Michael Todd - Cuffed to Cash
I really believe this cuffing series has been delivering people like P. Anyone who’s checked into this series, Full Throttle, is having to face themselves. As we talked about being cuffed to cake almost six months ago, let’s take a poll: How many people here are now humble, open, and transparent? Look at someone and ask how many people are still cuffed to cake in this room right now as we go into the holiday season. Some of you are lying. Thank you, my brother, for being truthful; some of us are still cuffed to the comments about what everyone is saying about us. We check back every three seconds, looking at email to see what people like. Some of us have been cuffed to constant validation.
Let me ask this: How many people are still cuffed to constant approval? You don’t stop; you keep running. You believe somehow you are made better in the sight of God if you do more, but He called you a human being, not a human doing. What I believe my assignment is in this whole series is to challenge the things that have become, watch this word, idols in our lives. Some of us pace our production, our success, and our relationships; they have become the things that replace God. As long as those things are going well, we don’t think we need Him, and it’s not until those things disappoint us that we call on Jesus. God said, «I want you to have the things that I have designed for you to enjoy in this life, but never at the expense of our relationship.»
The truth of the matter is, the reason we can’t be connected and cuffed to Christ is that we are cuffed to a lot of other things. Some of you are thinking, «Okay, Pastor Mike, you’re talking about this cuffing season; this is week 12 of a series; we’re not just starting this.» If this is your first time hearing this, you need to go back and watch from Episode One all the way to today because it is a process of shedding the things we think love us but that don’t actually love us back. Many of us, okay let me just back up because someone may be thinking, «Cuffing season? Are they talking about handcuffs? I’ve never experienced that before.»
Let me give you a definition straight out of Urban Dictionary: cuffing season is a time when, due to loneliness and desperation, you settle for a relationship that is way beneath your standards. This is literally cuffing season—the fall and winter are when people get into really poor relationships because they want to snuggle with somebody, Netflix and chill, and end up with issues by the summer. Okay, and the past couple of weeks we’ve been talking about being cuffed to control. Some of us have to be in control all the time, and we worry and frustrate ourselves because we need to know how everything is going to work out. Then last week, we went kind of deep; I kind of snuck it in on you. I said we are cuffed to contamination, but we talked about the spirit of Jezebel—where there’s a spirit that tries to control from the backseat and gets you to do and say things that are not like you or not like Christ, and it’s been running your life.
Today, I think this message is going to be more real than both of those because some of you could have dodged those two like control and contamination, but this one—let me walk you into it slowly so your heart will be prepared for the pounding you’re about to receive in the spirit today. Has anyone here ever played video games? I need hands in the chat. Video games—what was the first video game system you ever remember? Shout it out at me right now. Okay, Nintendo 64. We’ve got to go further back than that. Which one? Sega Genesis. We’ve got to go further back; she said Atari. Okay, does anyone have anything further back than Atari? What did you say? ColecoVision? Is that real? A man in the front row said, «Uh, okay, cool.»
So, I didn’t make the Atari timeline, but in the Todd household, the first game system was the original—y’all know what I mean—Nintendo. Okay, y’all remember the gray box where you had to lift it up and had the breath of the Spirit—the pneuma of God? If you’ve never blown on a cartridge, you haven’t lived. It’s the first miracle you’ve ever seen in your life, and it increased your faith! My older brother Gabe and I played Nintendo, but then one Christmas, Dad took it to the next level and we opened up this box with a little blue hedgehog on it. When the Sega Genesis came into play, nothing was like playing Sega until Sony came out with this little device with three circles on it called a PlayStation. I don’t know if I was the only one, but I was a professional CD cleaner. I had alcohol—see, some of you know what I’m talking about—because the games could get scratched. If they got scratched, you couldn’t play anymore.
So, I had alcohol and cotton swabs, and if you really had to, you had to use the bottom of your T-shirt. I love y’all! All of these games were so fun, but the one thing I hated about all of them was that you could only be so far away from the console because there was a controller that had a wire you had to be connected to. So y’all see how I preach; there would be times when I got so into playing that right at the moment when I was about to win—no! —I would lose—not because I lacked the moves, but because I lost connection. What ended up happening is, about three years later, we got this thing called a Nintendo 64. Nintendo 64 changed the game because the game started changing on it. We got one game called NFL Blitz and another called NBA Jam—he’s on fire! Some people are still looking at me like, «What is he talking about? I know you’re too safe for this, but this was ministry to me!»
And I still had the same problem because it still had a controller. But then the PlayStation 2 came out, and they invented this new technology called wireless controllers. You could be in another room and still control what was happening. I began to think about that when we were discussing being controlled by things these past two weeks: that many of us are being controlled by something we don’t even think is connected. Our wireless controller doesn’t show an obvious connection; it’s controlling your life. This doesn’t look like it has a direct path, but somehow every time this issue comes up, it’s moving something on the screen of my life. The reason this came to my mind is that I was sitting in my room while my kids were playing a game, and I sat down on the couch. The character on the screen just started moving, and I was watching it like, «Wow, they are going to get killed; this is not how they should be moving.»
It doesn’t look good. My daughter starts yelling, «Dad, get up; you’re sitting on the controller!» And I know my—how do I say this best? —mass! I know it. I didn’t feel it, and she said, «I promise you’re sitting on the controller; it’s right there!» I got up, and I was sitting on a controller. What I realized was because there was a connection I didn’t see: when I sat down and it came into contact with me, it started making decisions on the screen. I was looking at it, but I didn’t even know I was controlling it. I didn’t see there was a—everyone say «connection.»
What I’ve come to realize is that many of the things we are dealing with, the things we are cuffed to, are controlling our lives without an obvious connection. What are the things in your life right now that have control without an obvious connection? Think about it. There are reasons why you do what you do, reasons why you go where you go, and reasons why you don’t like certain types of people—not because you don’t even know them, but they remind you of that one person. What’s in the background controlling what you’re doing now, but you don’t see the obvious connection? As I’ve been writing down all the things in my life, God said you can talk about this, this, and this, but Mike, in this season you’re about to enter, you need to talk about something that has been controlling people without an obvious connection, and I need you to do it now.
I was like, «God, I don’t really want to do this now because they’re going to be mad at me.» He said, «But they need to be transformed.» I said, «But then they’re not going to listen to me anymore.» He responded, «If they listen to you, they’ll be listening to me: this is the one I told you to speak about.» I said, «Okay, God, so you want me to talk about it?» He said, «Boy, if you ask me one more time if I want you to talk about it, we’re going to have problems.» The title of today’s message is «Cuffed to Cash.»
Let’s be very clear; I didn’t want to do this, but God told me there are so many of my children who are cuffed to cash. They are cuffed to the idea of finances. You live a life you hate for cash. You wake up every day dreading going to work because of cash: «I need cash to live in this neighborhood; I’m never going back to the hood.» You literally pay for a house you’re never at; you’re cuffed to cash. You have shoes—did I just step on something? —that are still in boxes that you’ll never wear for the next five years because you’re waiting for the right opportunity to pull them out.
You know what I mean? You’ve been waiting for the moment to show them off, but you’re in debt and it’s killing you; you won’t sell them or let them go because you’re cuffed to them. Everyone say, «Cuffed to cash.» You get a macchiato, venti every day—even though you don’t even like Starbucks—but your coworkers make it a cultural thing. «Oh, you like the good old Folgers! Folgers is the best part of waking up!"—it’s Folgers in your cup! You’ve come to accept that nasty taste, but you spend eight dollars every day buying a drink that stays halfway filled because you’re cuffed to the idea of what cash gets you.
Fendi doesn’t make you more important, Louis Vuitton doesn’t increase your love, and Prada doesn’t give you purpose. A new truck, a new boat, a new gun, a lake house—those things do not elevate your value; they usually just increase your responsibilities. I just said a mouthful right there. But the problem is we are chasing the American dream, climbing the corporate ladder, and missing out on raising our children. Why? Because we are cuffed to the idea of having cash. There’s nothing wrong with cash; the only problem arises when it becomes your driving force in life. It will always disappoint you because it never has the power to fulfill you.
I know people with so much money that they could literally give everybody in this room a hundred thousand. Somebody said, «Where they at? Call them; invite them to church!» But the truth of the matter is, when you run through the hundred thousand, you’re still depressed. When you run through the hundred thousand, that money will just magnify who you really are. If you pop two pills, you get a hundred thousand; you pop a hundred pills. If you’re a liar, you’re just going to be more manipulative in the way you lie. Money doesn’t make you; it magnifies you. Oh, I’m talking right now! Money doesn’t make you; it just magnifies who you really are. And because so many people are in the church—let me give everybody a pass who doesn’t love God and doesn’t call Christ his King—okay, go after it. It kind of feels good. But everybody who calls themselves a believer, if you’re still cuffed to cash, God may not be your God. I’m going to tread lightly today. No, I ain’t. Here we go!
First point: cash is critical, but it’s not Christ; it’s a servant, not a savior. We gotta have it; we gotta be able to function. It’s a tool, not a savior. The truth of the matter is, some of y’all would shout more over a thousand dollars than over God giving you joy in your heart. You will act a fool if somebody walked into Target and gave you a band. But we come in here, and it’s time to praise God, and you’re too focused on your shoes. Cash is critical; we need it, but it’s not Christ; it is a servant. Somebody say that: «Money works for me. I don’t work for money.»
Now I’m having to come against generational curses and generational habits. Like I’m fighting; I don’t work for money—I work for purpose. And because I work for purpose, even if I’m doing a job I don’t like, it’s part of my purpose that’s developing me into something for the next step. I’m going towards what God wants for me, but I don’t work for money; money works for me. That’s going to be somebody’s faith statement for the rest of the week. Because some of y’all are just trying to figure out, «Well, if I carry the two and then I go sell plasma, and then if I don’t be acting like y’all don’t be up there like 'When can I come back in two weeks? '» Okay, stop it! We’re trying to figure out what God provides for those who do His will first.
I’m going to teach you Matthew 6:24: «No one can serve two masters. For either you will hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.» This is the Bible! You cannot serve God and be cuffed to cash. Do you know how strong that is? You cannot serve God and have money as your God. I wake up, and the first thing I think about is getting this money. I go to sleep, and the last thing I think about is getting this money. When I look at people, I think, «How much money do you think they have?» You look at people’s cars, like, «Can they help me make money?» Hold on, y’all! Nowhere in the scripture does Jesus say that needs to be our focus; it should be our fruit.
Okay, let me stop. When we talk about this in the original language, this is one of the only places where God distinguishes Himself against anything because most things aren’t even worth comparing Him to. He says, «You cannot serve God and the original Aramaic word is Mammon.» You can’t serve both of these! Let me take y’all back up because some of you are looking at me like—because I’m like really just—like really take me and show me Luke 16:10. We just read it in Matthew, but Luke’s doctrine is a little more detailed in certain things, so you’re going to see a little more right here.
Luke 16:10: «He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust or sloppy or raggedy in what is least is unjust also in much. Clean your car.» Let me put my glasses on, and maybe you’ll take me seriously. Okay, this is what we call stewardship; He doesn’t care what it looks like right now. Can you keep it in the condition that it is in or better? Right now, He’s watching how you handle what’s in your hand. Keep screaming for more, but He’s watching how you handle what’s in your hand.
Okay, He says: «Therefore, if you have been faithful in unrighteous Mammon, who will commit to your trust true riches?» Hold on! What we’ve been talking about is like money. He said, «But I want to give you true riches; that’s what I want to trust you with.» If you have not been faithful—oh, watch this! I can’t even—I ain’t got time to even talk about this—but if you have not been faithful over what is another man’s, I’mma see, «Oh, I’m a boss! I don’t work for nobody.» Hold up! If you are not stewarding over something that belongs to somebody else, there are certain principles you miss; this is for another day. It says: «If you have not been faithful over what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?»
No servant can serve two masters. For either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one. Man, we have been loyal to cash. Man, we wake up when we don’t want to for cash. Man, we will throw somebody under the bus for cash. But what do you really think about them? Because I was thinking about promoting them. You were them. «Well, you know, I’ve seen them a couple of times; they don’t always stay till it’s time to leave, and that last presentation they gave was subpar.» Why? Because you thought somehow their elevation was going to take away your ability to make more cash. Oh God, how loyal have we been?
We have taken our character and put it under dirt for the possibility of more cash. Okay, it says you cannot serve God and Mammon. This is an Aramaic word that means riches. Okay, it was a Syrian god named Mammon; it actually came from Babylon. Just giving you a little history, you remember Babylon comes from the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9? These people thought that they could get to God on their own.
What this Spirit of Mammon is—write this down—the Spirit of Mammon is the belief that we don’t need God if we have riches. This is the truth of the matter; most people think, «If I got enough cake, don’t really need God. If I got enough money, what do I need to pray for? I’ll pay for it.» Oh God! If I got enough money, I can step in and be God instead of needing God. You don’t say it out loud; we don’t actually confess this, but this is what we think. The church has been cuffed to this Spirit of Mammon, and that’s why we’ve been cuffed to cash. Today, I came to tell somebody we’re about to break this thing today in the name of Jesus!
This Spirit of Mammon is arrogant; it’s prideful, and it makes you look to other things instead of God. Write this down: Mammon promises you everything; only God can deliver. I’m saying this; I’m going to tell the truth because I used to live like this. I used to think that if I made enough beats and if Beyoncé allowed me to produce her album along with Usher and Lil Romeo—that was the time I was in—then I’d make enough money to come back to the church and impact it for God.
I’m going to go outside of God, make some cash, and then come be effective for Jesus. Don’t act like you ain’t never thought that! «Lord, please just let me hit the lottery; they got about 52 billion, and Lord, I’ll serve you with all of it!» These are the thoughts, and it may not be at that level, but what I’m saying is that somewhere we replace needing God with needing money.
Listen, that being comes to cash; it promises identity, security, significance, and happiness, and it cannot provide any of that! Only God can give you identity, security, significance, and happiness! This is the LIE of Mammon, and everybody has had this thought before. I’m going to prove it to you: either I need God to come through, or I need somebody to give me money. If you’ve ever had that thought: «I either need God to come through, or I need somebody to give me money,» you’ve been cuffed to cash.
The reason I’m bringing this to you is that I don’t want you to be shackled by this another day of your life. I don’t want your children growing up in a situation—my daughter, the other day, Bella’s becoming more aware of everything, and so literally, we’re at the cash register paying for a bunch of people to get into the amusement park. She sees the price; once she sees the price she says, «Dad, you spent that much money on that?!» She said, «No, no, never mind! No, I don’t want to do it!»
Hold on! Why wouldn’t you want to do this if Daddy’s providing it for you? «Could you see how much it costs? Do you see how much? That’s so much!» I said, «I love your spirit; watch this! But Daddy wants to bless you, and you have been obedient and done what I’ve asked you to do. Let me bless you.» But Daddy, you’re going to bless all of them too, because you know sometimes it’s like, «Alright, bless me, but get all of them.» It’s like, «You’re going to bless all of them?» I said, «Yeah.» She was like, «You got it like that?» And I sit back and say, «Yes, yes, I do!»
In that moment, God said, «Michael, that’s how I want you to come to me. When you do what I ask you to do and when you’ve been faithful over what I’ve given you, I want to bless you!» You won’t bless just you; you will bless all of them too! Yes, this doesn’t have to be only one person. It is somebody like, «I will bless all of them,» and I’m like, «You got it like that?» And guess what God says? «I got it like that!» This only happens when you keep Him in His rightful place.
So here we go: money is not the answer to your problems; God is always the answer to your problems. Some of you right now think money is going to answer that. Yeah, money may help; money may be the tool you need. But anytime you have a problem, how did you even get in the situation in the first place? If you’re going to get out of this situation and stay out of it, you need God to transform your mind.
What I’m saying to you is money might be a part of the solution, but it is never the thing that we need fully. God is the answer to every problem we will ever have. I know all the way up until this point, some of y’all are just battling, struggling, because you’re thinking about your situation right now and how a cool thirty thousand would solve all your issues and take away—and it wouldn’t take away the anxiety. You wouldn’t get that alert every month, but you still wouldn’t be able to sleep. Why? Because you need God to do more than give you cash.
If you’re still debating right now if this is okay, you’re cuffed to cash. I heard one of my friends ask some people, «What’s the highest form of value?» A lot of people said cash. My friend Dr. Darius Daniels said it like this: «Get cash.» Money ain’t even in the top three of the things that you need. He said it like this: «If I give you a million dollars today, and you die tomorrow, which one do you want? The million or your life?» You want your life. So that means time is more valuable than cash.
If I give you a million dollars today, but then you have to be sick for the rest of your life, which one do you want? Your health? So that means health is more valuable than cash. If I give you a million dollars today, and then I tell you your mama has to die tomorrow—somebody’s like, «Well, I know you; you’re—no, stop it! Not my mama!» What that means is relationships are more valuable than cash.
So why are we being controlled by this thing that’s not even as valuable as everybody makes it seem? You will get up and work a double for more cash and won’t go to your kid’s recital. I’m providing. Well, your children need more than Js and dress shoes and vacations; they need you to see them, soothe them, and comfort them. They need light, but the truth is, it’s a little easier because a lot of us are cuffed to cash.
Okay, so write it down to the point: finances aren’t the highest form of compensation. Watch this: fulfillment is. I have never, by the grace of God, as I’m about to turn 36, I have had some opportunities to receive resources from different things, like, «God, how did that happen?» And I’m going to just tell you, nobody ever told me this: whatever the biggest check you’ve ever gotten is, when you get it, it feels good for 48 hours. After that, you’re like, «Dang, wow!» You start walking with a little swagger; you go to the bank different, though. You don’t do the drive-through; you go in. You’ll be like, «Hello, hello, hey!» You just be doing random weird stuff, and then it goes into this magical, disappeared land.
For a second, you feel anxiety—like, did they take it? Ah, there it is! You check your account, go eat a nice dinner, and then all the things that were a problem before will still be a problem after the check. I’m telling you, I thought it was going to be like a match; I thought I was going to lose weight when I made more money. I don’t know; I just thought it was like: you’re rich, you’re skinny. It felt like the more money you have, the more you get. Did you know the government takes more money when you make more money? I don’t know if everybody knows that, but a million isn’t a million; a hundred thousand isn’t a hundred thousand. I mean, it looks like that on the chart.
Do you know people want to be paid for helping you count your money? No! I’m just telling you things that I didn’t know. When people find out you might have a little money, they start asking if they can have some of your money. And it’s often the people you love too. Like, I heard God is blessing you—why are you telling us? Because I don’t want you to be cuffed to it! I want you to know the greatest form of payment is fulfillment, and some of the most fulfilling things in my life I didn’t get paid for. You are missing moments that God wants to richly bless you with because you’re looking for there to be zeros behind it when it might simply be a hug. Some of the greatest moments you may ever have may not come with commas; they may come in a conversation—like God using you to help somebody else while you are feeling fulfilled.
And that’s why I just want to help you understand Matthew 6:33, which is my favorite Bible scripture. I’ve always been wired for things that make me understand the Bible, finances, and all that other stuff. I remember being 17 years old when this scripture came alive to me, and I took it to heart. This is my favorite Bible scripture, and I’m going to preach a lot about it in 2023. Listen to this: Matthew 6:33—But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. It’s like going to the fast-food restaurant and ordering five baskets of fries. You’re not worried about whether you’re going to get ketchup. You’re not thinking, «Oh my God, I wonder if I just order all these fries whether they’ll allow me to have ketchup.» You ordered the fries first; the ketchup is added.
Why am I stressing about what’s added if I did the prerequisite? Most of us are worried about the after thing because we have not done the first thing! When you seek—everybody shout at me—first the kingdom, what the King wants you to do, how He wants you to act, how He wants you to maneuver money, cash, influence—that’s added! That’s small! When I grasped this concept at 17, it changed my life because I had never heard anybody say «just go full throttle after God, and everything you think you need will be added.» Everybody was telling me to go after the things I thought I needed and «hopefully God can be a part of it.» And this is why some of you know you’re called into ministry, but you’re still working a job because it pays you six figures. It’s 19 years, and you’re working for a Rolex and a plaque. It’s not even a Rolex; it’s a Movado—let’s be honest! They’re not giving you a Rolex at that job for 25 years for a Movado, a plaque, and an insurance plan.
God said, «It’s been 25 years; you’ve not been working on purpose.» Why am I saying this? Because I pray for and counsel so many people who are cuffed to cash. Why don’t you just give? Man, I’m so burdened by the problems in this world—all of the homeless people—why doesn’t the church do something? You, the church! You have nine jackets; it’s cold outside! You put a heart on a post by the «Be Heard» movement, but you didn’t take anyone a jacket. I see—I don’t—I don’t—but not the—uh-uh, this is just an excuse; my grandma bought this for me! She’s dead! She doesn’t even let me start. We make all of these excuses because somehow they give us value. Cuffed to it, cuffed to it!
And why am I so passionate about this? Because it almost took my generosity; being close to cash almost robbed me of the blessing of being a generous man of God. I was almost the most stingy, greedy, selfish person you’ve ever met until I found the revelation that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Most people will never live that out in their lives because they are so cuffed to cash—the suit makes you, the shoes make you, the house makes you, the clothes make you! «What my kid has on… your baby got baby Jordans and they’re only going to be that size for 13 days!» You spent $78 on a shoe this big! I’m not judging you, but you spent $78 on shoes, and then you keep them! You don’t even give them to somebody else! Your brother’s having a baby, and you’re like, «That’s fine, but he ain’t gonna look as good as my baby.»
And it’s like, what are you cuffed to, cash? Okay, so when it says «seek first the kingdom and its righteousness, and all these things will be added,» I wrote this down because it helped me understand: cash always needs to be connected to the kingdom. When I seek first the kingdom, cash comes! If you’re doing what God’s asked you to do in the kingdom, He’s always going to fund it! So when you get into your kingdom purpose, cash comes! My cash is connected to the kingdom. That’s why money should never be the focus; it should be the fruit. Stop focusing on cash; stop focusing on money. Start focusing on helping, start focusing on solutions, start focusing on being a blessing.
When you start focusing on the right thing, the thing you want comes because it’s the fruit of the seed you planted. You never reap if you did not sow, and everybody is looking for God to rain down the harvest on seeds they’ve never sown. Why do you say connect? Because the heart of the kingdom is to give somebody something, bless somebody! If I seek first the kingdom, I walk into the restaurant, and I was about to buy two meals—but I’m going to buy one and buy a meal for the person behind me! Seeking first the kingdom means, «You know what? Instead of my kids having 50 presents this year, I’m going to let them pick their top five, and then we’re going to, as a family, bless another family with Christmas treats.»
Why am I saying that, Pastor Mike? Because that’s the heart of the kingdom! When God gives seed, He looks for people who will sow, and most people don’t have «sower» on their name tag. Laughing! Have y’all seen any Sowers? I’m ready to give something to somebody. Like, think about it! I’m coming to bless somebody who’s a sower! Look at somebody’s hand. They were like, «Uh, I think. Is this real? Is he really doing it? Or no, I don’t know!» I said, «Who’s a sower in the room?» Can you bring me my cash machine real quick? I need a sower! Like somebody who, like, if I bless you, you would bless somebody else! Now, in the context of the message, everybody’s like, «Me! Me! Jeffy! Call me! Bobby the sower!»
Real quick, I just need one more person. Somebody from this section who’s a sower! Where? Where? I said I heard right here—come here! Y’all give it up for my man, the sower! Okay, now I want to do this little example for everybody. This is a real money machine, and we got a couple of dollars in it. Yeah! Get my man up here! Come on! What’s your name, my man? Andre! Give it up for Andre, y’all! Alright, Andre, I need you to step inside the money machine real quick, my man. Come on, just go in here. Look right here, baby. Right here! Those are some $50s, $100s, and $20s in there! How much time should I give him? He said, «Um, this minute.» How much do I give him? 30? Hold on. How much time should I give him? Put it in the chat! How many—she said 20 minutes? No! Alright, I’m going to give him 15 seconds! Okay, you ain’t got no seconds in here! Why are you saying that? Nah! How much do I give him, Roman? 30 seconds?
Alright, we’re gonna give him 30 seconds because Roman said to give him 30 seconds! You got 30 seconds to pick up as much cash as you can! Okay, are y’all gonna cheer him on?! Alright, go ahead and start! Let’s go—come on, start! Start me up! I don’t know! No, no, no! Stop! Stop! Put it down—no, I’m not playing! Stop the blower! Okay! That man said, «I’ve never seen no cash machine.» You can’t do that! You gotta stay upright, and you gotta catch it! Alright, he’s got 30 seconds! Start it right now! Okay, now you gotta catch it! Now you better figure out a technique! Encourage him! He didn’t let his belly come out and everything. He’s saying, «I’m about to get this money!»
How much we got? Oh no—keep going! Alright! Five, four, three, two, one! Alright, stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Y’all give it up for my man right here! Alright, come on! No, no, no! He’s about to give it away! No! Alright, alright! Okay, Malia, will you come over here with my man? Can you just count? Well, I might just count it with you! Alright, just hand it to me! Hundo, 200, 300! Oh, hundo—500! Six hundo! That’s a lot of hundreds you picked up right there! 700! Just pass me the 100! 800! Nine! Ten! That’s a thou—one, two—alright—I’ll get it, I’ll get it! Three, he said—uh, three—come on! Four! We gotta hurry up! Five, come on! Six! Yo! You got way more than I thought! Seven! Hey, nine! Ten! That’s another band! That’s two! One—how much you think it is? Two—three! Come on! Alright! We got three; that’s four right there! Come on, five! Six! Brother, this is just magical! Six! Okay, so now we only have twenties. We have six—60, 80, one!
Without someone, he said, «Oh, this man is serious right now!» So that’s seven, right? Yeah, okay! Okay, yeah! So is that—okay, we got—oh, that’s the 18th! No, no! That’s 18! 20! Okay! Two thousand! Three thousand! Hold on! Two thousand eight hundred, right? Two thousand eight hundred and twenty! Two thousand eight hundred and twenty dollars! Y’all give it up for my man! Okay, now you came up here, and I told you that wasn’t yours, so you did the work to be a blessing—all of the work! Huh! Let me do it! I’m ready! You found somebody! Boom, boom, boom! Like, hold on, this baby is excited! I don’t even know what I asked him to do! Boom, boom, boom! Like, hold on, brother!
Okay! Okay! I want you to find one person that you’re led to! Oh, y’all missed the word «that should lead you» from up here because all of your work—he’s sweating a little bit! He’s like, he did something, but he did it knowing the purpose was not for him to keep it. He would be blessed to be a blessing! If you need—for real—a blessing in the room right now, raise your hand! Okay, who you got? Five seconds, go! Who is it? Oh, there’s my man! Over there with the orange beanie! Are there a lot of people over there in the very back? Yep, very—very! Hey, my man, it’s you! No, no; it’s you! You turned around! Yeah, you! Come here! Come here! Hey, he thinks it’s The Price Is Right! He’s like, «Oh, shoot!»
Come on! Hey, bro! You gotta—hey, come on! Y’all give him high fives all the way down! High fives! Come on! You gotta hurry! We’re on live TV, you know? Come on! Y’all, come on! Yes, sir! Alright! So, yeah, you’re gonna have to—come on, bro! Come on, bro! I couldn’t even—hurry, brother! Alright! Yeah, he said, «That’s crazy!» Until it happened! What’s your name, bro? What’s up, bro? Hey, watch this: God called you from the back until it happens! I know who you are! Crazy until it happens! God called you from the back! He blessed somebody from over here to find somebody over there to be a blessing! But this is how God works: half of what you were blessed with, you gotta bless somebody else! Oh, that’s fine!
Okay, so who else has a need in the building right now? Okay, so just find somebody real quick! Just—we gotta do it real fast, though—a real live example, real-life example! He said, «Ah, don’t play them like that!» No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Just this buddy right here! Okay, right on the block! Right where? Right here! Right here! Here, sis! Blonde right here, right here, right here! Come on, all right, come on, hurry up. Okay, so watch this. Now, most people would think that my man who started it off is the loser. I don’t know how you’re doing since you’re good. Okay, so you got $1,400. Okay, there’s real money! Okay, it’s not fake; it’s real! Okay, all right, cool. So the blessing was provided by somebody’s work, but it was received by grace. They did nothing to earn it, and then they were trusted to be a blessing to somebody else.
Okay, now watch—I’m trying to tell you how Kingdom cash works because you’ve been faithful and haven’t asked me—your Pastor Mike—when all this is over, you’re going to slide me something beforehand. I didn’t know how much he was going to pull out of there, but I already have five bands ready to give to you. You missed it! You missed it! Because I trusted the character of the one. You don’t know what it’s doing for him right now, but you better get—I want you to get a visual bless so you can be a blessing. But before he blessed you, he already has something else prepared for you.
Okay, now who leaves off of this stage blessed? I want to invite you to the Kingdom. The Kingdom is not about one person being blessed or this group of people being… But I don’t like this scene because it’s only Black people up here. I don’t like this! We’re a multi-ethnic church. Sweetheart, I need you to pick somebody White or Hispanic out here. There’s a Black woman, like my daddy, and White like no…stop. Can you pick somebody? Please get somebody! Hurry, hurry! Come on, sister! Okay, come here now! Watch! Just hurry, just hurry. Now, now watch! Before you get…I need somebody Hispanic or Asian! Come on, somebody! You! Come on! Come on! Okay, okay, come here! Come here! Come here! Come here! Come here! Come here! We got to make some room! Oh, hold on! We got to make some what? Some rules! We have to make room because the blessing has gotten too big to be contained by one group of people in one space. I’m trying to show you our actual picture of what the Kingdom is supposed to do.
Okay, so, so, so, so, everybody gets $1,400! $1,400! $1,400! $1,400! All y’all getting $1,400! You’re getting $5,000! Now watch—watch! The reason she said we need an African up there, you need an African! My brother, Black, Wakanda forever! You need an African! I said, I heard you. You ready? Come on, you come on. International! Come on! Let’s get some International in here! I see you! She came ready! See, what did she say? Don’t fall, don’t fall at the end! Don’t fall, just stand right there. Now stop! No more calling! Ain’t nobody else coming up, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be blessed.
Thank you! Because it should not stop here! See, the only thing I’m asking is, you didn’t come to church looking to be blessed, but God blessed you! Now he’s giving you the opportunity to bless someone else! Okay, this is what Kingdom and cash—this is how it should relate. Do you all hear me? Can we give God praise for all of these people? Y’all can go off; Joe’s gonna take all your information! We’re gonna make sure… Why are you crying, bro? You don’t understand. It’s all good, bro. We moved here from Oregon! You have his God through you that has inspired my family! You don’t understand! Oh, sweet! I never saved money before; I never gave a homeless person stuff before until I started to become a part of this church! I didn’t never know how to hold a job! Following the service and the word of God through you changed my life! I was hoping one day I could meet you, and now look what God did! He let us meet in front of the whole world! Can we give God praise for transformation in Christ? That’s what it looks like!
Come on, we’re gonna talk afterward, brother! He messed up, y’all! This brother, it’s like your drunk friend. It ain’t anything! It’s nice, and what he said—going off, he said it ain’t about the money! He’s been transformed! Okay, $5,000! $5,000 didn’t do that—God did that! The $5,000 just was a catalyst to be able to point to how good God was in that man’s life! Do you all see what I’m saying? I’m not gonna make it through this whole thing, but that was a message in itself! So, if you want to understand how the Kingdom works, it means you have to uncuff from cash. There was a Rich Young Ruler—you can look at this whole story in Mark chapter 10, verse 17. He ran after Jesus. It says in verse 17, he came running up to him, knelt down, and asked, «Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?» Jesus is always dropping gems and just making you think!
«Why do you call me good? Only God is truly good, but never mind. You ain’t ready for that.» To answer your question, you know the commandments—you must not murder, you must not commit adultery, you must not steal, you must not testify falsely, you must not cheat anyone, honor your father and mother!» «Nature, it’s your boy! I’ve done all of these things since I was young!» Looking at the man, Jesus felt a genuine love for him. «Come close, bro, there’s still one thing that you haven’t done yet,» he told him. «Go and sell all your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.»
I’ve heard this scripture butchered for years—that God wants people to be poor. That’s dumb; it doesn’t even make sense! How are we going to bless people if we ain’t got nothing? Like, where am I supposed to steal it? Oh, nope, that’s one of the commandments: thou shalt not steal! What they’ve misinterpreted is the revelation, and I’m gonna give it to you today, and this is gonna set you free! It said at this, the man’s face fell, and he went away sad. He didn’t even try, y’all! He didn’t try! For he had many possessions. One thing that we don’t give this Rich Young Ruler credit for is he at least was seeking Jesus! Literally, if you look at it in verse 17, as Jesus was starting out on his way, a man came running up to him and knelt down. He had the first part of Matthew 6:33 down—seek first! He did that part!
But at some point, and I’m telling all Christians this, you can’t just seek. At some point, you can’t just look—I’m going after God, I’m in your presence, I’m here for you, Lord. At some point, he’s going to ask you to do something. Let me put it in a point: at some point, your seek has to turn into a sacrifice. Oh, that’s nasty Bible right there! Keep seeking him! He says to do it! At some point, seek him and stop hanging out with those friends! What is that going to be? A sacrifice! You’re gonna have to sacrifice your social life for a season because you’re not emotionally stable enough to make your decisions by yourself! So you need to get away from them so you can hear from God and find your own identity outside of that friend group. Oops! I’m in your business! What God is going to ask you to sacrifice! Somebody say, «sacrifice!» If your seek never turns into a sacrifice, you will never see the promises of God, and I wish somebody would have told me this!
You can’t just sing the songs and come to church if you’re not giving up something. It will never materialize what you’re believing for! And how does Jesus test this man? He says, «Yeah, go sell all your possessions!» He wanted his seek to turn into a sacrifice, and this is not just in money, y’all. Fella, if you’re seeking her, you like the way she’s moving, you like the way she’s talking and walking, and you’re infatuated and you holler at her! At some point, it’s gonna go from a seek to a sacrifice! You’re gonna have to do stuff you didn’t think you were going to do! She said, «I know that’s right!» You’re gonna have to put…if you like it! I think it was Prophetess Beyoncé; she said, «If you like it, you’re missing out on your promise because you don’t want your seek to turn into a sacrifice!»
Oh, God! Yeah, some of y’all go to the gym seeking for the best gym! Is it Gold’s Gym? Is it Lifetime? Is it my hotel? You’ve been seeking for months! But at some point, that seek got to turn into a…what? You’re gonna have to lift something! You can make all the stretching videos you want to, but at some point, the seek has to turn into a… I just came to tell you it’s the same thing with money! If you’re going to seek God, at some point, he’s going to say, «I want some of it! I want you to use it for something that you would naturally use it for!»
I know you could go buy yourself another…but I want you to sow into this! And let me show you the key to it because when I looked at the scripture, he said, «Go sell all your possessions.» Man, when you really dig into the scripture, it just changed your life! He said, «Sell all your possessions!» That was the sacrifice! But then he said, «Sow it!» What do you mean? Give it to the poor! Those are two totally different things! I could sell all my stuff and just have more for my investment, but he said sacrifice and then sow it! Let me say it in a point: sacrifice is solidified in sowing! There’s something exponential that happens when you take what you sacrifice for! Did y’all see what happened to this man? He sacrificed—it was his hands! It was when he was picking up that money; nobody else was working! But it was solidified! Did y’all see he broke down crying after the fourth person his blessing sowed into them?
This is what God is requiring from all of us! This is why God asks us to share our testimony! It’s because all the crap you went through does not get solidified until you give that story to somebody else! I think about my friends who are up here—Brian and Aaron—a couple of weeks ago—all the crap that they went through! All the sacrifice, all the marriage counseling, all the different things they went through, didn’t get solidified until Aaron told me, «God’s coming into his barbershop, saying 'Man, thank you for sharing that message! My wife and I are going to actually work on our marriage now! '» All the sacrifice was actually solidified when they gave it away, and what I’m saying is some of y’all been through a whole bunch of crap that hasn’t meant nothing yet because you’re not willing to give it away. The same thing with your finances!
God said, do you know how much I could do if I had control of the resources that I give you the ability to get? It does not become solidified until it’s sown! So, as I was reading this to bring it to an end, the goal of this parable was not for church people to think either I follow Jesus or I live a broke life. That wasn’t it! The goal was not broke; the goal was broken! He was trying to get this Rich Young Ruler to be uncuffed or broken from the thing that gave him significance! His title was rich; they didn’t say his name! They had identified him by what he had accumulated! Rich Young Ruler! Jesus said, «If you’re gonna follow me, that can’t be your first title!» So I don’t want you broke; I want you broken!
And there is no telling if this young man would not have been the replacement for Judas in the treasury because he was obviously good with money! It just was he didn’t have money; money had him! He didn’t even try! He didn’t even try to uncuff! And today, I’m just asking everybody in here, if you’re going to uncuff from cash, you got to give it! There’s no other way! How I got rid of being greedy in my heart is I gave it! I’ll give it to you in a point—it’s got you until you give it! I’m done! It’s got you until you give it! Anything in your life—in your bank account—in your closet—that you can’t give away—you don’t have it; it has you!
I told them to bring me that last little thing—Birmingham shoes! I literally got a pair of shoes last night! Mo, am I lying? I’m telling the truth! I got these last night—most have seen them! Bring me the shoes and the jacket; you got it? You’ve got them? Thank you, baby! They’re not open, y’all! These didn’t even come! DJ Khaled came out with a shoe called «We the Best!» and these mugs are so clean! They’re Jordan Fives, and I mean they’re just— and I was literally preaching this sermon to Charles in the green room and just finished! I mean, on the inside, y’all, it’s so… I’m not sponsored; if DJ Khaled wants to sponsor me, that’s fine…
But I literally was in the green room, and the Holy Spirit said, «If you don’t give them away this morning, they got you!» It’s my birthday; it’s mine! And God said, «What a blessing that I had you pay for something that was somebody else’s, and you got to enjoy carrying them around for one day!» Will you come here? We—uh— Hegemon! I’ve been watching you, so y’all can clap it up real quick as soon as the Holy Spirit says you got to give them away. He showed me Will, and y’all don’t know, but Will is one of the best people in the world. He serves this vision tirelessly, and today I just wanted you to know I love you, I appreciate you, I care about you and your family. You’re the best! Another one! But y’all know what happened—God just allowed me to graduate to the place where He can trust me with anything. Those shoes didn’t have me; I had them, and now Will has them.
My question is: do you have cash, or does cash have you? The only way to break this cycle is to give. Now, we’re not taking a second offering today, so this is an unusual moment in most churches where they cue the music and the pastor would say, «I heard the number one million six hundred twenty!» I’m not doing that, because at the end of the day, if it doesn’t come from a pure place in your heart, it’s manipulation anyway. We don’t want that. All I’m asking everybody to do, every year we do this, but I think it’s going to be a more spiritual act than anything else; on December 4th, people are going to come from all over the country to sow in Crazy Faith, y’all! The testimonies we have of people who trusted God with whatever He said—not what we said—all we want you to do is pray, «God, is there anything You would have me to give in this offering?»
This is the crazy thing: this is the time of year. I tithe; that’s the first level. If you don’t tithe right now, y’all are missing out. It’s protection, blessing, and all kinds of stuff: ten percent. We waste it anyway! We waste it on stuff that doesn’t fit us; we got the clothes that we bought for a size we ain’t about to be! Y’all know what I’m saying; let’s be honest! We waste it anyway. But 90% of what God’s blessing is better than 100% without it. So, if you’re not tithing, I’m encouraging you to start tithing; that’s the first level. But then you can graduate to the second level. The second level is offerings, and when God tells you and breaks it on your heart to give something, there’s nothing better than doing it.
But there’s a third level; everybody say there’s another level! The highest level is sacrificial offerings. What do you mean? You just saw one! It’s one that you’d be like, «Oh, that hurt.» That’s the level where God starts doing things you never thought you would ever see in your life—and it was possible. I’m believing God that this year, before the end of this year—there’s still over 40 days left in the year—we ain’t got that much more time! I’m believing that thousands of people won’t just do the first level of tithing, but in this short span of time, we will go from the first level to the third level. Like, «I’m gonna start tithing, but dang, I’m gonna give a sacrificial offering before the end of '22.»
As we come and sow in Crazy Faith, I’m ready to see God do a miracle—not just in the church, but in the church! God has blessed this building; we got a nice building, we got everything we don’t need. We need the spirit of Mammon to be broken off of our minds; we need the principles of poverty to no longer pass down from generation to generation. We need the goal of greed in our lives and our families to be eradicated. How does that happen? We gotta—everybody say give! Generosity is the number one way that people become more like God, for God so loved that He gave—it’s His core characteristic. Everybody stand all over the world. If you’ve been cuffed to cash, or you just want a deeper heart of generosity, would you lift your hands everywhere? Because I’m the first one to say it:
Father, I thank You that I delivered Your word in the best way I knew how today. God, I’m asking that You would uncuff us from our need for cash more than our need for Christ. Let us be married to the idea of You being our provider—the one who has not just the ability to meet our financial needs, but to meet all of our needs. Today, someone needs a healing; today, someone needs breakthrough; today, someone needs their mind shifted. Father, thank You that we are going to the one who is the source of it all, and no longer will we be cuffed to cash. Today, we are severing our tie to the spirit of Mammon; we are connecting to the life-giving source, Jesus Christ. Thank You for generosity erupting in this church. Thank You that we’re looking for places to be a blessing! You said if we give, You will provide seed to the sower, so we have to make up in our hearts right now that we’re gonna sow and You will provide seed. Father, let us be the answer to prayers—not just praying to get prayers answered. Thank You that families change; thank You, Father, that legacies change because we will seek first—everybody say first—the kingdom! God, I thank You that You’ll add everything else.
If you’re in this room and you’ve never accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, let me introduce you to the King of the Kingdom. He’s the one that took someone like me, who was addicted to pornography, a liar, a manipulator, somebody who had a felony for car insurance fraud, and said, «Yeah, bring that all to Me.» I’m not gonna make you perfect, but I’m gonna make sure you’re progressing. Today, the man you see standing before you has been transformed because Jesus’s love has come in and wrapped His arms around me.
I’ve experienced the grace of God, and today I want to offer that to you. Yes, your eternity will be secure, but that’s not the best part! You get to walk with God every day of your life. Today, if that’s you and you’re saying, «Pastor Mike, I want to make Jesus my Lord and Savior—not just Savior, not just 'Get me out of this, ' but Lord! Show me which way to go; tell me what to do because I know Your plan is best for me.» I want to let you know that’s the best decision you could ever make. If that’s you, on the count of three, I want you to lift your hand. We’re not going to embarrass you or call you up or do anything like that; we’re going to pray together, but I want you to identify just like if I said, «Does anybody want a thousand dollars?»
Hands will go up right now! This is way more valuable than any amount of money; it’s a relationship with the one who is and is to come. If you want a relationship with Jesus today, whether you’re in the room or you’re watching online in a rebroadcast or ten years from now, I want you to lift your hand. Today is the day of salvation. One, I’m so proud of you! Two, your name is about to be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. I hear claps already! Three, somebody lift your hand right now! If you’re in this room, I see you; I see you, sister; I see you, my brother; I see you over there! Wow! Oh, come on, church! I see you. This is what it’s about. Hey, Transformation Church is a family; nobody prays alone, so let’s all just lift our hands and pray this prayer together:
God, thank You for sending Jesus just for me. Today, I’m uncuffing myself from everything that’s not like You. I believe You lived, You died, and You rose again for my freedom. Today, I give You my life. Change me, renew me, transform me. I’m Yours. In Jesus' name, amen.