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Welcome to Transformation Church podcast where we represent God to the lost and found for Transformation in Christ. We're so glad you're here and wherever you're listening from, we believe God will transform your life through today's message.

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Well, today we are starting a brand new series entitled Forward. And I believe that it is God's idea, his design, and his will for us to not stay in the same place. We who's sick of the same? I just got a real question. I need you to be honest with me. If you are sick of the same thing, what is going to change? Because most people complain about what they will never change. Come on, let's be honest. I'm sick of having all this weight on me. Won't go walking. I'm sick of these relationships that are frustrating me. You won't let them go. I. I'm sick. Just think about it. What are you sick of that you still decide to be connected to. Today, I'm asking you to be one of the ones who have faith to move everybody. Shout at me. Forward. Say it with some faith. Say forward. Today I'm going to introduce you to the anchor scripture for us this entire year. And. And I want you to be able to put this in your heart, in your mind as we move forward. And I'm gonna ask you to do something. Cause this is the first time we're ever doing it. Would you stand up for me? All over the place. Even if you at home. Stand up. And we're gonna read this thing together. Philippians chapter 3, verse 13. Put it on the screen for me. And I don't know if everybody got their bi vocals on, but I hope you can see that. Okay, I want you to read this with me. Philippians 3, 13 and 14. No. Dear brothers and sisters, come on, read. I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing. Forgetting the past and looking. Shout it forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is. Is calling us. May the God of our word. What? May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. Amen. Y' all can take a seat. Shout at me. Forward. I love the end of that. Where it says, God's calling us. He's calling. He's calling. What a lot of people. When your phone rings, it has a. A visceral reaction in your body. You can literally be almost asleep and your phone rings because there's something in you that doesn't want to miss the call. If you're expecting something and you can't find your phone. I've seen people rip up their bedroom, they living room. Have you ever heard it but didn't know where it was? And then people are retracing they steps. Has anybody ever left their phone, like in an airport or something? The most devastating moment of your life, especially if you leave it on the plane. I've done it twice where you leave it on the plane. Because I. I go to sleep when I get up in the air. When I get close to God, I find deep rest. And so literally I find. And I go sleep and then I might have it in my pocket or I might have it on my, on my lap. And then I get up because they're like, it's time to go. And I get up and I fast. And the phone falls. It's happened two times. One time it happened at the DFW airport and the woman would not let me back on the plane. And I said, ma', am, he's calling it right now. And when I said, I said, my friend is calling the phone. If you would just go back on the plane. Well, we don't know where it is. If you would just get in the vicinity of where it is, I promise you will hear. Because he's. And I don't know, but I feel like in 2026, some of you have been away from what God is telling you. But right now there's something that you're starting to hear in your spirit, hearing your mind. There's a frustration with all the noise that is going around. You're telling it to quiet down and God is calling you. And anytime that God is calling you, he's calling you forward. He's not calling you to something in the past. That's why this scripture is in Philippians 3. I need you to meditate on it. It's so beautiful because when God gave me the Word of the year forward, I began to search the Scriptures. And this is so good of God just to give me a little bit of confirmation that I heard him clearly, that the word of the year last year was focus. And then he put both of these words in two sentences just right after the other. He said, but I focus on this one thing. Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. What would happen if every day all you did was look forward to what God has ahead of you? What would happen to your psyche, your emotions, your faith? What would happen to your speech even after a failure? You'd be like, well, there's some good stuff ahead and too many of us. The plan of the enemy is to keep us in the past. But today, by faith, and through this entire series, you do not want to miss one message because you are moving by faith. Say it. Forward. Forward literally means write this definition down. It means onward, so as to make progress towards a successful conclusion. When I was praying through this, the Holy Spirit told me, he said, michael, forward is the direction of your destiny. There is a destination that I have for you that is forward. And you have to make sure. Watch this. That you do not become in love with today. You're not in love with this season. You don't become in love with the comfortability of what has been built. Because if you do, you will forfeit for forward by staying in what this is today. Why do people get divorced after 25 years raising their kids and everybody? Because they have nothing to look forward to. They focused on them. Kids, focused on the kids, focused on the kids, focused on the kids. And now the kids gone. And me and you stopped talking 10 years ago. We've been business partners for the last 26 months. And now when there's nothing holding us together, we forget the love that we used to have and we don't look forward today. There are people that are under the sound of my voice that are in a space where God by faith is calling you forward. Holy Spirit dropped it in my. In my heart like this. He said, everything is ahead. Everything you believe in for, everything that you're going to rejoice in, everything that you're going to overcome, it's ahead of you. There is nothing that I have behind you except testimonies of my goodness to you. Everything. Somebody shout at me, Everything is ahead. You have been stuck in a place that you're trying to figure out what the future looks like. And God says, I'm in your future. And I have good for you. Everything is ahead of you. And as I move forward, as this church moves forward, we have to have our faith in the forward position. Y' all ever seen that Michael Jackson video where he leans? One day I'mma have the. I'm going to have the effects to be able to, Ah, nah, I'm a fall today. But that's the direction that you need to be leaning with your faith. It don't look good. I'm still here. But God, what you about to do tomorrow, I have expectation to see what you're about to say and what you're about to do. And some of you, God saying forward. And you're doing this. You doing what Fat Joe said, you leaning back. Lean back, Lean back. Yeah, I see you. And God said, would you come in the direction that I have Peace, joy. Would you come in the direction that. Yeah, there's challenge up here, too. But I'll have you overcome all of those challenges. Would you come shout at me one more time? Forward. Pastor Mike, why are you telling me this? Because if the direction of destiny that you have is up ahead of you, that means you're actually going to have to find your direction in the Word of God. Why do we come to church? Why do we believe God? Why do we read this thing? Why do we fast and pray? It's because our destiny is found in His Word. Let me read it to you in Psalms 1:19, verse 105. This scripture will transform your life. The Bible says that your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light unto my path. God's word is a what? Lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Has anybody ever been in darkness in your life? Now, right now, as I am in complete and total darkness, I hold the Word of God in my hand. At this moment, I want to give you a picture that I hope you never forget. That when you are in a moment of darkness and nothing can be seen, if you would just open the Word of God, if you would just put your mind to what he has already said, this will light up everything that is around me. Whoa. It then presents a way. It says, the Word of God is a lamp unto my feet and a light onto my path. Now I know which way to walk. Now I know how to deal with hurt. Now I know how to go through and forgive because I felt found it in His Word. But as soon as I close it, as soon as I walk away from it. It's dangerous for me to walk up on this platform right now, and I don't have no light. There are pitfalls all around me. There are people that should actually be able to help me, but I don't know, somebody that's supposed to help me could hit me because I can't see, see nothing. But as soon as I open the Word of God, I feel this thing. Right now there is a light that comes and a path that is straight. Find yourself in the Word of God. And what happens is the more word that gets in me. Then it gets in you, and then it gets in you. And then this whole room begins to light up. Turn it on. Turn on the light anytime you want to. You open this Word, it turns the light on. You're confused about your relationship. It turns the light on. You're confused about how to raise your kids. Turn. Turn the light on. Turn all the lights on. That's what I'm asking you. I'm asking you at the sound booth to turn the lights on. Literally, like, turn them back on. But I can preach it like this, too. What I'm saying to you is this will always be able to be seen. This will always be able to see. Where in your life has it been dark? Where in your life has God not been able to speak to you because of offense and hurt? Where in your life have you been so unwilling to move? When God's saying, I have better for you, he's saying, would you just please find yourself in my Word? And if you would find yourself in the Word, it would change everything about you. The word of God is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. We could stop there, because this week you're gonna face some dark things. And my question is, what do you run to? Do you run to more darkness? Do you run to a feed? I heard my. My friend Paul Doherty say it like this. He said the feed, it's literally called a feed. It's feeding you something. Have y' all thought about that? I'm on my Instagram feed. What comes out of you is because of what you put. What are you feeding? What are you feasting on? What I'm saying to you, Church is today. You need to feed and feast on the word of God. Amen. Because it's going to move you folks. So this week, as I was preparing for this message, I had a moment of reminiscing, and I started to think about my childhood, the good old days for me. And I don't know, it was about eight or nine years old. Me and my brother Gabriel, we shared a room. We got bunk beds. And I. I don't know if you were a kid and you ever got bunk beds, but when you got bunk beds, it was, like, built in monkey bars almost. It was like something you could climb off of. And then my dad took it to the next level, and my dad got me and my brother a color tv. And he didn't just get us a color tv, he got us a color TV that had the VCR built into it. Y' all know what I'm talking about. Matter of fact, I brought it today. Now, I don't know if any of you youngsters know what this is, but this right here got me through a many weekends. This right here blessed my life. And there was no higher level of excitement and fun than getting out of school on a Friday and knowing that we were going to Blockbuster Friday night. Do I got any Saints that remember Blockbuster? So what we would do at Blockbuster is we would go to Blockbuster and we would rent a vhs. See, y' all don't know nothing about that. Y' all streaming and got apps and can watch it when you want. Didn't have that when I was a kid. And we didn't get to choose four movies. And if they had a double special, you know what I'm saying? Like, you get one, and then they. Does anybody remember this childhood? That I'm okay. And so we would pick a movie. And I remember 1994. There was something ancestral that came out of me when I seen the Lion King. And. And what we would do is we would. We would take the movie, and many times we would watch the movie because you only had it for 48 hours or you was getting charged. And some of y' all done bought more Blockbuster movies. But what ended up happening is we will watch it several times. And once we found, me and my brothers, because I'm one of five, we would find our favorite part, and what would ended up happening is we would take it and then we would put it in. And when we would put it in, everybody would be like, let's watch it. Let's go. But they would say, let's fast forward to this part. And I don't know, because y' all skip stuff and do stuff. But, like, when it. Oh, shoot, this brings back. Good memory. But what. What I usually had to do is run up there and stop it because there was no remote. What always happened to the remote? So I was the one designated to go up. And this is the thing. They would say fast forward to the good part. And what would end up happening is I would push play, but I also would have to come up here and see where it was at, to see where it was. I love this. And then it was like, no, no, no, no, not that part. And then I would push a button that says fast forward. And when I push that part, I will find myself watching everything in a fast pace. I couldn't skip it, but I could go fast. I'm going to say it one more time. There was no part of the movie back here that I could skip, but I could go forward faster. I believe that there is a time that God is calling his church to. To know that there are some things in this Christian life that you're not going to be able to skip. There are some hardships and some frustrations. There are some pains and some points you're going to have to come to. But I'm telling you right now that you cannot skip it, but you can go forward faster. Somebody by faith needs to understand that God is calling you into a place of acceleration. You are about to walk into something that other people stayed in and wandered in for 40 years, the thing they died in. You gonna walk right past the thing that they could not figure out, how to quit. You gonna figure out how to go through faster by faith. God is about to give you the grace of God to go forward fast. Today I came to preach a message called Fast Forward. Skip to the good part. I'm telling you right now, some of y' all been in seasons when you've been asking God, when is this gonna be over? He said, if you listen to my word, we can fast forward through some of this stuff. You can't skip it, but we can go forward faster. Oh, y' all don't hear me right now? God is about to bring the good part to your marriage, the good part to your family, the good part to your finances, the good part to this church, but he's not going to let you skip no parts. What you've been trying to do is skip it. In this Christian walk, there are things you will never be able to skip if you follow Jesus. That's why he came to this earth to show us the pattern, the way to be able to walk. He said, you're gonna deal with temptation. You can't skip it. You're gonna deal with people misunderstanding you. You can't skip it, but you ain't got to get stuck. Too many people in the body of Christ are stuck in a place where God's saying, can we go forward faster today? I'm going to give you practical handles with this. Write that point down. You can't skip it, but you can fast forward. Who? I feel this thing in my spirit because some of y', all, your year is about to be accelerated by the end of this month. There is going to be so much forward acceleration. I'm only talking to people with faith. There's going to be so much forward except acceleration in the first quarter of this year, you're gonna feel like you live the entire 2026, and God's saying to you, this is what's available to anybody that will walk by my spirit. You ain't skipping it. You can learn the lessons, but you can go forward fast. Somebody shout at me, forward, But let me help you. It's not forward if there's not opposition. I want to give you the reality of walking with God, that there will always be an adversary to you moving forward. Some of them are generational mindsets that when you try to move forward, you hear your family and your big mama and your great grandmama say, ain't nobody in our family ever. And you're fighting General. Oh, come on, y'. All. How many of y' all are fighting generational things? Ain't nobody stay married in our family. Ain't nobody been delivered off of alcohol. That's. This is just who we are. And they may be in the grave right now, but you're fighting those demons trying to move forward. There's always opposition when the goal is to move forward. It's only practice when there's nobody trying to stop you, in the real game of life, there's another team. The Bible calls it our enemy, the adversary, the one that comes to slow us down and keep us from going forward. You gotta know that it's not forward if you don't have opposition. Moses had opposition named Pharaoh. David had opposition named Goliath. Daniel had opposition named Ops. They was just haters. Jesus had opposition named religion. When Jesus came, his opposition was the religious governmental set of the day. And he was trying to move everybody forward. But this is the thing about forward I need you to know. Write this down. Forward goes through, not around forward goes through it, not around it. And that's why I had to tell somebody today that has been trying to avoid things. You are a professional avoider. What you are doing is saying that you're not actually moving forward. You're actually going around the thing. You're making a circle. See, for me to actually go forward, I have to move beyond the sphere of this podium. But a lot of people are calling this forward. You're calling movement, actual motion. And this has been 27 years of your life. And now you're dizzy because your equilibrium is off because you've been doing the same thing and everybody thinks you're moving. You post pictures like you moving. You show it like you moving. Every time you go and see your family at Christian Christmas, you tired cuz you've been moving, but you haven't been moving forward. Today. God's inviting you into going a different direction. And this means that if you are going forward, if you have opposition, you have to be ready. Listen for your bounce back. Time to get quicker. Some of y' all don't bounce back. Your bounce back is slow. Somebody offends you, you're hurt for the month, they misunderstood you and you out for the day when you could go straight to that person and say, hey, don't know what that little attitude was back there, but I just wanted to make sure me and you were good. Because when I said that I was working towards the you gave me to do. And I want to make sure that we're in alignment because I love teamwork and unity. You could go right to the person, but instead you talking at the lunchroom. Can you believe Sally with that fake wig? Look how hard it look. I can't stand her. Her edges ain't even laid. And anyway, like. And then it goes around, and then it goes around and it goes around. Y' all been in families where there has been an offense for decades and that those people don't even know that you are hurting when they. When you come around because you won't go straight to it. You go around it and what you avoid begins to plant stakes for a prison that you will live in. Y' all didn't hear what I just said. If you avoid it, you keep setting up stakes and you keep going around and you keep building yourself into a prison where God says, now it's time to go forward and you're to trying trapped. And this is why God said, your bounce back time has to be better. Matthew, chapter 10, verse 14. He told his disciples, I'm sending you forward to tell people about me to do what I told you to do. But I'm gonna give you a clause that you don't gotta stay in the same place and try to get people to accept what you doing. I told you to go there. If they don't accept it when you go into that town, they don't do it. You did what I said. Now you can do something else. Watch this. He said, if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave at home, get out of that town and shake the dust off your feet. He said, instead of staying there, I want you to go straight to another place. Don't go around it. Go to it and through it. But if they don't accept it, if that family member is like you crazy, if that coworker is like, you ain't. Da, da, da da. God bless you. I'm gonna shake that thing off. I think it was prophet Jay Z that said, get that dirt off your shoulder. It was one of those things that helps us know. Listen, why are you saying this? Because if the disciples bounce back was slow, there would have been people who missed the Gospel because they were offended that somebody didn't accept it. He was saying, I need you to keep moving forward. He didn't want their velocity to be slowed down. And some of y' all have turned the dial all the way back on what God has called you to do because you've experienced some opposition. It's a part of going forward. Dust your feet off. Dust off the emotional residue. Dust off the unresolved resistance and. And that you have on the inside of you. Some of y' all are so angry. Everything in you hates certain situations. And God says, let's go to counseling. Let's go to therapy, because you need to talk to somebody. No, I ain't got to talk to. Let's let. Why would. Why would I. You can't teach a old dog new tricks. That's not true. You can literally teach anybody who's willing, humble, teachable. You should say what it really is. I don't want to change. I don't want to transform. I don't want to have the hard conversation. I don't want to have to talk to my mom. I don't want to be able to express how much that hurt me, because actually, I have a hard exterior that I'm known for. And if I ever admit that that was painful, it will make me feel lower in their minds, and they'll have something against me. God's saying, if you want to go forward, we're going through it, not around it. I just gave everybody the reason why. Many of you will stay in the same place because you're not going to go through it. At the moment that your knees are shaking and your. And your hands are sweaty, you're gonna be like, never mind, never mind, never mind. It's not all that. I can deal with it. I can take care of myself. I'll be fine. I'll just deal with it over here. And God said, no, stop avoiding what I want to be healed. Pastor Mike, what are you saying? God will give you the grace to move forward faster. The shortest distance between two things is what? A straight line. If I'm going from here to right there, just walk straight. But most of us, we bouncing back and forth like a running back. We behind the line of scrimmage, and we booshin. Scooshing, scooshing, scooshing, scooshing, scooshing, scooshing, scoo. Ain't gone forward. No. Think about it. This is what you look like in your life relationally. Husbands and wives. Doing all that movement, Loss on the play, getting tackled in the backfield because the best way to move, even if I'm gonna fail, they tell you if you gon fall, If you're going, at least do it. And I just want to let you know that you avoiding it doesn't make you stronger, it makes you weaker. Hear what I'm saying to every person under the sound of my voice. Avoidance strengthens the fear circuits in your mind. Let me say it again. Avoidance strengthens the fear circuits in your mind. It teaches your brain that the fear was justified. So when you avoid something, your amygdala gets rewarded with relief, which cements the fear loop and makes a signal louder next time. And this is why many of you, you ignored it once and you avoided it once, and it's like, whew, I missed that one. And I'm okay, I'm still okay. And then you avoid it again and it's like, I'm good, I'm good. And so you think you're winning by avoiding it. But the Bible says all you're doing is working against what I said in 2nd Timothy 1:7. For God has not given us a spirit of fear. That means we can go to the thing, we can have an emotionally intelligent conversation, we can walk through and be spiritually aware as well as be able to communicate our feelings and our hurts and our pains and our successes. He said, I'm not giving you a spirit of fear, but of power, love. And what a sound mind. So I want to teach you the forward confession that I've been saying over myself. Because I have power, because I am loved, I have a sound mind. I can go through what I used to avoid. I want you to write that down. Take a picture of it. I want you to begin to confess this over your life. Because I have power given to me by the Creator. Because I am loved. Not that I gotta work for it, not that I gotta become it. Because I am loved. Because I have a sound mind. You speak those things that are not as though they were. This is faith in action. Because I have a sound mind, I can go through what I used to avoid. I believe by faith. This is going to be your testimony in 2026 that the weights that have been weighing you down are no longer gonna be the thing that keep you from doing what God tells you to do. Amen. Somebody shout at me, forward. So this is what I'm gonna do to leave us. Because literally I got five more weeks of information that's gonna be this practical for you to actually leave whatever the situation you're in, to be able to get a systematic way of moving into God's grace by walking forward. I will not stay here complaining about what God hasn't done. I'm gonna work with him by faith because we walk by faith and not by sight. I'm going to go the way Jesus has called me to go, and I'm moving forward. So I want to be clear with you on this journey, because some of y' all about to start big stepping. Big stepping. You can't skip anything, but you can go forward faster. So I'm going to give you three things that you can't skip, but you can go through faster if you surrender to God. Is that okay? All right, here we go. If you want to go forward, you cannot avoid. Watch this discomfort. You need to go ahead and give it up. I'm going to be uncomfortable in some situation God allows me to be in. There is no growth if there's no discomfort. I have never seen anything grow that did not have to break out of what it was in. I have not seen a plant. I have not seen a muscle. I have not seen a baby. I have not seen anything grow that does not have to shed what it's currently in. And you're trying to go go to another place, but keep the same cocoon. You're trying to go to another world but stay in the same womb. God is calling you forward, but that means there may be a season of discomfort. So write this down. You can fast forward through discomfort with surrender. You know what makes a hard situation worse is a person actually fighting the situation. I don't know about you, but I don't like needles. Don't like needles. Mo knows it. But since I've turned over the age of 35, I have been introduced to more needles of drawing blood and finding stuff. And I don't like needles. I don't like the pokey. I don't like seeing my blood gone. I don't like none of it. But what makes it worse is when the lady taps my veins trying to find one. Stop touching me, ma'. Am. And then she ties something around my arm. And then the first time I went to go do it, it was bad because when she started to do it, I did like this. She told me, relax, rest, don't look. I did everything opposite. I was anxious, looking right at it. And in that moment, when I saw that she was like one, two, and I seen. And that woman stabbed me. She stabbed me. But it wasn't because she wasn't trained. It was because I knew I was about to Go through something that was going to be uncomfortable, but I was fighting it as well. And some of you are going through an uncomfortable season in a situation, and it would be over faster if you would just surrender. Do what you got to do. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, Element. I had to distract myself with something because I surrendered. And it was. She said, it's over. I said, that wasn't that bad. So the next time I went in there to get poke with a needle. A, B, C, N, E, I, J, H, I, J, K. I'm just trying to give you an example. So then when my children have to go, now I have a playbook to teach them. Look at daddy. Look at Daddy. Look at Daddy. We gonna say our ABCs to a groove. You ready? No, no, no, no, no, no. She. Don't worry about her. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, D. Yeah. I have learned how to teach another generation. Surrender. Y' all missed it. I've taught my children how to go through something unco. Because I'm teaching them not to fight it, but to surrender. What are you fighting that? God's been trying to get you to surrender for five years. He's been trying to get you. Just let me do what I want to do. Let that go. Let that go. Let that go. And you're saying, but, God, this is what got me through the last season. I'm taking you into a new season. I want to move you forward, but you have to. In any country you go to, if you are a fugitive of the law and they're chasing you, the first thing they tell you to do. Freeze. Put your hands up. Why? Because this is the international sign of surrender. I don't think it's strange that this also is the international sign of worship. When we come into this arena and we're singing songs about miracles, what do we do? We lift our. It's saying, I'm not holding anything. I'm not keeping anything away from you. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna fight you right here. I'm surrendered to whatever you want to do, so you can't skip discomfort. Spoiler alert. If you're a believer, if you're gonna follow Jesus, you're gonna go through some uncomfortable things, but you could change your perspective on it today. If I know it's gonna be uncomfortable, I'mma just surrender because that takes me forward fast. Let me give you the second thing right here. It's if you want to go forward, you cannot avoid number two. Distraction. You Cannot avoid distraction. There was a video that came out this past week with a few hundred million views, and some people were trying to link it to me. And so I watched the video. It was hilarious. It was funny. It was all this stuff. And then people started trying to say different things. And the thing that I was most taken aback by was how much frustration it created in people. Like, I was literally watching people go back and forth with people and denounce people and call people names and do stuff. And I stepped back for a second. I said, oh, my gosh. All this was was an attack on people's lives of distraction. Do you know how many people didn't spend time with their kids this week fighting with somebody they don't know in the comments? Do you know how many people watch video after video after video making decisions about what they wouldn't do and what they wouldn't will do? And if I ever. It was a distract. There were people that did not do what God said to do this week because they needed to be in the know of what was happening in culture. And you thought it was some attack on the church? No, it was attack on your focus. How you feeling, Pastor Mike? I don't even know really what happened. Cause I've been off of social media. I had a few people tell me what was going on. I was like, that's crazy. I don't even got a Rolls Royce. What? Like, I didn't know. Like, people AI ing pictures and doing stuff. I said, I don't remember being that big. Like, I was big, but I don't remember being that big. But you know what I'm saying, Like, that was kind of the vibe. But the reason I couldn't get distracted is because I'm building something. The reason that I cannot be moved off of my post because what God has called me to, representing God to the lost and found for transformation in Christ. That's what I'm supposed to do. And so somebody's obsessed with what somebody made that didn't. Wasn't even directly pointed at me, but it distracted them from what God told them to do. The enemy is into releasing weapons of mass distraction. Mass distraction. The thing you cannot avoid if you're on this Christian journey is distraction. They're coming. She might be walking in stilettos, pumps in the club. Some of y' all ain't been saved long. And I love my church's diverse. Your distraction may be in a football uniform. Your distraction may be a child that God gave you, that you put too much of your focus on instead of healing what God has called you, because they don't actually become what you say, they become who you are. All I'm saying to you, church, is that maybe you need to take a book or a page From Nehemiah, chapter 6, where Nehemiah had a burden to build something and God told him to build a wall. And what Nehemiah said when. When people started trying to distract them. SAM Ballad and people was trying to get him to come down off the wall to meet with him. He said, I am engaged in a great work. The reason why some of y' all are so distracted is because you have not found your great work yet. The reason why you get tossed to and fro is because you don't put your hands to something that God has called you to every day. The goal for you this year is to find Joe great work. He said, I cannot come down because I am engaged. I'm fully active. My hands are to a great, great work. So I can't come down. Why should I stop working to come meet with you? Why should I stop building? All this controversy came out while I'm doing 21 days of prayer and fasting. Why I'mma stop getting up at 5:45, praying with people all over the globe from a place that I ain't never been to and can barely say. And people are joining us, thousands of people, to pray and seek God. I'm engaged in a great work. Look at your neighbor and say, I can't come down. I can't come down. But listen to me. If you haven't found your great work, it's easy to be distracted. So you can't afford distraction. Watch this. But you can fast forward through distraction by being obsessed with obedience. If you become obsessed with obedience, you will not give in to the distraction. So many people's like, I just need something else to distract me. No. Then that will become a distraction too. What you need to be is obsessed with what God told you to do this year. What did he say? Let that be the thing that you wake up doing. An obsession is something that dominates your mind schedule and attention. What dominates your mind schedule and attention? For most of us, it's social media. And that for many of you, is not your great work. Your great work is not knowing who's in a relationship. Your great work is not finding the coolest trend on Etsy. Your great work is not putting together a fashion fit that only 32 people are gonna like. God has called you to do something greater than that. And right now you are Distracted. And this is the season where God's saying, I'm calling you forward. I need you to dominate those distractions. I need you to find yourself in my word. I need you to get in a place and become obsessed with obedience. Because until you do, distraction is around every corner. And let me tell you, church people, you can't pray distraction away. No, you can't. That does not pray away. Distraction. How do you know? Jesus is literally in a time of prayer and fasting for 40 days, and the devil himself shows up to tempt him. Not once, not twice, if any time. The savior of the world is in a time of consecration, and the devil show up. Why? Because distraction is a part of living on this earth. You can't skip it, but you can go through it faster. I'm gonna just say this because it's actually true to me. I'm one of those people. If you go to amusement park, me and my family like going and ride rides and ride roller coasters and do stuff like that. If you ever wonder why I'm in the little line on the side, like, not the main line, but the line on the side. I'm in a fast pass line, I just want to let you know right now is that I will mow extra lawns. I will take out trash. I will get whatever I have to do to get the money to get the fast pass. Because what people don't understand is that little $42 does cost. But if I don't pay, cost me in a lot of other ways. And a lot of people aren't willing to pay the cost to go fast forward. I'm waiting in a line for an hour and 45 minutes. It's 112 degrees outside. Three of my kids about to throw up. The. The fourth one wants a hot dog. My wife looking at me like, fool, we don't even want to ride this ride. And then the person in the line behind me didn't put on deodorant. And so there's an odor filling the presence. And it's been an hour and a half. Came nose hair singed off. Everything is going bad. And it could have been all avoided if I decided to pay the cost to go forward faster. This is a spiritual picture. Some of y' all are going through drama that you shouldn't be going through. Some of y' all are working with people. You shouldn't even have to decide what's going on. But you will not pay the cost to actually be humble enough to admit where you are wrong. You won't go back and repent. You won't say, I'm sorry. You won't listen to the word of God. And so you stand in line longer than you have to because you won't sacrifice or pay the cost to go forward faster. It's time for you to skip to the good part. It's time for God to say, you know what? You don't have to live with rage and anger. You can forgive them. We can go forward faster. What would happen if you became obsessed with Jesus? What if Jesus dominated your thoughts, your time and your attention? Last point. If you want to go forward, you can't avoid. Watch this one disappointment. This one's a rough one. Because if God disappoints you, then who could ever keep their word to you? And this is one of the things the Bible tries to tell us and tries to level with us. He said, hey, in this world, you will have trouble. It's the sin nature that entered in at the garden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. It's a part of it. Why do bad things happen to good people? I don't know. I don't know why. I have a son that is on the autism spectrum for me and my wife. That is disappointing. It's disappointing to know that all the good that we have done in 10 years, almost 11 years of ministry. People want to sum it up as I'm a false prophet and I steal money from the church. That's disappointing. We've seen 191,000 people come to Christ in the last decade. 191,000 people documented. Bishop. We've given away $36 million to different organizations. Widows, orphans, housed families, changed people, single moms. We have done so much work for the cause of Christ, but. And it's disappointing that there's pastors that would preach whole messages against me today. That's disappointing. But in this life, it don't matter how much I pray, how much I fast. No, I'm trying to give you the real today. Y' all want this fake, cushy stuff, but nobody is exempt. I don't get to get out of this line. Pass. Because I'm a pastor, I have been disappointed, but I don't gotta stay in it. I can fast forward through disappointment. How do you do it, Pastor Mike? Come on, say, how do you do it, Pastor Mike? You can fast forward through disappointment if you dare again. Dare. I'm gonna give you an acronym. You can fast forward through disappointment if you watch this dream again. Some of you. The enemy has been after your dreams, your hope, well, I'm too old. I'll never be able to when they overlooked me. And God is saying, dream again. You can actually fast forward if you would just close your eyes. God built in every one of you the anointing of imagination. You can be in a broke situation right now and see yourself in a whole different situation. Thriving, healthy, whole creative fun. You can see yourself in that place and you can get an image of that and start moving forward towards that image. Right now. You need to dream again. The enemy has tried to steal some of your dreams. I prophetically speak over you. You're gonna dream again. You're gonna hope again. You're gonna see again. You're going to to stand again. You're going to go again. You're going to have faith for the future again. You are going to move forward. You're going to dream again. If you want to fast forward through disappointment, you're not just going to dream again. You're going to ask again. There are a lot of children that if they get disappointed when they ask their parent for something, they never ask again. I could tell you stories right now that if you thought it was going to happen and it didn't happen and you got disappointed and you're like, never mind, I'll never ask it. I never want to feel that again. And some of you have been disappointed in God's saying to you, come ask me again. Ask again. I know it didn't happen that time, but I was working some other things out. Ask again. You weren't ready at that time. Your character wasn't built enough to handle the blessing at that moment. But right now, you've done the work. You've gone forward. You didn't go around it, you went through it. And so I want you to. What? Ask again. You're gonna dream again. You're gonna ask again. And then watch this one. You're gonna risk again. Some of you want to see big things without any risk, but faith actually begins where understanding ends. This is what God is calling all of us to. Well, I don't know if it's gonna work out, you know, God is with you, though. Everything you got right now, you can get again with God. Come on. You holding on to that house, that apartment, you holding on to that. God been done told you to move. God told you to get into that place. God told you to start that company. God told you to go and help that person. You trying to hold this thing. You need to move forward. So it's gonna take a Risk. That's why we walk by faith. You're gonna dream again, you're gonna ask again, you're gonna risk again, and then watch the last one. You're gonna engage again. The thing that Nehemiah said is I am engaged in a great work. And some of you have taken your hands off of anything that wasn't a guarantee. If I don't see how I benefit from it right now, if I don't see how this is going to help me right now. Some of my greatest training to stand before you today were in places nobody saw. I didn't get paid and I had no title. But God allowed me to engage in being a youth pastor in a group called sofli. And there are people in this room that were transformed in that environment. I didn't know how to preach. I didn't know how to talk. I barely knew how to do anything. But God put me in a work. And me and my wife and Brie and Jay and John and all of us, we engaged fully in this thing that none of us was getting paid for. Jay, you said that. No, sir. Loud. None of us was getting paid. We gave our life to it. We spent years of our life growing and learning together and working through hard situations and crying together and fighting with each other and then making up with each other and then literally helping each other become. Because God saw this forward for us. He saw us leading a movement of tens of thousands of people that would literally pattern their lives after what we would do and what God changed in us and how he would take us through. And he told us to be humble, open, and transparent. So don't hide it. Don't act like you got everything together. Show when you walk through grief. Show when you're going through depression or disappointment. Show it, but never stop engaging. Today, church standing all over this room. If you want to go forward, you can't avoid disappointment. But I dare you to go through it. I dare you not to go around it. I dare you to not stop doing what God called you to do. Do I dare you to dream again. Pastor Mike, what are you trying to get me to do? I'm trying to get you prepared for the velocity that's come into your life. When I pray for this church, I see a fast forward, I see acceleration. But I want you to know that when you meet distraction, disappointment, even discomfort, it doesn't mean God is not with you. What the enemy would love more than anything is for this season that God's putting me on public display in front of people to Cause me discomfort, distraction, and disappointment. So I don't go forward. I go backwards. But backwards. There's no blessing back there. The scripture in Philippians says, forgetting the past because I have to press, everybody shout at me forward. Pastor Mike, what's the best way that I can do this? With clarity? How do I get clarity? You shut off all the other noise. How do I shut off the other noise? Biblically fast. The best way to go forward is fasted. The best way for you to go forward fast is to go forward fasted. We have seven days left on this fast. And some of y' all want that acceleration to come to your life and your mind and your marriage and your heart and your spirit. I can't tell you I have moved forward in the last seven days, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, more than I have in my entire life. I have. I have done things, hard things, uncomfortable things. I have grown in ways I can't even explain to you right now because I have been fasted. And if you want to go forward, go forward fast by going forward fasted. Matthew, chapter six. Jesus says, when you pray, when you give, and the last one is when you fast. Which means for a believer, it's not an option, it's actually a prerequisite. He said, in points of your life, you're going to be in seasons where you got to pray. You gotta give and you gotta fast. The wisdom is knowing when those seasons are. If the only time you fast is when your church calls a 21 day prayer and fasting, you are missing out on your acceleration mechanism. I fast often. I don't just fast when it's time and everybody's doing it. There are times I push my plate away weekly. Cause I got to get out of this place. I got to get out of this funk. I got to get. I got him. I got to accelerate out of this confusion or. Or temptation or these lies that I'm believing about myself. I gotta go forward fast. So I'm going forward fasted. You want your edge back? You want to hear from God fast. As a church, I'm asking everybody for the climate that we are in, in culture, in this world and in your life, to join me in this community for 7 days of for real fasting. Forward. Dream again. Let God give you vision again. Take off the weight of heaviness you've been walking in. And the first way you do that is by coming to Jesus. Come to me, all who are heavy burdened so much on you right now. And Jesus promise for you is I will give you Rest. So I want to talk to two groups of people. I want to pray for the people who have felt like they've been stuck and they're ready to move forward. I'm going to pray for you. But the first group of people that I'm going to pray for is those people who have not given their life to Jesus Christ. And you feel like I can't go forward because I have not found the one to follow today. If you want to make Jesus Christ your personal Lord and savior right now, whether you're watching this on tick tock, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, in this room right here, today is the day of salvation. And I need the church to begin to pray right now because somebody's eternity is on the line. This is the decision that took me from being a liar, a manipulator addicted to pornography, had very dark things in my heart, to a man that is not perfect. But I am progressing. And I'm telling you every day, when I open up that word, it becomes a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Path. Today I am a changed person because of Jesus Christ. And if you want to accept them today, all you got to do is repeat this prayer. Hands lifted everywhere, under the sound of my voice. At Transformation Church, we're a family, so we say this for the benefit of everybody coming to Christ. Everybody say, Jesus, thank you for coming to save me. I believe you lived, you died, and you rose again with all power just for me. Today, I give you my life. I repent, and I turn to you. Change me, renew me, transform me. I'm yours in Jesus name. Amen. Can we celebrate for every person? Oh, come on, church. You can do better than that. Glory to God. If you just gave your life to Jesus, I want you to text saved to 828282. And if you've felt like this is my call, forward. God is calling me forward, and you need prayer, just lift your hands. I want to pray for every person under the sound of my voice that knows it's time to go forward. If you know it's time to go forward for you, I don't care what you're dealing with. I don't care where you're at. I'm gonna pray for you and we're gonna go home. But I'm telling you, this is the day everything changes. Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you that you would not call us if you didn't have a greater future ahead of us. So today we forget the past and we actually look forward to what Lies ahead, Father. Change our perspective even if you don't change our situation. I am praying for marriages, husbands and wives. I'm praying for children. I'm praying for singles. I'm praying for your people to actually get so sick of staying in the same place that they would seek you to the point of transformation. Today, here we are. We're gonna dream again, we're gonna ask again, we're gonna risk again, and we're going to engage in whatever you tell us to today. Let there be actual signs that we have moved forward in this week. We will give you glory, we will give you honor, and we will give you praise because it is your will that we move forward. In Jesus name, we agree, we expect. Amen. Come on. If you're moving forward, will you give God a huge shout of praise? Oh, come on, church. If you're moving forward. Worship team, y' all, come on up. Listen to me. Next week, I am preaching a message that will change your life. And I do not want you to miss this because this is playbook for what God's gonna do in your life. Transformation Nation Tomorrow morning at 6am I want you to join us for prayer tomorrow, tomorrow night as we are going forward fasted, join me here. If you're in Tulsa or surrounding areas, let's pray tomorrow. Tomorrow we're praying about vision. It's kind of weird how that worked out that some of you need to go forward, but you don't know which way to go. So you need clear vision. Join us tomorrow right here at 6:30pm and if you need prayer for anything, because some people are dealing with stuff that's really hard and heavy and you need agreement. Our altar team is is up here. And if you want to stay and just worship for a moment, this is the moment. If you're watching online, I'm coming to pray with you. I want you to start putting your prayer request in the chat right now. I'm going to pray specifically, and I'm. I'm going to believe that God is moving all of us forward. You going to see progression, not perfection this week, but you're going to be see progression. Amen. Until next week, go out and live. Help me a transformed life. I love you so much, Church.