Michael Todd - Crazier Faith - Part 4
Hey, what's going on everybody? I am so glad that you joined us here today. And you know, being around church, growing up in church, parents being missionaries and all those things, there's words that like Christians throw around that you just kind of hear, but you really don't know the meaning of them and how they actually work together. Two of those words for me were "Imagination" and "Intercession". And I didn't know like how they work together, but now I do. And today I'm going to be your crazy faith coach and show you how when you get an imagination that is anointed by God and you take those thoughts to intercession, how it can change your future. Today, you better get a pen and a piece of paper, get your smartphone, your dumb phone, get whatever you got and get ready for today's message. Let's go.
Welcome to week two of a series we're calling "Crazier Faith". Somebody say, "Crazier faith". Now, some of y'all are like, "I missed week one". You got to go back to YouTube and catch week one. But we're in a series or a collection of talks called "Crazier Faith" because I believe that this generation that believes more in Google than God needs an infusion of faith. And for the situations we're facing today in the world it's not going to take just regular lackadaisical, lazy faith. It's going to take, somebody shout at me, "Crazy faith". You ain't saying it with your chest. Say, "Crazy faith". Just one more time say, "Crazy faith". And I believe that if we could as a generation get crazy faith, we could change everything that is around us. We just sang the song that says you're too good to not believe. But you sang the song, but you live different.
"You're the God of miracles". But if it don't make sense, and if it doesn't line up with my schedule, and if it doesn't work with my aesthetic... Some of you all won't even post about church 'cause it doesn't match your aesthetic. Eww, eww. I'm going to be so in your business right now, because God is looking for a generation of people that will say, "It doesn't matter what it looks like. It doesn't matter how it feels. It doesn't matter what they're doing and what they're doing. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord". Can I get somebody to give God some praise right now? I'm too hyped already. Calm down, Michael, calm down.
This week, I released a book called "Crazy Faith". And it's really not about the book, it's about the vulnerability of my life message. Like when you put out what you live every day and you really expose the real you, like the crazy stuff you do that nobody else probably will get, but like you do it 'cause somehow when you step out in faith like this God begins to meet you at the place of your belief. I put it all in a book and I said, I want to be people's crazy faith coach and help walk them through the seasons of their life. And so I feel a little vulnerable right now because people is just reading about my business. They're all in my business right now. But I have results, I have results in the light from disciplines I did in the dark. What God wants for us is to have crazy faith in the dark so that we can have results in the light. And so for everybody that doesn't know, I'm going to just tell you the 182nd version of my crazy faith story. Can we go real fast? Ready, set, go.
I took over a church February 1st, 2015 with my lovely wife, Natalie who's bad to the bone. And 37 days later, I was in my quiet time and I wrote down a bunch of crazy things on this piece of paper. I was praying and I went to Google and I got an image of this arena in our city, and I wrote "Transformation church" on this piece of paper and I even spelled "Transformation" wrong. And I left it there because God doesn't bless where you pretend to be. He blesses who you really are. He'll take it with your mistakes and he'll take it with the edges not clean yet. He's looking for obedience. Okay, let me stop. That ain't my message. And the first thing I wrote down is "The spirit-bank event center will be transformation church," March 9th, 2015, 7:29 am, Bella's room. I wrote that down. I put all the details in my book "Crazy faith".
So get that if you want the juicy juice. But five years later, I held the keys to that building. They built it for $54 million. We paid 10.5 for it and paid it in cash in six months. It's only crazy until... Okay. One year later, God said, "Don't take your foot off the gas". There was an entire complex with 35 commercial businesses in there. Everything from a chiropractor to a state firm to doctor's offices and even the land that Chick-fil-A sits on. You know that's holy ground. It was for sale, and God said, "Believe for it". I said, "Lord, I thought you was doing the crazy faith thing with the building". He said, "Don't take your foot off the gas. I am not limited to what you think you can do". One year later, we bought the whole complex, the entire thing. So I thought God was done.
One week ago... Oh, you all missed it. They don't want no real-time miracles, rich. They want the stuff back in the day. One week ago, I stood up in my church. As my church is watching right now they're already hyped, they're getting hyped 'cause they know what I'm about to say. We went and bought a little room business complex that looked like something that tony stark built for the avengers in like 196.000 square feet of office space. The new headquarters of transformation church called transformation towers. You all not a church that rejoices with people. It has to happen to you for you to. I'll just try to make sure 'cause the same God that did it for me is the same God. Somebody shout at me, "Same God". Same God. We serve the same God. I'm just testifying. I'm just trying to spark someone. I'm trying to make your baby jump. 'cause we serve the... Ooh, there's some Bougie people in the back like, "I don't yell in church". You better calm yourself down and understand we serve the same...
Okay. All of this happened and it wasn't supposed to. In three years, me, and I know me, I led a church that started in the hood of Tulsa in a converted grocery store that we took over five years ago to be a church who owned some of the prime real estate in our city, over $67 million worth of real estate. Watch, but that ain't the thing. And I have six months of community college education. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just trying to make you see that what you think you need to do what God's called you to do may be something stroking your ego, but God needs obedience, he needs a yes, he needs somebody to believe, he needs somebody to stand in the face of opposition and say, "It may look crazy, but it's only crazy until it happens". Rich, they drank coffee this morning. So this is part of my crazy faith journey, but I want to rewind it all the way back. And I want you to write this point down. Crazy faith is not where you start.
See, I tell you the end of the picture, I tell you the big journey, but crazy faith is not where you start. It's where you find yourself after you're diligent and dedicated to exercising baby faith. See, everybody wants the big thing. It doesn't start with the towers, it doesn't start with cancer drying up, it doesn't start with the house or the car, it starts with being in your word every day. Now, I know you post the Bible scripture, but you didn't read it. It's baby faith. It's being obedient to buy the persons coffee behind you. Baby faith. It's the step to continue to serve on the team that they don't see your full capacity and they don't see your full expression, but you keep showing up and you're on time and you serve with the right heart, it's baby faith.
And today, as I was thinking about baby faith, I started thinking about my babies. I got four kids. Throw a picture of my babies on the screen just 'cause they're cute and is their mama fault. But I started thinking about, "Okay, if my faith has to be small, what do babies think about"? And then I started. The one in the middle, she's my oldest. Her name is Isabella, looks just like her mommy. And I remember Bella being about four years old and us riding in the car, and Bella loved looking out the window. And one day we were riding in the car and Bella said, "Daddy, do you see it"? I said, "See what, baby"? "Up in the sky, do you see it"? And I looked at the sky, I was like, "Clouds". She said, "No, daddy, it's an elephant. An elephant is having a tea party with the princesses".
And I looked back, I said, "Baby..." she said, "Daddy, do you see it"? I mean, "Okay, that might be an elephant". She said, "Now the elephant is twirling and dancing. Do you see it"? And then something in me said, "Agree with her". You may not have the faith to see what she's seeing right now, but don't crush what she sees. I said, "If you see it, baby, I see it". And she said, "It's so beautiful". And God in that moment spoke to me. He said, "Michael, I need you to be more like that". And I said, "What do you mean more like that"? "I need you to see it even when it doesn't look like a usual situation that you would see it in". And I said, "God, okay, you're going to have to help this". He said, "You need to start using," watch this word, I want you to write it down, "Your imagination".
And I want you to write this point down. The genesis of crazier faith is your imagination. And the problem with most of us who are watching this message right now is that we have become so practical that we have lost the tool that God has given us to be able to create a different situation from what we're currently experiencing because somebody told us that was for kids. And God sent me here on assignment today to wake your imagination up bargain, because the thing... Look at the little golf claps, 'cause you don't even know how to do it, 'cause you're thinking so practical right now. But by the end of this message, your imagination is going to be more valuable to you than anything that you walked in here with.
Look at Genesis 1:27. I love the Bible. "So God created human beings in his own..." what is that word? What is the word? What's the root word of imagination? Genesis 1:27, out of every word God could've said, he said, "God created every human in his image," and "In the image or the imagination of God, he created them, both male and female, he created them". Have you ever thought about it like this? Me and you were God's imagination. And I must say so, he did a good job. Somebody look at your neighbor and say, "He did good. He did good". This is the first time that we see this idea of the imagination being the thing that creates things. And then he continues this theme in Genesis 12 with Abraham, who is the father of our faith.
You all remember, "Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham. I am one of them and so are yo, so let's all praise the Lord". Okay, you all went to the same youth group. Some of the people new here are like... That's for people who grew up in church and we're really the same type of messed up. So you don't even have to worry. But when he took Abraham and was trying to lead him on a crazy faith journey, Abraham needed an image. So what did God do? He said, if he doesn't use his imagination to think about where I'm taking him, he's going to go back to what used to be.
So he calls Abraham in Genesis 12 outside of his home and he says, "Look up into the stars. Number them if you can". He was trying to give Abraham a picture, an image that he could use. He said, "That's how many people I'm going to make your descendants and that you're going to bless so many nations". And I can imagine that as Abraham was lugging all of his stuff and all of his family through the journeys, the only encouragement he had some time was to look up and say, "I know God wouldn't tell me to leave if he didn't have something better for me".
Somebody say, "Look up". What is the picture, the image, the thing that's supposed to be playing in your head that you have now silenced because you don't have the ability to see that it could happen. Let me help you. Let me break that whole thing down. God's imagination created us. We are created in his image. Therefore, we can also create with imagination. I'm going to say it again 'cause that was too deep for some of you all. Some of you all let me come up, let me come up. God's imagination created us. We were created in his image. Therefore, we can also create with imagination. Today I have a specific assignment in the next 20 minutes is to unlock somebody's imagination. Let me give you the title of the message. Unlocking an anointed imagination.
Now let me help you. "Unlocking, what do you mean, pastor Mike"? To open or set free. Some of y'all's imagination has been so chained up and God said today it's going to be free again. Anointed, watch this. So many people think this is a deep word and it's so spiritual, but it's very simple. All anointed means, it's God's approval. Like when something is anointed, it has God's approval. And when you have God's approval, it makes it easy or you get divine enablement like something...
Have you ever done something and it felt easier than it was supposed to feel? That was God's approval on something. That's why you keep having trouble with that boyfriend 'cause his approval ain't on it. You're not supposed to be with him. Why there's no ease with her? It's because God's anointing is not on that. You see how quiet and stiff some of you all got. Booty cheeks just tight 'cause you're sitting next to him. I understand but what I'm saying to you is you want everything God to do in your life to be anointed. I approve that house you're staying in, I approve that job you're working in, I approve. So we want to unlock the anointed imagination.
Now, write this down or take this in. Imagination is the ability of the mind to create new ideas or pictures not present to the senses yet. I can't see it, taste it, touch it, feel it. I sound like a Missy Elliot song, "See it, touch it". I can't do it. You all ain't safe. But I see something that's not here yet. Everybody that has a cell phone, raise your hand, in the church, raise your hand. That cell phone was somebody's imagination 30 years ago. That wasn't real. It's real to you today. You will literally lose sleep trying to find your phone. But that thing was in somebody's imagination 30 years ago. Vous church. So you all think it's just about things, but this church, rich, was in your imagination when it was rendezvous before you all dropped the Rendez and it was... I don't know, what did the Rendez ever do to you all? You all just said, "Just drop it. We don't want that on no t-shirt," boom.
But back when you were doing the young adult ministry, what you sit in today was in pastor Rich's and DC's imagination. "Crazy faith", the book, when I did the series two years ago, the book was in my imagination. And what have you been shutting down that God is trying to birth 'cause it doesn't look like you have the resources or the backing or the networking to make it happen, today I'm trying to stir your anointed imagination to see again, to dream again, to hear again, to write again, to be able to do.