Are you thankful for the move of God's Spirit?
Amen. Hey, stay standing.
Stay standing Every room. And here's why, because I want
to. I want to give honor where honor
is due. The Bible tells us to do that.
And today we are blessed because we have someone who is very,
very special to this house and to Pastor Sarah, my wife and I,
Pastor Todd Mullins, who is the lead pastor of Christ Fellowship
Church. Yeah, in West Palm Beach is in
the house today. I told you last week he was
going to be here and he's here. Everybody's so pumped.
And Pastor Todd and his wife Julie are the pastors of Christ
Fellowship Church, a multi site church like our church.
They have I think 13 locations now up and down the East Coast
of Florida. And we have told them for a long
time, you take the east, we'll take the West, we'll meet
somewhere Okeechobee or something like that.
Clewiston, right? But but you guys know that that
he means you've heard us talk about them often.
Pastor Todd is, is a mentor, is a friend, is a Big Brother and
is a pastor to me and to my wife.
And so I'm so thankful about a year ago, he released a a new
book called Don't Let Doubt Take You Out.
And we're actually launching this series for the next 4 weeks
here at Next Level. And so so here's what's going to
happen. We have these books available in
all the foyers, which by the way, he said he doesn't make a
penny on this. Everything he every sail goes
right back into their church to build their church in in, in
West Palm. So anyway, here's what I think's
going to happen as Pastor Todd is preaching today.
I have a sense that God's going to speak to you.
So come on, let's stay in this atmosphere, prayer and openness.
But secondly, I think God is going to put someone's face on
your heart and go, oh man, I wish they were here.
I wish they could hear this word.
Hey, listen, on your way out today at all our locations,
don't just buy one copy, get 2 copies.
Here's why. One for yourself to read and
absorb and let God, you really marinate this word deep into
your spirit over the next few weeks.
But then secondly, get one for a friend that you can give to them
this week and say, hey, I heard this guy preach at our church
this weekend. It was awesome.
I thought of you, I bought this book for you.
Why don't you come with me next Sunday and join me in the house.
Amen. Use this as a tool for
evangelism. Sound good?
So come on everybody, further ado.
Will you give it up for my pastor?
Come on, how you doing? Hey Church, we love you so much.
Grab a seat at all our locations today.
It is so good being with you. I am so excited to be here.
It feels like home maybe because I've been here so much and
somebody from the team next level come over and hang out
with us at Christ Fellowship and we're working together.
In fact, there's already things I've seen that you're doing
today that I want to take back and do it our church next week.
So thank you for letting me borrow and steal in Jesus name.
I'm honored to be here and I'm honored to to be in relationship
with your pastors. You have a great church.
You have some great pastors. They are truly Julianized,
dearest friends, we mean that we've been through highs and
lows and usually on the lows we get a box of Donuts together.
That's what we do. And we pray, we eat Donuts and
pray together. But I want you to know that they
are the real deal. You are you are under some great
leaders that love you. They love Jesus, they're holy,
and they know how to have fun all at the same time, which is
amazing. So thank God you're in this
house learning and growing what it means to walk with Jesus.
And I'm honored to be here. I'm honored that you're kicking
off a series. Don't let doubt take you out.
And then I get to be a part of kicking that off with you today
and that you're going to read through this.
I believe the Lord gave me a clear word that I wrote in this
book that isn't, it is my story because doubt almost took me out
many times. But I believe it's the story of
a lot of people that struggle with doubt or insecurities or
anxiety or fear. And God has a very clear answer
when it comes to all of that. When I wrote the book, Don't Let
That Take you out, it was interesting because people said,
Todd, why did you write a book about doubt?
Because it seems like you have such strong faith, the gift of
faith. And the Bible actually talks
about a spiritual gift of faith that God gives to people.
And I believe God gave me that gift because it's easy for me to
take him at his word. Like I'm just like, all right,
that's I got it to believe for the miraculous.
But could it be that God actually gives you a spiritual
gift in an area of your need? Like he might have looked down
at my life. And man, that boy's going to
need some faith because he's going to struggle with doubt.
So I'm going to give him the gift of faith so he can work
through some stuff He's got to work through.
In fact, the very fact that I am up here preaching to you on
Sunday morning is a miracle because I didn't want to do
this. I didn't know how to do this.
I in fact, it was the furthest thing from my mind to be a
pastor. Not that I didn't like pastors,
I had some great pastors when I was growing up.
I just didn't want to be 1. I, I plan to be a doctor, an
orthopedic surgeon. And so I was in school going for
that and I had some pastures that saw something on my life
and they called that out of my life.
And I prayed with it. And I was like, yes, I'm
supposed to go into ministry. So about the same time, my
parents had started a Bible study in our home in Palm Beach
Gardens over in the West Palm Beach area with about 20 people.
I went off to school, came back and it became a church and there
was 50 people. It had grown a lot in just a few
years, stayed small for a long time.
But after 25 years of serving my mom and dad's vision, 25 years
of serving them in in kind of small places for many years, it
was time for Julie and I to step up and become the the lead
senior pastors. And, but by the time we, we let
me say this, 25 years is a long time to wait for something
right. And I just want to encourage
somebody don't wander in the waiting.
A lot of times when you're waiting and it doesn't feel like
God is showing up on the time, He's never late.
God is never late. He's always on.
He's rarely on our time, but he's never late.
And in the waiting, He works on us.
The waiting is never wasted. Think about Joseph, it was 13
years from the pit to the palace.
For David, it was 22 years from the time he was anointed to be
king until he was appointed as king. 22 years, right?
I could go on and on, but if you are in the waiting room of God,
if you're in God's waiting room, you're in a good place, you're
in good company and God is doing work on the inside of you so he
can work through you in a remarkable way.
So, so don't wander in the waiting.
So 25 years of of being faithful, God said it's time to
be the senior pastor and I go, OK.
But the problem was the church was no longer 70 people.
It now had over 11,000 people in attendance every week, a staff
of about 150 and a budget that was so big I couldn't count it.
I've like God, I don't know if I can do that.
I could do the 70 people. I just don't know if I can do
the 11,000 because I don't know what I'm doing.
And if I fail, everybody's going to see it because I'm going to
fail on a platform. And at the time, I didn't know
how to, I hadn't been preaching that much.
I preached a long time ago when I was a youth pastor, but I
didn't have any preaching skills.
And my dad said you got to, you got to get that up to speed,
son, because like kind of a job requirement that you.
So he was the old football coach.
He gave me a few coaching points, kick me on the backside
and get out there and give it a go.
So I'm giving it a go with 11,000 people.
And at the same time we had just brought John Maxwell down, that
author and leadership guru and he became one of one of our
teaching pastors and lived there.
So he every time I was trying to preach, John was on the front
row. So I would just stay away from
where John and he was taking notes while I would preach.
And I'm thinking, what in the world could he possibly be
writing down that I am saying right now?
I do. And then one Sunday while I was
up trying to preach, I looked out in this section right here
about 14 rows back from the platform and I saw a person that
looked like this evangelist, world known evangelist called
Reinhardt Bonke. I know.
Oh, wow, that's what I thought when I saw I'm preaching and I'm
like, there's Reinhardt. Why is Reinhardt Bonke?
And if you don't know who Reinhard Bonke is, just Google
him. You're going to see a picture
probably like this. This he would be, he would go
evangelize in Africa, Africa for Jesus.
And when he would get up, there would be a million people at his
crusades and he would preach and they would get saved and they
would get healed. And he's in the auditorium while
I'm trying to learn how to preach.
So I remember the moment when I brought all my doubts and
insecurities to God and I was like, God, I don't know if I do
this, like I don't know if I have what it takes to do what
I'm being asked to do. I I just don't think I'm enough
for this. And I remember the moment when
God actually answered that prayer and it wasn't the answer
that I was expecting and it wasn't the answer that I was
actually hoping for. You know, I might have been
hoping for Todd as I was with your father.
I will be with you. Something I don't know Mufasa
epic. I don't know, I don't know what
I had playing in my mind, but it was something like that.
But what I got when I was like, Lord, I don't think I have what
it takes. What I heard back was, Todd,
you're right, you don't have what it takes.
You're not enough. And I remember thinking, well,
maybe I should go be that doctor after all, Too late.
But as I continue to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit,
what I heard him say was, Todd, you're not enough.
But I am. Todd, you don't have what it
takes. But I've got what you need and
it made me lean into the Lord. See, what I learned in that
moment is that the benefit of the doubt is that it made me
desperate. The benefit of the doubt is that
it keeps you dependent. The understanding that that you
have weaknesses makes you lean into the strength of God and so
can actually be good for us. We're not trying to muster up
our own strength and power and self-made and I can do it.
It keeps us leaning in to the father.
So what I've learned in all these years of pastoring people
and and having conversations with people is I learned that
everybody deals with that. Even the most confident person,
you know, at work, you know, they kind of get on your nerves.
That person. Everybody deals without
everybody. Nobody is immune from this.
And doubt attacks us in three key areas of our life.
And I would imagine it's attacked you in in these same
the first long before you ever doubt God, you doubt yourself.
You know, you, you, you see what everybody else is doing starts
in school in comparison. You're like, oh, look at what
they're doing. And I don't know if I'm good
enough to make the team. I don't know if I'm And so we
start holding back and we carry some of those things with us all
through our life. We think that we can't.
So we don't, we don't step out. We don't live the life we're
created to live. We hold back and doubts trying
to take you out from being who God created you to be.
Then doubt works its way into our friendships and our
relationships. When somebody hurts you, what,
what's the first thing that you do?
Well, don't do it again, right? You, you question their motives,
you question their loyalty, their commitment, their
friendship, and you start to withdraw.
And so doubt is trying to actually take you out of the
relationships that God has created for you.
But I've learned that doubt does its most damaging work when it
comes to the supernatural and when you think about it.
And doubt is actually the natural response to the
supernatural, because if something is supernatural, it
means it's above the natural. And so when we can't see it or
touch it or quantify it, it's easy to doubt it and discount
it. And so when doubt works its way
in, when God doesn't maybe answer your prayers the way that
you thought he should, he doesn't come through.
When you think he would, doubt creeps his way in and says,
well, prayer doesn't work. God's not real, God's not there
for you. This must not work.
And doubt is trying to take you out of your relationship with
the one that holds life altogether.
But what I've learned is if we deal with doubt the right way,
it doesn't have to take us out. Doubt can actually lead to a
deeper faith because then you begin to work through, why do I
believe what I believe? Doubt can actually lead to what
I call a God fidence. It's not a confidence, it's a
confidence like in who God is and who God says I am.
And that gives you a strength no matter what you have to face in
life. And when you handle doubt right
in relationships, it actually leads to healthy conversations,
working through some of the problems that you're facing.
So doubt doesn't have to take you out.
So today I want to look just at one part of of doubt and I want
to look at a story in the Bible that this guy is actually what I
would call the poster child of doubt.
Doubt almost took him out. In fact, if you looked up in the
Bible a person dealing without, you might see the face of
Gideon. Gideon had to deal with some
doubt. In Judges chapter 6, we read
this story about this frightened farm boy that becomes a national
hero in two chapters. But he had to step out of his
comfort zone and into his calling.
He couldn't listen to the voices of doubt and anxiety and fear
that was trying to hold him back.
He had to step out and say yes to God.
Can I tell you that when you say yes to God, that yes will
determine your destiny? That yes will shape every
decision you make? After that, even when you don't
even know what the yes fully means, you say yes to God.
Gideon ended up saying yes. So the story opens up and
telling us that for seven years the Israelites were in Judges
chapter 6. The Israelites have been
tormented and terrorized by their enemy, the Midianites.
The Midianites would swarm in and take all of their crops and
their animals. And they lived in such fear that
it said the Israelites were now living in caves.
They wouldn't even live in their homes because they were afraid
all the time. And this went on for seven
years, Year after year, month after month, nothing seemed to
change. He thought he was nothing's
going to change, nothing's good. It's always going to be this
way. Discouragement had kind of set
in on the people of God. And maybe you're there or you've
been there before where the enemy has told you nothing's
going to change that situation, that problems are not the same
problem in your marriage, same problem in your company, same
financial stuff, same physical over.
And you start getting a little bit despaired, settle in on you
because it feels like nothing's going to change.
That's exactly where the Israelites were.
So you're not alone. It was in that moment that the
Angel of the Lord came up behind Gideon while he was in a hole
thrashing some wheat, which is not where you would normally do
it, but he was hiding in a hole because he didn't want the enemy
to come take his wheat. So he's hiding in a hole, scared
to death, and the Angel of the Lord comes up behind him and
goes, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior.
And I bet there was some reverb on it, mighty warrior, mighty
warrior. But it scared him even more.
What? And Gideon probably was
thinking, there's no mighty warrior here.
But I am a whole scared to death of the enemy.
You, you got the wrong guy. Like I'm not a mighty warrior.
Do you not see what's going on here?
The mighty warrior must live down the street.
You just go down there. But we know that God didn't get
the wrong address today. We know that God does not make
mistakes, which tells us that the way God sees you is
different than the way you see you.
Let that sink in because Gideon did not see himself as a mighty
warrior, but the Angel of the Lord, which by the way, anytime
you see the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament is a reference
to the pre Incarnate Christ. It is Jesus showing up on the
scene before he shows up in Bethlehem.
So this is Jesus, not some Angel, the Angel of the Lord
saying to him. So that tells me that if he sees
that in Gideon, but Gideon didn't see that in himself.
The way you see you is different than the way God sees you.
We, we have a tendency to see all of our failures and our, our
mistakes and our, our flops. But God sees the gifts and the
calling and the destiny and the purpose that he has placed in
your life. You know why?
Because he put it there, he, he put it in your life.
He, he knows it's there. We tend to think sometimes, man,
how could God ever use me in in some great way?
You know, I, I've messed up so, so much.
I don't believe that God is so worried about the ways you've
messed up. He just wants you to step up and
become the man of God, the woman of God that God has called you
to be like, be the leader in your family, be the leader at
your work. Come on, let's go.
And sometimes it may not be so much that you feel like you've
messed up so much, but you just feel unqualified, like you're
just thinking about who is me? Who am I that God would ever
want to use me? I mean, I just, I don't even, I
don't know that much. I'll tell you who you are.
Do you know that the Bible, the word of God, has prophetic
declarations in it of who you are?
When you are in Christ, it says that you are a child of God.
You are a new creation. You are a member, an important
member of God's body, his family.
You're an ambassador for Christ to the world.
You are a living temple of the Holy Spirit.
In Romans 8, you are loved unconditionally.
In Ephesians 2, you are seated with Christ in heavenly places.
You are more than a conqueror. This is who you are.
You are chosen and set apart for God.
Now that's just a few things of who you are.
Yet so often we live so far below what God intended our
lives to be, and instead we end up settling for lies.
Lies that maybe somebody spoke over us when we were kids,
somebody said something to us. You're not worthy of anything
worth love and you're no good. You'll never be able to do
anything. And those things, they stick to
us. I had, I had things spoken over
me, not by my family, but by kids at school when I was in 4th
grade that to this day is just as loud as my voice speaking to
you See, things like that try to stick to us and try to hold us
back, right? Or maybe sometimes we're pinned
down by our past mistakes and failures and we're thinking,
well, I'm just kind of living out what I guess I deserve.
What if? What if we stop listening to the
lies banging around in our minds and we actually listen to what
God says about us? Let me tell you this.
The truest thing about you is what God says about you.
The truest thing about you is not what some kid in 4th grade
said or what your ex said. The truest thing about you is
what God says about you. And God, he always sees the best
in you. It's like parents, when you have
young kids, you always see the best in your kids.
Don't you like your little Angel?
Like if you get a report that they got in a fight at school,
you're like, what would be my child?
What did the other kid do right? Or if, if, if the teacher
saying, well, they're, they're, they're not paying attention.
Well, it must be because they're not being challenged because
they're gifted, right? I mean, because we see the best
in our kids until they're teenagers.
That's another story. But I'm just saying, well, God
sees the best in you. That's why he was able to see
the best in Gideon and actually call him a mighty warrior.
And then Gideon begins to make all these excuses.
He's the least in his family. Their family's the least in the
clan. The clan's the least in the
tribe, our tribes the least. I mean, just like all these
excuses. Can I tell you it was almost
like the Angel Lord didn't even listen to him.
God is not surprised at your humanity.
He's not taken back because you're dealing with some stuff.
He knows all about that stuff, right?
He he he's not surprised by your doubts and insecurities.
He just doesn't want you to be controlled by them.
He wants you to be able to step out and be the person God has
called you to be. So the Angel of the Lord didn't
even respond to all of his excuses.
What he says in verse 14. He says go in the strength you
have and save Israel out of Midian's hands.
Say that last part with me out loud.
At all of our campuses have I not sent?
You go, have I not sent you? Go with the strength you have.
Have I not sent you to that, to that workplace?
Have I not put you at that school?
Have I not placed you in that neighborhood, in that family?
Have I not put you there? Go with the strength that you
have. It may not feel like much, it
may not look like much, but go with what you got.
You got a little bit. Go with what you got.
I feel like I came all the way from West Palm Beach to tell
somebody at next level. Go with what you got.
You think God's got something on your life.
God's given you a little courage, a little faith.
It is it may you may just have a little bit of faith, but didn't
Jesus say all you needed was a little bit of faith?
Didn't he? Didn't he say in Matthew that if
you have faith as small as a mustard seed, a mustard seed is
this is like a speck of pepper small.
It's really small. But he says if you have faith as
small as a mustard seed, you can say to that mountain, move from
here to there move. It could be a mountain of fear,
a mountain of debt, a mountain of sickness.
You can say to that mountain, move from here to there, and
what does it say? And it will move.
It will move. All it takes is mustard seed
faith. But what I've learned is that a
seed is not supposed to stay small.
A seed was never created to stay a seed.
A seed was created by God to get what?
To get planted in the ground, to get water, to get nourished, to
get fertilized so so your seed, your faith can start small.
It's just not supposed to stay small, right?
I'm afraid too many Christians have been walking around for
years with their mustard seed faith.
All I can learn. Look at my mustard seed, George,
Jesus said, Jesus said, all I need is the little mustard.
I got my little mustard. He also said, grow that thing,
right? Plant that thing, work that
thing. That's what you put that in the
ground, right? Let it grow.
You go with the strength you got.
Let me tell you, your strength is going to get stronger because
your faith is going to grow when you go with what you got.
OK, one other thing about about this part of the story and then
we'll move on. I love where God meets Gideon in
a hole, in a ground, hiding. He didn't wait for Gideon to
become a mighty warrior, a great man of faith.
Get his act together and then I'll use you.
No, he, he, he met Gideon right where he was.
Here's here's the point. God meets you where you are
today, wherever you are on your spiritual journey with him.
He, he meets you right there and he speaks to you right there and
he, he calls you right, right there.
He, he doesn't wait until you've got it all together.
He doesn't wait till you've got all your issues worked out to
say, I want to amuse you. I want to take you from where
you are and move you up. He, he's going to meet you right
where you are now. He loves you too much to let you
stay where you are, right? So he's going to pull you out of
some stuff, but he meets us right where you are.
So I wonder where you are today. What doubts and fears and
insecurities and struggles and stuff you're still working
through that you think are keeping you back from being who
God created you to be? I want to tell you no.
You got to step out of that. Step out of that thinking and be
who God has created you to be. So.
So Gideon takes the Angel of the Lord.
His word finally gets out of the hole.
But before he can go deal with the Midianites, he has to deal
with some sin stuff in his home and his family.
The Angel tells him to go tear down this altar that his father
had built to a false God named Baal.
And so there was this dualism going on in their life.
They were trying to worship God and worship the things of the
world, this other God, which happens a lot in our lives.
Without knowing it. We can worship God and we're
still kind of chasing after other things where we try to
tack Jesus on to a just a part of our lives.
And what the Angel Lord said, No, no, no, we got a clean,
clean house, right? There's some things you got to
go tear down and remove so that I can build you up and be who
you're supposed to be. The same is true for us.
God loves us too much to let us stay where we are with some of
the stuff we got in our life. He's going to say that's got to
come down so you can be built up.
There's some things that you've been holding on to that you've
got to remove so that you can actually walk in the freedom and
the power and do do what I've called you to do.
But that that altar's got to come down.
Feel like that's a word for somebody today.
There's an altar that's got to come down.
There's something that you have been made an idol in your life
or you've given too much attention to and got to saying
that's got to come down. But when you read the story,
Gideon didn't go by himself to tear down the altar.
It was too big for him. He actually took a group of of
men with him from his man case and they had to get there and
they had to go tear this alter down together.
Can I tell you there are some things in your life that have
gotten so big you need some help getting it torn down?
It might have been something that was passed down forgetting
and it was generational, something that been passed down
from generation and he needed some help.
You need some help. That's why your pastors are all
the time encouraging you to get in a group because when you
group up, you can grow up. When you get in a group, you get
around some people that know some things about God that you
don't know. They know the Word of God.
They've been walking with the God more than you've been
walking with God. And their faith is actually
going to help your faith get stronger.
But if you never connect to a group, if you just come in and
sit and soak and sour and leave, you're never going to become who
God's created you to be to help you grow up, get in a group.
And then maybe some of you are thinking, well, Todd, I'm good.
I'm not, I'm not dealing with any of that.
I'm strong in my faith. You need to group up to help.
Some of the people that just got saved at Easter know how to grow
up in their faith, right? So Gideon deals with the altar
of Bale. He gathers 32,000 men to go
fight the Midianites. And that sounds like a lot,
32,000, But there were 135,000 of the Midianites coming against
them. So the odds are about four to
one, one to four, right? Not bad.
They could do that. I've seen enough Mission
Impossible movies, right, that they could.
They could probably take them out.
So God said, yeah, you got too many.
Tell everybody who's scared they can leave.
And Gideon probably like, can I go to 22,000 of them, walk out
on Gideon 22,000, turn and leave.
Can I tell you one of the hardest things that I've seen is
when somebody walks out on you, Hard to deal with.
When somebody leaves you, a business partner leaves you, a
friend leaves you. They don't even tell you why.
They just get mad at you and they leave about something.
A family member that won't talk to you anymore, a spouse that
walks out. And anytime somebody walks out,
it opens the door to doubt because you begin to go, well
what, what's wrong and why did they leave?
And I can't believe it and maybe it's me and maybe it's something
I did and maybe it's something I should have done better.
And what about them I thought? And doubt just starts swirling
around in her head. Gideon had 22,000 walk out on
him. 2/3 of his army left him. He was already dealing with his
own insecurities and, and, and, and fears as he was.
He was unsure about himself. And 2/3 walk out.
So now he's down to 10,000. And then God says you still got
too many, take them down to this spring and watch them drink
water. And if they drink water, like by
scooping it up in their hands, you can keep them.
But if they get down on all fours like a dog, you got to let
them go. So they go to the spring 9700 of
them they're kicked out and only 300 are left with the water.
And so Gideon tells them, okay, everybody who drink like a dog,
you got to go. You know that they were probably
going dog. What's up with that?
That doesn't even make sense. What are you thinking?
That's and Gideon probably was thinking, what am I saying?
Why would I do this? Did I really hear from God,
right? Or was that some bad hummus I
had last night? They're all going to go talk
about me and say Gideon the Goober told us to go home
because we drank. You know, he was dealing with
all of that fear and insecurity. You know, he was back in 2021.
I got to go to Israel and it wasn't my first time.
I've been to Israel like 1213 times before, but I've always
been in large groups. And I wanted to go and just
experience the Holy Land, like just go and be.
So my wife and I and two of our couple friends went with us and
we went over there and I wanted to go some places we had never
I'd never been before. And one of the places was Gideon
Springs, the spring that he took his army to.
And they know from the archaeological digs that right
around the area, and this is the only water source, that this is
the exact location where Gideon took his men.
Now it's bigger than that. It broadens out and it streams
down. But that would have been where
they were. And I don't know why a puddle of
water messed me up that day. But when I stood at Gideon
Springs, I had to walk away from Julie and a few of the other
people. And I'm getting tears in my
eyes. I'm like, what is going on?
Why am I crying? I think I was moved a little bit
by what Gideon must have been going through, the insecurities
that he was already dealing with, the pressures that he
already felt, and now all these people that walked out on him.
And then now he's up at 300 and I'm supposed to leave this.
I don't even know that I know what I'm doing.
God, I just feel so like insecure.
But he obeyed anyway. I think what got me that day was
his obedience that he did not question God or reason with God
or argue with God. He just said, OK, but God, I'm
going to do it. I'm going to care more about
what you say to me than what they're going to say about me.
I care more about you and your blessing.
I'm going to, I'm going to walk in obedience.
And there's a lesson we can learn from this part of the
story that you don't have to understand completely in order
to obey immediately. Let that get in your spirit.
You don't have to understand completely in order to obey
immediate because I guarantee that Gideon did not understand
completely how this was going to work or if it was going to work,
but yet he obeyed immediately. And there was a blessing that
comes when we obey God even when we don't fully understand His
plan. In fact, most of the times you
and I are not going to fully understand His plan.
He's going to a lot of times when God ask you to do
something, you're only going to get a, a little prompting of
your spirit. You're going to get one word 1
scripture one. It's like a piece to a puzzle.
That's all you're going to get. And you're not even going to get
the puzzle box top to figure out how that piece fits in.
You're going to get this one little piece and he's going to
say, go trust me in this surrender this area, obey me
here, right? Trust him.
And it's scary when that happens because you're, you're actually
stepping into the unknown. Like what if I do this?
I think about Abraham stepping into the unknown.
When God caught Abraham, he says, I'm going to show you, I'm
going to build a nation out of here.
I'm going to show you a land that I'm going to give you.
But you've got to leave your, your homeland, your people that
are worshipping all these false gods and doing all these things
that are not, they're going to take you out of that.
So I can get you where you need to be.
And so he told Sarah, we're leaving, pack everybody up,
let's go. And Sarah asked, I'm sure, where
are we going? And Abraham probably responded,
I don't know, because when you read the Scripture, God says,
I'm going to show you when you get there, so just get going.
Can you imagine? He had to step out from his
known everything that He knew. He had to step from the known
into the unknown. Can I tell you that when God
calls you to step from your known what you know and trust
Him in the unknown, it's only unknown to you.
It's not unknown to God because nothing is unknown to God.
It's only scary to you. It's sacred to God because
you're actually trusting him. You're actually saying, yes,
God, I trust you even though I don't know.
And that yes, will shape everything in your life.
I wonder what God has been asking you to step out and trust
him in. I wonder if there's an area of
your life lately that you've since the Lord just kind of
repeatedly saying trust me with. That might be your business or
your career. There might be a future decision
that you've been praying for wisdom on and you sense the Lord
saying something and he's just saying, trust me.
It's just a one piece of the puzzle.
It could be a relationship. Trust me in that.
That's not the right relationship for you.
Trust me in that. Trust me, I've got better for
you than that. Don't, don't, don't stay there.
Not talking about a marriage. I'm talking about it could be
finances. It's amazing to me that for
Christians, Christ followers who love Jesus, that finances is one
of the last areas that we actually trust God in.
Even on our money. It says in God we trust the very
thing that we don't want to trust God with, right?
Is that funny? We'll trust him with a lot.
We trust him with our eternal salvation, our soul.
Yes, Lord, I trust you with my soul.
We trust him with our family. Lord, take my kids, please take
my kids, take my husband, my wife, take your God.
But when it comes to our finances, we're like, Oh no, I
can do better. I can do better than I don't
have to trust you with this, right?
So I wonder what it is the guy's saying, take a step.
Trust me with this. So Gideon, trust God takes the
challenge. He steps out with his 300 men to
go against 135,000. So the odds are stacked against
him like this isn't going to work.
I'm sure he was thinking this isn't going to work and maybe
you're up against something today that you feel like the
odds are stacked against you and it's just it's not going to
work. This is going to work.
The odds are stacked against my dream that God's put in my
heart. It feels like it's not working
in my business. I don't have enough.
I don't, I don't have enough resources.
I don't have time. I don't have enough money.
Can I ask you a question? What if?
What if not enough is just enough?
What if not enough is just enough to keep you from relying
on your own strength and abilities and not lean on your
own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge him and
he'll direct your path. What if, what if not enough?
What you're dealing with is is just enough.
So Gideon, with not enough, takes his 300 men, separates
them into three groups, gives them all a torch, a jar to cover
the torch, and a trumpet. Not a spear, not a shield, not a
sword, a torch, a jar and a trumpet.
Again, they had to be going. What's up with that?
Right? He spreads them out around the
enemy's camp on the Cliff where the enemy was there.
And Gideon, let me let you know a secret.
Gideon. He stepped out with doubt.
There is no way that he knew how this was going to work or if it
was going to work. But he stepped out with his
doubt. Sometimes you just got to step
out in your doubt. It's like, OK, got him on.
Because you know a little. You may not know it all, but you
know, a little talk a lot about stepping out in faith.
You know, stepping out in faith. Yeah.
Well, yeah, it took some faith for getting to do that.
But he stepped out in doubt. And that doubt kept him
dependent. That doubt kept him holding on
to Jesus. So they they climb the hill
around the enemy. It says that once they all break
their jars and then the torches light up the the hillside, they
blow their horn and then they shout freedom.
No, that's Braveheart. They shot a sword for the Lord
and for Gideon. And so it says in the Bible that
the enemy down below was so shocked and scared by the noise
and the lights and the trumpets, they started killing each other.
They started turning on each other, kill each other and they
ran off. So the guys didn't even have to
fight them. The Lord fought the battle for
them. They went down and got all the
plunder and all the stuff from the enemy's camp.
What I want you to see is that in that one day the people were
delivered. God's people were were set free
from the harassment of the enemy that had been going on.
Day after day, year after year. Something changed.
But it wouldn't have changed if Gideon hadn't gotten out of his
home. If he had stayed listening to
doubts and fears and insecurities, he would have
never stepped out. And it not only impacted Gideon,
he actually became exactly who the Angel of the Lord said he
was, a mighty warrior, right? But it not only impacted,
impacted him and impacted an entire nation, it impacted
Listen to this people that Gideon never knew, people that
Gideon would, would never, would never meet.
So this whole story was, was bigger than Gideon.
The same is true for you. When you step out from your
doubts and fears and anxieties and you trust God.
Fear no longer forms your future.
Faith does. You step into your your destiny.
But you can't do that hiding in a hole in the ground, listening
to the wrong voices. Fear and faith, they actually
have the same root definition. Think about it.
Fear and faith. It's believing that what you
cannot see is going to happen. Fear and faith, believing what
you cannot see is going to happen. 1 is born out of
darkness. Despair 1 is born out of light.
And the one that you align yourself with today will
actually shape your life. I don't want doubt to take you
out. Like it almost took me out.
Like it almost took Gideon out. I want you to live with a faith
that is growing courage, confidence that God is working
in your life and he's going to work through your life.
And no matter what you're facing right now in your life, that
he's got more for you. He has more in store than you
even have in mind. But it's going to require you to
not listen to doubt and despair and discouragement, but step out
and be who God's called you to be.
So I want to, I want to pray for you today and I want to pray the
gift of faith over you because I believe God's given me that
gift. I want to pray it over you today
that you would receive it. So if you have been maybe
struggling with doubt, struggling with fear and
anxiety, this prayer is for you. And so in all our locations, if
that's you today, I just want you to do something bold.
If that's you, I just want you to stand so I can pray over you.
If you are dealing with doubt, despair, discouragement and it's
and you go. It's been trying to Take Me Out,
Todd. It's been trying to keep me from
being the man, the woman that I'm called to be.
And I, I'm not going to deal with any longer.
I'm going to, I'm going to take my, I'm getting out of the hole.
I'm taking my stand today at all our locations.
If that's you, not everybody has to stand.
But if that's you, that's OK. I'm going to pray over you
today. Would you just hold your hands
open like this in a posture of receiving as I pray?
Father God, I thank you that we can come to you today on the
authority of your word that says who we are in you, that we are
chosen and we are loved and we are anointed and we are purposed
and we have life full of destiny and we're not going to let
anything hold us back. So I pray for my brothers and
sisters that are standing today. God is an act of faith.
They stand today. They say they're no longer going
to listen to the lies of doubt that would try to trip them up
and take them out. Lord, I pray faith over them
today. I pray for the gift of faith
that you've graciously given to me.
God, I deposited on their lives today.
The faith would rise up in them today that when doubt begins to
shout at them that God faith would scream louder that they
would know who they are in Jesus name.
You can put your hands down with the rest of you stand for this
last prayer if you need to get your relationship right with
Jesus. Can I tell you that the only way
that you'll ever live the life that you've been created to live
is in right relationship with God.
And so if your relationship with him isn't right, forget about
it. The rest of life is going to be
off. But if that gets right, he can
make all things right. And so if you need to get your
relationship with Jesus right, maybe you've never had one, or
maybe it's just not where it needs to be.
This last prayer is for you. And if you would say, Todd,
include me in this prayer right where you are, would you just
raise your hands up high across all our little campuses?
If that's you today, hold him. Up high we're all going to pray
this prayer out loud, but those you with your hands up, you
prayed a little bit louder. Pray this after me say, dear
Lord Jesus come into my life. Forgive me of all my sin for
going my own way, for doing my own thing.
Today I turn, I make you the Lord of my life in Jesus name I
pray, Amen. Come on, let's thank God today
for all those that made that decision.