Frankie Mazzapica - I'm Not Throwing Away My Shot
The title of today’s message is «I Will Not Throw Away My Shot.» I’m not throwing away my shot. Let me lay a scriptural foundation straight away; it’s in Matthew 5:14, where it says this: the Lord says, «You are the light of the world.» You—I wish I could point at every single one of you—are the light of the world, just as much as you own your name, just as much as you are who you are. You have been created to be a light. He says you are the light of the world, and he goes on to say, «A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.» It goes on to say, «Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket; instead, they put it on a lampstand so that it gives light to everyone in the house.» Then, in verse 16, it says this: «Let your light shine.» It’s urging to come out of you; it burns in your soul. Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 20:9, «I grow weary holding it in; I know it’s the call of my life.» It says, «Let your light shine,» just like you know it’s your calling. Before all men, let them see your works—let them watch you and say there is something different about you. You don’t act like the rest of us; you don’t talk like the rest of us; you don’t dress like the rest of us. Let them see you, let them see you in your light and doing good works so that you bring glory to God.
I’ve got three major points for you. The first one is I want to talk about this dark world. Then I want to talk about The Shining Light, the light right here. Finally, I want to talk about the anointing. I want to discuss when God pours the anointing on someone’s life. First of all, before I talk about how God has a burning light in you, I want to identify a few areas—and I’m only going to talk about a couple—that show how dark this world is. Very soon, we will not see sin and be shocked by it. In fact, we will see it so often that we won’t even notice it anymore, and it will be so widely accepted that soon sin will no longer even be offensive. That is a scary place. For those whose hearts burn for God, it will always be offensive; it will always be a hurting thing to see. But for those who have allowed their hearts to grow cold, you see, when the fire of the flame is underneath a basket, it will grow cold. But for those of you that let it burn, it will become so offensive.
What am I talking about? I’m just going to address two major areas. The first one is sexual promiscuity. Now, when I get into this point, I recognize how half of this room is going to appreciate the point and half of this room will never be back. Okay, I’m not trying to speak that into existence, but let me just get right into it. Sexual promiscuity is sexual impurity specifically—not only, but specifically—outside of the marriage bedroom. It’s sexual promiscuity. In today’s world, when you are watching TV or a movie, if you see a guy and a guy kiss or a woman and a woman kiss, you just kind of back up and go, «Oh my goodness, this is where we’re at now.» But Christians or anyone would see that 10, 15 years ago and be like, «Oh my goodness, what am I watching?» Well, now you’re watching just regular TV, and it’s become so common. You know, sexual promiscuity outside of the marriage bedroom is when you’re touching things that should be covered by clothes. This is sexual promiscuity, and this is rampant.
I was talking to one of my kids, and I said, «Let me tell you what’s coming. Now, when you go to the mall, you walk down the street, you see a guy dressed like a woman or a woman dressed like a guy.» You notice them, and you’re like, «Oh my goodness,» and you see a person doing that every once in a while. But the day is coming when it will be common; you won’t even really take note. It’s like it’s common, and this is where everything’s going. What’s scary is that this is going to become so rampant that it won’t even be offensive to the cold-hearted. It won’t even be offensive. Let me dive into this next sub-point underneath this dark world. The next point is on curses. A curse is anything someone says with the intention of hurting—it’s an insult. How many of us have learned that when somebody comes to you and says, «Hey, I don’t mean this offensively,» it’s like, «Okay, here we go!» Or you know, «I’m just joking.» It’s just like, «I didn’t hear the funny part; I just heard the threat that you meant to say.» Are you with me? Say yes. These are curses; it’s with the intent of offense. Often, a whole family has the culture of that, and it’s just how we are, right? So now someone is constantly around these curses.
I want to tell you—and this is where we’re going to get a little hairy—sarcasm is an insult. You can call it sarcastic all you want to make yourself feel better about it, but it is what it is. It’s all fun and games until somebody starts being sarcastic with you. A true sarcastic person is like, «Well, I love it. Go ahead and bring it back; we can go all day like this, really!» You know, you speak a curse, I speak a curse; you speak a curse, and this is fun? Really? Come on. Here’s the thing about sarcasm: you don’t forget what was said sarcastically. You don’t forget it, and that should not be fun for you. It shouldn’t be fun. People have said things sarcastically to me, and guess what? I still remember. Sarcasm in my house is not allowed; it never, ever happens. My wife and I, when we were dating, had a little sarcastic back-and-forth, and I didn’t like it. I said, «Okay, that was the last time.» It was while we were playing Monopoly. I don’t know if Christians can have Monopoly in their house. Here’s the thing: in full transparency, I’m only barely saved, so if you push me, that other unsaved part ends up waking up. I said, «Okay, we cannot be sarcastic ever again.» Our kids have picked that up; I’ve never had to tell my kids, «Don’t be sarcastic.» I’ve never had to tell them that. Now, I’ve had to tell them before, «I’m gonna knock you out!» But I’ve never had to tell them, «Don’t be sarcastic.» Sarcasm is an insult; these are curses.
There’s a well-known rapper that many of you would know his name. He was doing a concert a couple of years ago, and this lesser-known rapper was opening the concert. All of a sudden, the lesser-known rapper started feeling sick to his stomach, so he went behind the stage, and something told him to keep on watching. As he was watching, the spirit of the Lord took the scales off his eyes, and now he could see into the spirit. He saw the rapper rapping, and it was like his voice was alive. It was like this dark smoke was coming out, and he knew he was speaking curses. The lyrics were not what he was seeing; they were harsh lyrics or worldly lyrics, but they were curses coming out of his mouth. Then he looked into the crowd, and the crowd was singing along, speaking curses, and he started seeing what was happening. I want to say this: if you’re going to listen to secular music, I want to tell you, you better be so careful—so careful—because you may be listening to curses. I want you to ask the Holy Spirit, «Are you okay with this?» Come on, if you agree, say, «I’m okay with this.» Now, some people won’t take that 10 seconds to turn it down and ask because their enjoyment of the song and the artist outweighs their concern about whether or not the Lord is offended by it. Every time you’re looking at an artist that you like, fits your age group, and you think they’re cool and fun, can I just tell you that Satan is not going to come before you and bait you into music that you don’t already like? I’m just saying. At the very least, God, are you okay with this?
Next point: The Shining Light. The fact that you are this. Here’s my question: so many of you—and you know who you are—are so intuitive that you can look into someone’s eye and see they’re not okay. The countenance on their face tells you they’re not okay. Let me ask you, what are you going to do? Are you going to waste your shot by saying, «I don’t want to be uncomfortable, so let me just not talk about God? Let me even mention it; I don’t want to make them uncomfortable, and I don’t want to be uncomfortable.» That was scary! Here’s the thing: what are we going to do? Are we going to waste our shot and leave them that way? Are we going to leave them that way when you know they’re not okay? Are we going to leave them that way, or are we going to recognize this is my shot? This is my moment!
In John 13:19–21, it says that when the word goes out and lands—this is verse 20—it lands on rocky soil. Whenever I’m talking, or you hear someone, even if it’s a friend, speak about the word of God, it lands on your heart or on people’s hearts. As soon as problems come—problems—then the enemy comes in and steals the seed that you’re excited about. You see, I’m not going to be happy until I knock this over. The enemy knows sometimes someone can get excited about the things of God and just take a paper airplane—any problem—and suddenly that commitment to not leave people the way they are is no longer a priority; because a problem! I’m not trying to minimize problems—some of these problems, I know what they’re like—they’re always on your mind. I’m not minimizing that; I’m anointed to preach it, but I’ve got to live it just like every one of you. When I’m speaking on this stage, I have muscles in my teeth and lightning in my veins, but when the 25 minutes is over, I get off the stage, and I’m just me again. I have to fight the battle just like all of you, and I’m telling you when these battles come—do you agree? Come on! When these battles come, I’m just like you. I just want to scrape and claw and somehow get out of this mess, and this is when this is no longer a priority. I’m willing to just leave people the way they are because I’m too consumed with my own issues. If it’s that easy for the enemy to sail a problem like a paper airplane, my goodness, we’ll live our whole lives without being the light we’re called to be.
Now, let’s get super practical. What does being the light mean? Let me illustrate it with a quick story. I used to work for Fuddruckers Hamburgers growing up. Anyone like Fuddruckers? You like it? It’s anointed! It’s anointed, absolutely; it’s right up there with Chick-fil-A. But they—I don’t know if they still do this; it’s been a minute since I’ve been there—but when I was about 17, they had a microphone that you could use to announce the order number that was ready. That was a massive mistake for the manager to let a 17-year-old Frankie have a microphone to speak to the entire restaurant. It was a huge mistake! Here I am in the blue corner, «We’ve got order number 32!» After about a week, the manager came up to me and said, «Alright, you’re going to have to cut back on it. I know people are laughing; I know they like it, but you’re going to have to cut back.» So I was like, «Alright, I’ll cut back to saying, 'Number 32! '» He was looking at me— I was like, «I didn’t pull him out of the red corner or the blue corner; I just put him out.»
One time, our youth group came to Fuddruckers, and I was doing the order, and they were coming there because I felt like they served the best hamburgers on the planet. My youth pastor was there, and I started talking about how awesome Sunday was, and I was like 17. I was like, «Oh my goodness, church was so awesome! I’m still thinking about it!» He came up to me later and said, «I was really inspired that you were talking about church in front of your friends at Fuddruckers.» I looked at him and thought, «You’re my youth pastor; why are you shocked? This is crazy!» This is the practical side of simply talking about what you’re passionate about. Come on, encourage me. Do you agree? This is the practical side. Just to mention, «I was at church,» or «I was praying the other day.» If we don’t say these comments, the enemy is like, «See, if Satan cannot steal your soul, he’ll keep you from partnering with the Lord so that he can save other people’s souls.» This is what he’ll do.
It’s amazing that if we just talk about—I mean, if you just say the word «church,» it’s like, «Bing!» Sometimes the enemy will say, «Oh, you better not because they know how you really are.» Dear Lord, they know how you really are! Let me say this: when we trip up, hit a rough spot, say something, or do something that we know the Lord is not happy with, and people see it or hear it, the next thing we do is the most important thing we can do after the thing that we did that we wish we didn’t do. We can’t just slide down and say, «I wish I didn’t do it.» The immediate thing afterward is to do something to erase what just happened. And how do we erase it? We just go, «Oh dear Lord, you know I shouldn’t have done that!» If we look at the person next to us, we should say, «I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have said that.» Do you know how many times I’ve looked at my kids and said, «I’m sorry! I completely blew it?» I have a 19-year-old, a 16-year-old, and a 10-year-old. I’m sorry, Dad blew it! That’s not fun. I feel like I say that more than my kids say it to me. Just like I blew it! I’m sorry! When we’re with somebody and we say, «I’m not going to miss my shot. This is what I’m born to do,» and you say something, you just look and say, «Hey, I shouldn’t have said that!» Sometimes I’ve got to come back four days later and say, «Hey, I’ve been thinking about it; I’m sorry!» What are we doing? This is why I’m born; this is what I’m doing here. Sin is becoming so rampant. I’m not going to miss my shot! I’m not going to miss my shot! The light that shines the furthest shines the brightest at home. God is not going to let you shine the light on other people’s lives to encourage them by telling them who you worship and where you worship without impacting you first. This flame will burn in your bones before you even say one sentence. It’ll burn in your bones. How do you cultivate that flame? The same; the power of one sentence is unbelievable—saying one sentence, «I go to church!» That’s powerful!
Doing this: «I love you!» Short prayers are so powerful; that’s why Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, «Never stop praying.» Let me go to the third point: it’s the anointing. In Isaiah 10:27, it says that the anointing oil breaks the yoke— the yoke of fear and disappointment and hating yourself and not liking what you see in the mirror and feeling like your situation is never going to change. The only way that will ever change is if God pours his anointing on the situation because that is the only thing that will break the yoke. That’s why we’ve tried everything else, and the issue is still there. It’s the anointing oil. What do we say? Those one-sentence prayers all over: «God, I have no chance of being a light out here unless you help me right here!» It’s those one-sentence prayers. This is where the anointing begins to flow on you and then through you. Do you accept this? Do you believe in it?
I am so aware, just as you are, of how dark this world is becoming. I’ve got two major, major concerns. The first one is the hearts of many are going to grow cold. Matthew 24:10–12 states, «Sin will be rampant, and the hearts of many will grow cold.» It used to be on fire, and now it’s not. The next thing is how dark this world is going to get, so intense. But I was praying the other day, and my mindset was, «Gosh, like a boxer holding up his hands, protecting himself, playing defense. It’s like, 'Oh God, this is an onslaught! '» The Lord just spoke to me and said, «Frankie, you’re not playing defense; you’re playing offense! You’re playing offense! We are the ones causing the onslaught. We are the ones. It’s us; it’s not the enemy overwhelming us. We’re overwhelming him! It’s the light that pierces the darkness. We don’t live in, 'Oh my goodness, oh my! ' No, no, no, this is what we do. I am in a rough spot; this is rough; this is hard. Oh my goodness! But the problem is not getting easier, but I can tell I’m getting stronger. I can tell I’m getting stronger.» When we’re in the offense, we’re talking: «I go to church. I went to church. You want to come to church? I was praying the other day, and I’m going to church.»
Offense! Stand up on your feet if you will! I’d like for all of our prayer partners to come down. All the prayer partners, come on down! I need ushers at the bottom of each aisle. When we get to this portion of the service, when the prayer partners come down—if you guys can come down, that’d be so helpful. The reason why we have these ushers down here is a lot of times the prayer partners are praying with people, and there aren’t enough prayer partners. So, you just come down to the bottom of the aisle, and the ushers will point to the prayer partner that’s available. I got a couple of questions. The first one is this: Is there anyone in this room? You’re concerned because this lamp, this fire for God, is flickering and is out, and there’s no passion, right? I don’t want you to feel like you’re some rank sinner on your way to hell, that you shouldn’t even be in here, that you’re an impostor, and if anyone found out about you, we would ask you to not come back. I don’t want you to have those thoughts. I don’t want you to have those thoughts.
Now, I will be very honest with you: if your heart were to stop beating in the next five minutes and you’re not sure where you’d spend eternity, I can’t make you feel comfortable about that because if you’re not sure, you’re in trouble; the light has gone out. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable in this room, but I want you to know your reality. If there’s no passion because you are neither hot nor cold, the Lord will spit you out of his mouth. I’m imploring you and pleading with you to not leave this room until you say a prayer that changes that.
Now, I’m going to speak to the person standing next to you. Charles Finney, in 1826, I believe—a phenomenal man of God—came walking into a cotton factory, and there was a whole slew of people sewing. They looked up and saw his face, and the countenance of his face was so kind, so godly, that they became convicted of their sin and started crying. They couldn’t even work! The manager had to shut down the cotton factory because all the workers went to the floor and just started crying, asking God for forgiveness, and he never said a word. So, if the person next to you is making that decision, look, this is unacceptable! I can’t live like this anymore; I’m not ready to see God, and I’m wasting my shot. I’m not usable! I want you to get that right. The person next to you, I want to fire you up to be so close to the Lord that just his presence, just his relationship comes off the countenance of your face and blesses people where they’re drawn to you and the Lord. All the prayer partners are down here, and if I’m talking to you in any way, if this message touched you in any way, I want you to come down and pray with a prayer partner. We’re going to sing a song one or two times through before anyone leaves. I’d love for you to just sing one more song. May the Lord bless you, may he keep you, may his face shine down upon you and be gracious to you. May his countenance be lifted up on you, bless your life, and keep you full of peace in Jesus' name.