Michael Todd - Are You Experiencing A Storm? - Part 2
Hey. What's going on, everybody? I am so pumped that you decided to join us today for this week's message, and we've been in a series called Anchored. And the reason it's so important that we're anchored is because the truth is we all have storms in our life. I don't know about you, but I'm in a couple of storms right now. And I don't know what your storm is. It may be financial. It may be spiritual. It may be emotional, but we have an anchor that will carry us and sustain us through every storm, so today, I want you to open up your heart because this message has the opportunity to change everything if you allow it to go in deep and to be transformative for you. Open your heart as we go into today's message.
God may have not caused it, but he sure will use it. He knows that the storms are coming. And he slept. And what this told me is that if I'm gonna dwell in the deep, never trust an anchor with anxiety. If the thing that you're attached to is scared too, if your governmental party that you've attached all your way to is scared too, if your mama and your daddy and your money is funny and everything you've attached to, if your anchor has anxiety, that is the wrong anchor. This scripture made me respect Jesus' gangster like never before, that the storm did not take him off of his game, that through the storm he remained in a state of everybody say peace. There is a way that you can have peace in the middle of the... Y'all don't want to hear the word today, but I'm telling you right now, God is the only one. He gave us a forever picture of him asleep and resting in a place where everybody else was freaking out.
And God is saying to me, I hear this so strongly, I will give you peace. Lift your hands all over the world right now. I need you to lift your hands. I feel this so strong. Some of you are in a storm that is challenging everything that you've ever believed, and God said, the storm is not going to stop yet but I'll give you peace immediately. The storm is not going to subside yet. Yeah, you're still going to have to go through marriage counseling and yeah, you're still going to have to take your children to therapy, and yeah, you're still going to have to go back and build your credit, and yeah, you're still going to have to stay in that small apartment and you're not going to get the house yet, and yeah, you're still going to have to catch the bus, yeah, but I will be your peace in the middle of the storm. It says when Jesus woke up, hey! Storm! Stop!
Oh, y'all didn't see it in the Bible? And it said, silence. Be still! Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm that came. Oh, I got some encouragement for somebody today. If you're going to dwell in the deep, ha! Through the rain the anchor remains. I need you to hear me say this. The reason why I believe God gave us the word this year to be anchored is because we can't rebuke the storm away. Only God can do that. But I'm still here after the storm subsided. Are you telling me that after this situation, I may not have gotten to my destination when I wanted to but I'm still here? Somebody say I'm still here. Could you think back over what the last five years has been for you? And then could you with faith in your heart and gratitude all over say I'm still here?
I'm about to start a revolution of thanksgiving and gratitude. Do you know what doctor's report said and do you remember what was in your bank account, and do you remember they told you that you would never be able to get into that school and do... I feel a praise rising up all over the world. And do you remember that God told you that he would sustain you? Somebody shout at me, "I'm still here"! And we're about to celebrate six years being a church. They told me that it would never amount to anything, and they told me that we wouldn't be able to build a multi ethnic and a multi generational and a multi cultural church, but we're still... So your testimony should be, God, you sustained. That song we're singing is a prophetic gratitude to what God is calling us to do as a church is put our faith in him.
When I wrote those words, God told me I'm going to sustain you. In the middle of it all, and if you're going into the deep, I need you to realize something. That your trust needs to be more in your anchor, Jesus, than it is in the storm. Some of us trust that the storm is going to take us out more than we trust that Jesus is going to keep us through the storm. And I'm asking you to change your focus. Do you remember when Peter was walking on water? And he began to do something that nobody else had ever done, and it was when he began to pay attention to the winds and the waves, to the storm that was around him that he began to sink. And what did Jesus say? Oh, Peter. Why you got so little faith, bro? You don't remember?
I told you, I'm the one that said come. I'm the one that called you to be in that marriage. I'm the one that told you your son was going to be healed. I'm the one who said your family would be saved. I'm the one that said this was the last year you would deal with depression. I'm the one that said anxiety will no longer have a hold over you. I'm the one that said that everything that happened to you in that molestation would not define everything that you would be in the future. I'm the one who said it. I feel the presence of God. I'm the one who said though you have years of wrong images through pornography that I can purify your heart and make you somebody that will change people for the rest of their life. I'm the one!
Today God's asking you, why won't you trust me? That's what he asked the disciples. He said, then he asked them, why are you afraid? Do you still not have faith? Do you still not trust that I'm big? You're still here. I still sustained you. Why don't you trust me? Well, God, because I didn't see you. Let me help you. Let me help you understand, the visibility of an anchor does not determine the value of an anchor. God, I don't see you? He said, because I'm working it out right now. God, I don't see you. It's because I am under doing the work. An anchor doesn't have to be seen to actually be doing the work. And God said some of the areas you want me to show up in, I'm not because I'm doing a work that's deeper.
That's what God is doing in my life. He's doing a deep work. He's making me confront things I don't even want to talk about. He's making me be transparent about the reasons why and the hurts and what happened and all of the these things. I said, God, I don't feel you. And he just said, stay anchored because I'll sustain you. What are you trying to say, pastor Mike? What are you trying to say? What I'm really trying to get you to understand at this current moment is in verse 41, it says the disciples were absolutely terrified when Jesus said stop, peace be still. And then they started looking at each other. It was like, who is this man? No, I thought we knew him. Like when we left our boats, I thought we know when he was gonna do. I mean, we saw him do the water in the wine trick, and we were like oh, we gonna get tipsy but we thought that was gonna be it. But who is this man that even the winds and the waves obey him? I want to let you know if you're going to dwell in the deep deep, our anchor has authority. Jesus is the only one that can look at the wind and the waves. Can I break that down for you?
Let me give you some revelation. He can look at the waves that you do see and look at the winds which were invisible. He can look at the marriage that you do see, and the underlying insecurity that's undetectable. He can speak to the, ha, the financial situation that you do see but the mind set of poverty that you don't see. My God is the only one that looks at the visible and the invisible, and he can say, peace! Be still. Money, line up. Mind set, change. Pornography, go down. But perversion be subsided. God looks at what you do see, and what you don't see. And he has the authority to speak to both of them. That means God's not working the situation out in one dimension. He's working it out in 2d. What you see and what you don't see. He'll be the anchor in that situation. "Well, pastor Mike, we've been talking about being anchored. We've been talking about really just living in the deep. Why did you give us this message today"? Because I felt there was a lot of people in the storm.
And I know you try to fake it with everybody else like everything is good, and you can do that again today. You can act like this message wasn't for you, but some of you are in the middle of a storm. Can you turn the storm back on just for one second? Because I don't want them to forget that I can still be worshipping in the storm. "Our promises always come true... Not depending on me... But relying on you... Your mercies are new every day... So I will trust you... Your promises", you can worship in the storm, "Not depending on you but relying on you... Your mercies are new every day..." In the middle of the storm, everybody say, "I will trust you". Say, I feel the presence of God because you may be wet and your situation may not be changing, but I dare you in the middle of the storm to declare. Lift it up. Say you are my source. God, you are my strength in the middle of the storm. God! Come on.
Somebody in your home right now, declare that you're not going to give up on your anchor, that God is with you in the middle. Woo! I feel the presence of God. Somebody needs to get up and declare I will trust you. The presence of God is coming into your heart. It's coming into your situation. Hey! In the midst of the storm, in the midst. In the middle of it, God, I won't stop trusting you. This won't be by might or power. It's gonna be by your spirit, God. I dare somebody to get up on the inside of you and say, I will trust you. There's no wind, there's no wave, there's nothing that will stop me from that. There's no sickness, no disease, no diagnosis, God! I am covered by the blood of Jesus, and my anchor is sure. Altogether all around the world say you sustain. Lift it up! This has to be our posture. You sustain. Say it again.
Can I give you some good news real quick? That God will sustain you but my encouragement to you right now is that every storm, somebody say every storm... No, say it like you mean it. Every storm has an expiration date. That no matter what storm you're in right now, that at some point the winds, the waves, and the rain have to subside. The marriage is gonna have to turn around. The diagnosis is going to have to kneel at the name of Jesus. And there is a Son, there is a Son that is rising out of the storm. The sun is beginning to come out. Though the rain is moving the sun is moving from a place of darkness. My situation is changing. The Son, Jesus, is rising in your situation. The Son, our anchor, somebody say his name. Jesus. Say his name again. Say his name one more time.
While you're running on the treadmill, at your home say his name. The Son of God has decided that no storm lasts always. Your storm has an expiration date, so why don't you worship in the midst of the storm? Because at some point every moment that goes by, we're getting closer to the sun rising on our situation. Y'all don't hear me. Y'all not rejoicing like... the clock is ticking down. Oh, I feel this right now. Somebody about this time next week the storm is going to have subsided. Somebody should begin to rejoice right there. This time next month, the storm will have subsided. This time next year... "What are you saying, pastor Mike"? Jesus will be your anchor in the middle of every storm. And what should be your posture? Very simple. "Say I will trust you", that's it. All I'm telling you is I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow but what I'm declaring is "I will trust you".
I'm not exactly sure how this thing is going to work out right now but God I'm telling you right now say "I will trust you". It's not completely sunshine, but I see the sun beginning to come out of my situation. Somebody say, "I will trust you". Hands lifted all over this place, all over the world, I want to pray for you. I want to pray an anchoring prayer over your life. I am not going to lie to you and tell you the storm is not coming this year. And that you might not already be in the storm right now. What I'm saying is you have an anchor in the middle of the storm. Ha ha! Welcome to the deep. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm telling you, if you're looking for some I want to be happy messages, I'm sorry. That's not here this year. I want you to grow this year. I want you to develop in the deep. So lift your hands all over this place. I want to pray for you.
God, I declare that as you asked me to speak this word that you sent the disciples to the other side, you did it. It wasn't self initiated. It wasn't something they did in ambition. You said let's set out and go to the other side, but you knew the storm was in the middle. But God, for my brothers and sisters and myself who are in the middle of a storm, I thank you that we won't forfeit the other side because we are afraid of a storm. I declare over your life that you will not forfeit the other side. Oh, I feel that thing right now. The other side of the marriage, the other side of this pain, the other side, there's something on the other side that has to go through the storm. Even when the children of Israel were to make it to the Promise Land, they had to go through the storm of the wilderness and they had to trust you, and you fed them with manna, God, but you were saying I wasn't trying to get something or keep something from you. You were trying to get something into us. And today Father, we're going to do something unusual. We're going to praise you for the storm.
I just feel that right now. Right now in this moment, we're going to lift our hands and thank God for every storm that has come. I know this seems completely different right now but right now I want to you lift your hands and just begin to say:
God, I thank you. I thank you for every storm. I thank you, Father, that if it didn't kill me you're going to use it to make me, Father God. I thank you, Father, that the storm was not meant to devastate me but it was meant to develop me. God, in the midst of the storm I declare I will trust you and I pray over every person that has the audacity to lift their hands and thank you for the storm. Father, because you are a God that sees all, sits over all. Is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. You shall the great God, the God who knows the beginning from the end. You're the author and the finisher. You are the Lord of lords and the King of kings. And today we say we trust you. For every person that feels like giving up in the midst of the storm, today we send peace, the comforter, the Holy Spirit to you. And we declare, Father, that we will trust you. In Jesus name.