Michael Todd - Faith vs Fantasy - Part 1
How you doing, friends? I am so glad that you're joining us today. And just seriously, I can not wait for you to hear today's message. And you've probably got like 30 seconds until I'ma go to the message 'cause this one is going to change everything. See, I've been teaching a series called Crazier Faith, and this time in your life is about to get crazy with good things from God. See, I'm telling you every level you've been at God says, I want it to go to another level, I want you to live out in faith. The just shall live by faith. And sometimes that looks crazy to our families, to our friends, to people around us. But one thing God will do is when you get a revelation of walking in crazy faith he'll change your life. I believe this message today is going to change you just like it changed me. Get ready, buckle up 'cause we're to go into crazier faith.
God has been maturing me and putting himself in different packages. God's been speaking to me through all kind of stuff. And I used to only could receive God in a certain package. And honestly that's a sign of immaturity. My daughter Gia can only eat food right now from a breast or a bottle. That's the only way she can receive nourishment. Because if it comes in anything outside of that she has not matured enough to be able to know how to chew it, cut it up, digest it, or be able to even understand what it is. If I put a stake in front of her right now she just gon' slap it. But when you get older you're able to receive different ways.
And so today I believe I'm on assignment to teach you some things about crazier faith that I'm going to intentionally not be like hype today. Oh-oh. Why not Pastor Mike? I want you to get this, and not be distracted by anything except the words that are coming out of this message. I'm going to intentionally and now I can't help myself, I'm going to be myself, but I really want you to get it. Everybody say, "I want to get it". Because the next, I see these things in like books and volumes, the next like five messages I have to speak are going to blow your mind. 'Cause they blown mine already. Like it is hold on, God, wait a minute, me doing that. Like it's that type of stuff. But I would be irresponsible as your pastor to give you the license to drive without the parameters to driving.
If I don't give you the parameters, and let you know that you got to stay in your lane, and you can't drive into oncoming traffic, and you probably should keep your eyes open while you at the wheel, it's only going to damage you in the long run, and not allow you to be able to experience the fullness of what God wants for you. And so today in week three of a series we're calling Crazier Faith, today I want to teach you about imagination 'cause last week we unlocked something in you all. And a lot of people have been imagining all kinds of staff. How many people right now in the church all in the room how many of you have been imagined yourself at a different place, imagining yourself in different spheres, as different influence? Oh, okay, we've been imagining all kinds of stuff, but God told me specifically, Michael, now I need you to go back, and tidy some things up to help people understand where their imagination has to be and what it is not. So, yeah, let's go on and get into this. You all got your notes? You all ready for this?
See, this is the beautiful thing about being the pastor 'cause I show up next week too. And like I get to walk you through this journey, not just, pazao! And then go away. Like I want to walk you. The greatest thing for you it's to become spiritually mature, and this stuff actually work in your life. I do not want you walking around, and be like, that's my pastor, Pastor Mike, my pastor, God is good, and nothing changes in your life. If it doesn't change in your life, there's no proof and no evidence of what we're even talking about. And so today's message is going to help you go deeper, and understand the beginnings of what God wants you to do living in crazier faith. Let's go to it. I ran into a high school friend this week. I was at a fast food establishment getting something for my kids 'cause we was fasting, and I walked up and he was like, Mike Todd, Mile Todd. And I looked at him and I was like, oh snap.
I remember you from high school. And for some reason he kept saying this. He said, I would have never imagined, I would have never imagined, bro. I would've never imagined you, you. And then I started to get offended like hold on. Like what do you mean? He's like I would have never imagined. And as I went back to the car out of every words, all the words he could have used, out of everything he could have said, I just finished speaking a message last week on the anointed imagination, and this man keeps saying I would've never imagined. And I started to examine those words you all, I would have never imagined. And something rose up in me and said, why not? Why wouldn't you have imagined? Imagination is free. Imagination can happen in a current situation that does not look like what it looks like, right? Why wouldn't you imagine yourself whole? Why wouldn't you imagine yourself free? Why wouldn't you imagine your family together? Why wouldn't you imagine yourself forgiving them?
Oh-oh. You've imagined yourself being mad at them for the next decade, and going to their funeral, and sitting there stank face. But why wouldn't you imagine the great things that God has for you? And something in me said, I will never not imagine the good that God has for me. I will never not imagine it. See, out of many of you right now are sitting here as like, well, if I imagine it, and then it doesn't happen then does that make God a liar? Help, help, help Pastor Mike. I will. The true manner of what you need to know is this, write this point down, the obedience to believe is my job, but the outcome is his. I don't have to believe and make it happen. My job is to believe God. If he does it or not, he's sovereign. He has the ability to say, yap, I'ma do it. Nope, because I got something better. You won't understand that. You're not ready for that right now. But my job is to believe.
Somebody say, "My job is to believe". Say it with your chest, "My job is to believe". The truth of the matter is most of you have skipped out on your job. You do not believe God. You will not imagine yourself healthy. You can imagine yourself healthy putting the Doughnut in your mouth. Like you can be sitting with a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, and you can get an image of yourself saying one day I will not have to go to this for comfort. I'm about to step on some people's hope. You can be sitting there with the blunt, and imagine yourself not calling the weed man, and having him on speed dial. You can imagine yourself while you're in the bed waiting for them to come temporarily fulfill, and insecurity that has been there since you were 14, and you not even gon' remember his name. But you can imagine yourself laying down in a bed that is yours with somebody next to you who loves you and cherishes you. You can imagine that.
Somebody say imagine that. I made a decision a long time ago that believing was my job, but the outcome is his. And too many people won't believe unless they know the outcome. That's not faith. So today I need you to take a different stance in faith with me. I'm going to believe no matter what. It doesn't matter what it looks like, what they said. What happened for them, Brian? I'm going to believe no matter what. They gave me the diagnosis, they told me what my son would be able to do, but I'm going to believe no matter what. The outcome his job, believing my job. I'm trying to get somebody to understand this because you've been waiting for a guarantee on what you're believing, and God's waiting for you to believe no matter the outcome. You're standing in the middle of a situation that can change, but your job is to believe, God's job is the outcome.
So what are you do? I obey God. I believe God. It doesn't matter what it looks like. And so as I was talking about imagination last week, and we were looking at how we need to be more kitty, and be able to trust God, and be able to believe God, and obey God, and follow God, and imagine what God has for us. And we learned that imagination is purified in intercession. It couldn't have come at a better time when we just as a church went in seven days of prayer and faster. When I'm telling you what God did this week, Tammy, what God did this week, Charlie, you all the prayer that happened this week changed the trajectory of our church. I can't fully disclose what has happened, but what I'm telling you right now is because we took our imagination to intercession, God purified it, and it changed the future.
As I look at this journey we're going on, I want to lay out the framework of our faith so you can all know where we're going, okay? So everybody write this down, okay? The framework of faith. Our faith starts with imagination. Everybody say imagination. This is the spiritual womb, okay? And once we get something in our minds that we can see before we see it, the next step for you to do is write the vision down and make it plain. So the next step, it goes from imagination to vision. Everybody say vision. And vision is the receipt, or the evidence of something in the future that is going to come but I got the receipt now.
See, one of the things, how many people shop online right now? How many people shop online? One of the things that give you when you shop online at the end of your purchase is a receipt. Why? 'Cause the package is not in my possession yet. But when I have that receipt it is proof that I have paid for something now that I am going to be receiving at a later time. When you get a vision that's your receipt. When I wrote this down 37 days after I became the lead pastor, this was my receipt. It wasn't just in my imagination, I had the audacity to write it down, and it went from imagination to vision. What has God given you in your imagination that you have not been bold enough to turn into vision? I need your imagination to go to intercession, to be purified and turned into vision. 'Cause now I got evidence, can't nobody tell me God didn't tell me this. I'm preaching in the building six years later that I wrote down in my daughter's room. I got the receipt.
So even if it didn't happen in my timetable I can take the receipt to the owner. You all missed it. There's another level of authority I have you all know how some of you all, excuse me, can I talk to your manager, please? I was given evidence that the healing was coming. I was given evidence that I would be free from that. I was given the evidence that I would be joyful, and not depressed all the days of my life. I was given evidence. I need you to make good. I can't even talk about that today. Okay, imagination turns to vision. Once you get vision, I'm just laying out the journey for you, once you get vision, vision has to be fueled by faith. And the fuel of faith is, everybody say, hope. At least hope for it. Like don't reason why it can't happen. Like if I came to you and ask you, do you hope your family is together next Christmas?
A lot of people would start telling me why it can't happen. Well, that ain't never going to happen because, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I didn't ask how it's gon' happen. Everybody shout at me hope. Hope to be out of the apartment. Well, I just signed a 36-month lease. First off why would you do that? And then second off... But I'm just asking like would you hope for it. 'Cause if you go from imagining it to writing it down, and making it a vision, and then just putting a hope for it, I want you to understand every step that we've said so far is f-r-e-e. You don't need a college education to you don't need a committee to agree with you to do any of these steps, to imagine, to get a vision, and to ask God to help you, hope it's free. And when you get hope, hope turns into crazy faith.
See, when I started hoping for this building, started hoping for what God was going to do, I started talking different. I started telling people, I was like, well, what about this? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Until God does it this way, I don't even want to see it. My faith got stirred. Do you know I live in north Tulsa, I live 35 miles from this building. Do you know how much gas like regular gas, not hope, not fuel for my faith, like petrol, like actually gas I used to come over here and just circle the building?
My crazy faith made me come into this building several times acting like I was looking for somebody, and I wasn't looking for nobody. They were like, can I help you? "Yeah. Is John here?" They're like, "We don't have any Johns here". I was like, I know, but I just need to be in here. It started making me move in crazy faith. Crazy faith is believing, believing enough to do something. My question is, will you believe enough to just do something, just something? I saw one of my friends this week after last week's imagination our message put this into practice. And she posted on Instagram that she was starting a crazy faith account. An account for abundance. And within like two hours somebody had given her $100, I think, into the account.
And I said, hold on, she went from imagination to vision. She wrote it down, put it on Instagram, to hoping for it, to believing God could do it, and it happened in an hour. And at that moment other people started giving. And God begins to speak to me at that moment 'cause faith is contagious. She don't know this, but $1.000 is hitting her cash app after service, 'cause God told me in that moment, you all missed it, he said, I just needed somebody to believe me. I got resources ready I just need to... Look at all the people right now on Instagram, you turning the thing off trying to put it up there, hold on. But $1.000 is going to her cash app after this, because God told me, he said, Michael, she did all the three steps, and then she believed me enough to wait and walk it out, and that's when you go to crazier faith.
I'm just giving you the progression, and what I need you to do this week is honestly evaluate where you are in this process. 'Cause some of you all ain't on the board. I didn't want to clown you, and I didn't want to make you feel bad. But the truth of the matter is you're somewhere over here, and it's okay 'cause that's where I started. I'm not going to imagine anything, I'm going to live by instinct. Do you know what separates humans from it's that every creation that God made lives by instinct. What naturally comes up, when I'm faced with the situation what I do naturally, what I want to do. But God said, I've given you a tool and imagination to be able to look at a situation that your instinct wants to take over and say, hold on, God has given me a picture of something different than what I'm about to naturally do.
That's why when oh girl walks by with a pretty face and a little waist, and everything popping where it needs to pop, as a male I have an instinct. You all want to be fake today. There's an instinct on the inside of me to say, hey, God bless you. Look what God has done through you in you on you. But because I've imagined myself a man of valor, because of imagine myself loving one woman until the day that I die, because I've imagined myself being able to stand, and my kids standing up and calling me blessed, because I've imagined myself being able to stand in the face of temptation, and be able to be somebody who passed the test, I don't live by instinct, I live by the imagination that God has planted in me because I have lived my life by the Word of God.