Michael Todd - I Have The Advantage - Part 2
Hey, what's going on friends? I thank you so much for joining us today. And I need to ask you, do you ever feel like your life, your marriage, your family, your business could use an upgrade? Today I want you to stay tuned because we're gonna talk about the incredible upgrade that God has for you. Even if you feel disadvantaged in life or you got left out of something, you don't have to worry because when you accept Christ, you have a full access pass to the Holy Spirit. And this is the one thing that you need to know, the Holy Spirit is not extra, he's essential. In today's program, we're gonna get the upgrade.
See, the Holy Spirit, didn't it say that he'll tell you of the things to come? He'll show you if you would allow him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know they're working on that project, but at home I want you to dedicate two hours a night. Well God, that's my Netflix show! Yeah, yeah, I know, but you're gonna be broke for the next five years and asking where I am. I'm trying to give you the advantage right now. Every night I need you to give two hours to working on this. "Well they didn't ask me for it". "What if they did", he said baby, I'm in every room. I'm in every meeting. I'm everywhere you want to be, and I know everything you need to know. I'm the Holy Spirit. Put some respect on my name. Work on this project every night for two hours. And it will be just like God that three months later they're at a crossroads in the company, and they call everybody in for a meeting, and the guy's standing up there frazzled, the big boss never comes in, but somehow he's there today.
I wanted to call everybody in here 'cause I need fresh ideas! What's happening is not cutting it! You, what's your name? Gerald. Where do you work? Too low for you to know. But in my spare time, I've been working on something that I thought would lead us into the future of this company. And you be like I don't know what to say, and the Holy Spirit stands up strong on the inside of you and as a matter of fact, I need you to recognize that, I'm telling y'all! I have the advantage. The only way I can explain it to you is that Jesus told us that this is what would happen. John 16:7, nevertheless, that word means that Jesus was even having to convince them. This is gonna be hard for y'all to believe because y'all walk with me, but I tell you the truth, like that's like Jesus saying I put this on my mama.
Y'all know how when you was in school and somebody be like put that on something, you be like I put this on my mama. Jesus says nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage. That's Bible! It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper, the Holy Spirit will not come to you, but if I depart oh, I will send him to you and in every room, in every discussion, at the point of your failure, in the midst of your mistakes, in the greatest hurts you've ever experienced, the Holy Spirit, your helper, is your advantage. Somebody say I have... The advantage. Okay, so let me help explain this to you in a deeper way because let's just say it like this, the Holy Spirit is God. So I want to break this down to you. God walks with you all the time. You don't act like it. I just want to be for real.
I want you to think about Shaquille O'Neill walking with you as security everywhere you went. You would have more confidence in a retired NBA star star who's seven whatever walking with you. You feel more protected with Shaq walking with you and you have God, the Holy Spirit, walking with you at all times. At Christmas time I hear everybody talking about Emmanuel. Emmanuel! But do y'all know what Emmanuel means? God with us. Why do we only say that at Christmas? I call him Emmanuel on Monday. Emmanuel, we got to go to work today. Emmanuel, I got to go raise these kids. What does that mean? God with us. And the problem is we have not seen the Holy Spirit as God, and that's why last week I tried to normalize your understanding of God, God and God.
Y'all remember that last week where I said it was God, God, God. Put that chart on the screen because I need everybody, if you're just joining us, go back and watch the message, but it's worth us going over again. That God has three name. He's God the Father, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Three equal persons in one. There is no delineation. When one of them shows up, all of them show up. But they have different and specific functions according to the Bible in our lives. God the Father is provider. He is set apart, and he's holy, and he has a residence of heaven. Jesus is God, and he was our Savior, and now he is seated at the right hand of the father, according to Luke, and his residence is in heaven. And God the Holy Spirit is our helper, and he's active, and he's alive right now on earth. He's your advantage right now. It's all good 'cause it's all God.
Now I need you to hear me say this. When God the Father shows up, he shows up with himself, his whole self. So I know a lot of y'all is like well God the Father, so and then Jesus, and then the Holy Spirit, like I don't understand how is he here and then they're there. Listen, this is beyond our comprehension. I need to let you know that this is what we call the mystery of God. Now I know don't no church talk about this because we're so intellectual that we want to know everything about everything that we use, but the thing about this is in this faith journey that you're about to go on with God, you will not be able to explain a lot of it. You see how quiet it is? I need to know! Really? 'Cause there will be parts of your Christian walk that you will not be able to explain. You will only be able to experience.
I need you to hear me say this 'cause some of you who are so intellectually deep and you're saying until I fully know what is going on, I cannot serve God and I can't do this. You don't know how your microwave fully works. But you still use it. Some of y'all add 30 seconds, add 30 seconds, you know who y'all are. Popcorn. You only use four button and it's 32 of them. But you're telling me because you don't know the ins and outs of everything that comes with God that you can't serve him? You don't know how math works. After algebra one, and they started adding letters and started adding different signs and pi and, God bless y'all. I like sweet potato pie but I didn't know pi was in math. You don't know how it fully works but you still use it to count your money. What I'm saying to you, listen to this, I heard this quote, a God that is exhaustively understood by finite human beings is not a God that is glorious enough to be worshipped.
If you can explain everything about God, why are we not worshipping you? All I need you to know is that we at Transformation Church embrace, write this phrase down, the mystery of God. Pastor Mike, in 1 Thessalonians and this this this, and you don't know this, and you don't know this. I don't! But guess who will tell you? The Holy Spirit. If you allow him, he'll tell you about himself. Do you know how many scriptures I come to where I don't understand the meaning and then I say Holy Spirit, you have to give me revelation. And just like that, as I begin to pray, I might be walking out without understanding and the Holy Spirit, you know it's like this, right? And I be like oh, my goodness! That's what we call revelation, and he still speaks. And if you need a man to convince you, that means that you have not allowed the Holy Spirit to consume you. There are things that I don't have to be convinced of because I was consumed by him.
And I'm telling you right now just because you don't know the ins and outs of how everything works doesn't mean that you don't use it. Accept your advantage. Accept the upgrade. Accept the Holy Spirit. Y'all know when I said God shows up fully, y'all may not get it like that, so I'm gonna use a real person as an example so you can see exactly what I'm talking about. When I say God, God God, maybe you would understand it better if I said Mike, Mike and Mike. Like if I explain this to you and it's me, okay? So if you were looking at my life, Mike is my name, Mike is my name, Mike is my name. My title is pastor. And my function as a pastor is what? Put it on the screen. Lead me. Y'all going the other way. All right, we'll do it that way. It's leader. And just build the whole thing out. Okay, and no, no, bring it back. Okay. My title is pastor, my function is leader, my status is lead servant, and my location of lead serving is Transformation Church. Okay? That's one version of Mike.
The next version is father. So my title is father, and I'm Isbella, MJ, and Ava Ray, and another little baby's father. How did I get four kids y'all? I have to stop touching on pastor Natalie. But, it's four and no more. It's over now. But I'm a father, and my function is provider. And in my status in that household is lead servant, and my location is to be present. Wherever my kids are, I need to be a present father. Let me show you this last version. I am a husband, and I'm a husband to one woman. And I need to be very clear about this 'cause I've seen some of your DM's. Pastor Natalie is not the first lady, she's the only lady, so I need to be very clear. And she got hands, so I just want to make sure that you're here for spiritual wisdom and not a problem. But I am a husband to one woman and my function is her partner, and my status is lead servant. For all my men that are out there, can I give you a key real quick, that the status wherever you are, men of God, you're supposed to be the lead servant there.
So with your wife, you're supposed to be the lead servant. At your job, you're supposed to be a lead servant. That's a whole other message for a whole other day, but I'll teach about that a little later. And where my location is is wherever pastor Natalie is at. Let me help you. Mike the pastor is here. You see Mike the pastor. Here he is. He's the man. Gives you a word. But do you know what's with me everywhere that I go is Mike the father, who at the moment that I'm giving you a word, if Natalie calls me and tells me that my daughter fell and has to go get staples in her head, which actually happened this week, Mike the pastor was there but he gone now 'cause family is my first ministry. God's not gonna ask me what I did with Transformation Church while Natalie and my kids sitting over there all broke up. He's gonna say you were supposed to love her like I love the church, then you come and love the church. Let me stop. This is not a marriage seminar but I need to help y'all.
So when pastor father shows up, my pastor's still there, so while we're at the emergency room getting staples in my head, the ladies take, not my head, Bella's head. Y'all pray for my daughter. That was so traumatic. But I'm sitting there, and while I was sitting there the lady said I love your sermons. Oh, wow! God bless you! And then they said we're gonna have to put some staples in your daughter's head. How many staples? 'Cause the pastor showed up, but you the daddy had to be priority. So while my daughter is sitting there and I'm holding her and she is saying daddy no, and I'm holding her face, I'm not thinking about what I'm speaking on Sunday. But I showed up with the pastor.
When my wife, when we get home that night, she's in the bed and she begins to cry because the baby's keeping her up, and she's feeling bad for Bella and MJ having insomnia, I do not bring, "Well you know what the word says! In 1 Thessalonians..." Some of y'all don't know when to bring out all of you. "You just need to have crazy faith"! When my wife needed me, husband Michael held her all night. Husband Michael rubbed her feet. What I'm saying to you is just like the God head, when one person of me shows up, the other two are there too. I can't separate the father from the leader to the husband. So when I show up, you might get a different version, but you always get me. When the Holy Spirit shows up, God's there and Jesus is there. When Jesus was on the cross, God was there and the Holy Spirit was there. At creation, when God was sitting there about to create, let us. You can't separate him. He's everywhere all the time.
Well pastor, I don't understand. Remember, it's the mystery of God. And I just need to prove it to you 'cause I just heard a couple of people in their spirits, you know how Jesus sometimes like I heard what they were thinking. Let me give you Bible on this. I'm going to show you through scripture places where we see Jesus, the Father God, and the Holy Spirit all at the same verse. Look at John 14:16. And i, that's Jesus. Highlight these in your Bible so that you can be able to be sure and assured that the Holy Spirit is God. It says and i, Jesus, will pray to the Father, and he will give you another helper, that's the Holy Spirit, that you may abide with him forever. That's all three of them in one verse.
Let me give you another one. John 14:26, but the helper, that's the Holy Spirit, whom the Father, that's God will send in my name, that's Jesus name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said. That's all of them in one verse. Let's go to another one. John 15:26 it says but the helper, that's the Holy Spirit, comes when he comes whom i, Jesus, shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me.
And just for those who are a little skeptical and you're like but they're not all at the same place at the same time. I'm glad you asked for that because when Jesus was baptized, he's getting baptized by John in Luke 3:22, and it says and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form. Talk about the mysteries of God. People say he descended like a dove. Yeah, yeah, or it was a dove. He wasn't a dove. It said he descended in bodily form. What does the Holy Spirit look like in a body. Like a dove upon him, Jesus, and the voice came from heaven which said you are my beloved Son, that's the father talking, in whom I am well pleased. God is always three in one, and the Trinity defers to each other. The Son tells us that the Holy Spirit is coming, and we need to accept the upgrade. And the Holy Spirit guides you to the Son.
They always... you talk about the big three. Y'all thought it was the Wayne way. Lebron and Chris Bosh. Y'all thought the big three was Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and what's his name? And rondo? Y'all thought the big three was what these teams, no, no, no, the original big three is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all equal but will dunk on you in a second. I saw this picture that reminded me of what it looks like when the Holy Spirit, God and Jesus are all together deferring to themself. Can you put that on the screen for me real quick. This is what it looks like, God, God and God. It looks like them having a conversation saying you're wonderful, no you're wonderful, man, I love how you led them to me, I loved how you healed them.
Man, I love how you created everything. Like, they are all because they all come together. Pastor Mike, why are you spending so much time giving us this foundation? Because if your foundation is sturdy knowing that the Holy Spirit, Jesus and God and the father are all God, then what I'm about to teach you next week is going to transform your life. But without the right foundation, you can't build upon it. So we recognize the Holy Spirit is God. I need to give them one more Charles.
Can I outright prove the Holy Spirit is God? Go to Acts chapter five verse three. This is just for the sceptics just for a second because some of y'all gonna have people talking and clamoring, and I need you to come back to this, Acts 5:3. In one verse I'm about to outright prove the Holy Spirit is God. But Peter said Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. If you go to the end of verse four, it says you have not lied to men but to God. When you lie to the Holy Spirit, you weren't lying to a man. You were lying to God and the Holy Spirit said, "Don't lie to me, I'm gonna be your helper. I want to be your friend. I want to be the one that helps you in every area of your life."
So the one thing that you got to understand is that he's not just God. The Holy Spirit is a person. Write that down. You keep saying the same thing. Until you get it. He's a person. See the difference is most of you are sitting in a chair right now. You would not consider that chair a person. And some of you don't know what makes up a person, but I don't have the time to go through the whole thing, but a person comes from somebody or something that has a personality. You could see that person is the root word of it. And if I want to go more theological, the definition of a person is someone who has a soul, that someone who has a mind, will and emotions. Did you know that the Holy Spirit has a mind, will and emotions?