Michael Todd - Crazier Faith - Part 6
Hey, what's going on, friends? I am so glad that you joined us today. And I cannot wait for you to hear this message because I believe it's going to transform your life. We have been walking through a series called crazier faith, and listen to me, I believe God has so much more for you in store that you could even imagine, but it takes you learning, listening, and living in crazy faith. And up until this point it's been good but I'm telling you we're going to a whole other level today. I know someone who just tuned in needs to hear this. It's time to take hold of the vision he has for your life, and it's time to experience crazier faith. Let's go.
They took something that was in my head and that I wrote down and it became a vision, and I started saying it out loud and printing it on jackets and putting it on things and saying it every Sunday. And now it's in a different country where somebody else has adopted the vision to their own lives on a bad quality print. They didn't care because the vision in me, ah, the vision in you ain't just for you. What God's placed on the inside of you is not so that you can be good. It's so that others can be able to know what's possible when you get a vision from God. So let me help you understand it. Bring my luggage. I want everybody to look at every area of your life. Every area. And I want you to see if you look like you have vision or if there's actually vision in that area of your life. And this is super practical, and this week I'm taking you to a whole other level, but I'm just trying to build in you the value of vision because you don't need crazy faith for a place that does not have vision.
The only reason that I had to believe God is because God had given me a vision for something, and what I'm trying to give you right now is the value of having a vision in every area of your life. Everybody say every area of my life. Yeah, so when I look at all this luggage, I'm just trying to recreate what I experienced this past week with my family. This is what it looked like us in the lobby of that hotel. Yep, strollers, wheelchairs, Duffle bags, suitcases. Yeah. Bring the wheelchair. Yep. That was a struggle. Yep. Kids. I asked myself several times whose kids are these? And 4 of them were mine. Like it was just, it was a lot. Dinosaur bag, all kinds of stuff. Yes. This was ridiculous. And the crazy thing that I thought and the picture I got in my head is what if I prepared for the trip. What if I prepared, put everything on? Ready to go. Bags. Everything ready. Let me get everything.
Come on. Some of the luggage was faulty, too. This is what I looked like personally coming off the plane. But do you know I spent $1500 paying for luggage to get to Aruba? Like now because of all the stuff that's going on they don't let you have free luggage like that goes under. You got to pay $30 a bag. And if it's over a certain weight, it's $125. Yeah. I almost cussed. Do you know how frustrating it would have been to get to Aruba and open up these suitcases for them to be empty? This is what most of our lives look like, that God says I'm ready to do something with you, and you look packed and you look ready but until I open it up, that's when I see it's actually vacant. And today I just need to ask you, do you have vacant vision? Everything that I have on has nothing in it. My family, no vision. For my children, yeah, it looks good. Unicorns.
Imagination, all this other stuff. No vision. Every one of these suitcases has nothing in them. This could be a picture of our church. A picture, vacant vision. That's what I'm titling today's message because I do believe that there is a void that has to be filled up with vision from God. And if we don't take this seriously, we end up wasting the faith God wants us to be able to have. See, when everybody packs, I pack from here. I'm not in Aruba packing. I'm packing in my current situation. See, I don't pack for the season I'm in. I pack for the weather I'm going to. I don't pack, I'm trying to help somebody get the importance of a vision. I don't pack for the location I'm in. I pack for the location I'm going to. I don't pack for the time zone I'm in. I pack for the time zone I'm going to and I'm packed for the culture that is around me. I pack for the culture I'm going to. I don't pack for this place. I pack for the prophetic vision that God has given me, and my question to you is, why is the vision vacant.
Why is it empty? Why when somebody asks you what God wants to do in the next two years of your life, you stuff like that, I don't even think that far ahead? I got too much going on. Hold on. Vision is valuable. Write this down in the point... I'm preparing for where transformation is going to be. Not from here. I am preparing for the level, let me just say it right now, part of the vision God told me when we started this church is that transformation church would be multi ethnic, multi-generational, multiplying, and this last one has been on my nerves, multi campus. I have fought that with everything in my being because he's done the multi generational, he's done the multiplying. He's done the multi ethnic, but the multi campus? Do we really gotta? I like Tulsa. I like right here. But God said I need you to start packing right now. Y'all missed it. I need you to start packing right now for where I'm about to take you.
So slowly but surely I came back and told my team, I was like y'all, get ready. We're going into a different season. Get ready. I got to start preparing the teams differently. We got to start thinking differently. We gotta think outside the box of just opening the building. Could the prophetic pause that God put us in be the very thing we needed to start getting ready to see the next thing? God is saying fill it up wherever it's vacant. Wherever there's nothing. Wherever you have not gotten a prophetic vision. Somebody say, fill it up! I may not even use it in the next season, but I will be caught with more than enough than not enough.
Y'all don't hear me. We may not, we may not, see, I need to stop yelling. But somebody say fill it up. This is prophetically what your life should look like in this next season. I'm going to the rack of revelation. Whatever you want I'm gonna bring it before you in intercession, and God, I'm going to fill the places of my life with the vision that you give. I'm going to fill my kid's life with vision of who they can be until future. I'm not going to sit here and let them deal with the same devils I dealt with all my life. They're gonna have a different vision. I'm prophetically, I'm doing this but this is what's about to start happening. I'm not going to stay here and deal with these traumas and never be delivered.
And then what I don't actually confront gets passed on. No, devil. We're about to actually do something about what should happen is that wherever you have vacant vision should get so filled up that when it comes to close it, see, when I really pack you don't just close it, hold on. But then God, you said what? Oh see, some of y'all got the vision six years ago and you thought he was done speaking. But God is saying to you huh-uh. I got more for you. You heard one part of it. You saw one part of the journey but I got something else for you that I want to do about your business, about your family, about your emotional health, about your spiritual health, about your forgiveness.
When you get God's vision in there, some of y'all gonna need help being able to carry all the things God has placed in you. You know why we have such a great team at TC? Because the vision of what God has given me is bigger than what I can carry by myself. See, any smart person would come and say just get another bag. And I would if I had somebody willing to carry it. But many of us do everything we can with our own vision because we haven't found anybody else that's willing to actually carry their part of the vision, too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's one of those things that I've been sitting here and I've been reflecting on how good God has been to give me people to link arms with so our visions align. Like he told them something in California but told me something in Tulsa, and told them something in Colorado and told them something up the street but we'd never met before, and God's linking people to be able to carry vision together because it's bigger than me. And it's bigger than we.
It is what God wants to do in the earth right now, and he's looking for people who would actually get vision, write it down, and be willing to say the area of my finances is vacant, but God, will you fill it up? Somebody say fill me up. Say it begin, fill me up. Brent, come sit on this with me, bro. This is what having the right people in your circle looks like. This is last week's message. It's having a circle of faith because, can you zip from that side? Can you zip from that side? Hold on. Get in front. Now I'll put my whole body weight on it. Okay. And you close it up. Okay, you got it? Okay, cool. It looks the same. It looks exactly the same as it did when it was empty, but until you, oh, there's some weight on it. There's some weight. When you get a vision from God, I can say it and you can say it. But when you put something, there's some weight on it, and what God is saying is that he wants you to get a vision so that his weight or his glory can be a part of your life. We had one bag on this trip that the limit was 55 pounds.
There was one bag of my trip that my beautiful, wonderful, amazing wife packed that it was 82 pounds. It cost me $230 going and coming back. But what she said to me messed me up. It was all Gia's stuff, our new baby. She said, Michael, everything in that bag is essential. And when she, now, I don't know all the little cleaning products and all the little things and the Sippies and the wrappers and the different, but it was heavy as hell. Heavy. But when she looked at me because she packed the bag, and she had a clear vision of our baby at the beach and our baby in a hotel room without all the amenities, she had put herself in a different country sitting in our bedroom, and she knew, when she said that to me everything in there is essential, I said here's my card. Swipe the thing. Take the bag. Why? Because the vision that she had brought clarity to how everybody else responded to it.
Some of you have been dealing with stuff because you had no clarity to the vision. You're having conversations about stuff that you're not even supposed to be talking about right now because there's no clarity to the vision. Let me just finish. My wife what she did is what I'm asking everybody to do, see it before you see it. This week put on a blindfold or close your eyes. I just gotta go extreme. I put on a blindfold, and then I just start calling out areas of my life. Where am I spiritually a year and a half from now? See it before you see it. Where do you work a year from now? How much money is in the bank a year from now? Who are you helping a year from now? Scratch that. It ain't gotta be a year from now. It could be a month from now.
What are you doing about your health next week? See it before you see it. When you start walking like this, I promise you if you make space, God will give you a vision. Who are you serving? How are you making a difference? Who is being helped by the word God gives to you? Where are you sharing your testimony? See it. You're riddled with anxiety right now. You would never share what's going on, but see yourself standing up boldly and confidently saying you know what? Yeah, I used to be on every pill imaginable for six years, I could not go into social settings without having a drink and afterwards I needed a week, like see yourself telling your testimony. See it.
See yourself standing up in front of your family saying, I forgive all of you. I have been holding a grudge and a burden against all of you for the past nine years, and today my Christmas present to all of you is to let you know that I released you of the debt. I love you. I believe in you, and I want to start a better relationship with you from here. Right now that for somebody that literally makes your stomach turn, but see it. See it before it happens. This is what vision is. It is being able to see what God has in the future before you ever see it in your present. I didn't say sight because sight is what I see with my eyes open. But vision is what I see with my eyes closed. This week set aside time and see what God has for you in the future, and then make it a vision, and do what? Write it down. 1 Corinthians 2: 9, that is what the scripture means when it says ... It's already prepared. Why don't you just ask God to show you? It's not lake there's some conjuring that you have to do and some dance and some perfect, ask me. Ask me for vision. And I'll give it to you.