Michael Todd - First Ain't Second - Part 1
Hey, what's going on friends. Thank you so much for joining today's program. And today we're about to dive into a message from a series that is changing so many people's lives. It's called "Paper Chasers". And culture teaches us to chase paper, to chase money, to chase the promotion, to grind, to hustle. But God wants us to chase purpose, to and everything else will be added. But you know what that takes? It takes a cuss word. Maturity. Yeah, you weren't expecting that. But all maturity means is sacrifice. The truth is, what you are willing to part with, proves what you are willing to be a part of. Now, I know you're gonna need some further explanation. So you're here to get it from this moment, and this message. I'm Michael, and today, I wanna welcome you to the start of your transformation.
Lord, we honor you, we bless you, we thank you, and we're grateful for who you are. Hands lifted all over the world. God, today, we're grateful for who you are. Thank you for rebuking every thing that tried to stop us this week. Even the weapons formed, they did not prosper. We made it, and God today I thank you, for a hedge of protection. I just feel this so strongly. I'm praying a hedge of protection over every person under the sound of my voice. Watching this today or on rebroadcast or whenever they see this, I pray a hedge of protection. The car will not connect with yours. The thing that was trying to take you out, or distract you, or throw you into another plans will not make its connection. I pray for every child in the name of Jesus.
I need y'all to pray with me. I pray that the sickness that is aimed for children, it now disintegrates in the name of Jesus. I need us to pray with faith right now.
God we pray that everything that comes to suck and to take away, we tear down those strongholds right now in the name of Jesus. You said that we could lose things on earth, and we can bind things on earth. So today at the start of this message, we stand in our kingdom authority, and we lose peace, and joy, and protection, and healing and faith.
I need y'all to help me right now.
We lose Father God, the favor of God, the mind of Christ, Father God, the ability to walk into impossible situations and see miracles. And we bind hurt, we bind disease. Come on. We tie it up right now. We bind negative thinking, we bind depression. We bind every sickness and infirmity. We bind every stronghold and cycle. We bind it in the name of Jesus. And we say Jesus you reign. Reign Lord, may it be evident that we love you. We spend time with you. We put you first. And I just declare Father God, if nothing else happens today, we will make sure that we give you the glory, the honor, and the praise.
Don't just say it, go ahead and do it. Why don't you lift your voice? Why don't you lift your hands? Hallelujah! Let's give God a shout of praise. Come on. In your home, on the track, watching right now from wherever, in your bed, lift your hands and give him glory. Oh I feel the presence of God in the room. Glory to God. Don't it feel better when you just give God praise? See the whole thing that we're trying to do. Why we come to church? Is to magnify God. It doesn't mean your situation is not real. It's just been too big all week. You looked at your bank account, and it was too big all week. You looked at your relationship and the things that are going wrong and it was too big.
When you come in with praise and worship, the reason why we sing so many songs and we try to make sure you're interactive in what's happening. And we don't want you to just sit back and spectate. This is not watching service. This is a worship experience. If you're not experiencing anything or doing anything, this is the same thing as a Netflix movie. You sit and consume, but you don't sit and participate. What God is asking for you is, when you lift up your voice, when you magnify him with your hands, when you give, what you're doing is magnifying or you're making him bigger. And what happens is, whatever's biggest in your life, is the thing that you give the most attention to.
You remember in science class, if they wanted to show you ants? You couldn't see ants good with the naked eye, so what did they give you? A magnifying glass. And you're sitting in a room, but when you focus, on the ant, you get to see what's happening because you made the ant bigger. The problem is, there are things in our life that can affect us like that ant, that we've magnified. Well my friends. They not even gonna be your friend six years from now. Don't magnify that. Well, I feel lonely. No, you're separated for consecration right now. God's making you into something right now. But at many times we magnify it. And God says, today in worship, could you just magnify me? I've been good, I've been faithful, I've been consistent. When you turned away from me, I turned to you. Could you just lift your hands right now? And it's easy. All you gotta do is focus on the goodness of God.
Father we thank you. If you don't do another thing for us, you've been so good. God I know we got other things that we've put the magnifying glass on. But today we put it on your grace. If it had not been for Jesus on our side, where would we be? So today we're grateful, and we thank you, in Jesus name. Somebody say, amen.
Let's give God one shout of praise all over the world. All right y'all, I came locked and loaded ready to preach today. Okay? So, I need everybody right now, to get out your notepads and get out your smartphone, get out your dumb phone, I don't actually care how you got here today, I think it's on purpose that you're here, and I believe that God has a word for you. Because we are in week four! Of a series we're calling, help me! "Paper Chasers". And we decided, about three weeks ago, that we would not be Paper Chasers. We would be purpose chasers. Do I got any Paper Chasers in the room? See, I tricked you. Everybody's like, ah! No, no, no. Because honestly, at the end of the day, that's what culture teaches us. To be Paper Chasers, to grind, to hustle. The Bible, does not have any of those words in it. Like, if you look, in original Greek or Hebrew, the word hustle is not in there.
And I know, those are the things that you have to do to get ahead when you're doing it without God. Without God, yeah, you do gotta do more than everybody else. Without God, you gotta try to make stuff happen and network your way to the top, and become this, and put other people down, and hold back your resources because it makes you special, you do have to do all that when you're not with God. But when you're walking in kingdom principles, you understand, that what God wants to do with you, is not make you chase paper, he wants you to chase, everybody say it with me, "Purpose". You are gonna be uncovering, or peeling back the layers of who God has called you to be. Chase that.
If it takes you an entire year of being in the Word of God, with no time going out, but you find your purpose at the end of that, was it worth missing the movies? Yeah. Was it worth not having a bomb birthday party? I'm turning 29 and I'm about to turn up, and all that. What if God, for the gift he wanted to give you this year was purpose. Clarity of what he calls you to do. The problem that I see in our generation is that we keep going through cycles of what feels good, but not moving forward anywhere. The original idea of Paper Chasers, were people that were on a treadmill, doing all of the exercise and the energy, like they were going somewhere, but when you look up, they're standing in the same place.
The problem with us today, even, sadly to say, in the church, is that God is a Sunday thing, and then we get on the treadmill every Monday. And every Monday, we're just out here hustling, just grinding, just trying to provide for, and God say, if you get off of that, you could walk into what others are running for. Yikes. Some of us need to go back to 2017, and find our stride again. To find the pace of grace. And the reason that I keep bringing this up, is because it is my passion, that there would be about 30.000 of us, that would get off of the treadmill of paper chasing, and do this thing God's way, and begin to be a purpose chaser. Everybody say "Purpose! Over paper". Say it like you mean it, "Purpose over paper".
Now, if you're broke right now, it doesn't mean anything. When this will make sense, is when God offers you something good that's not God. If you've never been offered something that look real good, but it ain't God for you, that's when you scream. Purpose! Over paper. Some of y'all in the bedroom, y'all need to scream that too. Purpose! I'll let you fill in the p word, but i, I didn't come to play with them today. You need to be going after purpose more than you're going after anything else. Purpose!
Let me, I'm doing too much right now. Let me just go ahead and pull all the way back. Somebody in the crowd just turned completely pink, like my turtleneck. It's the truth. I dare you to start to yell purpose when temptation comes. You scrolling on Instagram, purpose! You gonna get a phone call from somebody, ah, ah, purpose! Somebody shout at me "Purpose"! Because when you get purpose, the paper follows, watch this, the platform follows. Nobody be bought watching me right now. Had I not gotten into purpose when nobody was looking. The purpose bought the platform. And many of us, especially in this social media age, and climbing the corporate ladder, and this thing, we're going after platforms, that were not built to hold us.
And I just see too many people on a platform that was manufactured, instead of on a platform that was given by God. And if you gotta keep it up, and you gotta make sure to keep it oiled, and it's not something that's being supplied by God, it might mean you didn't chase purpose. We might have to do a whole other series, purpose over platform. That might be a whole other situation. All right, let me get to the word. None of that, was my message. But when the Holy Spirit starts speaking to me up here, there's somebody in the audience that needed to be able to see that God wants you to follow, everybody shout at me one more time, "Purpose!"
It's funny you talk about purpose, because, I was watching March Madness this week, and, here in Tulsa, something kind of extraordinary happened. O.R.U. Shout out to the golden eagles. They beat, I believe it was Ohio, Ohio state, and upset about 98% of people's brackets and there's some people that don't, like sports, that don't watch, and they're like, March Madness, anyway, basically, somebody who wasn't supposed to win, David, beat Goliath. And it just messed up everything for a lot of people. But as I was watching that, I went back, you know, you ever dream about your hoop dreams? Now I know some of y'all didn't have hoop dreams but your boy had hoop dreams. They were short-lived, you understand?
Let's be very clear. But I started to think about every level of basketball, and what is necessary at each one of those levels. And I found some principles and some things in there that I think would be powerful, for you to understand. When you play YMCA or elementary basketball, you know, the kids out there that pick up the ball, and run all the way to the net, throw it up, there's no coordination, they just all wear the same color jerseys. Like in elementary, the idea, that they're trying to get you is, an idea of participation. We just want you to be a part. Like at the end when it's the championship, this is why I can't coach any of my kids little league situations 'cause at the end, they give everybody a trophy. Do you mean I came here every day? With these kids not listening and everybody get the same medal? Huh-uh, huh-uh. But it's because the goal is what? Participation.
But then when you go up and you get to middle school, it changes a little bit. It goes from just participation, and they start delineating. Okay, you kinda good, and you not that good, and they start putting you on the 'a' team and the 'b' team, and if your school got a 'c' team, you just need to go back to class. That's what that means. But they start going to different things. But I found out the goal in middle school is different, it's preparation. So, in elementary it's participation. We just want everybody to be a part. But in middle school, it's preparation, 'cause they know, there's only three years, until it gets serious. 'Cause when it comes to high school ball, high school ball, the thing that separates them is dedication. It's the people who don't just play on the team but they play A.A.U. In the summer, they show up to the training facility, they get a coach to help them dribble, so, you could be bomb in middle school.
Y'all know, Charles said that was me. You can be bomb in middle school, but when you hit into high school, it changes, 'cause the goal is not for everybody to participate. The goal is not for everybody to get prepared. You should have been prepared and starting in ninth grade, that's why they chop them up to junior varsity, and freshman junior varsity and varsity. Why? 'Cause they, are all about, who's dedicated to this thing. So it's about dedication. But then when you get to college, college different, y'all know how many high school teams there are? They're everywhere. And everybody was a baller on a high school team. But why didn't you go to college? One word, in college, it's all about separation. Then, I'm gonna give you time to prepare. And then I'm gonna see if you're actually dedicated. But this is the line, where there's separation.
Today's message, is a message of separation. See, I know many of you have been coming here, and was like, I like TC, I like the colors, and he got Richie Rich on the screen, and the Pastor Mike he funny, yeah, yeah, yeah, participation. And some of y'all have heard a few of these messages and you're like, you know what? One day, you know what? One day I really do think I'ma do this tithing thing, and this giving thing, and this generosity. Preparation! And then some of y'all last week. And I wanna thank you Transformation Church, because, you are a generous church. And I saw, like physical evidence of the number of people who actually gave. It didn't matter about amounts. It mattered about the heart posture, because giving is all about the heart and you did it, and so, as your pastor, as a proud parent, I'm saying good job. Because what you showed, is what you show when you start maturing, dedication. But today, what I'm about to talk about, is separation. This is what, changes people, from players to fans. You know the people on the sideline they be like, he should have dunked it. But you can't do a layup.
See, there's a lot of people in this Christianity thing, that's not the Bible. Is tithing, is giving, is this, and there's a lot of fans. But, only real players know, what it takes to actually live the thing. They know what they have to deny in the off season. They know what they have to give up. They know what's required of them. And this is what I'm trying to provide to our church. A word of separation. Not a word that you're better than, 'cause as soon as the game is over, you the same as everybody else. But in this thing of Christianity and what God has called us to, and kingdom, God does call for separation.
Who actually riding with me? And who just wear the t-shirt. Who has the cross tattooed on their heart? And who just wears it as a chain? There's a lot of people repping the team, ain't never played the game. And I just believe at Transformation Church, I'm talking to some players. Some people that's lacing up they sneakers, they're saying, we're not gonna sit on the sideline of this walk of faith, but we gon' lace it up, and we gon' get in the game. Somebody shout at me "Get in the game". It's time out, for us to play video game Christianity. I don't care what you can do on the 2k of Christianity.
See, it's a season of separation. And the reason that I would do this message series and go five weeks. Yeah. I could teach something way sexier. Generosity and stewardship? They don't even sound sexy to say. Stewardship. That's an ugly word. But at the end of the day, these principles have the opportunity to transform not just your life, if this was about you, it wouldn't even be worth it. But if it's about the generations that are running around your house right now, and then the seeds that are on the inside of them, and when you're long gone from now, your impact, influence, and your decision, could actually be impacting the next generation.
The Bible says, a good man, a good woman, leaves an inheritance for their children's children. That's not just money, it's mind sets. And there are so many people, leaving a house, but no holiness. They're leaving accounts, but no anointing. I am on one today. They're leaving passive income. Great. But no principles. Do you know? That's why heirs and heiresses are some of the most, what do they call them? Wasteful? Because they didn't have the principles that got their parents the actual resources, and so, as soon as they get the inheritance, as soon as they get what was laid up for them and prepared for them, because they didn't have the mind set or the principles, they squander it. Today, I don't want us, as a church, to squander the principles that God is trying to give us through this series.