Michael Todd - Crazier Faith - Part 1
Hey, what's going on friends? I want to just tell you, I am so excited because today we are starting a brand-new series called crazier faith. Now I know some of y'all be like crazy faith, crazier faith. Yeah, we're going to a whole other level, and I believe this is a message from God that you need to hear. See, God wants to do incredible things in and through your life in this next season, but it will be impossible without faith. He wants to take the limits off of you, so get ready because today there will be no cap to all the things that God wants to do in your life. It's time for crazier faith.
I need to be very clear about it, this is not a message that I got on my way to church today. This message of crazier faith that God is about to let us walk into is something that God started in me, honestly, from a young boy, but I just got to put it in message form over the past three years. In 2019 we started a series called crazy faith, and for some reason it hit the hearts of people, and it hit the heart of the church, and it went viral, and people started getting tattoos of crazy faith, and started walking in crazy faith, and some people left their job in crazy faith, but you ain't hear from God so you was broke. And there was other people that went out and married somebody in crazy faith, and all of these different things were happening, but I was asking God what was the significance of it happening?
And he said Michael, I've said it from the beginning of when I wrote the Bible, when the Son of Man returns and I search the whole earth, will I find faith. It didn't say will I find a church, will I find songs, will I find a prayer meeting. Will I find faith. There's something about faith that is a key ingredient to being able to live out the purpose of God on your life. Somebody say I need faith. Say it like you mean it. Say it with your chest! And until you realize that you can't be the mother you want to be without faith, that you can't be the father you want to be without faith, that you cannot be the employer you want to be without faith. Until you realize you need faith to please God and to reach purpose, you live your life below what God has called you to live. Somebody just say it one more time, I need faith.
So one day I was driving in 2018, at the end of '18, '19, and this song that I love came on by gnarls Barkley, crazy, and I've listened to that song hundreds of times. And I'm a producer so I break it down and listen to the orchestra, and I love the vocal, and I love all the different things about it, the vintage retro sound of the drums, I listen to it. But this time the words is what captured me. And when I began to listen to the third verse, he said something. He said my heroes have the heart to lose their life out on the limb. And I remember thinking I want to be just like them. And when I heard those words, I thought about all the Bible characters that we love from Moses and Abraham and David and all that other stuff, and those people we talk about because they did something that wasn't safe. They lived their life out on the edge. They were on the limb where this could go bad or this could go really good.
And many Christians and people that profess to believe in God are way back here in complete safety. Yep, we want to worship from back here. We want to give God praise from up here, but your purpose is right here. But I don't want to fail, and I don't want to mess up my future, and God says you're missing your future 'cause your future is lived in faith. And I began to think about people who we're thousands of years removed from Abraham living on this earth, and people talk about father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had father Abraham, and I am one of them and so are you, come on, so let's all praise the Lord, right arm... Some of y'all went to the same youth group that I went to and other people are like John, what the heck. I got you. But what I'm telling you is we're talking about Abraham over 2.000 years ago, but the reason we talk about him is because he had faith.
When you go to Hebrews 11, there's this whole thing called the "Hall of faith" and it starts chronically with people like Abraham, Noah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. My question is will your name and picture be in the hall of faith? Will they come down that hall and see will, and Brenda, and Natalie, and Brie, and Tammy, and Moe, and Michael, and put your name, you didn't even believe you would be there. And... Shout your name out. And... Put your name in the chat. And... I'm telling you that God's design for your life is that at the end of this thing there is a plaque and a picture that goes in the hall of faith. I feel this thing already. That I live my life on the edge. Live my life in obedience, live my life in the will of God, live my life being generous, live my life doing the things God told me to do even when everybody else was scared to.
Will your name be in the hall of faith? And at that moment when I heard this gnarls Barkley song and I began to look at my life, I said I'm not going to play it safe with the life that doesn't belong to me. Did you give yourself that breath you took this morning? This life was given to me by God, and God said will you please give me back control of the life I gave you? And that's when I decided we are going to live in, everybody shout at me crazy faith! No, you've got to say it a little crazy. Say crazy faith! And so let me give you a definition of crazy faith, and for everybody who thinks they know what this series is about because you were at the other 19 parts of the series and maybe you got a pre-copy of the book, I'm normal preaching one message from that. Everything's fresh. I'm not about to come warm up something after two and a half years and try to serve it to you.
Baby, I've been in the kitchen, and this thing is fresh, so I want you to write down and take notes because this may be your manual for the next decade of your life. Crazy faith, write this definition down. Our thoughts and actions that lacks reason but trusting fully in what you cannot explicitly prove. I'm gonna say it one more time because some of you got that in your head but we need it to drop to your heart. Crazy faith are thoughts and actions that don't make no sense. This lacks reason, why in the world would I do that, that doesn't make, I went to school for something completely different, there's no logical way that this would be able to ever systematically happen. Like, it don't make no sense! It lacks reason. But for some reason I trust it. But for some reason I know that the pastor of a church that was going for 16 years should not trust it to this young black dude who don't have nothing but six months of TCC higher education.
This don't make no sense! But for some reason, I trust it. And trusting fully enough to put your weight on it in what you cannot explicitly prove. I can't prove to you that this will work, but for some reason something on the inside of me is telling me that I've got to move with this crazy faith. Look what Hebrews 11:1 says. Now faith, everybody shout at me now. Yeah, the best time to walk in faith was yesterday, but the second best time to start walking in faith is now. Whew! 'Cause some of y'all made a decision last week and even got up this morning ready to carry that thing out, and God's saying that was not me, but right now you can start walking in faith. Somebody just one more time shout at me now. As you're watching this, no matter what time, no matter what time zone, no matter what country, right now it's always right now, and God is saying that now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance, not insurance, assurance in what we cannot see. Everybody close your eyes.
Close your eyes. I want you to see yourself on the beach with the body you want. Hey, sha-ta-ta, ta-bo! I want you to see and feel the water going back and forth, and I want you to know you've got enough money in the bank to stay there a month. Uh-huh, somebody that just hit 'cause you was worried, but I need you to know that when you see the bank account, there's a lot of zeros in it. I want you to see yourself with your favorite drink just next to you. And some of you will be a little stronger than others, but I just want you to see it next to you with some colors and a pineapple on it. And then I want you to see yourself with somebody you love, a friend, a husband, a wife. Can you see it? For real, can you see it? Can you see it.
For some people, open your eyes, look at me, it's hard for you to see it because you don't feel it. And what many people are trapped in right now is a place where God is trying to allow them to see something they will have before their situation turns around and changes into that thing. And in an age where we believe more in Google than God, in an age where we want to know the facts and we're checking people all the way down, see what God is saying to you is there's a level of this life that I'm gonna ask you to do things that do not make logical sense, and I know all my ones on the enneagram are going crazy right now because I need to be able to plan, and I need to be able to strategize, and God's saying your strategy is me. If I be for you, then who can be against you. If I work out the steps of a good man or a good woman, you gotta trust me in faith.
All I'm trying to say with this message and the book and this series is you've got to see it before you see it. See your family whole and at Christmas together 2022. I know everybody crazy right now and uncle June bug locked up at this current moment, but see yourself being able to give them some of the mashed potatoes. See yourself-see, some of y'all are like that doesn't even make sense. Your vision for the future from God is so important to how you move into the next thing God has for you, and I'm about to shake you for the next 14 weeks. You heard me. It's crazy till Christmas. I have a message for every weekend until Christmas to shake you. My assignment is to shake you out of lazy faith. My assignment, because I really believe with everything in me, 2022 has a purpose set up for you that is so much bigger, it's beyond your belief, but if you get to the gate and do not have the payment of faith, what if everything God wants to do will not take money. Help me Holy Spirit.
What if what God wants to do through your company, your business, your family and your life does not take smarts. What if the only payment you need to change the trajectory of generations with your last name is shout it at me. Faith! I'm gonna help you believe in God to the point that faith becomes the thing that you wake up with, you go to sleep with, that you give away when you go to the grocery store. People gonna walk around you and be like I don't know why but when I hug them, and talk to them, and I get my hair done from them, and I listen to their music, and when I go to they kids birthday party, something in me leaps. Whoa! I don't know, there's certain people I get around and my baby jumps. The thing that's on the inside of me says uh-oh, somebody's around that can help me believe. And that thing that we all need is, shout it with me... Faith!
Without faith, according to John 3:16 we can't be saved. Without faith we can't pray, according to Matthew 21:22. Without faith we can't live the Christian life that we're supposed to, according to John 10:10. You need faith. So today let me walk you through a story of a man who lived in crazy faith. It's one of the people who maybe don't get talked about as much, and today God literally opened up the Bible to me in a new way. I've never preached a message on this Bible character before, but I feel like I can see him right now and I'm gonna try to make this movie come alive to you today. Today we're talking about a man named Elisha. Somebody's like come on, come on. They don't know what I'm about to say, but what I'm telling you is Elisha lived in crazy faith.
Now, on the screen I've put up Elijah, because growing up in church they don't really give you no pictures that go with your Bible stories, and so it was always these two guys Elijah and Elisha, and I got them mixed up my whole life, and I decided today I'm gonna help you never mix them up again. Elijah is the O.G. He's Denzel. Elijah. We gonna call him E.J. For the rest of this sermon. He was a prophet of God. Did mighty things, powerful on the earth. And then he had a successor and his name was Elisha. "J" comes before "S" in the alphabet. There it is, I was about to say the dictionary. That too, but it comes before that, so Elisha, we gonna give him brother Michael b. Jordan. Okay? Some of y'all didn't shout that much in praise and worship. Sit your butt down. Okay. So you never get this mixed up again, E.J. Or Elijah, he's the O.G. And today we're talking about Elisha, okay, who was a man that lived his life in crazy faith.
Go with me to 1 Kings 19:19. I'm about to preach three sermons in one really fast, so y'all stick with me. And everybody pray in the back because I ain't preached in a long time, but I need to get to the end of Elisha's life, but many times you can't start at the end of a thing until you understand how it started. That's a whole other message that I can't give them right now, but some of y'all have really been trying to get to the end of the thing, and God's trying to make you revisit how good he was at the beginning of the thing. And so I need to go to 1 Kings 19:19 so you can see how Elisha, even God called into this life of crazy faith. Look what it says so Elijah, the O.G., Denzel, E.J. went and found. Underline, circle, make a star by the word found Elisha, son of shaphat.
That's a really interesting name. Plowing a field. There was 12 teams of oxen in the field and Elisha was plowing with the 12 teams. I want to keep reading but I can't because there's too much gold right there. The first thing I have to point out is that Elijah or E.J. Was looking for Elisha. I came to tell you my first point. It's looking for you. Your next level, your next promotion, your next relationship group is looking for you. You don't have to network your way into the next thing God's about to do. You don't have to dumb down who God created you to be to fit in with people you were never supposed to fit in with. The next thing God is going to do for you is looking for you. Somebody say it's looking for me. The future is looking for you.
Elisha was not trying to get bumped up and promoted doing what he was doing in plowing the field and working with the oxen. He was just being faithful where he was placed. In this day and age who's ready for the upgrade all the time, the iPhone 12 look just like the iPhone 13, and ain't no new features, just new names, and we're trying to go from relationship, iPhone 11 to iPhone 12, and her name is Sally, and this one's name is Susan, and you're always trying to go to the next thing. God said would you stay still and be faithful where I placed you because if you would stay there and be faithful, you would be found.
Let me just give it to you in a point. Crazy faith starts when you are found faithful. And many, the problem with many of our lives of why God can't do the next thing that he wants to do in our lives is because he can't find us. He only can see you if you're faithful. You so shifty with your priorities. You want a new word every year but you ain't obeyed the one he gave you three years ago. You in your sixth church? And every church it was the leader? That was too close. You at your fourth job? In your third city? And it's always, you've been to the east coast, to the west coast, the dirty south, now you in Canada? And it's always them, and God said could I find you faithful.
Did God show up at your last location? Did he deliver the package of what was next in your purpose to the place you should have been, not where you're actually at? I got to leave it alone. But my question is will you be found faithful? When I started in this journey of pastoring, I wasn't trying to be a pastor. I was found faithful. You know where I started serving in this church? Behind the sound board. Shout out to Paul. Can we give the sound man a little bit in the back. Got us sounding real good!