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with god and man favor with man is influence favor with god is influence to have favor with god means i can speak up and say things to god and things will change and what is powerful about luke 2 52 is that jesus increased if jesus increased that means that i can increase i can start out with no influence and end up with all kinds of influence my influence can increase and one of the ways to know that your influence is increasing is by the level of your attack [Applause] some people have not earned the right to be severely attacked or greatly attacked because they don't have great enough influence when the enemy sees that you're about to get greater influence he sends on greater demons to attack your life to assassinate the destiny that is over your life hallelujah the devil doesn't know it but he's warning you of what is about to come by the level of attack that precedes the next move that's coming in your life who am i talking to today [Applause] so i want to talk to you about this in three dimensions i want to talk to you about leading i want to talk to you about learning and i want to talk to you about legacy you have to understand that if you're going to lead you have to learn you can't become inflexible and stop learning and get so busy in your leading that you stop learning moses was a leader that god had selected to do great things not only spiritually not only spiritually but governmentally moses wants to be a multifaceted leader right then a multifaceted leader you can be a leader and be multifaceted don't let people pigeonhole you and limit you to how they understand you rather than living your life to the fullness of your uniqueness and be willing to evolve and learn and be a multi-faceted leader he has up unto his auspices the responsibility of establishing their worship but he also has to establish their government their protocol their rules so in the pentatonic you will see god giving the ten commandments you will see god giving the ordinances and you will see god giving the ceremonies the ceremonies inhabit the worship the ordinance inhabits the government how you judge one another how you handle each other's run-ins and obstacles and adversities the ten commandments was to israel what the constitution is to the country you have to have one set of principles you can't have five different principles in the same organization [Music] bringing whatever you have influence over to a common set of basic ideals that defines you and sets you apart is important and it's not just good enough for you to know it the people up under you have to know it and then you have a criteria to pick out who goes with you because if you can't align with my vision then you can't stay on my team [Applause] you have to see how your life's vision fits into my vision in order for you to be a good fit up under the wings of my umbrella because if you don't you have your own agenda and when you come into my atmosphere with your agenda you turn my vision into division and when we find division we have to let's go [Applause] you cannot counsel out division when you have two different visions one of us has got to go lot had to separate from abraham it's only when you can find a way to fit your vision up under my vision and let me say it in a biblical way how can two walk together save they agree now the fact that jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with god and with man say that with me jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with god and with man lets me know that i need influence with god because favor is influence and i need influence with man and if the enemy can't take away my influence with god he will attack my influence with man i can be anointed have influence with god and destroy my reputation and lose influence with men and still be as anointed as i ever was with god but be totally ineffective with men because i have lost my influence with men though i maintain my influence with god i will always be god's man but i might not be his man that he can use because i am still having influence with god but i have damaged my influence with man note to self protect your influence with man at all costs because if you lose your influence with man you limit your ability to be effective though you still have influence with god i'm not saying you can't survive it i'm i'm saying you're going to suffer from it i'm saying you're going to have loss from it i'm saying that influence with men is fickle [Music] and it's hard enough to keep when you've done your best because there's always some snake crawling around trying to bite and destroy your influence with man you don't want to help the snake bite you can i go deeper with his scene they had one body of principles and ideas that all of them had to learn and moses understood when he established the ten commandments the judgments and the ordinances i meant to say it that way the ten commandments the judgment and the ordinance are the three divisions that establish them and set them apart from the egypt the egyptians and the hittites and the jebusites it wasn't their look it wasn't their clothing it was their principles we worked too much on our appearance and too little on our principles we worked too much on our image and too little on our realities so we spent all of our money looking successful [Applause] oh y'all ain't gonna help me rather than being successful if you were what you looked like you wouldn't you would be able to sleep at night but we have a tendency to spend the money that god gave us to take us to the next level on our image and not on our reality [Applause] so the first thing we do when a door is open to us is try to look the part and we spend all of our resources on trying to look the part rather than to be the part it's one thing to look like a president and it's another thing to be one [Applause] do you want to have the look or do you want to have the being now the look will fool people for a while for man looks on the outer appearance but the look will never fool god because god looks on the heart and at the end of the day what's in the heart will trump what's on the body [Applause] you can't fake knowledge you either know it or you don't you can't fake knowledge you either got it or you don't i could dress like a doctor i could wear the clothing of a doctor i could wear the shoes of a doctor but when you put me in the operating room you're going to readily find out i'm not a doctor even though i might know some terms that make me sound like a doctor i've got to be more than a look when i got a scalpel in my hand the church has accepted a lot of people who look like leaders who know a few things that they saw on instagram like leaders and they've got a few slogans and no context to put it in context to go along with the slogans and they they string together sayings that they got off of twitter into sermons and when they run out of cliches they start talking about people because they are trying to produce something that they are not and you cannot produce what you are not i can teach what i know but i can only produce what i am if i learn mandarin i can teach mandarin but that doesn't make me chinese so i can teach mandarin but when i have a baby the baby is not going to come out chinese because i can only produce what i am you will only go as far as you are you cannot produce what's not in you stop trying to be other people because it's not in your inventory to do what they do you must be authentic you must be yourself even at the risk of being unorthodox you have to be who god made you you have to do it the way god gave you to do it you have to speak it the way god gave you to speak it you have to be an original authenticity is imperative for great leadership i can learn like from you but i can never be you so the only thing i want from a mentor is to learn principles and concepts but when once i learn the principles and the concepts i can't be my teacher i can only be myself uniformed ideas create justice you can't have one set of principles for your friends and another set of principles for your foes you can't have one set of principles for this group in your office and another set of principles for another group in your office uniformity creates justice justice must be blind it can't blink because you're a woman he can't blink because you're cute he can't blink because you're fine fine might get you a date but it won't get you a job it can't blink because you're nice looking it's got to be fair and equitable and even across the board so being nice can only take you so far sooner or later you're going to have to go from personality to performance [Applause] have you ever seen somebody trying to fake you out with nice and they thought if you liked them well enough that you would always call them if i call you to cut the grass i don't care how nice you are if you can't cut the grass i'm going to call somebody else nice personality does not trump performance but it will hinder it [Applause] it's not that personality is not important but if all you got is personality you know it's not going to do me any good i don't want to go to a doctor and all i'm able to say about him is he's so nice he don't know nothing but he's so nice he cut out my lungs but he's so nice i want him to be nice but i want him to be knowledgeable are you hearing what i'm saying and i want to be treated with fairty fairness now what is happening here is moses is leading people with motion sickness he is leading people with motion sickness i don't have much motion sickness but my wife has a lot of motion sickness she can ride in a car most of the time but maybe not in the back seat she doesn't do well on a boat so a cruise is a challenge because motion makes her sick it's called motion sickness and if she doesn't take some medicine she can't take a boat ride because of motion sickness and most of us are leading people who have motion sickness moses is leading people who haven't moved for 430 years and now he's got them living on the road and the very fact that they have motion sickness makes them difficult to move and moses is a leader and the only metric of leadership is movement if he doesn't move he's not a leader but if he moves them they're going to have motion sickness because they have not moved for 430 years they have spiritual atrophy most churches have spiritual atrophy atrophy is when you haven't moved something in so long it ceases to move without pain most churches have spiritual atrophy no we've always done it like that you always sing the song before you read the prayer deacon wilson always takes up the offering that's atrophy anytime people start talking about always and they worship normalcy more than they worship movement it becomes difficult to lead them because they're uncomfortable with change and moses has the dubious task of trying to move people who have spent 430 years being motionless so the bible says [Applause] that they were moved by god from place to place and anytime god has you moving from place to place you're leading through uncertainty you don't know what's going to happen next reading their journey is like reading a good movie one moment they're fighting avalanche at referendum and the next moment they can't find any water the next chapter you turn over into the snakes are coming out and biting them and the next chapter you turn into god has covered them with a cloud of fire to keep them warm at night and the moment you get used to the cloud of fire he is turned into a pillar of smoke by day and then you turn past the next chapter and they come to a face filled with palm trees and fresh water and you walk on a little further and they come to a dry place and every time they kept moving they kept blaming moses because they had motion sickness they had moved for 430 years some of you listening at me right now have not changed in 20 or 30 years and now this pandemic is driving you crazy because it's forcing you to have to move and you're uncomfortable because you have spiritual atrophy and you keep waiting for god to make it like it was and success for you is for god to take you back to what you're used to but i came to tell you that god has closed up the red sea and you can't go back to what it was you must adapt to what it is what it is what it is what it is what it is you gotta you gotta adapt to what it is not what it was not what it will be you got to adapt to what it is what it is am i talking to somebody today [Applause] see that most of us are trying to manage people you got wives trying to manage husbands you got husbands trying to manage wives you've got parents trying to manage children you got people trying to manage life most of us are trying to manage people you're upset with people because they won't be managed they won't do what you tell them to do they won't go where you tell them to go god does not call you to manage people he calls you to lead people once god calls you to lead people he will call you to manage procedures i was talking to a lady patricia heyroyd and she almost knocked me out of my chair with this point you manage procedures you lead people [Applause] we don't spend enough time managing procedures we as preachers are so busy making sermons we don't want to be bothered with procedures and long after the sermon is over the church has to live with the procedures and now the pandemic has come to preachers who spend all their time studying for the sermon and they get the sermon so that they can move people and they're not used to managing procedures that means that you've got to be willing to tweak your procedures that means you've got to be a person who stops saying this is just how i do it this is just how i am this is just the way it is you cannot fall in love with the procedure the procedure's got to be willing to change so that the results can increase who am i talking to the procedures have got to be willing to change so that the results can increase that's why you take your car for a tune-up so that you can adjust the procedures to increase the performance you have no more performance than you have willingness to adjust the procedure in other words if you always do what you've always done you will always be where you've always been not because you didn't have a vision not because you didn't want to go forward but because you refused to change the procedures if you don't change the procedures you can't have the promotion [Music] [Applause] and i came to tell somebody you've been working hard on the wrong stuff you're trying to manage people and people will always break out from people who manage them that's why they're in the wilderness in the first place is because they are tired of being managed by pharaoh they have broken away from the bondage of having to live my life by your rules you may be my wife but this is my life i may be your husband but this is your life you can't manage my life with your opinions [Applause] what has to happen is we lead people we manage procedures because people will always leave managers people will eventually break away from people who manage them because to manage me is to dominate me like i am an inanimate object and i don't have an opinion you can lead me but you can't manage me we need to spend more time managing the procedures measuring the results and leading the people so i'm trying to bring people into a procedure that has metrics of performance i got to go i got to go i can't stay on that people change in uncertainty you don't know who you got until you get them in an uncertain environment you don't know what you got to deal with as long as we was dating as long as we was hanging out as long as you had time to get your hair done as long as you had time to get your nails done as long as you had time to schedule me into your schedule that's one thing but people when you start putting them in situations of uncertainty they change and all of a sudden you get to see who they really are because if i take you away from your familiar i get to find out who you are [Applause] can i go deeper this is why i want you to be at the leadership conference this is why you need to be there whether you're a pastor or not or an entrepreneur or not is because god is getting ready to increase your favor with god and with man god is getting ready to increase your influence with god and with man everybody in here who has been sensing that god is getting ready to increase you and maybe you've been a little scared of it and maybe you've been a little shy of it but there's been something speaking in your ear and sometimes at the wrong season in your life to you that god is getting ready to increase your influence jump up and give god a praise right now [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i'm just teaching today i'm not worried about making you shout but i want you to understand something increase means uncertainty increase means going into the unfamiliar increase means being prepared to lead people who don't like you [Applause] you got to be prepared to lead people who don't like you and the problem with you is that you want to be liked and you want to be liked even if you have to stop leading and then you wonder why you're not going anywhere it's because you change the goal from leadership to lockership until you are willing to be controversial and be disliked and lead people that are murmuring and complaining you will never be able to lead people if you use their reaction as the thermometer to your progress as if something is wrong because they're murmuring you will stop growing because if you read the text these people were always murmuring they were always had road rage every time he moved them they was complaining about something that's what got them bit wednesday night by the snakes they were murmuring and complaining and god sent the snakes out now when they're not complaining about the snakes now they're complaining about the water there's no water out here people will always complain when you take them out of their comfort zone because being stretched is uncomfortable being stretched is painful being stretched activates muscles and cells and nerves and tendencies that have been dormant being stretched it's the strategy of where we are right now clearly clearly clearly god is stretching all of us [Applause] he is stretching us he is stretching us he has got us out of our comfort zone we are all bickering with each other we are all angry with each other we are getting on each other's nerves because we are being stretched nobody is totally sure what's going to happen next not the experts not the news commentators not the haters not the spectators not the preachers not the pastors nobody knows for sure what's going to happen next because god is stretching us and taking us from place to place and we are on the road and some of us have got a lot of rage but the time has come for you to release your rage and get back on the road and do what god called you to do with your mouth closed because if you don't shut your mouth you're going to delay your journey and die in the wilderness when you could have been in the promised land because you can't stop murmuring and complaining and crying out to god lord make it like it was i hate to tell you this it will never be like it was your marriage won't be like it was your children won't be like it was you won't be like it was your church won't be like it was your nation won't be like it was nothing stays like it is except death [Applause] if you want to stay young die young [Music] [Applause] the only way to forever be 21 is died 21. let it be your last birthday death will stop the birthdays death will stop the birthdays but if you're going to live you're going to change you can go screaming you can go crawling you can go complaining you can be dragged into it you can sit back and watch it happen and not do nothing about it but you must be prepared if you're a leader for change agile on your feet mobile in your thinking not in love with your own procedures [Applause] the problem with many in my generation is that they are in love with their own procedures so they refuse to do church in new and creative ways and they refuse to adapt to technology and now we're in a situation where sometimes technology is the only way we can communicate and you refuse to learn it because you thought you could opt out of it but you can't opt out of change when change comes you got to go back to school you got to go back to school this is a learning season it's not just a leading season it's a learning season and moses as gifted as he was as anointed as he was as ordained as he was still had to learn sit down sit down i'm just talking to you is this good is this helping anybody he had to learn that people changed in uncertainty he had to learn that the people who left willingly with him soon turned against him they turned against him before he got to the red sea it's an interesting fact that many of the people who voted for president trump also voted for president obama check it out google it the ratio of people who voted for trump is in many cases similar to the same people who voted for obama which means they didn't vote for either one they voted for change it changed by any means necessary and you can say whatever you want to about it one way or the other if you are in a struggling state if you're in a struggling atmosphere if you're in a struggling economy it doesn't matter what the stock market is if you don't have no money in it [Applause] oh the stock market is doing good what does that have to do with me having beans in the refrigerator [Applause] people vote according to what they see in their environment and they will change from baptist to methodist from methodist and non-denominational they will change from democrat to republican even the candidates will change they will change their position they will change what they say because in uncertainty people change now to him whom much is given much is required and some of you are intimidated because god is putting you in a situation that is too big for you but just because it's too big for you doesn't mean it's not that it that it's not yours to do [Applause] can i go deeper i want to talk to all the people who sense that god is about to give you increase i want to talk to you for a minute about weight distribution i want you to understand that moses had to learn several things number one when when moses committed the murder in egypt and he had to flee to jethro's house he started learning leadership with sheep when god called moses through the burning bush moses was leading sheep that was his job that was his first job he had always lived in the palace he has gone from being a prince in the palace to a shepherd with sheep because god will give you your destiny in seed form early whatever you have become right now you were in some ways that when you were a child there's something that happened to you something that motivated you something that stirred you something you were running from or something you were running to whether you used it rightly or wrongly if you are a leader now you've always been a leader if you're an influencer now you've always been an influencer you might have been a drug dealer influencer you might have been a pimp influencer you might have been a bad boy influencer but you have always influenced people and god is trying to take that gift and take it from his perversion to its conversion so that he can convert it into something he can use there is not one person in this room that god cannot use there is something in your history something in your story something in your agony something in your pain that has prepared you for something bigger than yourself the question is do you have the flexibility to transfer from leading sheep to leading people let me go a little bit deeper i wish i had more time when god meets peter peter is down by the boat mending his nets jesus asked peter can i borrow your boat peter said go ahead i'm not using it he pushed out a little bit from land and peter's boat or his business became god's platform is your business god's platform i'm not gonna bother that so peter pushed out a little bit from land jesus is standing on peter's business as a platform to do his preaching and peter is a fisher of fish and jesus says to him watch this because here's my point he says follow me and i will make you fishers of men in other words you got the skill set from fishing for fish i'm gonna transfer it and now make you fishers of man whatever you are going to be is hidden in the details of your history you've got to learn though because practice is not like recital so he practiced on sheep and then god let him practice his miracles in the desert when the burning bush came kind of go a little bit deeper i'm having a good time i like to teach leadership when the burning bush came god said we need to practice you need to practice for what's next before you get there you need to practice so here's here's how we're going to practice stick your hand in your bosom he stuck his hand in his muscle it came out white as snow god said stick it in again it came back out it was healed he said let go of your stick and it turned into a snake he said grab the snake by the tail that took a lot of courage he grabbed the snake by the tail it turned into a stick again he said pour out water he poured out water and it turned to blood and god said okay we're done with rehearsal let's go and perform let's go to pharaoh's house and we're going to do these tricks on the road we're taking these tricks on the road write that down we're taking these tricks on the road the things you learned in private god's going to use in the open we're taking these tricks on the road you were never wasting your time even when you were shoveling sheepdog even when you were taking care of sheep it was on the job training for what god is about to do in your life everything you've been through every night you cried every night you felt denied every day you felt overlooked every day you felt like it wasn't ever going to happen was all rehearsal now we get ready to play the game let the band play let the music start let the dancers dance bring the cheerleaders out the game is about to begin go down there and tell pharaoh that god said let my people go excuse me i got a question who shall i say sent me i'm too big to be defined i'm too big to be locked up in a definition just tell him i am that i am because i am so ambidextrous i'll be bred when you're hungry i'll be water when you're thirsty i'll be away when there is no way i'll be a clown above you by night i'll be a pillar of fire when you're cold whatever you need me to be i can become whatever you need me to be i'm flexible and if you're gonna be like me you gotta be flexible you gotta be able to be more than one thing i break the cage that locked you down to one dimension that's kept you back in the sheepfold that's kept you handling sheep when you were called to lead nations [Music] my god i feel like i'm talking to somebody i don't know who it is but whoever it is wave your hand at me type on the lion make some noise holler at you boy let me hear from you give me a clap sign give me a signal let me know i'm talking to you if i'm getting you ready for what's next in your life if i'm getting you ready for what's next in your life holla and i can't hear y'all [Applause] [Music] [Applause] sit down i'm going a little bit deeper can i go you all ready go with me so they got road rage because they're out of their comfort zone they got road rage because they're being stretched they got road rage because they have to use their lesser used muscles pastor tubman i listen to one trainer talk about how some of these guys can be all buff and be built and be muscular and be muscle bound and have big muscles and can't handle small weights because just because you got big muscles right here don't mean you got big muscles right here the muscle you work on is the muscle that builds so you can look good and get in a fight and get your tail whip because you worked out on the wrong muscles some of you have been working real hard on the wrong muscle set you become real good at doing something that is unfruitful and you've got to be willing to change i oh god i decree and declare there will be massive change in your life you will not waste another year building up a muscle group you don't need god is getting ready to put you in areas that's going to stretch the weaknesses in you that they may become stronger [Music] so moses went from leadership to learning he went from leadership to learning and when he gets to jethro's house he learns by handling sheep which is practice for handling people when he gets to the burning bush he learns how to do his miracles in the privacy before god before he does it in front of his enemies because if it doesn't work in the glory it ain't gonna work in your life [Music] can i go deeper with this now he's leading the people but he's leading them like their sheep the sheep have one shepherd and a stranger's voice they will not follow so moses is leading the children of israel and all roads lead to him all decisions come to him all responsibilities come to him and jethro comes down to visit him and when jethro comes down to visit him the bible says that jethro just sat back and watched him all day long this is one generation watching another generation he watched him all day long and moses did nothing all day but hear the grievances of the people who had road rage she took my this she's using my tent he stole my wife they went off with my kid this one took my dog this one took my cat and at the end of the day moses was exhausted moses was exhausted and when he when his father-in-law looked at him and he said you're not doing it right the journey is too great for you to do with the procedure you have in place you got a sheet procedure in a national opportunity and i love education i believe in education i think education is real important but if there is one weakness in education one of it is is that education doesn't prepare you for protocol and application so you have the facts to get the job but you don't know how to talk in the office so the moment you get angry in the office you go back to your hood girl routine i i tell you what because [Music] [Applause] you got a master's degree but behind the master's degree you still boo-boo and if they wake up boo boo it's gonna be hell up in this office i'm not going to hr i'm not found a grievance i'm going to kick this chair back and you and me you want some of this and now you get disqualified for something you've been training six years for you've got the education to do it but not the discipline to function in it y'all ain't gonna talk to me but i know i'm talking good i know i'm talking good i could call some names of people that i know that are qualified but got disqualified because they have road rage and anytime they get on the road the rage comes out [Applause] am i talking to anybody and then god says to him you can't be a one-man band like you were with the sheep cause these are people they're gonna have all kind of problems they can talk the anything that can talk is gonna give you some trouble that's why a dog is a man's best friend i don't care what you say to me a dog i don't know if it's true about women but a dog is a man's best friend cause a dog will lick you like you and never say nothing everybody else got a mouth gonna talk [Applause] if you want a friend you can trust get a dog everybody else is suspect [Applause] right that's all i want you to be able to say well [Applause] and be happy to see me when i come home jump up on my chest and try to lick me in the face that's all that's all i'll feed you and walk you and take you to the vet we got a deal [Applause] never seen a dog betray its owner they're not judgmental they're not self-righteous they don't break covenant they don't tell lies i love them everybody else i watch with one eye squid because people change in uncertainty so then god says to him something i'm gonna make a quick illustration uh uh is don nearby i want don to come i want frank to come i want hattie to come right quick and just stand right up on stage here for a minute oh yeah since the sudden she's not sister hill anymore got to keep up with this and honey you come and stand and y'all stand in front of me straight across facing the people now yeah just straight across like hattie's doing just stand right there now my wife runs the women's department frank is my ceo over the polish house don is executive director of security and safety here at departed house hattie hill is the president of td jake's foundation i didn't bet you let me pet you everybody i pat it everybody i pat it i put paint on every one of these people is worried about something that i would have to worry about if they didn't so what i'm teaching you is that as the vision gets bigger you need weight distribution weight distribution is worry alignment that means i gave her something to worry about i gave him something to worry about i gave him something to worry about i gave her something to worry about all of it would be my worry but now they share the worry who is sharing your worry [Applause] or do you keep on taking on more and more and more and got less weight distribution so all of a sudden he's worried about what i don't have to be worried about and if he ain't worried about it i'm worried about him okay i got in a stab meeting and flipped completely out and i said i'm angry because you are not because if you would have been angry i wouldn't have got to be angry you'd have fixed it before it got to me so this though it looks like uh titles and position and power it's really weight distribution because the journey is too great and the meetings are too many and the demands are too massive for me to be all of them [Music] now there are more that i can call up here this is just an example who is sharing the weight who is sharing the weight if you don't get weight distribution you are going to burn up not because it wasn't yours but because you have not learned how to let go and distribute weight and you know why you don't distribute weight because you got control issues and as long as you got control issues you got growth limitations this is why you need to be at the leadership conference because the concepts that i'm teaching here are many of the concepts that i'm going to elaborate on there i'm telling you just because you don't have the money for it just because you don't have the time for it and just because you feel overwhelmed doesn't mean that god didn't give it to you god gave it to you but you've got to build weight distribution before you can have land acquisition that's okay you can't take over new territories by yourself can i go just a tiny bit deeper i don't have to meet with anybody they meet with i just have to meet with them yes sir if i meet with them come on come here oscar is oscar here he went out he went out where'd he go [Applause] that's a problem anytime i can't get weight distribution i can't get alignment i got all of them standing in alignment none of them duplicate each other's roles every one of them must stay in their lane or it doesn't work watch this moses took the weight that was on him and distributed it out to 70 million yes sir it took 70 men to handle his vision but it was still his vision i'm trying to show you how to increase yes you got to increase by multiplying yourself and create diversity and still not compromise unity i cannot have these four which really it's about 15 or more on my executive leadership team i cannot have these four fighting like children i can't have them disagreeing yeah i want them to disagree i want them to debate i want her to fight for the foundation like there ain't nothing else that matters and i want him to turn to her and tell her wait a minute yeah the potter's house has something in this too yes and then i want him to say you can raise all the resources you need but if we all get shot in here it's going to be a problem and then i want her to say you don't have no women on the program [Applause] everybody has an area of rule equal but divided it i want you to get this let me let me show it to you two ways when jesus cast the demons out of the legion yeah all the demons that was in this one man went into a herd of pigs it took a herd of pigs to handle the demons that were on one man it took 70 elders before moses got relief [Music] good people are my vacation baby baby this is hawaii there's no need in sending me to hawaii if all i get to do is worry in a new place [Applause] the more you lift the weight the more i get relief thank you very much just an illustration so moses learned that we all know you married to her you have to come over here and use my message today then he said that i'mma claim my own woman give god a praise for brother and sister son so write this down who's on my team and how much weight do they carry cause a lot of people on your team are creating weight not relieving weight i gotta go i gotta go i gotta stop i gotta i gotta move from learning because i gotta touch on legacy so so i talked about leadership and talked about learning i talked about let me talk just a minute about legacy i sat down with dr the late dr casey price first time i'd ever set out to talk to him i went out to interview him yeah and there were two things that were big takeaways for me from sitting down to talk to him he said to me he said everybody says they call to preach and i say preach what he said because preach is too broad of a category to build a calling around he says my assignment was to preach faith and i was faithful to my assignment god called me to teach faith to his people so he had a clear sense of who he was okay and when i got to talk to him what fascinated me about him though we are completely different in a lot of ways uh what fascinated me about him that caused him to stomp his foot and the whole world shook you can't go to a part of the world and say frederick casey price and nobody knows who you're talking about like him or not that has nothing to do with it what i'm telling you he boom and the world show [Music] if you want to be a world shaker you got to talk to world shakers he said i had a keen sense of what i was called to do do you have a keen sense of what you were called to do [Applause] then i said to him is there anything that you did that if you had to do over again you wouldn't do it he said i wouldn't i wouldn't have built the dome he said god permitted me to build it but he never directed me to build it is is there a difference yes there is a big difference between god permitting you to do something and directing you to do it are you doing it because you're permitted to do it or you're called to do it let me go a little further things i have learned this is not fred this is me i have learned that provision follows vision doesn't follow need it doesn't follow hunger it doesn't follow emotions provision follows vision do you not know if you got enough vision you can walk in the bank with a seven year plan and get millions of dollars on some you ain't even done yet [Music] if the vision is strong enough the provision will overtake you do y'all hear what i'm saying if your vision is strong enough billionaires will invest into it they will not invest into it because you want money i had seven billionaires sitting at the table don't mean nothing they won't invest in it because you want it if you lay out a vision in a construct that they can receive then they will invest according to your vision write it make it plain let him that read it that run thereby you have to have a clear vision for my money i can't give my money to something that don't have no eyes i can't invest in a blind man i can only invest in somebody who sees something that i agree with who y'all got quiet people not gonna give you money because i knew i needed cause i just had another baby you had that baby i ain't got nothing to do with you having that baby that don't have nothing to do with why i should pay you more because you had sex and i had a baby i wouldn't there your need does not constitute my supply y'all don't want to hear this because you want people to feel sorry for you and relieve your suffering that's not how the world works people invest for return and if you don't have a vision beyond what you want that doesn't include what i want why should i put money into what you want you don't do that you know that you only loaned money to your cousin freddy twice he never paid you back at all so when his number comes up on the ringtone you act like you got your phone plugged up because cousin freddie has taught you that he is a poor investment so don't be looking at me all funny while i'm trying to tell you people don't invest in blindness second thing i've learned the only people that leave you are those who don't share your vision everybody who left me couldn't stay and everyone who stayed couldn't leave [Applause] if people can leave you let them paul said they came out from us because they were not of us for had they been of us no doubt they would have continued with us sometimes people leaving you as a favor y'all ain't gonna talk to me sometimes people leaving you is a blessing and you cry and you hurt and you have emotion but go ahead when you get through crying you're gonna be better because if you can make it without me surely i have an obligation to show you i can make it with you okay i'm okay too you feel good without me i got to feel good without you all i got to do and let you mentor me because if you can make it without me i can make it without you i'm not going to be the only one walking around crying and running in the walls while you're going out to the club [Music] [Applause] i'm gonna get my jenny craig on hey hey yeah yeah i'm getting like jenny gregor get myself together [Applause] god does not want you weeping around the tomb of who left while you neglect who stayed need to reward people for loyalty but what happens to us is we are so grieved about who left that we are not taken care of who stayed and the victory becomes changing the mind of somebody who didn't have your mind in the first place [Applause] [Music] final point and i'm almost done you can't get there if you don't pivot you can't get there if you don't pivot i don't know why i'm teaching this to you this is the stuff we do at leadership conference i don't know why i'm teaching you can't get there if you don't pivot now i'm gonna wrap this up cause i talked about the rage of the people okay i talked about what leadership is i talked about what learning is i want to talk about what legacy is because this is the one place where moses blows it this is the one place where moses blows it the first time god said smite the rock he hit the rock and the water came out and god was pleased because he obeyed by the second time the people's road rage had gotten so bad that moses got mad every other time the people railed against him he prayed and he was okay but they triggered his old demon he had always had an anger problem remember when he saw the hebrew and the egyptian fighting and moses looked out the window and got mad and went out there and had never been a warrior and murdered the egyptian him having anger is what caused him to go to the desert in the first place but all the while he was suppressing his rage all the while they had road rage he was suppressing his rage have you ever had somebody honk their horn and cuss at you and you suppress your rage because it wasn't that you couldn't think of nothing to say back but you was just saved that day y'all ain't gonna be real with me where are my real people at make some noise you saved on tuesday and you just went on and said bless him jesus [Applause] glory to god hallelujah cause you had your prayer light that morning and you was ready for and you were but if they caught you on thursday and that that i climbed out of my car stood up through the rooftop went berserk on this guy and then thought you can't do this you're a preacher i climbed back down in the car looked around to see if any of y'all was around i had flipped out i don't even know what i said but he's saying something to me that made me forget 40-something years of ministry and i forgot i was bishop he was talking to thomas and thomas flipped out on him i stood up in my sports car with the hood off of it standing up talking about you want some of this and i looked around i didn't see none of y'all at ease right now in the car and said praise the lord don't make me go off in here don't make me flip out of here i forgot who i was i forgot my name i forgot my address i forgot my calling i couldn't think of my social security number i flipped out on him i said 12 things before i came to myself and said oh departure's house i looked around i was so glad i didn't see none of y'all and i hope none of y'all saw me and i ain't saying nothing about what i said because i can't be sure what i said i flipped the core i flipped down i had a moment of temporary and saturday he called me out my name and i wanted to tell him i can talk too the rage is contagious the race that has been on them has now gotten to him it has triggered what he has been suppressing and now when they rev up against him and they start talking to him and saying we're thirsty i know he wanted to say so and i you think i don't have a mouth if you ain't drinking that i ain't either you think i'm not human this is my problem do i make water so god says to him watch this closely this is my clothes god said to him speak to the rock that they may drink but moses listened to them and made a decision in rage note to all leaders never decide why you're mad he made a decision in range and the bible says that he smote the rock twice and when he smoked the rock the water still flow in spite of you don't hear that did you hear what i just said the water still flowed in spite of his disobedience just because your water's flowing doesn't mean you're living right moses did it all wrong and the water still flowed but as they were drinking because of his road rage combined with their outrage god said to him you will not see the promised land because you disobeyed me i'm gonna tell you why and i'll leave my teaching with this the reason that god told him to smite the rock the first time is because the rock in the old testament is a type of christ who was smitten for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement of his peace was upon him and by his stripes we were healed but he was only supposed to be smitten once when god told him that when he told god they need water he said don't hit it again cause you're gonna break the type [Applause] speak to the rock because once the rock has been smitten once whenever you need water he will never have to go through what he went through the first time because one smite did it all whenever you need healing whenever you need deliverance whenever you need a breakthrough you'll never have to go through this again no man took his life he laid it down and if he laid it down he will pick it back up again and now he ever liveth to make intercession for us he'll never have to go back to the cross again and when moses hit the rock twice he didn't know it but he lied on jesus he act like once was not enough and god wanted us to know i got it all done with the first blow so that all of your needs can be supplied according to his riches in glory but because moses got road rage he broke the shadow and lost his ticket to the promised land so he led them to a place that he never got to go himself because he never got rid of his rage what are you angry about how can you let your anger forfeit your prophecy your anger is about to terminate god's plan for your life i plan for you to go to the promised land but if you don't get a grip on your anger you're going to lose your calling who am i talking to every time you get mad every time you get angry you get yourself in trouble the last time you got hot you blew up and delayed your prophecy by 40 years and you spent 40 years in a wilderness you didn't have to go through because you lost your temper and took matters into your own hand i thought you learned by your 40-year imprisonment not to make a decision in the heat of your anger and here you go again and because you did it again not only did you mess up my shadow you shorten your destiny [Music] so god took moses up into the mountaintop never to be seen again and guess what all the people who had been murmuring against him started crying and they cried 30 days for the man they didn't appreciate when they had him they cried 30 days when they lost him the praises of people are fickle [Applause] today they say hosanna tomorrow they say crucify and if you live to please him you will die frustrated moses you know what's killing you dude it's not that you're not on the road is nothing wrong with your car is that you have road rage and you've never gotten rid of it i understand why you got it you didn't grow up in your mama's house you grew up with strangers god only knows what happened to you in pharaoh's house and you are still angry and that anger has polluted your marriages [Music] your jobs your interactions with your own children because you have rage that rage murdered a man that i had a plan for that rage delayed your destiny 40 years you could have spoke to pharaoh from in inside his house i had to take you out of it and bring you back to it 40 years later because you are an angry man and you're angry about things that won't change i know how important it was to you for the children of israel to love you because then you would have a people and i know how you have never had a people you were too egyptian to fit in with them and to hebrew to be one of us and because you are a leader you have always been a misfit and i know it has caused you pain to be unorthodox but that's who i call to be leaders is misfits great leaders are always weird if they would have fit they would have fit they found themselves by not fitting god called them to him and he never let them fit in if you would have been comfortable with the slaves you would have thought like them if you would have thought like them you couldn't lead them if you would have been comfortable with egypt you would have forfeited your destiny i meant for you to be thrown out of everything you were thrown out of so that as they threw you out you would find you out and the very thing that makes you dysfunctional is the same thing that makes you functional your misalignment with men is what made you eligible to be in alignment with me and other prophets have i spoke to through dreams and visions but of my servant moses will i speak face to face when you lost them you got me i was their replacement i was your father i was your mother i was your best friend i played with you i trained you i watched over you i looked out for you i exposed you to different cultures and different kinds i educated you i gave you the opportunity the reason you can write in the egyptian language is because i expose you to things you would have never gotten in your mama's house why do you keep weeping for that which i've rejected you've been an angry man all of your life and everything you lost your temper took it from you and this is not gender specific there are as many angry women as there are angry men and you cannot enjoy today because you're still angry about yesterday and i am calling it road rage road rage is any rage that is triggered by the journey if you have something that triggers you on your journey you have road rage and if you don't deal with your road rage you're gonna cancel out your opportunities [Applause] road rage will make you climb out of a car and not thinking run back and snatch somebody through a window not thinking whether they have a gun or not road range makes you make dumb decisions how many decisions have you made out of road rage [Applause] sometimes you're angry with people who aren't even here anymore [Applause] three things leading learning and legacy moses messed up his legacy in a moment of rage he forfeited the destination i went to mount nebo and stood on top of it he was so close to the province land i mean you can see it clearly from the top of mount nebo you can see the greenery the desert is over here and the greenery is over here the shepherds were grazing in the field when i was here i could see the shepherds grazing in the field i could see the work going on and the vineyards that were going on all around the jordan on one side it's all sand and on the other side it's all life and from mount libo you can see for miles moses got to see it but he never got to be it because he had road rage i speak to every one of you that are watching me all over the world that rage undealt with is going to kill you it will not kill the person you're mad at it will kill you you drank the poison and now you're waiting on them to die until you release that rage you will forfeit your opportunity from having the favor influence leadership that god has allocated for you your eyes have not seen your ears have not heard neither have it into your heart what god has for you if you will let go of that road rage moses story ends less than what it should have been his feet should have walked into the promised land but his anger knocked it out stand to your feet everyone the message that lies before you is road rage you can be entertained by it you can be educated by it or you can be changed by it i pick change question number one strip down take your church face off take your titles and all your degrees and throw them in the trash what are you angry about and what are you going to do about the anger satan planet to steal your legacy from you you blame people you give yourself permission to be crazy you blame everybody for everything that went wrong until you take responsibility there will be no change road rage [Music] before you wreck god wants to deliver you from suppressed rage do i have anger absolutely do i carry it absolutely not i will let you have it in real time speed cause i can't sleep angry i can't think angry i can't be creative angry if i'm wrong you're gonna get a chance to tell me i'm wrong but i will confront you because i will not suppress what i'm feeling lest i pollute where i'm going [Music] you

Channel: T.D. Jakes

Views: 1,066,391

Keywords: td jakes, faith, wtal, woman thou are loosed, megafest, potters house, bishop jakes, pastors and leadership, pastors, leaders, instinctbishops, village, is god with me, how to face uncertainty

Id: sHIqDzKinfY

Length: 102min 53sec (6173 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 30 2022