Michael Todd - Faith vs Fantasy - Part 2
Hey, what's going on friends. I am so glad we are here together today. I believe God has something so powerful that he wants to share with you through this message. And, if you don't know, we have been walking through an incredible series called Crazier Faith. See, somebody was like, why is it crazy? Well, 2019, we did a series called crazy faith, but this is the upgrade of that. The same way God wants to upgrade your faith. Did you know there is a big difference between faith and fantasy? Yeah, yeah, there is. And, the only thing that can lead you to the incredible plans of God and the things he has created you for, is faith, not fantasy. Today, I want to dispel some myths and tell you how to walk in crazier faith. Buckle up, get ready, let's go.
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. And the saddest thing, many of us are still living on instinct. Something happens, something comes. That's why fear grips you. They gave us a bad doctor report! What do we do! Instinct, freak out. Instinct. Start calling everybody, sowing fear into everybody. You ain't even heard what the doctor said. They just call me! They just called me and said, death, bed, hospital, funeral. That's all you heard? Now you tell everybody else. And, now, instinct has seeped in. Now we all freaking out, instead of living by the imagination of God. Doctor calls, before I call anybody, father, you said in your word that I could speak to disease.
See, you all... It's so crazy that we come to church every day and you don't believe this stuff. Go somewhere else. Do some... Like, honestly, do something else. Because, until you start believing what God's word says, you only live out of instinct, but God's trying to give you an anointed imagination that then moves into a vision, that then goes into hope, that then turns into crazy faith. And, then you get to a level where it's just crazier faith, like, I didn't even believe for this. And, God knew that he could partner with me and we're about to do something that didn't even come across my mind. That's the scripture that says eyes haven't seen, ears haven't heard, neither has it entered into the imagination of those who love... I didn't even think of this, but God wanted to do something.
So, then I started looking at Hebrews chapter 11, I'm just taking... Today, I'm just teaching you. I'm taking you on a Bible study with me. This is what happened to me during the week. God said, just walk them through it. Hebrews 11, verse three. It says. By faith, we understand that the worlds were... Everybody say framed, underline that, circle that in your Bible, it says, by faith, we understand that the worlds were framed, by the Word of God. So, that the things which are seen now were not made of things which are visible. That goes back to what we talked about last week, that God framed the whole world by words, but he did it with invisible... How did he do it? With things that weren't here? Things that weren't yet here, he framed the whole world, and made it reality?
It took me back to the phrase that we said, God's imagination created us. We are created in his image, therefore we can create with imagination. What are you saying? God saw it before he saw it. You have to see it. I don't know what it is for you, but you got to see it before you see, you got to see yourself being joyful, before you see yourself actually, in real life, being joyful. You got to see yourself being able to manage a lot before you see yourself actually being able to do it. Somebody say, see it... Before you see it. So, when I looked at this scripture and I realized everything that we're looking at right now, God saw before we saw it. This word right here, framed, kept Messing with me. So, I looked up, y'all, I love the Bible. I looked up this word, framed, in different passages.
Look at Psalms 103 verse 14. It says, for he knows our, everybody say "Frame". And, he remembers that we are dust. So, now I started doing the real pastory thing, and I went to look this word up in the Hebrew and the Greek. Let me tell you, you all not going to believe this, the word frame in the original Hebrew is a word called yetser. Y-E-T-S-E-R. Yetser. Ain't never heard of a yetser in my life, don't know where to find a yetser, and this had to be God. Do you know what the word yetser means? Imagination. If you look it up, the word, it says, for God knows our imaginations, and he remembers that we are dust. You can see the same word in Genesis chapter six, verse five, 1 Chronicles 29:18. This is for all the Bible nerds that need to go study it, which should be all you all. 1 Chronicles 28:9, God knows my imagination.
Let me say it like this to you. Your imagination frames your life. Whatever you're imagining is the frame that God is building your whole life on. The life you have right now, you framed it. Stop blaming everybody else. It's not your family no more. You don't even live in that house no more. You are framing your life with the thoughts that you are thinking right now. And, God told me to tell you it's time to change the frame. What are you saying, pastor Michael? Let me give you an example that kind of hits close to home. This is a drum set that I want to show you all from like... Probably 1821. I don't even know. This mug is old. This drum set was top of the line, world-class drum set when it came out, but it only has the frame for one cymbal, a cowbell, and a snare. That's all the frame can hold. This is our drummer, Tony's, drum set. This mug is huge than a mug. No, I want everybody to see this real quick. This drum set is huge. It has a frame that can hold all of these that...
Come with me, because they don't even know, they seeing it from the front. I want you all to see how crazy this little boy has gotten with this drum set. No, no, no, no, come on back here. I'm exposing it, right now. There's cymbals everywhere. There's electronic pads. There's all kinds of stuff. There's electronic double basses. There's four pedals down here. Do you need, or what's the difference between this drum set and that drum set? It's the frame it was built on. I'm going to help him. This is what the frame of that drum set looks like. Look at this. This right here is the frame. I need somebody, camera, come on. You all, somebody, come over here so they can see this. This is big enough to be able for me to imagine.
When I build my drum set on this frame, there's all kind of options. There's all kinds of toms, and cymbals, and everything. That's the only reason that 1921 drum set doesn't have the frame to be able to build something great. God said to me, Michael, the saddest part about this crazier faith message I'm trying to get to people is most of them do not have the frame big enough for what I want to do in their life. They do not believe me. They haven't taken the limit off of me. And, today, when I looked up that word yetser, and it said that the worlds were framed or imagined, and that God knows our frame, our imagination. God said, Michael, the music I want to make in your life depends on the frame that you have.
See, many people don't know this, but I played drums since I was two. The difference between this drum set and that drum set on the screen is there's a lot more options here. Let me stop. Let me stop. Let me stop. Let me stop. What I was able to do, and the sounds that came out, and the expressions I was able to make were based on something that was built on a frame that was big enough for me to hold what I imagined. Pastor Mike, what are you trying to say? Could you imagine for more? I just... I feel like it's... The rest of the weeks for most of you are going to be futile, if you don't get this one point, make the frame bigger. Take the limit off of God. He will not go past your belief to bring you into a place and a space that he already ordained for you. Ask the children of Israel.
The promise from the beginning is I'm taking you to a land flowing with milk and honey, I'm about to take you to a Promised Land. These people could not believe it. These people literally was like, we want to go back to slavery! Kill the guy who brought us out! Let's worship golden calves! They turned an 11 day journey into a 40 year death, 'cause they could not get a bigger frame for what God wanted to do. And, what I'm telling you right now is a lot of you all are out here being like, yeah, if God would just do this, and God was like, that is so little. That is so low. That is so whack. You just want to be married? That's it? You don't want to impact people with your marriage? You just want to be married, that's... You just want to be able to have sex with not feeling guilty. That... What? You don't want to raise generation, after generation, that stands up and changes the trajectory of other people's life? You just want to have money? Or, do you want to be able to change the trajectory of communities, and be able to walk into situations, and not pray for it, but be the answer to the prayer? Would you just widen the frame?
I feel like a alien up here preaching, 'cause I've been to a planet that a lot of people never get to. I've started believing God for stuff that I can't say to people, 'cause it'd makes you... It'd change the way you thought about me. Now, when it happens, you're going to say I'm a man of faith, but, right now... Emberly, there's stuff that God has shown me in the past two weeks, since we started this series, I dare not utter, 'cause it would fry the belief of people who say they believe. And, I say, God, why is this? He said, 'cause the frame is too small. Make the frame bigger. Write that down on your piece of paper. I'm going to make the frame bigger. Yeah, 'cause your imagination frames your life.
Now, the one thing you got to know about imagination, and I told you today, I'm not preaching to you. I'm teaching to you. Imagination is neutral. I want you to understand this. Your imagination is neutral. Your imagination can work for you and your imagination can work against you. Oh, but it's always working. Like your imagination... Right now, some of you all are imagining about what you going to eat after this fast is over. Right now, some of you all done seen the steak. You already seen the Chinese food. I have seen the Chinese Buffet, the nasty, dirty one. I go in there. I love that stuff. Hey, my God, I feel it. I've imagined it. I'm there, right now.
Wontons and all, you understand what I'm saying? Okay. But, the thing you got to understand is your imagination is always working. Your imagination is neutral though. It depends what you feed it, of how it's going to produce for you. Okay? I'm trying to help you. All of this mental health that everybody's talking about right now, do you know where all of these mental health issues come from? Your imagination. It's taken me all this time to get here, but I thought it would be imperative as a pastor to teach you the difference between faith and fantasy.
Faith versus Fantasy. Because, last night we opened a can of... Or, last week we opened a can of worms that had people imagining all kinds of stuff. And, as a pastor, it would be... It would be wrong of me to tell you, go out there, and imagine everything in crazy faith, and not tell you, there's a difference between faith and fantasy. Let me give you a point you need to write down. Perverted imagination. Remember, last week we talked about the anointed imagination? A perverted imagination is fantasy and all the word perverted means is twisted, wiccan, wicked, twisted. It's when you take the thing and you twist it, it becomes a fantasy.
Write this definition down of fantasy, it messed me up. A fantasy is the process of creating especially unrealistic mental images in response to a psychological need. The crazy thing about this definition that I love is that it came from a real need. I had a real need to be loved. So, what I did was use my imagination to make something unrealistic come into my images. And, now I'm trying to live out a fantasy instead of letting God lead me in an anointed imagination. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know nobody talks about it, but the reason why you're in an emotional affair with the guy at work is not because you don't need to be seen, or loved, or noticed, it's because that legitimate need now has found a way to get twisted. And, now you're imagining like, what if my husband talked to me like he talked to me. I'm just trying to tell you how it happened.
What if we went out to dinner like as a business thing, but we just stayed a little longer, and had a couple of drinks, and just talked about... Just got to know each other, 'cause it will really help our work performance if you really know the people you work with. Oh, I'm in your business. I counsel these people. See it starts very subtle. What's the difference between an anointed imagination and fantasy? It's that somewhere along the way it got perverted. No, God told me I was going to have money. Why? 'Cause, many of us are trying to run away from something that we were born into. And, God's saying, I want you to have resources so you can bless other people, but you want to have resources, so you can make other people feel like you used to feel. Perverted. And, it's become a fantasy. That's why the Bible talks about vain imaginations.
2 Corinthians 10:5, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity, locking it up, every thought to the obedience of Christ, the thought can come, but you're the sheriff. And, some of you all are letting fugitive thoughts run rampant in your mind, and you have not yet locked up these fantasies. God's not going to bless you to be married to somebody else's husband. God is... You need to take that and lock it up. You all don't hear me right now. God is not going to bless your business with stolen money from the last place that... He is not. You need to take that thought captive and cast down every imagination. God is not going to allow you to minister to people about forgiveness and you still holding unforgiveness against them. You need to lock up your pride and you need to let God do the work on the inside of you.
Pastor Mike, you preaching good. I know. 'Cause at the end of the day, your fugitive fantasies are wrecking your life. You the sheriff, just letting everybody, all these vain thoughts, just run around your mind. And, God said, I need you to get these thoughts under control. Romans 1:21, because when they knew God, oh, that's like us. We come to church, and we know church. Transformation nation on set, we love God. They glorified him. They, hold on... They glorified him, not as God, neither were thankful. We know God, but he's just an additive on our daily routine. And, we're not thankful for what he's done. I got myself here. I've grinded. I hustled. I did all this, okay. What that produces is they became vain in their imaginations. And their foolish heart was darkened. You all didn't know imagination was this much in the scripture.