Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Crazy Faith Story | Michael Todd

Episode Date: October 24, 2021

Is there a part of your life that you've stopped believing could get better? Can you imagine what it would be like if you began to dream again? It’s time to believe more is possible. It’s time to write your Crazy Faith story.ABOUT THIS MESSAGEIs there a part of your life that you've stopped believing could get better? Can you imagine what it would be like if you began to dream again? It’s time to believe more is possible. It’s time to unlock Crazy Faith.WE’RE OPENWe’re continuing to monitor guidelines and best practices for gathering in a safe way. Learn more about everything we're doing to keep you safe and how you can help by using hand sanitizer, washing your hands often, and more: https://www.life.church/updatesFind a time and attend a service with us: http://www.life.church/locationsNEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.church. Find locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/app. FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/lifechurchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIIdiIO-Y20hRW9niR0CA8AFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/craiggroeschel Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I came here with a message of crazy faith. I believe that God gives people messages that they embody and they live out and then they're supposed to share it with other people. And the problem is some of y'all stingy. You won't give us what God gave you. And today I want to inspire you to get everything that God has for you. Live it out and then give it away. Because that's what we're all here for.

is to help somebody else. And so today my assignment is to help you. No matter where you are, no matter how broken you've been, no matter what's hurt you or come to try to make you stop, today this black man came to shake you up. And I want to inspire your faith. Somebody shout at me faith. It is impossible to please God without it.

It's impossible to be saved without it. The Bible even tells us it's impossible to pray without it. But so many of us are lacking today in this very simple word, faith. And today, I want to share transparently from my life and the word of God to help you not just have regular faith. I want you to go to extreme with this and I want you to have somebody shot at me crazy faith. Now, I know some of you would rather have tamed faith and some of you would rather have reserved faith. It doesn't take all of that, Billy. But what I want you to have is crazy faith.

All the Bible characters we read about didn't have little faith. We don't talk about David and Paul and John and Jesus having a faith that was reserved and quiet and unassuming. We talk about people who walked on water when there was nothing there to say they would be able to stand. We talk about young men that went up to giants that an entire country was scared to go against. And he took five stones and a slingshot and defeated them. That's crazy until it happened. And I believe that there are some things that God has on the inside of you that right now, if you set them out loud, it would sound completely crazy to everybody.

until, oh, y'all better help me, it happens. The cell phone that you talk on and you are taking notes on right now was completely crazy, 35 years ago. Now you will hurt somebody if you lose your cell phone and not sleep. Why? Because a device that was not even in anybody's imagination has become so a part of our everyday life. But at one point, if somebody would have said, I want to create this plastic device that I can be able to talk to somebody in a different country and read my U-Version Bible app, but by the way, is about to hit a half a billion down. Y'all, a half a billion downloads.

But think about how crazy that would have sounded in 1985. But right now, it is our reality because somebody had the ability to see into the future and have faith enough to start from here to do something. I believe that if you're watching this right now, God's about to stir something up on the inside of you that is about to tap into your future,

that is allowing you to be right. here, but be able to take steps of faith from right here. And that's why I want to stir your crazy faith. I just wrote a book called Crazy Faith by the glory of God. It released a few weeks ago. And I want to be everybody's crazy faith coach. I can't, I can't, they only gave me 20 minutes now. I can't really talk about everything that's in here. But what I want to tell you is that there are principles that I've lived out in this book that will help you, no matter if you are a mother of three that stay home and help your kids figure out homeschooling, or if you are the CEO of a company,

it's going to take faith. Somebody shout at me faith. So some of you are saying, what qualifies you to talk to us about this? Let me tell you this crazy faith journey I've been on over the past six years, okay? I'm going to tell you in one minute and 30 seconds. Everybody say go.

I took over a church in 2015, February 1st, from a white gentleman in the hood of Tulsa called Greenwood Christian Center, and we changed the name to Transformation Church. I had six months of TCC high-quality, Tulsa Community College education. I didn't know what in the world I was doing except God had given me a call. 37 days after I became the lead pastor of this church, there was 300 people coming to the church, and all of them were choosing to leave because they didn't believe in me.

And I was in my prayer time and I wrote down this crazy piece of paper. And on this crazy piece of paper in my daughter's room at 729 a.m. March 9, 2015, I wrote down that the Spirit Bank Event Center will be Transformation Church. That's absolutely nuts. I went to Google and I got a picture of this event center and put our church logo on the top of it and put Transformation Church right here and spelled it wrong. I spelled transformation. But I believe that happened to encourage somebody

that God doesn't bless who you pretend to be. He blesses who you really are. And he can do a work inside you with all of the crap that you think has to be perfect. It doesn't. God will still use you just how you are. Long story short, five years later, I held the keys to this building.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got one clap. They're like, great. Oh, okay. See, what you don't understand is when I took over the church, we had no money, no staff, no nothing, but God gave me a crazy faith vision. And I was crazy enough to write it down. Now, you know what didn't happen when I wrote this down?

Nobody cheered. My wife wasn't excited. I said, baby, look what God showed me. She said, do the dishes. But when I held up that we had the keys, there was celebration from everybody. because what once was crazy was counted as faith when God did the miracle. It was still God when nobody clapped. It was still God when I did not have the relationships I needed.

It was still God. Somebody say it's still God. There's some situations you're in right now. It's still God even though it's not finished. It's still God even though it's not happened. And long story short, once we got the keys, I was like, well, God, you did the greatest miracle of my life. I won't have to believe you for anything else. And I was driving into that building one day, and God said, don't take your foot off the gas. And I was like, what does that mean? He said,

keep believing me in faith. And I was like, ah, that's kind of uncomfortable. You already did something good. He said, I want the whole world to know me as a God who does the impossible. They read about it, but they stop seeing it in their everyday lives. And I said, he said, don't take your foot off the gas. I was like, so what does that mean? Well, right in front of our church, it sits at the back of a business complex that has like 35 different businesses in it and like chiropractor offices and state farms and all that. It even has the land that Chick-fil-A sits on. And you know, that's holy ground. God said, believe the church can own the whole thing. I'm like, all of that? All of that?

all of it. I said, you know what, I'm not going to let my limitations of what I have stop God from working. So all I got to do is agree with you? It's like, yeah. Because if I be for you, who can be against you? Me and God are a majority. I was like, all right, I'm going believe you one year after we got that building we bought the entire post rock complexes seven buildings and the land tick fillet is on i'm a shout right now okay now now now as a pastor that's been going for about four years at the time just stick a fork in me i'm done god doesn't ever have to do another thing for us he said you thought i was doing this for you. He said, I'm using the most unlikely character to prove that I can use anybody to do anything

if you would have the faith to. Everybody shout at me, believe. That's a good word right there. And so this summer on sabbatical, I'm taking a study break. And what ended up happening was one of my team members called me and said, hey, are you coming to this meeting? and they knew I was on break. So why would you call me and say, am I coming on this? But they were used by the Lord. I said, what meeting? They said, oh, never mind.

You're not supposed to be in that meeting. I said, okay, okay, okay, okay. What meeting? And they said, well, something just came up. And they took me to this complex that looked like Tony Stark built it for the Avengers. hundred ninety six thousand square feet six floors of state of the art technology that an oil company built and they said we were looking for space for our staff to office because we need to do a children's renovation and they said um we went to lease three floors from them and for some

reason they asked us did we want to buy the whole building and i said they asked us did we want to buy the whole building. And they said, yeah, they asked us, do we want to buy the whole building? And I said, who told them we were trying to buy a building? And they said, we didn't. And I said, well, maybe God's about to do something crazy again. See, my expectation when I started believing God changed from maybe God can't do this to what is God trying to do. And some of the situations we're working in, looking in, living in, we're sitting here saying, well, maybe God can't do this. Maybe God can't do this. And God said, I wish there was a people that would believe me beyond what they've seen and they've thought and they've experienced before. I wish I could find a church with faith.

I walked to go and look at that building and I was coming down the sixth floor. And I said, this is way bigger than anything I ever thought. And God says, partner with me. And we can do something that will change the whole world. I was like, hey, you got to do this thing. A few weeks ago, I stood up and I told my church, I don't know how this happened, but we got the keys again to an entire transformation towers headquarter. I don't even know what it's called yet. And what I came to tell you, because this is not about buildings and things,

this is about the God who can do impossible things. And I don't know what's impossible in front of you right now. I feel something happening right now. I don't know what's impossible in front of you right now, but I'm standing here to let you know that our God can do impossible things, but all he needs is your crazy faith. It's only crazy until it happens. One thing that I found out through this story, though,

is crazy faith is not where you start. It's where you find yourself after you are diligent and dedicated to exercising baby faith. See, everybody wants the building and wants to pray and get cancer to dry up and wants to be able to look at a house and say, that's where I'm going to live. And God says, that's crazy faith.

But crazy faith starts with baby faith. It starts with reading your word every day. It starts with praying for people, even when it feels uncomfortable. It starts with paying for the person's meal behind you, even though you think they got more money than you got. It starts with obedience. And that's why I came to encourage somebody that maybe the biggest breakthrough of your life is not going to be big.

It's going to start small. Maybe you're in the middle of it right now and you're not acknowledging it because it doesn't look good on the gram. See, you can't Instagram integrity and you can't Facebook faithfulness. There are certain things that God's working on the inside of you that nobody will see until it actually. shows up. But what God is trying to do on the inside of you is somebody say a deep work. But it starts in baby form. And this is what I want you to understand as we talk about crazy faith. The genesis of crazier faith is, I'm going to give you a key right here, your imagination. Your imagination is more spiritual than most pastors have ever told you. And what we have done

as grown adults, most of us sitting in this room, is somewhere along the way we have allowed something to kill, steal, or destroy our imagination. Yeah, yeah. As you're sitting here right now, you think imagination, it's like, I'm going to tell you that imagination is biblical and spiritual. Can we go to the Bible? Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 27.

Thank you. So God created human beings in his own image. In his own what? Image. What's the root word of imagination? Image. So God created us in his own image and in the image or the imagination of God. He created them male and female. He created them. You may have never thought about this before. But me and you were God's imagination. all your lovely lumps your hair color you were God's imaginations look at somebody and say he did good somebody say he did good he did good but we were in his imagination and this is the first chapter of the Bible talking about how God used his imagination to create let me give you the thesis of this

God's imagination created us. We are created in his image. Therefore, we can also create with imagination. This is going to take me a second, Pastor Craig. I might need another week because some of them looking at me like, huh? But I'm telling you right now, the tool that God gave you to be able to be in a completely opposite situation. How could Paul write half of the Bible chained up in jail? He was in a situation talking about being free while bound.

The only way you can be in the middle of a divorce seeing yourself with joy. The only way your family can be split apart, but you seeing and imagining yourself being back together as a family next Christmas. The only way that you can be unhealthy but seeing yourself whole is by using the tool of imagination. and most of you have shut it down. You have constricted it and you've used it and labeled it as child's play. And God said, why would you take one of the most amazing tools I gave you to be able to channel your faith into another situation and shut it down? Today I came to unlock your anointed imagination.

Today, there is something that happens in your mind. You want to win the war in your mind? Shout out to Pastor Craig. You need to unlock your anointed imagination. And so let me break this down for you. It's going to take some of y'all till the last five minutes to get this. But I came here to push you beyond your problems and your bills and the things that are in front of your face.

that make you feel like maybe this can never change. God said, you need to imagine it. Imagine the book. Imagine the song. Imagine you being able to change the lives of young people. Imagine your family healed. Imagine yourself healthy. Everybody close your eyes.

Yeah, close your eyes right now. And right now, the one thing you need to know is imagination is free. You can be right here. Imagine yourself on vacation right now. Yeah, somebody felt that right there. Imagine the sand. Imagine yourself sipping the lice little fruity drink that you really like. Imagine somebody being there next to you that you really love.

Can you see it? Can you feel it yet? See, wherever you're watching this from, you're not there. But this image that you are getting right now is making some of y'all, pull out your American Airlines app. Making some of you think about how am I going to use my next savings. Why? Because the images that you're getting, open your eyes, look at me.

What you just did was you got a vision. And you saw it before you saw it. And what God is encouraging his children to do is stop thinking that what God has shown you cannot come to pass. You got to see it before you see it. before I saw myself in that arena declaring God's word, I saw myself in that arena declaring God's word. What version of you have you not seen yet

because you won't unlock the anointed imagination that God's put on the inside of you? Let me help you. Unlock to open or set free. Anointed. Everybody tries to make this deep and really spiritual, but anointed, all it means is God's approval. when something's anointed it has God's approval on it.

You don't want to live in a house without God's approval. You don't want to work nowhere without God's approval. You want what you do to be an imagination. And imagination is the ability of the mind to create new ideas or pictures, not present to the senses. So an anointed imagination, write this down, is the ability to create new ideas or pictures, not present to the senses that God approves and empowers us to live out for his glory. I see this in Matthew chapter 18 when I talk about imagination something I've never seen before. Matthew 18, Jesus is talking to his disciples.

It says about that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, who is the greatest in the kingdom? Jesus called over a little child. I imagine like Liam or somebody. That's what people naming their kids right now. Come here, Liam. And he called Liam over and he said, I tell you the truth. Listen to this. This is Jesus talking.

Unless you turn from your sins. and become like little children. You will never get into the kingdom of heaven. Dang. So, hold on. We got the turn from our sins part, but become like a child? We forget that nobody does Bible studies on that.

I'm a grown adult. I got kids that got kids. Become like a, A child, playtime is over. We play no games here. Some of y'all so old and crusty, like y'all, y'all just mean and mad. God says you'll never inherit the kingdom of heaven until you become like a child. Let me give you a key to the kingdom. Here we go.

A key to the kingdom, be more kiddie. When God says something, believe it. When he speaks something over you, believe it. I didn't say become more immature. I said to develop characteristics like a kid. Let me help you. You know what we're called children of God, right? He didn't say business partners and allies and he said,

you are a child of God. You know some characteristics of children? Children trust. I can tell my daughter something. She'd be like, my daddy said the sky is blue. And then he said it's purple. And I trust them. Kids believe.

Do you believe God? Kids obey. Well, some kids, your kids bad. But some kids obey. You know another thing that kids do? Kids, imagine. I'm going to show you as I was preparing to bring this message. I like to bring authentic messages.

I was preparing and this image of myself as a kid popped up. This is Pastor Michael Todd as a kid. No pants on, just completely out here going crazy. As I looked at that picture, I felt this strong prompting from the Holy Spirit. He said, Michael, that kid knew more about the kingdom than you do. And I was like, uh-uh, because I read the Bible. I couldn't read back then. I study.

I worship. He said, but that kid trusted. That kid believed. That kid didn't count up all of the things of why it couldn't happen. He just believed it could happen. And he said, this is what I need you to return to. And I understand because many of us have trauma, trials, tragedies that stole our imagination. We were forced to grow up.

We were forced to not believe what people said. We were forced to question and second guess everything. But God today wants to anoint your imagination to be able to believe again. You have been adulting so much. that you lost your anointing. You have killed, and my question to you is to identify where did your imagination die? Because what we need is to get our imagination back. Hebrews 111 says, now faith is the substance of things everybody say hope for.

We got a hope again. You need to imagine it and then you need to hope for it. If you imagine it and then you begin to hope for it, then you can get faith for it. And when you get faith for it, that's when God, God starts doing amazing things, and you need to understand that your imagination is the womb of your spirit. Wherever you start imagining, that's the thing that starts being formed in your life. Can I prove it to you? A lot of people are dealing with anxiety now like never before.

But anxiety is the baby of fear and imagination. So what you're doing is imagining all of these things that could happen that never did. happened that's producing anxiety in you today because you continue to plant the wrong thing in your imagination this is why we have to watch what we hear and watch what we listen to and that's why we have to do what second corinthians 105 says cast down every vain imagination that would exalt itself against the knowledge of god when those images try to bombard your spirit and your mind you got to say ah you can't live here you can't stay here somebody once said it like this you can't stop a bird from landing on your head but you can stop it from creating a nest there and some of you

have allowed things and ideas and fear and doubt to land on your head and make a house there and today I'm asking you to ask God back to help you tear down every vein of imagination. So how do we do that? Pastor Mike? I'm going to get out of here and I'm going to help you be able to live this out in your real life. Imagination is purified in intercession. So you can think about anything. But then God says, bring it to me in prayer. God, I think he to want. I think I'm supposed to have babies with him. Okay, bring it to me in prayer. I think I'm supposed to move to this city and start this business. I let your imagination run while. But then bring it to me in intercession because that's where God purifies us. I can't tell you how many times I go to

prayer thinking one thing and then I start praying about it and God changes my whole heart about the thing. Why? Because he wants your imagination to be able to run wild and this is the crazy thing. That young man that you saw in the picture, he had an imagination that could see this bottle and go voo-woo. And then take the same bottle and go, and then take the same bottle and go, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, because I wasn't limited by what it is. And God said, what if I could take your current situation?

And you could have faith enough to imagine it changing and going from something that was grounded to something that's flying, to be able to go woo, to be able to get on the floor and say this and then be able to stand up and say to depression, bow, to anxiety, bow, bow, to there is more for you than what you're experiencing. But could you imagine that? This week, I want you to imagine God changing your situation around.

I didn't say do something yet. Don't do anything until you go to prayer. Because when you go to prayer, in intercession, it purifies everything. And when you go to intercession, that's why probably Proverbs 3-5 says it like this in all your ways. Acknowledge God, and he'll do what? He'll direct your path. See, intercession changes the focus.

Just real quick, cameraman, take me out of focus. See, this is what a bunch of our lives look like right now. Out of focus. Yeah, I can't even see the details of my pretty face. But as I take it to God, God changed me. I'm mad at them. but Father, what is it in me that keeps attracting these same type of relationships? God, could you please heal that situation for my friends and my family?

God, could you please do a work on the inside of me? God, could you please give me the research? What happens right now is the focus is changing. And God is saying to you today, I feel this thing so strong. Bring your wild imagination to me. Let me show you what I have planned to you. bring it to me an intercession and I'll change your focus. And intercession doesn't just change the focus.

Intercession changes your feelings. See, a lot of us feel a certain way. And God said, can I change your feelings about that? Some of y'all go to prayer with DeMarco and be like, he's the one. And you'll come out with Daniel. And you'll be like, Daniel, his little suspenders and the glasses. But they are kind of cute, though. Like, I'm telling you, God can change your feelings.

And the last thing intercession does is intercession. session changes the future. Your fervent prayers, the Bible says, they avail or they work. Everybody just close your eyes right now. God wants to ignite your imagination. Today I came up here sweating and yelling and all that other stuff to just let you know. Imagine again. Imagine yourself whole. Imagine yourself free. Imagine yourself pure. Imagine yourself helping others. imagine yourself doing the things that people call crazy today, but will one day be things that people count as faith. Father, bless this people. Do more than they could ever think or imagine. Eyes haven't seen, ears haven't heard, nor has it entered into the imaginations of those that are

listening, the things you have planned for them because they're called and you love them. Thank you for igniting our imagination. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Come on, church. You can be better than that. Let's tell. Pastor, thank you. And no matter where you're watching from today, let us apply this. We don't just hear the word, but we do the word. And so I want to take it for just a moment to you. And I wonder how many of you right now need God to build your feet. faith. You may have prayed for a while for something and then you gave up. In fact, Pastor Mike, I was a little bit convicted that I've got some daughters that have health issues and I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed for a while and then my faith kind of waned a little bit and you just

built my faith again that they would be healed. They would be healed. So I wonder today with every head up and every eye opened, how many of you have a situation that may be you're believing or you want to believe for restoration, it may be for a miracle, it may be for provision, it may be for some idea of it, you have something you'd like to believe for. Would you lift every hands? I want you to leave it up for just a moment. And what we're going to do as the body of Christ is just pray together. If there's someone near you that has a hand up, I'm going to ask you just to like appropriately put your hand on their shoulder or grab hands, if you will. If you're at home watching, you can grab the person sitting next to you or just hold your own hands,

if you will. And we're going to agree together in faith right now. Just just appropriate. kind of lay hands on the person next to you. And God, we ask, we thank you for, we thank you for faith, that even just a little bit, a faith of a mustard sea can move mountains. God, we thank you that we, we know we cannot do anything that pleases you without faith. We can't even be saved without faith. Build our faith. God, we believe, help us to believe for miracles, for supernatural healing. God, for divine provision, for miraculous restoration, for ideas. and imaginations to do what you would call us to do for kingdom businesses, for kingdom impact, for ministries that would touch people all over the world. God, give us the faith to think big,

but the courage even to start small. Help us to be a little more kiddie, a little more childlike, just believing, God, that if you say it, that your word is true. If you are for us, God, who can be against us? So we ask, in faith today, believing for your power, your intervention, your miracles. We believe. Everybody say we believe. We believe. Say it again. We believe. God, we believe in you. We believe you're here. We believe you hear our prayers. We believe, God. We believe, God. We believe you can, God. We believe you will, God. And God, even if you don't, we still believe, but we come in faith asking, believing today for miracles. As you keep praying today at all of our churches, or those watching online, Pastor Mike said it. You can't please God

without faith. And he said this. He said, you can't be right with God without faith. This is what's amazing. Let me ask you, where do you stand with God? Like if we just sat down and we're kind of having a cup of coffee together, and I just ask you spiritually, some of you say, I don't know, or I was somewhere now, I don't know where I am right now. And if we talked about how it is that you're close to God, how it is you're right with God, a lot of people think, well, I got to like try really hard and be really perfect and be really religious, but I'm not. And the truth is, neither am I. None of us are. And scripture is ridiculously clear that we all mess up. The Bible calls it sin. And sin separates us from God. So how are we ever made right with God? And the answer is, scripture says it's by

grace. It's the unmerited favor of God. But it's not just God's grace. It's through faith. faith in Jesus, the son of God, the Lamb of God, who is perfect in every way, who was slain for the sins of the world, who died and God raised him from the dead, that no matter who you are or what you've done or how far you feel from God, if you have the faith to believe that Jesus is death and resurrection is enough, God covers your sins, forgives your sins, makes you new. There are those of you you you're watching for this moment. That's why you're here right now. It's by faith. It's by faith. It's by faith. It's by faith.

No matter how dark you feel, no matter how dirty you feel. those who say, I want his forgiveness. I believe that Jesus is enough. Today I give my life to him. That's your prayer. Would you lift your hands high right now? All of our churches, as we've seen people today, surrendering, give God praise, give him thanks. Say, by faith, by faith, by faith.

You can type that in the comment section. If you're watching online, just type in the comment section. I'm giving my life to Jesus today. And wherever you're watching from, would you just pray this simple prayer by faith? Pray Heavenly Father. forgive all of my sins. Jesus saved me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit

so I could know you, live for you, and to walk by faith and not by sight. God give us faith to show your love, to know your will, to be a bright light

in a dark world. Build our faith to know you and to make you known. I give you my whole life. In Jesus' name, I pray. Could somebody with faith in God give him praise today.