The Radical Rabbi – Bishop T.D. Jakes
The Radical Rabbi – Bishop T.D. Jakes
Jesus didn’t come to meet people’s expectations or to fit in. Even those who were waiting on Him were shocked at the Christ they witnessed. He came to fulfill prophecy, and that promise transcends all nations, cultures, traditions, races, and politics. Jesus associated with people He wasn’t expected to be with and traveled to places He wasn’t supposed to go. His mission couldn’t be stopped, and it demanded a radical rabbi! In turn, following Him requires us to stand out and be about our own callings.
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[Music] make we were working on something uh for our leadership conference you know we deal with spiritual leadership business leadership we deal with every aspect of leadership in our leadership conference and uh Wally Ado is the name that you made or may not know but he is the deputy secretary of the United States Treasury is Going to Be Our Guest and I’m so happy to announce him being there deputy secretary ad served as the treasury Department’s number two official and chief operating officer in the world and has taken a leading role
in treasuries National secretary I mean the nation uh National secet secretary economic in inequality and pandemic related economic recovery Works he’s a bad brother I’ve talked to him I’ve spent some time with him he has a wealth of knowledge he also worked up under the Obama Administration he’s currently serving our country right now and he’s going to be a part of the International Leadership Summit clap your hands and give God praise are going to study the word of God together we’re going to get into the
word of God together and we’re going to discuss the word of God together out of the Gospel of St John 4 verse 20- 28 yeah somebody’s been reading out of John amen John 42-28 we’re coming in uh at an odd point of delivery in this discussion between Jesus and the woman at the well most of the discussion I have omitted it because it is not relevant to the point that I really want to make but I want you to join me in the 20th verse knowing that the conversation is well underway for the most part we have
omitted her personal life her tragedies her struggles her issues and we have left them in the Solitude of her own confession with Jesus we are focused more as the conversation is starting to Pivot toward what Jesus is going to do through her yeah am I at the part’s house good to be [Music] [Applause] home our fathers worshiped in this mountain mountain and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship Jesus saith unto her watch this closely woman believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain
nor yet at Jerusalem worship the father ye worship ye know not what we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father seeketh such to worship him now if you read this as a Christ you don’t understand how radical that statement is but if you read that as an orthodox Jew you would understand how revolutionary it was for Jesus not only to condemn them worshiping in the
mountain of gazm but also to offer up that the hour cometh and now is that neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem she shall you worship God God is a spirit verse 24 God is a spirit God is a spirit God is not a philosophy God is not an ideology God is a spirit God is not a thing God is not the creation God is a spirit God is not the universe God is a spirit God is a spirit God is a spirit you can’t bind him you can’t hold him God is a spirit nobody elected him nobody can disavow him God is a [Applause]
spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit not in a mountain not in a temple in spirit and in truth the woman sayth unto him I know that the Messiah cometh which is called Christ when he has come he will tell us all things Jesus saith unto her I that speak unto thee am [Applause] he [Applause] this is a Bible loving church and upon this came now here come the disciples after everything’s over upon this came his disciples and marveled and marveled and they were shocked that he talked with the
woman wonder why yet no man said what seekest thou or why talkest thou with her the woman then left her water pot and went her way into the City and saith to the men come see a man can you say amen amen I want to talk for a few moments from the subject the radical Rabbi the radical Rabbi Rabbi simply senior teacher the radical Rabbi Spirit of the Living God Trinkle down upon us descend upon us like do in the morning moisten our hard Hearts our callous dispositions are in different
attitudes that we might be so ingratiated by you to enter into the Integrity of this text I thank you for what you’re going to do in the name of Jesus we pray amen you may be seated in his presence there is a word from the Lord I think sometimes our Western culture has damaged our perception of who Jesus is and how he operated through our cinematic Productions and perhaps some of our artwork and our depictions and our Sunday School uh illustrations of Jesus he comes across as being rather Gentile Meek and humble and quiet
almost passive if you will but the truth of the matter is Jesus was not always gentle he could be confrontational he could be outspoken he called them a Generation of Vipers a whole generation of snakes he told the Pharisees that they were like dead men’s bones he was right he went in the church and knocked over the tables kicked things and moved things Jesus was Radical while we labor to fit in we serve a God who stood out he did not ingratiate himself with the Pharisees or try to get in with the Sadducees or be a part of the Sanhedrin
Jesus was Radical the he announced his ministry in the temple he didn’t stay in the temple wrestling with them over Orthodoxy but he took it to the streets he went into the highways and the byways and the alleys and touched the Untouchable and the least likely in his ministry because he was a radical Rabbi so radical that Nicodemus sought him by night saying I know that thou art a teacher a master a rabbi sent from God and I want to know about this thing you keep talking about being born again Jesus was Radical he went to the
wine bibbers he hung out with Sinners you’re you’re you’re much holier than Jesus because the church today disqualify I you if they see you with a sinner but they worship a God who hung around Sinners and the Sinners follow Jesus and the Sinners washed his feet and the Sinners came to know God through him and the religious people all criticized him because he was Radical anytime you are different you will be controversial and because some of us have always wanted to fit in so bad we have never been our authentic
self because we need validation from people we compromise our Revelation for validation so that we can fit in with the Pharisees or the Sadducees or the family picnic or the family reunion or the class reunion or the sorority anything can become a click a club and anything will challenge you to have the courage to be radical now looking at this text we have two ways that we can look at it we can look at it through a microscope and and focus in on the woman at the well and how she comes down to the well to meet Jesus and we can get food and
nourishment from her story because all of us are in some way thirsty and so we identify readily with the woman at the well and we can zoom in our lens to the specificity of her predicament where she didn’t perhaps did not get along with other women or perhaps did not come down to a particular hour or time or perhaps she was used to dealing with men who said flirtatious things to her all of us have had to deal with something at some time that made us want to be alone with our thirst I’d rather be thirsty by
[Music] myself than have water from an enemy we could take the microscope and hone in on the particulars of their conversation and argue over who was the most thirsty the woman or Jesus because it was not the woman who mentions thirst first it was Jesus who said Give me to drink but we don’t have time to do that I my my assignment is not to be microscopic I want to go a little bit deeper than a microscope to a telescope and back up from the text because it is only when you take the telescope and back away from a
situation that you understand why you are in the situation sometimes you are too close up on the problem to understand the why of the problem and it’s only when you take a uh telescope and back away from it that’s why most of us don’t understand what we’re going through till after we get through it in retrospect your life makes a lot more sense than it does in real time while you’re dealing with it because when you’re dealing with it you’re feeling with it and oh y’all didn’t hear me that was
good when you’re dealing with it you’re feeling with it and the feeling stop your telescope and bring you down to a microscopic perspective of you hurt me and at that level we don’t understand why we are in the season that we are in and ain’t this a season now the people who know know what I’m talking about isn’t this a season where you don’t know from day to day what you’re going to have to deal with from moment to moment you don’t know it’s a season that if you are microscopic and
