Higher Steps: Heavier Cross x Sarah Jakes Roberts
There’s a line in the sand when it comes to walking with the Lord—a moment where everything changes. The higher you go with Him, the heavier the weight of your calling becomes. Walking with Jesus isn’t a vacation; it’s a journey of transformation. As you draw closer to God, He develops you, molds you, and places greater trust and responsibility on your shoulders. That weight you feel? It’s not meant to break you. It’s a sign of trust—a reminder that God sees you as capable of carrying what He’s placed in you. Even when your heart aches at the state of the world, when relationships shift, or when the distance between where you are and where you’re called feels overwhelming, don’t let the weight pull you down. Let it push you closer to the One who strengthens you to carry it. Watch the FULL “Shift The Weight with Sarah Jakes Roberts” sermon on the TD Jakes Ministries Youtube page.
I want to talk about the
moments when God gives you a weight that
feels too
heavy for you to
carry
this this is
heavy I don’t know if you’ve ever had
God give you
something that felt too heavy for you to
carry
I want to
be very specific
about the
weight that occurs in our Spiritual
Development this is why I think a lot of
people end up not being
Christians we we’re like Christian
adjacent but not like really walking
with the
Lord because part of the process of
Spiritual Development
is the higher you go the heavier you
become and for some reason no matter how
many times we tell people that walking
with the Lord is not a cakewalk that
Walking With Jesus is not vacation when
you actually step into
it for some reason they act like no I
thought you meant
like I didn’t know that you had meant
like every devil in hell was going to
pray I didn’t
know I don’t care how many times and
then you know that you can call us
prosar no no no no we be trying to tell
people people don’t be trying to listen
to
us because the closer I get to God the
more that the Lord develops me the more
I recognize how far I am from
him have you ever been heavy just
looking at where I am compared to where
I’m supposed to
be that the level of Brokenness the
level of trauma the level of
manipulation that has become my Norm is
so off based from who I am supposed to
be in God that I have no choice just to
be
heavy or when you start to see the
fractures in your community when you
begin to see the impact of generational
curses the toxicity that exists within
our families it was fine when everything
was normal but the moment I started
pursuing Health the moment that I wanted
to actually be made in the image of God
my heart is breaking for the friendships
that no longer make sense anymore my
heart is breaking for the way that I
can’t fit in with my family anymore my
heart is breaking the closer I get to
God the heavier I become because I
didn’t realize that saying yes to him
and saying no to them and I’m trying to
carry them with me but I got to grieve
and move forward is heavy the closer I
get to God the more I see this world the
way God sees it and now my heart is
breaking at every headline I’m
discouraged when I see War I’m
discouraged when I see violence I’m
discouraged when I see overdoses God
your heart must be breaking the closer I
get to
God the heavier I
become if you’re not heavy you’re not
trying to see this world the way God
sees
it you ought be heavy anytime you see
somebody on a corner holding a sign God
I know this isn’t what you meant people
want to know what side are you on are
you on this side or that side I’m sad
that we’re even having to choose sides
I’m heavy that this is our reality that
we got to choose between pro-life in the
womb or pro-life in the streets I’m
heavy that this is our reality I don’t
think that this is what God wanted I’m
heavy looking at this world
cuz I can’t imagine that these are the
choices that God wanted us to make when
he created us in the garden I don’t
choose a side I choose heaviness cuz my
heart is breaking that no matter who I
choose somebody’s going to be wounded in
the process and I think too much like
God to just say oh well I care about
what’s happening in this
world sometimes God gives us
a
vision of who we’ve been and who we’re
supposed to
be of how off track we are and how much
healing there is yet to
do and it makes us
heavy in this room watching online and
no one would know just how heavy you are
can I tell you we had woman evolve and
women got home and they felt really
great from The Experience they had but
then they felt really heavy because they
realized how much work they have to do
because the closer we get to
God the heavier the
burden for breakthrough is on our
lives when we find the disciples in this
text they’re dealing with
heaviness it started off smooth
sailing but now things are getting heavy
child
child I don’t know if you ever had
things start off
good and then just get
heavy I understand why Phillip says if
you would just show us the father
that’ll be sufficient for
me I feel like that is the new King
James version of may I speak to the
manager
sir Jesus Holy Spirit whichever one of
you you are
available I need to speak to the
manager cuz ain’t no way we could
go from doing Miracles and drawing
multitudes to you telling me that we not
going to be able to stick together
anymore and you
[Music]
leaving we picking fights with systems
and you’re
leaving the disciples are in a
predicament
because they have
graduated but they didn’t realize that
graduation is
heavy that the cost of promotion is more
weight that as Jesus gets out of the way
he’s got to shift the weight on to them
now it’s your responsibility to continue
the work that I was doing weight is a
sign of trust When God says I can trust
you with weight God says it’s because I
can trust who you have become in the
development process I can shift some
weight onto you we know this as parents
that we give you little by little we
give you more and more responsibility
more and more freedom because you can
handle the
weight and if no one tells you that more
weight is a sign of
graduation you will think that there is
something wrong with you when things get
heavier at a time when you’re supposed
to be feeling success
and Jesus says to
them in verse
9 he says to them have I been with you
so long and yet you have not known me
Phillip he who has seen me has seen the
father so how can you say show us the
father okay first of all John is not a
synoptic Gospel Matthew Mark and Luke
tell different angles of many same many
of the same stories but John had this
unique perspective on who Jesus is that
leans in specifically to who he is as
Messiah whereas most texts don’t tell it
Jesus doesn’t blatantly say who he is
over and over again in John we see Jesus
saying with specificity who he is and
what he has been called to do so you
have to understand that when we’re
looking at Jesus Through the lens of the
text in John that we’re looking at a
different version of Jesus that we’re
looking at a full embodied version of
who Jesus is we’re seeing Jesus on the
fullness of his connection with the
father and it is important for us to
recognize that because the full
embodiment of who Jesus is is connected
to what we receive when we re say when
we say we receive Jesus in our
hearts you have to understand that when
you got Jesus that you also got the
father so you’re asking to see the
Father and Jesus is trying to tell them
you’ve seen them all along I’m about to
break this down and we getting out of
here Jesus says to Phillip if you can
just remember what you have seen along
the
way if you can remember the Miracles
that happened along the way you will see
that God has been with you every step of
the way I want you to remember when a
woman pressed her way through a crowd
and touched the H of His Garment and
immediately the flow of blood stopped I
want you to know that she didn’t just
touch Jesus that she also touched God I
want you to remember when I told the
lame man to pick up your bed and walk
that you wen’t just hearing Jesus that
you were also hearing the father I want
you to understand that all along the way
that you have not just been seeing Jesus
you have been seeing the father so if
you saw the father then and you saw him
when we were Healing The Sick and you
saw him when we were taking a little
boy’s lunch you could see him right now
even in the midst of the weight I wish I
could say that real good cuz I want
somebody to understand the only reason
why you are qualified to carry the
weight that is in front of you is
because God has been with
you all along the
way if you got into this by yourself
you’d need to be afraid if you got into
this on your own I’ll tell you you ought
to humble yourself and seek his face but
if you’ve been following his face all
along and you get to a space where you
can no longer see him I hear God saying
Turn
Around
[Applause]
wo I hear God say turn
[Applause]
around I hear God say look back over
your life look back over your life
remember remember when I pulled you out
of this remember when I walked you
through that remember when I got you
over there
[Applause]
I haven’t
left I’m not
done I didn’t leave
you you just
graduated I didn’t change my
mind you just
graduated I want to talk to somebody and
you’ve been following God and things got
heavy you’ve been following God and
things got
hard the only
reason the only
reason that Jesus can have this level of
conversation with
Phillip the only
reason that Jesus can even give him
a foreshadowing of what’s to
come it’s because they’ve
walked this thing called life
out I hear God
saying that when you walk with
me that when you allow
me to lead you to guide you
that things may get
heavier before there’s
liftoff I was
studying and I
thought that the disciples had a weight
problem they were just
heavy from everything that was
happening God told me
yesterday this isn’t a away
problem this is a faith
problem
this is a faith
problem over and over again Jesus is
believe in me believe in me believe in
me if you believe in me if you believe
in me then this will happen if you
believe if you believe in me if you
believe in
me the weight won’t matter if you
believe in me I know it’s heavy but if
you believe in me I know you’re tired
but if you believe in
me God told me to make sure that there
was
distinction between you believing in him
and you believing for
things because when you believe for an
outcome and you believe for a thing when
the thing doesn’t happen and the outcome
doesn’t happen then you don’t have faith
at
all Jesus doesn’t do like we would do he
doesn’t say everything’s going to work
out just have faith everything’s going
to work
out Jesus says believe in
me oh
God don’t worry about what’s going to
happen believe in
me that no matter what what
happens that I wasn’t just good then
that I’ll be good now you got to believe
in me don’t believe for an outcome I
know you want to be healed I know you
want resurrection power I know you want
things to work out but I hear God saying
the greater place for your belief is not
in an outcome the best place for your
belief is to believe in me because if
you believe in me no weapon formed
against you will prosper if you believe
in me every tongue that arises is up
against you I will condemn if you
believe in
me I’ll walk with
you every step of the
way and
culture has hijacked
faith and made it about an
outcome and then when I don’t get the
outcome I don’t have faith in God you
never had faith in God you only had
faith in your outcome cuz real faith in
God says I can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me I could be
rich I could be poor I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me I can
be up I can be down I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens
me my
faith is in God
and that’s why that’s he says to
them if you believe in
me all the works that you’ve seen me do
Greater
Works works are the Overflow of Faith
Works are not the reason to have faith
if I really have faith in God I’ll do
Greater Works than the ones that I’ve
seen not because I had faith in the
works that I will do but because I am so
connected to God that I had no choice
but to do Greater Works because anything
I put my hands to God was whispering in
my ear how to do it how to build it how
to speak it how to raise them Greater
Works am I going to do not because I’m
so great but because greater is he that
is in me than he that is in the world I
got faith in God I don’t have faith
faith in the election I don’t have faith
in the partner I don’t have faith in the
bank I’ve got faith in
[Applause]
God I don’t have faith in the doctor I
got faith in God so God you bless the
doctor God you assigned the lawyer God
you put me in the right Court God you
give me the right manager
[Music]