Michael Todd - Faith Talk - Part 1
How you doing, friends? I am so glad that you joined us here today, and honestly, I'm kind of really excited cause I know the message you're about to hear, and this message comes from my life. One thing God never lets me do is speak a message to you that I'm not living out for real in my life, and today, I have experienced some crazy things that have allowed me to be firm in my faith and live in what I like to call Crazier Faith. That's right, not just faith, not just crazy faith, but crazier faith, and I believe that's what the Bible says when he tells us he wants to take us from faith to faith, not just what we've had or what we're believing for right now, even beyond that. So, get ready, get ready, get ready! I'm telling you right now, this is going to transform your life. Let's go.
I'm going to take it up one more notch today 'cause I, can I talk to you like we friends? Like I have authority in your life, and I can say something and you won't be mad at me afterwards because I'm going to tell you the truth, even though it stings a little bit? Can I be real this morning? No, I'm asking you first 'cause I need permission before I go into what I'm about to do. Can I be real this morning, transformation church? Okay. Today, I want to talk to you about the way that you talk. I'm coming straight forward today because the church always talks and communicates, and has seminars on walking by faith, but most people are deprived of talking by faith. Your talk cancels your walk! You will believe on Sunday for something that you will cancel out with your words before you pray at cracker barrel.
It don't even take three hours of you saying, "God, help me to forgive," and then somebody frustrates you in the parking lot. And you done picked up a whole other offense, and talking about, see, that's why I don't come to church, I don't mess with church people and they're jumping in, and you've literally canceled out the walk. Which you'll talk. And one of the things that I am very concerned about as we write down our crazy faith, and as we believe God and we stand and we give, is that many of us are going to literally make all of our faith steps canceled out with our words of death. Let me say it the way the Bible says it, idle words. It's not about saying bad things, it's about saying pointless things. It's not just about, "Well, I didn't cuss," it's, "But did you sow division"?
And you know, you can sow division by somebody saying somebody's name, and you don't even really say a full word. You know Susan? Uh-mm. That was an idle word that heaven has now recorded, and you will have to stand and give account for every uh-mm, 'cause the same faith that you need when you're walking into rooms that you don't even know who's been talking to you about, you reap everything you sow! And there are people that are leading, that are greeting, that are on the worship team, that are in the stands, in the choir stand, doing everything that God says to do, and that gossip is digging a hole. I'm coming for your secret conversations, the ones with trusted friends, 'cause there's people we feel comfortable telling, and they know our hearts, and we've been through so much together that they know, like, I would never really say that to them, but I'm just venting.
Venting is not a spiritual practice. Venting is not a Fruit of the Spirit. And some of us are canceling out the very promises of God that we believe for with the words we are saying. Today, I want to engage and empower your faith talk. I want what comes out of your mouth to be speaking good into the present and producing fruit in the future. Now, this is going to change who some of you can hang around, 'cause if you don't get a revelation or a revealed truth of what God is trying to do in your life, you'll use your words frivolously because you think that they don't matter. Baby, my vocal chords were created for victory. When I talk, things change, uh-oh. We're about to see a delineation right now between the people who have crazy faith and the people who have crazier faith.
Let me say it to you like this, it takes crazy faith to write the vision down, it takes crazier faith to say it out loud, and most of you are writing down what you are scared to say. If God called you up right now and said, "Tell them what I told you," like, you would turn into because you don't actually have the faith. If somebody's crazy, you don't know they're actually crazy, like actually insane or something's not there, you don't know it by just looking at 'em. The way you can tell somebody is crazy, when they start talking. The way the enemy's going to know that you're serious about staying pure this time, the way that your family is going to know they can't come to you with the foolishness they used to come to you with, the way that all of heaven and all of hell is going to recognize your faith is not just by what you think, it's by what you say.
Everybody say, "Say it"! That means you've got to have faith talk, and too many of us, because of our upbringing, have learned to have talk that copes with deficiencies around us, and this is where many of you need therapy. You need therapy and theology. I'm going to give you the theology, and then some of you all need to go see Dr. Shanorkskian. Yeah, because your environment, many times, to deal with what you didn't like, you would use words to be able to create an environment that was okay. Okay, let me... So, when the family didn't have no money, you would make jokes about it using your words. "Everyone's so broke, we can't even pay attention. Look at your hair, look at them edges"!
And we just would go and go and go to try to find hope in a situation that felt hopeless. Now you have been trained in speech that works against God's promises for your life. I'm just telling you what actually happens, and I'm just talking about one instance. We can bring this to every different facet of your life, but what you say when you're getting pressed exposes what's really in there. You can tell by if somebody slams their hand in the door. Boom! Oh! What comes after the "Oh" is what's really in there. Pressure exposes, 'cause the Bible says, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks". Everything you've been saying is exposing the crevices of your heart.
My question to you, are you talking faith, because everything God wants to do in your life is going to take the payment of faith. He doesn't need fame. He doesn't need fortune. He doesn't need fans. What God is going to require, whether you are a CEO or you are a single mom trying to raise three boys, is, shout at me, faith. Faith! And so, today, I want you to divorce any talk that's not faith talk. You know the other talks, like fear talk, which some of you are fluent in. You're so fluent in fear talk that when God blesses you, your automatic reaction is to think and say what can happen to go wrong. My, my, my! It's that you're so fluent in it!
"Hey, I want to give you a hundred dollars". "What's the catch? What do you want from me? Who are you with? What are you," and God is like, "I was just trying to bless you," but what you've been trained in comes out of your mouth. We got to divorce fear talk. We got to divorce frustration talk. Some of you all be mad at nothing. Why they get to go first, going down the line at thanksgiving? Look, it hit somebody over there, somebody. There was conviction on this side. Why they get to go first, they not even part of the family? You know, they already had, and we don't even know if that's their real dad, okay? And you're getting frustrated about stuff. No more frustration talk. No more failure talk!
If he saw fit to put you in a position, the Bible says elevation comes from the Lord. It doesn't come from the north, the south, the east, or the west, it comes from him. So, now you're just, "I just want to let everybody know, I'm not, I'm not good enough for this. Just want to let you all know that, you know what I'm saying? If I mess up, you know what I'm saying, it's just because, you know what I'm saying, I've never been in such a big role before". Like, what? "And you know, I just, I've just thought about it, you know what I'm saying, if everything falls apart, I'll just go back to," what? And many of you don't say it like this out loud to anybody, but you're talking to yourself, and failure talk is controlling the narrative of your life. We have to talk faith.
Somebody say "Faith talk"! Say it with your chest! Oh, some of you all got to divorce famine talk. This famine talk, this poverty mentality, this, this will always be broken, and maybe God will do it again, and I literally meet people just trying to work through, yeah, just trying to make it through with just trying. What, hold on. Like, even if it's the truth and you believe in God, there's a disconnect between him being Jehovah Jireh, you love maverick city jireh. You are enough! You sing it, it's just on repeat, but you don't believe it enough to say it. So, you worship to jireh, but you bow to Mammon. I can't even. Some of you all going to have to go look up the spirit of Mammon and, it's too much right now, but you love something that can never produce for you. But you acknowledge it more than you acknowledge him. It's famine talk.
One of the first things we did when we came to the north side of Tulsa, where they told me, "There's no way that people would be able to give," and they literally told me. How discouraging! I'm coming in as a new pastor, and the people are going to give $10, and you can tell 'em to give it here, you can tell 'em to give it here, but this all they're going to give. Go out and do what God's called you to do. I said, "Why'd you call me, it's going to take resources," and the first thing I did was break famine talk. I literally came in here and talked to them. I said, "You all, we are not going to be a broke church, we're going to be able to meet needs," and we changed the talk to faith talk. You're going to see in just a second.
And some of you all need to divorce feeling talk. Your feelings matter, they just can't rule you, and some of you are more obedient to your feelings than you are to the God of your future. And so, if your feelings say, "Well, I don't like the way they talk to me," you won't show up in a place where you are the answer. You're supposed to go there to be the answer, but you will let how you felt, I'm trying not to be specific-specific 'cause some of you all going to get exposed, but your feelings are not God's... Okay, let me just say it how I feel it. God don't care about how you feel over your future. He will, he will be there. And, oh, ah! Okay, now get up. No, no, no, no, keep crying, but we are going to do. No, no, no, no, no, cry, let it out, beat the floor, but we are going to.
This is how God does us. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! It's not fair, and whoever told you it was fair, they lied. This is not fair. But we're going. And too many of us are fighting with God over here and rehearsing our feeling talk, and then what we do is find a small group who feels the same way, and what we do is, "Oh, this is my people, these". No, no, no, no, no, when you connect over dysfunction, it will never help you grow. Now, I need to, you all, you all told me I could be real today. Some of your besties are the most, I'm just going to let it rip from now on, okay, they're the most hindrance that you've ever had. You turn up on the weekends, but they keep you from purpose during the week, and you go to them instead of go to God because they will coddle your feelings. And what I'm telling you is no more feeling talk. This ain't for everybody, this is for the people who're going to live in crazier faith.
The last one I want to address, I wouldn't have had to address this probably 10 years ago. Maybe I would have, but it's real prevalent right now. You need faith talk, not famous talk. You want to be famous? To then do what? There's no substance on the inside of you that would be able to last at that place for any amount of time until you get developed in the dark room. And so many people are talking about getting on platforms and having influence and doing all of these things to get, what the light does is expose you. What the light does, what the platform does, what the notoriety does is it exposes you! If you are a liar with two people following you, you will be a liar with two million people following you.
All I'm telling you is you're not talking faith talk, you're talking famous talk, and I've seen some people write on their crazy faith card that, "I would be able to speak at transformation church". Baby, you don't want this. If God don't want it for you, I'm just trying to be real, you don't want! When you get to certain levels, you stop being jealous of certain things 'cause you don't know what's on the back side of what you think is a blessing, and somebody who is carrying it, they're carrying it 'cause it's a burden. A burden and a blessing look very similar. That was a bar. A burden and a blessing look very similar, depending where you are sitting.
So, no more fear talk, no more frustration talk, no more failure talk, no more famine talk, no more feeling talk, no more famous talk. You can fill in whatever f-word you want to in there. No more talk like that. We're only having faith talk! Okay? And I just need you to understand that this is the design from the very beginning. When God was standing over nothing, he did not think the world into existence. He did not feel the world, you know what? And God said, I'm going to, I need your help, and God said. And God said. If that's how he created, and we were created in his image and his likeness, the creation of what God wants to do in your life is going to take you saying something. And God said!
Now I want you to put your name in there, and I want you to be able to feel the weight of whatever comes on the other side of what you say can actually happen. I'm going to say, "And," and you say your name, and then we're going to say "Said", okay? And Michael said! That could change everything in your family today. That could change, no, you all don't hear, I got goosebumps 'cause somebody just caught that. That could change your financial future right now. Let's try it one more time, and Michael said! 'cause God said, "Let there be light," and there was... It was on the other side of what he said. It was on the other side of, somebody shout at me, faith talk. When I saw this pattern, it goes all throughout the Word of God, that the miracles we talk about were ignited by something a person said.