The Bumpy Road To Better - Bishop T.D. Jakes

[Music] but it's ministry time as we turn our attention and our hearts to the word of the lord uh i won't be pretentious i was inspired i was watching something that really uh got my attention and it drove me to the 42nd chapter of the book of genesis and i just started reading uh and decided to share with you i almost didn't title it at all i just wanted to go through the entire chapter and i'm going to move as quickly as i can but if i don't get finished i'll come back wednesday night and do it i'm going to talk the bumpy road to better the bumpy road to better a lot of people teach about better as if it were magic as if it would happen simply or easily you could come up for prayer and somebody could anoint you with oil or lay hands on you and convey their spirit upon you without going through the process that they went through but in reality it's not that simple as i've traveled around the world and many other times that i've had people come up and say i want a double portion of your spirit and i say do you want a double portion of my trouble because you can't get a double portion of my spirit until you can stand a double portion of my trouble that was the problem with elijah's request he was asking for a simple solution to a journey long-term issue that elijah said if you can take this journey and see me when i'm taken up i'll give you the double portion but i can't give a double portion to somebody that's not going to walk this thing out say man somebody so we're going tonight uh last sunday i was talking to you about the patriarchs and the role that they played in the foundation of uh the judaistic understanding of faith and the jehovah's understanding of faith the hebrew understanding of faith itself is built upon abraham isaac and jacob i talk quite a bit about isaac as he is often underserved and tonight we're going to talk about jacob jacob and his family and we're going to talk about it in the 42nd chapter of the book of genesis uh you need not stand because we've got too many verses to read you'll be standing a long long time but when you have it say amen look at somebody and say the bumpy road to better now i'm going to reach straight through it and then i'm going to come apart back and pick it apart i want to pay particularly a close attention uh to certain aspects of it and we'll go back to the top after i read the whole chapter now when jacob saw that there was no corn in egypt jacob said unto his sons why do you look one upon another and he said behold i have heard that there is corn in egypt get you down dither and buy for us from thence that we may live and not die and joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn in egypt what did they go for they went to buy corn in egypt they were going to buy it but benjamin joseph's brother jacob sent not with his brethren the old man didn't send benjamin for he said lest for adventure mischief befall him and the sons of israel came to buy corn among those that came for the famine was in the land of canaan and joseph was the governor over the land and he it was that sold to all the people of the land and joseph's brethren came and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth oh it's getting prophetic now and joseph saw his brethren and he knew them but made himself strange unto them and spake roughly unto them and he said unto them whence come ye and they said from the land of canaan to buy food and joseph knew his brethren but they knew him not and joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them and said unto them ye are spies to see the nakedness of the land yet come and they said unto him they my lord but to buy food are thy servants come we are all one man's sons we are true men thy servants are no spies let's go back to this uh and and take it from the top uh i'm kind of confused because i think there's a little bit more to that i wanted did we get to the end of the chapter i don't think we got to the end of the chapter so let's let's let's go on down uh and he said unto them name but to see the nakedness of the land here come i'll pick up there keep going verse 13 and they said thy servants are twelve brethren the sons of one man in the land of canaan and behold the youngest is this day with our father and one is not yeah they didn't know they were standing in front of him but one is not and joseph said unto them that is it that i speak unto you ye are spies hereby ye shall be proved by the life of pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence except your youngest brother come bitter send one of you and let him fetch your brother and ye shall be kept in prison that your words may be proved whether there be any truth in you or else by the life of pharaoh surely ye are spies and he put them all together into ward three days locked them up in prison and joseph said unto them the third day the third day this do and live for i fear god if ye be true men let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison go ye carry corn for the famine of your houses but bring your youngest brother unto me so shall your words be verified and ye shall not die and they did so and they said one to another we are verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul when we be when he besought us and we would not hear therefore is this distress come upon us in other words we're getting what we deserve because of the evil we had done when we were younger and reuben answered them saying spake i not unto you saying do not sin against the child and ye would not hear therefore behold also his blood is required and they knew not that joseph understood them for he spake unto them by an interpreter yeah and he turned himself and he turned himself about from them and wept and returned to them again and communed with them and took from them simeon and bound him before their eyes then joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn and to restore every man's money into his sack and to give them provisions for the way and thus did he unto them and they laid it their asses with the corn and departed thence and as one of them opened his sack to give his ass prevender in the end he spied his money for behold it was in his sacks mouth and he said unto his brethren my money is restored and lo it is even in my sight and their hearts failed him and they were afraid saying one to another what is this that god hath done unto us they had gone to buy and they had got what they bought but they also got their money back which means it could have looked like they stole it and they were afraid that this might be an international crisis between between egypt and israel and they came unto jacob their father unto the land of canaan for it had not yet been called israel the land had not and told him all that befell unto them saying the man who is the lord of the land spake roughly to us and took us for spies of the country and we said unto him we are true men we are no spies we be twelve brethren sons of our father one is not and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of canaan and the man and the man the lord of the country said unto us hereby shall i know that ye are true men leave one of your brethren here with me and take for food for the famine of your households and be gone and bring your youngest brother unto me then shall i know that ye are no spies but that ye are true men so will i deliver you your brother and ye shall traffic in the land and it came to pass and it came to pass and it came to pass as they emptied their sacks that behold every man's bundle of money was in his sacks and when both they and their fathers saw the bundles of money they were afraid and jacob their father said unto them me have ye bereaved of my children now i want you to listen closely at what jacob says jacob says me have ye bereaved bereavement grieved of my children joseph is not he's already dead and simeon is not you left him in egypt and ye will take benjamin away all these things are against me and we would spake unto his father saying slay my two sons if i bring him not to thee deliver him into my hand and i will bring him to thee again and he said my son shall not go down with you for his brother is dead and he is left alone if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave the bumpy road to better now we are entering into this text at a time in jacob's life that this is not a comprehensive discussion of jacob because we are introduced to jacob in the womb of his mother he is struggling in the womb of his mother we watch him as he grows as a boy and and cheats esau out of his birthright we watch him mature into a young man and on a mountain called pineal wrestles with god we watch jacob find a place called bethel the house of god and then later come back and call it el bethel the god of the house and we watch him grow but he is now an old man his sons have grown to manhood they have had a family that has withstood much sorrow they have had tests and trials along the way jacob has married the love of his life and he has also been married to leah leah was the way he was tricked by laban and he has birthed children by both leah and rachel and a concubine and he has 12 sons he is he has lost those women they are gone he has lost rachel the love of his life he has lost joseph they have brought back the bloody coats of cnn from the coat of many colors that he has made for his beloved son and he has lost him you don't get old without having suffered loss yeah you you every year brings some sort of challenge with it uh there is a certain sobriety that comes upon you with age because as you go along the way you you gain some things and you lose some things you win some battles and you lose some battles and wisdom develops in the life of those who have capitalized on their pain to draw conclusions and young people are amazed at your wisdom but if you keep living if you keep living wisdom will teach you a few things it will it will speak to you about some things it will it will cost you to understand some things now jacob is an old man and if what is left of his family he has managed to hold them together and they still respect him though they are grown men with children themselves and when we enter into the text here series of famine in the land and jacob has told his sons you will not defeat the famine looking at each other did you hear what i'm saying watch how jacob handles the famine because my my first point is the famine and until you can deal with the famine you will never get to better because the famine is a part of your journey how you react to the famine determines whether you make it to the food you you you've got to be aggressive you can't just pray against the famine you've got to do something jacob says you can't just pray against it you can't just look at each other you can't stay in the same spot and do the same things that you've always done and expect to get a different result because we're in a famine and you've got to take action and we don't understand that today we don't understand the human requirement in the miracles of god as much as we have read about the miracles of god we walk away with praise to god but absolve ourselves of human responsibility as if god were going to act outside of human effort when god has created us to be collaborative in the miraculous oh i'm talking already he wants us to be collaborative in the miraculous that we have a responsibility to take action and to be aggressive about resolving issues just because you're spiritual doesn't mean you get to pray for a job and stay at home i'm just going to pray if the lord wants me to have the job he'll give me a job i'm just gonna watch tv and hit the remote control and believe god for better you'll you'll never get to better if you don't get on the road you gotta you gotta you gotta get on the road in the middle of famine they're traveling in the middle of a famine now traveling is not fun anytime but traveling in the middle of a famine is a very difficult time because the famine is so severe that jacob says if you don't move you're going to die now i don't know who i'm talking to tonight but there are some pressures that come so strong that if you don't move you're going to die how could you let me die and i'm a child of god you didn't move i told you to move and when god tells you to move you got to move and don't act like god has failed you when you have failed to move [Applause] when god says move you have to take action whether you're the prodigal son who came to himself but he still had to go home or whether you're the woman with the issue of blood who believed that jesus could heal her but she still had to crawl or whether you're blind by the man standing by the highway side begging he still had to come out of his coat and go toward jesus there is a human responsibility in spite of the famine so you gotta move in the middle of a famine in the middle of a need in the middle of a storm in the middle of a crisis and he sends his voice to go from canaan to egypt because jacob heard where there was food don't hate on people who have even when you don't have because he didn't hate on egypt he said i'm going to egypt see we sit back and hate on people as if them having is our demise when it's not them having that is our enemy it's us not moving that is our enemy and the bible says that though they didn't have any corn they had money uh yeah and people don't quote it too much but the bible also it says that money is the answer to all things it's the answer to all things if it's a thing money can buy it there are there are some issues that cannot be resolved by things but money answereth all things so jacob told the boys he gave them some money and said go down to egypt and don't go down there begging we came down here to do business yeah yeah we're spiritual people but we know how to do business uh we praised jehovah but we still know how to do business oh y'all not saying nothing to me tonight see you the church has failed its parishioners because we have been real heavy on the praise and real light on the business so we told them to praise your way out and dance your way out and spin around three times and you're going to come out and sow a seed and you're going to get out but we don't tell them that you've got that the blessings are transactional that there's a business element required in it and we got to go back and lay some foundation to understand that jacob does not go down to egypt to beg he goes down there to do business and he sends his sons down there to do business but wait a minute you you have to realize as we begin to talk about the famine we have to understand that the famine is so severe that it pushes them to egypt now the second thing i want you to see about the famine is that god will use a famine to move you it doesn't have to be a fairman for food it can be a famine for love it can be a famine for peace but in everybody's life listening at me whether online or in the room you have experienced some kind of famine the famine of fatherhood the famine of family the famine of a mother's affection the famine of a good job the famine of a nice house all of us have our famines you might not be able to see it because we might dress nice and and spray cologne over top of it but all of us live with some level of famine in our lives famine makes you pray and famine makes you seek god and famine makes you cry out and famine will make you move and oftentimes god will use famine as an instrument to force you out of your comfort zone it is more comfortable to stay in canaan but the famine will drive you out it'll make you move it'll make you get outside of your comfort zone it'll make you travel it'll put you on the road somebody say i'm on the road i'm not on the road for a field trip i'm not on the road joy riding i'm on the road to better i'm on the road to better there's something i'm after there's something i want to see done in my lifetime and i'm tired of sitting around assessing the same old troubles and crying about the same old problems and going through the same old things i'm tired of complaining one to another back and forth oh ain't it bad yeah child it's real bad it's so bad i got to move from here deliver me from people who will not take action in the famine and god says action is required on you you got to get on the road and that's anytime you can't rebuke it with a prayer anytime you plead the blood and it doesn't go away any time you call on god and it still stays there then god is using the famine as an instrument to move you from one place to the other if it was the devil i could rebuke it if it were demonic warfare i could overcome it but when god sends a famine to make you move it is something in his providence that cannot be performed where you are and you've got to move in order to get it and god knows that some of us won't move if we're too comfortable now y'all aren't going to talk to me tonight and so god uses the famine to force them to move and they go down to egypt to do business now it is interesting to note that though there is a famine in canaan there is also a famine in this family so my second point deals with the family you have to understand that this text brings out subtly ever so subtly in the text that i want to point it out to you first thing that it tells us about jacob is that jacob sent his sons down to egypt to buy but then it mentions that he did not send benjamin lest he fall into mischief and this is just a hidden subtle reminder that that jacob doesn't totally trust his own sons now where did this this distrust come up in the culture of this family this distrust comes up into the culture of the family and you can act like you don't know what i'm talking about but all of us have different little things that we know about our family that that when when cousins so and so comes over you kind of look at them out the corner of your eye because because you've been through some things where you've learned some things and this culture has risen up in the family that the family is not fruitful and the canaan is not fruitful and there is not the comfortable loving environment of trust that would cost the family to be a nurturing place because jacob remembers what happened to joseph last time jacob sent one of his sons out with the rest of the sons he turned up missing and there's a residue of distrust in the old man with his sons and he says i'm going to keep benjamin now the reason he's holding on to benjamin and he let the rest of them go is that joseph and benjamin were born to him by rachel and rachel was the love of his life and the reason he's holding on to benjamin is because that's all he's got left of rachel and he says if i lose benjamin i lose all i have left of the best days in my life and sometimes we hold on to things because we've been through so much pain that we become possessive oh y'all don't hear what i'm saying there's a reason you hold on to what you hold on whether it's money or people or things there's a reason you hold on to there's a reason that certain things make you mad there's a reason that you overreact in certain ways there's a reason that if we hit certain pulse points you respond differently than other people because until you understand what i've been through back here you won't understand why i'm holding on to this right here what do you hold on to because of what you've been through what do you hold on to because of what you've been through for jacob the old man is holding on to the last smell of rachel [Music] when he holds benjamin it's the last reminder of a happier moment in his life and he is so afraid of losing benjamin because rachel the barren woman has birth two sons unto him and one of them jacob thinks is dead and benjamin is all he got left any time you think this is all you got left you will hold on real tight [Applause] whether it is true or not you will hold on real tight if you think that this is the last person that will ever love you you will take stuff that you wouldn't normally take you will go through things you would normally go through and your girlfriends will tell you if i was you i wouldn't take that and your mama told you you need to get away from there but you keep holding on to it because you've been hurt before and anytime you've been hurt before you hold on to something when you think you won't get any more i wonder tonight how many people are holding on to some sort of benjamin in your life holding on to it out of fear not out of love he's not clutching him out of love he's clutching him out of fear be careful what fear will make you do fear will convince you that this is your last chance your last opportunity your last moment of love your last tastes and fragrance of life fear will make you respond in this this uh disoriented ways fear will cause you to react in a way that other people don't understand and it is the first hint that the family is dysfunctional so while we have a famine on the outside there is a degree of famine on the inside it has affected the culture of the family because there are certain incidents that once they happen in the family it changes the trajectory of the entire family i wonder if there's anybody in here who understands the words that are coming out of my mouth there are certain incidents that once they happen in the family they keep coming up again you say you forgave me but you keep bringing it up again you say it's over but you keep bringing it up again you say you're not gonna say no but you even told the kids about it you said you weren't gonna do anything about it and it comes up in the way you look at me and it comes up at the dinner table whenever you get mad you reach back and get it because it has changed that the family has been through such a traumatic crisis that it has affected the culture of the family itself and even though they are still together they are not together have you ever been together but not been together have you ever been with somebody but still not quite with them have you ever been with somebody you had to watch oh y'all not going to talk to me tonight see see see the old man has got his eye on him and the neighbors it looks good to the people across the street it looks good but if you get in the house and you start looking real close you will see some residue from what happened to joseph all of those years ago when they threw joseph in the pit and they came home with his bloody coat his coat of many colors and laid it out before jacob had told him that joseph was dead as a father i would rather cut off my leg than lose my child losing a child is a painful thing to do he'd lost a child he loved he lost rachel's baby and it broke him and benjamin is all he has left now he gives his sons his ten sons because joseph in jacob's mind is dead and he's holding benjamin back in case he doesn't have anything left he says you won't get this and he sends his 10 sons down there to transact business to buy corn now when they get down there to buy corn they have a conversation with joseph now joseph's name means he will add he will add and so when they named him they said joseph he will add it's almost prophetic because jacob has joseph has arisen for their posterity there are certain people that rise up out of a group of people that are meant to be exceptionally blessed that through them the blessing will add to other people that's why you shouldn't hate on people because you might be hating on somebody that god is going to use to bless you y'all don't hear what i'm saying yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they they hated on joseph but they did not know that joseph was blessed for them there is a greater responsibility to him whom much is given much is required and jacob has been blessed for joseph has been blessed for them but they hated him and they they almost murdered him they almost murdered him they almost murdered him but instead they threw him in a pit and let him be sold into slavery because joseph is also a type of christ who is rejected of his own brethren who goes into a pit and rises up out of a pit like christ who was sold for 20 pieces of silver and christ was sold for 30 pieces of silver joseph is an old testament shadow of jesus christ are you following what i'm teaching now now i'm going to work this text are you going to work with me now joseph means he will add but joseph jacob has joseph has gone through so much in his life he's been in the pit he's been in potiphar's house he's been in the prison and finally his gift his gift was bigger than his environment everything they put him in he got out of it somebody excited i'm gifted right on the line i'm gifted you got to be careful how you handle people that are gifted because when somebody's gifted i don't care what kind of pit you put them in they'll get out of it i don't care what kind of lie you tell on them they'll get out of them i don't care what kind of prison you put it in they'll get out of it i want to talk to some people that have gotten out of some stuff that people put you in and thought you'd never get out of it but because of the level of the gift that's down inside of you i don't care how deep the pit was sooner or later god would get you out of it i don't care how the eyes that have been told on you pretty soon god will get you out of it i don't care if they put you in prison after a while you'll be running the prison because you're gifted one thing you can do you can take my coat but you can't take my gift you can take my clothes but you can't take my gift here you can have my watch but you can't take my gift my gift is not in my watch my gift is not in my shoes my gift is not in my clothes my gift is not in my car this gift that i have the world didn't give it to the world can't take it away i want to talk to some gifted people tonight who knows that god has kissed you with a gift that no matter what health threw at you you kept getting back up again because you were gifted take 30 seconds and give him a praise for the gift the bible says that your gift will bring you before great men so your gift will bring you into places that that you could have never been able to access if you didn't have the gift that's why you ought to keep your gift any kind of gift i don't care what it is whether it's a speaking gift a teaching gift whether it's a gifted type a gift to write a gift to do anything a gift to draw i don't care what it is a gift to cook a gift to do makeup i don't care what god will use any gift he gave you to bring you into places you couldn't get anywhere that's why the devil tries to convince you that you don't have no gift but i came to tell you just cause your brothers hate you don't mean you lost your gift just because they stripped your clothes that mean you lost your gift just because they lied on you and you had to run out of your coat doesn't mean you don't have your gift just because you've been in prison doesn't mean you don't have your gift as long as you got your gift your gift will always bring you back up again no somebody tell them i'll be back yeah i'll be back you've not seen the last of me i'll be back i'll be back i don't care what you said about me i don't care how you said i was dead i'll be back because there's something down inside of me that i just find a way to keep getting back up again oh you don't hear the words that are coming out of my mouth the powerful words that are coming out of my mind they put him in the prison and they threw away the kill but he was still gifted in prison a gift in incarceration a gift in intimidation a gifted and embarrassing situation a gift that is stripped of royalty and majesty and honor and recognition but even in the bottom of the prison he's still gifted when you get this you're just gifted when you got it you just got it when you can do it oh let me stop somebody shout i'm gifted you gotta start talking to yourself in the right language and stop talking to yourself about what folks did to you and start talking to yourself about what god put in you because what god put in you will always overcome what people do to you shout i'm gifted oh yeah yeah we get we get too much recognition and too much of our tongue is spent talking about who threw us in the pit you need to use your tongue to validate your gift and look yourself in the mirror and encourage yourself in the lord and say i'm still gifted i've been through some pain but i'm still gifted i've buried some loved ones but i'm still gifted i've had some setbacks but i'm still gifted [Applause] when you're gifted sometimes you'll be gifted in a way that your situation hasn't caught up with your gift joseph was gifted as a child and he had a dream that one day his brothers were going to kneel before him and they laughed and they mocked him but let me tell you just because people laugh at your prophecy doesn't mean that it's not going to come to pass god will use a famine to make it come to pass god has sent a win to make it come to pass god has sent an earthquake to make it come to man don't worry about how high they are god will bring them down to their knees now joseph has come to a place in the prison that his gift brought him out before pharaoh and when he told pharaoh what what his dream was pharaoh renamed him zephaniah paneer zephaniah paneer is the egyptian name that is given to joseph zappanapaniya means one who discovers hidden things glory to god so his brothers don't come into the room looking for joseph they come and they're asking for zaphonal and they don't even recognize him because he is dressed up as a prince of egypt [Applause] won't god turn it around last time they saw him he was naked and bloody in the bottom of the pit and this time they see him he's dressed in majesty and honor and incidentally he's in charge of the corn in egypt and the harvest in egypt and the increase in egypt and they can't get anything till they go back to the one they cursed god is not unjust to forget your labor of love you don't have to get even with people god will make them bow down and have to come back and admit that they were wrong don't worry about it it may not happen today but sooner or later oh sooner or later god will bring them down to their new soda or later god will make them humble themselves and the brothers have come into the room and they run into zaphanov paneer and they don't know that it's joseph zappanov paneer is speaking to them in egyptian he's speaking to them in the egyptian language and so they are talking amongst themselves in hebrew and joseph doesn't let on that he understands what they are saying because sometimes you have to feign yourself a fool sometimes you can't let people know that you know what you know sometimes you can't act like you're as smart as you are sometimes you gotta act like you don't get it sometimes you see that's where you've been messing up every time you know something you gotta say something but sometimes you gotta know something and hold your peace zafina paneer held his peace and did not let on that he spoke hebrew and as they spoke amongst themselves they said watch this and this is important this is very important they were they were bowing down and they were having difficulty getting the corn that the whole man had sent them to buy and they were murmuring you know how brothers do they were arguing amongst themselves we brought this on ourselves i told you not to do anything to that boy look at how long these brothers have carried the pain of what they did they are in pain because they are guilty over what they did to joseph and they don't even know that this man is joseph and yet they are talking about joseph because they have never been able to escape this injury this trauma the the the the colloquy of their conversation has taken on a nature that lets you know that they are still reliving the guilt and the agony of what they went through this is important because we often talk about uh joseph as the victim but we don't talk about the pain of the perpetrator you need to hear this because the person who hurts you didn't get away clean y'all don't hear what i'm saying to you you think you're the only one that had any pain because you went in the pit but the one who threw you in the pit has to live with the guilt that you never did a thing to hurt them and god is too just to let them get away without suffering they may not have gone in a prison that you can see but these boys are in a prison as much as joseph has ever been because they have never been able to escape how in the world can you go to buy coin and bring up something that happened when you were children that means that one incident has been with them all their life they're still arguing about it in the palace and they said one to another we are verily guilty concerning our brother and that we saw the anguish of his soul when we when he besought us and we would not hear therefore is this distress come upon us this is the agony of the guilty this is why you can't carry the pain of what they did inside of you because the only reason for you to carry the pain is to think that they got away clean but this text teaches us that when there is trauma no one escapes its reach i wanted to sink real deep down in your soul because the holy spirit is talking to you about some real heavy stuff nobody got away clean there is no winner in this story joseph goes into a pit they go into a place of pain and both of them are living their lives still at the place where they did what they did like they did when they did it and all of your life you've been thinking that they got away clean but this text comes to teach us that the culture of the family has suffered tragically that these boys are sitting up having a conversation about something that has happened years ago and they are really they are living it in real time as if it were happening now you if you can receive this you can let that pain go i don't care what kind of car they're driving i don't care what kind of house they're living in they remember i don't care how how they live or drink or party or dance they remember some of the reasons that they get as drunk as they do and as high as they do is because they remember y'all ain't gonna help me you're not gonna help me but i know i'm on to something i know i'm on to something you you you have to understand that god is a just god he's an equalizer he will make sure the bible said vengeance is mine saith the lord i will repay you mess up when you try to get even if you just step back and let god get even god can get even better than you can and he and the scene opens up with the family and now the boys are on their knees down there and they're down on their knees in front of joseph and joseph can determine whether they live or die oh are you hearing what i'm saying to you let me tell you the tale is gonna become the head the last is gonna become first the stone that the builders rejected god is going to make the chief cornerstone type on the line it ain't over it ain't over it ain't over it ain't over it ain't over it ain't over i might be down right now but it ain't no way it ain't over don't count me out just yet it ain't over it ain't over god's gonna turn the whole thing all the way around that's why i want to bring this text to you tonight and they don't even recognize that joseph lives to see the reverse of the curse [Applause] in your lifetime you will see the reverse of the curse [Applause] do you hear me in your lifetime you will see the reverse of the curse i never will forgive my mother-in-law telling me about the young man that shot her son and how angry she was and how painful she was he killed it he killed it and she was angry and she had so much pain and so much hurt and as the years went on a few years went by and he got cancer and mother had to go to the hospital to see him and there he is eating up with cancer now when he shot her son he died instantly you don't understand the words that are coming out of my mouth but the one who shot him he died slowly and painfully and as he's dying he has to look into the eyes of the mother of the child that he had killed god is a just god [Applause] god is a just god god is so such a just god that you'll find yourself praying for the person you used to hate oh y'all not gonna talk to me you're not gonna talk to me but stay here with me y'all are not gonna talk to me you'll find yourself praying for the bible says that when job prayed for his friends god restored everything that he had lost when your heart becomes soft enough that god can trust you with power glory to god that you'll be merciful and not filled with hate and envy and strife you got to get your heart right because we got to change the culture in this family we gotta break it [Applause] god is using the family the famine to heal the family he is using the famine to heal the family and the ten boys have been brought to their knees and it is important that you understand that they are in the presence of their brother and they do not recognize him because their brother is a type of christ who came unto his own and his own received him not and they did not recognize that he was the messiah that they were waiting on are y'all following me can i can i teach like this can i go like this can can you handle this kind of teaching can i drop it on you can i drop it on you i'm gonna drop it like it's hot tonight i'm gonna drop it like it's hot tonight something's gonna happen in here tonight a yoke is going to break it here tonight a breakthrough is going to happen in here tonight everything happens for a reason and god is using what happened to jacob's family as a prophetic prediction of what he's going to do through jesus he's brought his enemies down to his knee and every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that jesus is lord to the glory of god glory to god oh glory to god oh glory to god you don't have to bring them to their knees god will bring them to their knees god will bring them down to their knees if your heart is soft enough that you won't be glad [Applause] can god trust your heart to be empty out enough that when he does bring them down you won't be glad see the reason that joseph got blessed in the first place is because of the pliability of his heart he never held a grudge later on he will tell them when he does reveal himself you meant it for evil but god made it good he he said don't worry about it brothers he he absolves them of their guilt because he said i made it anyway as soon as you figure out that you made it anyway then your hate will have nothing to hold on to [Applause] oh you don't understand in order for hate to grab your heart it needs something to hold on to and as long as you allow hate to grip your heart it means that some kind of way you believe what they did stopped you as soon as you get enough faith to believe i got there anyway then hate will lose its grip and have to turn you a loose he said don't worry about it you meant it for evil but it's okay god paid it god made it good god paid me for my suffering god paid me for my agony god paid me for the things i've been through everything you did to me god made it up to me i'm good it was good for me that i was afflicted had i not been afflicted i wouldn't be standing here all dressed up right now oh i'm glad you did it for me because had you not afflicted me i would be the one needing the corn and not giving the cord it's more blessed to give than any oh y'all don't hear what i'm saying [Applause] now the real love affair is between joseph and his father and joseph and benjamin so joseph leverages the power of his position because he has not seen benjamin his full-blooded brother or his father so he puts him in jail for three days and then says i tell you what in order to get free you have to bring benjamin back to me to prove that what you told me was true while in reality the truth of the matter is joseph was blessed watch this but he was in a famine for his family [Applause] he was blessed but he was in a famine for his family see when we preach about it we make his family the enemy but the truth of the matter is in spite of everything they did to him he still loved his family and he he is using his power to get them back oh you have to be a big person to receive this kind of message because everybody who lives on evil street can't get this message but there are some people in this room that know how you can love somebody who hurts you [Laughter] oh i wish i had some people in this room who had lived long enough to understand that you can be hurt and loved at the same time that you can lay somebody out and still feed them i'm gonna knock you upside in your head come on in here and get something to eat have you ever had those two contradictory things going on at the same time i want to talk to some real people tonight i want to keep it 100 tonight i want to keep it real tonight i want you to understand that that joseph creates this fallacy and he makes out that he thinks that they are spies [Music] even though he knows they are family he creates this fallacy that suggests that they are spies to force him to go back and bring his brother and he says i will not release you till you bring my brother so i'm holding simeon hostage see i'm holding him hostage as a down payment on your deliverance now the boys have gone back home to tell their father about the fallacy of what befalled them when they went to have a transactional relationship see the problem with this age is that all we know how to do is have transactional relationships if you give me this i'll give you that if you do this for me i'll do that for you and as long as you have transactional uh relationships those aren't real relationships and and they went up there to transactional to do a transactional relationship and some of you don't even know what i'm talking about because all you've ever seen was these swap shop relationships you don't do nothing for me i don't do nothing for you if you help me i'll help you if you give me this i'll give you that you don't know how to love beyond transaction but every now and then you got to test the love to see if it's just transactional do you love me as long as i put you in the house do you love me as long as i let you drive the car if i take the car will i lose you because transactional relationships do not last and they have gone up there to do a transaction but joseph hungers for relationship so when they gave joseph the money he told the servants give him the corn and the money that's a powerful man right there he said give him the coin and the money he was so good to them that it scared them he he was so good to them that they thought it was a trick he would see evil people always think evil until the pure all things appear but unto the evil all things are evil and they were suspicious that ain't no way he could have blessed us like this and so when they when they got down to feed uh the the the the oxen and the cattle and so forth they opened up the bag to get the corn and they ran into the money and the boy dropped the bag and it scared him so bad because he wasn't used to getting it all see in a transactional relationship you have to always earn everything but but in a real relationship i don't love you because you do this i just love you because i love you i did to love you if you don't do it i love you if you can't do it i love you if you got oxygen tank i love you if you're on a kidney machine i love you if you got one eye i love you if you you lose your lid so y'all don't know what i'm talking about that's why you've been married for a time but if you get to the point that you get beyond transactional all y'all don't hear swap it out pawn shop relationships and learn how to love people irregardless now you set yourself up for real power god don't give real power to people who are just transactional god doesn't give real authority to people who are just swapping out you come to my anniversary i'll come to your anniversary you give a hundred dollars i'll give a hundred dollars transactional relationship well we're just even the blessing comes when you bless somebody who has nothing to give you back [Applause] and you you got to study this because i want you to see why joseph was preferred because god could trust him god won't give favor to people he can't trust and god cannot trust people who are always transactional can i teach this thing tonight some of you all you've ever seen in your family in your friends in your church in your life and your business is transaction and that's all you know in the moment you meet somebody you got your scales out trying to see how you can get something and that's why you always end up miserable because you're not having a relationship you're doing business jacob gave him the corn joseph gave him the corn and the money and they come back and they tell jacob now they have to go back and tell jacob and i'm looking at it jacob is an old man and the older you get the more precious everything becomes and and jacob is holding on to benjamin and he's saying joseph is not and now simeon is not you ain't taking my benjamin i'm wondering what you're squeezing too tight what are you squeezing out of fear see jacob isn't squeezing benjamin out of faith he's squeezing him out of fear he's squeezing him like it's the last thing he's going to ever get you you you can't grow when you squeeze something like it's the last thing you're going to ever get even if it's squeezing money like it's the last you'll ever get then you have prophesied against yourself you have used faith in reverse fear is faith in reverse to have confidence that that thing that you don't want is going to happen to you he's holding the boy out of fear and god is manipulating all of these circumstances to bring this family back together he is wooing them back to a place so he can heal them and wouldn't it be better to be healed than to be mad and jacob says to him if i lose benjamin let me quote it just like he said and he said my son shall not go down with you for his brother is dead and he is left alone and if mischief befall him by the way see see how jacob is still in a place where he don't trust them they're his children and he don't trust him and he has good reason not to trust him he said you're not going to get him let's mischief befall him by the way in the which ego he says if i go through with benjamin what i went through with joseph your my gray hairs are going to turn into sorrow and bring me to the grave see you get to a point in life that you've reached at age that you can't take no more pain and he says i can't afford to live through this again and god is really behind it all trying to pry benjamin out of jacob's hands because what jacob doesn't understand yes the road's been bumpy and yes the road's been tough and yes the road's been difficult and yes you've shed some tears and yes you've endured some pain but it is the bumpy road to better it is bumpy road to better i don't i don't i know a lot of people that are doing better than me and have more stuff and more money and more recognition and more fame and more whatever you want to count it by than me but none of them that i know have got there without a bumpy road the road to better it's bumpy so if you're on a bumpy road i'm telling you you're headed to better [Applause] do you hear the words that are coming out of my mouth you can't get to better without bumping you can't get to better without pain you can't get to better without tears you can't be all buff if you don't work out you can't lose weight if you don't push the food away you can't get to better without bumping there is no pill you can take there is no simple solution it is the bumpiness of the road that leads you to better ultimately jacob will end up having to go to egypt and when when joseph sees his father [Music] [Applause] when when when joseph sees his father all of these years he's been living without the touch of his father and all of a sudden he reveals himself and he shows him who he is the bible says that one day those who rejected jesus are going to look on him whom they have pierced and a nation shall be saved in a day this day in the life of joseph is a prophetic prediction of what will happen between jesus and israel when all of a sudden they will look on him whom they have pierced and finally recognize he was the messiah he is the lamb of god he is the i am he is the true vine he is the living bread he is the manner that came down out of heaven he is it wasn't alive it wasn't a joke it wasn't a fallacy and the family will be reunited again and all of a sudden they beheld him whom they had thrown away and they fell down and said oh joseph and they now realize that joseph everything he went through was to position him to bless them are y'all hearing what i'm saying the reason god doesn't bless some people because you're selfish the reason god didn't bless some people is because you're only interested in you because you hate too long and you're too angry and you're too bitter to be trusted with that much power god blesses people whose hearts are tender and and it was only when i saw joseph's heart that i understood joseph's blessing because joseph was the son that could be trusted with favor because he would not use his favor to get even he would not use his favor for revenge he would use his favor to bring them into better and so joseph brings the family to better the whole family dwells together in better and not only does he bring them to better he releases the guilt from the guilty it's one thing to absorb the innocent but it's another thing to acquit the guilty he he absolved the guilty because he was big enough to be blessed like that he he was big enough to be blessed like that he he he was strong enough to be blessed like that and that's why he was chosen from the very beginning that god trusted him with trouble god trusted him with rejection god trusted him with pain god trusted him with agony because god knew his heart that when push came to shove that love would always went out over revenge god knew his heart that there was something down inside of him that was better than that and if you want the favor of god in your life you have to be prepared to ask yourself can god trust you with favor can god trust you with power can god trust you with honor because until that answer is a resounding yes [Applause] the doors of your blessing will be closed they're closed because you are too angry and too bitter and too vindictive and god can't give you favor because you'll use it like witchcraft to bring crushes on those who hatch you and you'll know you're getting bigger when you start getting better you've been praying to be bigger you should have been praying to be better there's somebody watching me right now there's no reason in the world that somebody is talented to you as you are shouldn't be further than you are you have the talent to go all the way to the top but every time you try to go to the top something blocks you and god sent me to tell you it's not what's on the outside that's blocking you it's the stuff you carry on the inside that always blocks you because you're so slick [Applause] and god has to keep showing you that you ain't as slick as you think you are and your blessing has been delayed and you wandered in the wilderness of almost getting there and never being able to get there because you've never been able to get your heart to the place that you could be trusted [Music] god gives favor to people he can trust [Applause] but you are so transactional everything is a way for you to manipulate and so you never get better the bible says none but the pure in heart shall see god the word pure in the greek is where we get the word catheter and there is no way for you to see god until you put a catheter into your heart and get rid of the bitterness that is blocking you from your blessing i'm still talking about the bumpy road to better as i close tonight i challenge you to look at genesis 42 and even go on into genesis 43 and watch god bring jacob and his boys into a state of blessings that does not fade away and they lived their lives out in abundance and all their needs were met and joseph never went through another downturn again because god had reconciled the family and what really mattered was better you got to fix this stuff in your family you got to forgive you got to love even when you were right you can be right and still be wrong [Applause] and i am telling you there is a wholeness that you will not capture until you stop holding your father hostage until you drop the charges on your mother the curse will pass from generation to generation until your heart gets big enough to accept the imperfections in other people then you'll never be able to accept the imperfections in yourself some people would call joseph a fool but i think he was a wise wise man because he used the bumps in the road to make him better and i'm wondering tonight if there's anybody listening at me in this room or in your house are you going to use the bumpy road to be more bumpy [Music] to make you feel with more trickery to make you more cynical more vindictive and more respectful can you be trusted with access can you be trusted with capital can you be trusted with advantage yes if the bumpy road doesn't make you better then you will die in the wilderness and god will raise up yet another generation and try it again the reason israel stayed in the wilderness so long in a journey that was so short that their ancestors had gone back and forth to egypt like it was going up and down the street why did their children wander in the wilderness 40 years is because they could not get over themselves you're going to make your life harder than it should be and longer than it was supposed to be if you don't use the bumpy road to be better stand on your feet i'm closing [Applause] i took you from the famine and showed you how the famine was used to pull the family through the fallacy and pass the fear [Music] and finally god put them in the place where the food was and they sat down at the table tonight i'm telling you that god is preparing a table before you in the presence of your enemies [Music] that god has god has set a table before you in spite of what you went through in spite of your pain and your trauma and your agony and your injustice and jacob i'm telling you you can't become so fearful that you squeeze benjamin to death [Music] i find hosting people are not evil they're scared [Music] they've been so traumatized that they think that if they give without getting transaction that they're never going to get anymore [Music] or they'll spend money as long as they get something back but they won't give to ministry because they don't see a quick return they won't make investments because they don't see a return [Music] they'll spend their money in perishable assets it doesn't matter that is losing value while i'm driving it off the parking lot i just need to get something back because i'm scared that if i give anything away it won't come back i found out that people who don't love are not evil they're scared that if i if i if i let you know that i love you like i love you then maybe you won't react the way i thought you would react and so i would rather hate you and love you they love you at the risk of being at a disadvantage of being vulnerable because i'm scared of my own emotions and i'm holding benjamin even though i know you need him and i'm challenging you tonight to let go of what you've been holding on to and i know you have good reason to hold on to it even if you're holding on to your gift [Music] or your ministry or your friend or your compassion there are people in this room that are really loving people that hate that they are loving people [Music] there are people in here that have the gift of giving but they hate that they have it because they have given and been hurt and now they are scared to give again but as long as you expect to get it back from where you gave it you're gonna always get hurt god did not promise to give it back to you where you gave it he only promised to give it back to you [Music] give and it shall be given unto you good measure pressed down shaken together and running over shall men give unto that but he didn't say which one you don't get to control who god uses to bless you [Applause] so if you didn't get it back from where you thought you should get it back from that doesn't mean you're not going to get it back bow your heads with me it's been a bumpy road [Music] somebody watching me right now it's been a bumpy road and god is trying to get you to better but you took a detour into bitter [Music] and tonight the holy spirit is wooing you back and i just want to pray with you on this wednesday night before we close that you would get a catheter and put it in your heart and let bitter start praying out lest you die in the wilderness [Music] i want you to trust god to take you to better and it begins with getting rid of your cynical ways because god blesses people he can trust and he can't trust you because you're slick you're a player and you're slick because you've been hurt but you're being hurt is god's business and god knows how to handle your hurt and i want you to give it to him right now in the name of jesus father as i pray over this room and pray over people i don't know and pray over people in different time zones and pray over mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and children the enemy is trying to trick us out of better [Music] and give us bitter but the devil is alive this road has been too bumpy for me to settle for bitter when you called me the better i know what you told me at the house lord you told me at the house that the good old days are ahead of us and i pray that somebody tonight would receive that their best days are ahead of them and not behind them that the power of the holy ghost would move in a supernatural way untouched and healed [Music] and deliver it's been a very winding road [Music] and lots of hills to climb but the closer we get to home [Music] the more we recognize that you've been gone all the while in every bumpy place father as i close tonight let the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in thy sight oh lord my strength and my redeemer [Music] ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters the bumpy road to better god bless you [Music] you

Channel: T.D. Jakes

Views: 2,132,160

Keywords: td jakes, faith, wtal, woman thou are loosed, megafest, potters house, bishop jakes, pastors and leadership, pastors, leaders, instinctbishops, village, using faith to face adversity, we define our actions

Id: _HSPSHZkLPI

Length: 82min 56sec (4976 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 10 2022