It's Not Safer in the Shallow

God has been really speaking to me about 2021, and He started speaking to me about it in June of this year.

So when God's speaking to me seven months ago about where we're standing right now, and continued to confirm his word over and over to me, I said, Okay, God, wherever I go, I gotta share this.

And so what ended up happening is I went on sabbatical, something that I learned being a part of the house that is gateway.

I went on sabbatical, and the last week of my sabbatical, I take a week to go to a hotel where only my wife and my assistant know where I'm at, and I just pray and get before the Lord.

And I asked God, what do you want me to start preparing?

And what do you want me to focus our church around for 2021?

And God told me this word.

He said, Michael, in 2021, the prophetic word that I want you to declare everywhere is that you will be anchored.

Said, anchored, like I thought maybe like powerful, astonishing, like overflow.

I like those words a lot better.

He said, No, the word for 2021 that I want you to prophetically speak out to the body of Christ is that 2021 is the year of being, help me say it, anchor.

Well, I live in Oklahoma, and ain't much water around there.

So I don't really, you know, just see anchors when I'm going out, and there's not really, I mean, we got glorified ponds in Tulsa, like it's not lakes, and uh, and so it was one of those things that I had to really study and anchor, and then when I begin to study the anchor, I begin to see them everywhere.

And God says, This is what I want my church to be, anchored.

This I was this is what I want relationships to be, anchored.

This is what I want your business to be, anchored.

This is what I want your time with me to be.

What is it?

Anchor.

And as I begin to study that, I would I would think about the sea and I would think about the ocean and I think about cruise liners and I would think about speedboats, and then I started to understand in my reading what an anchor is and what it's needed for.

Let me give you a definition of an anchor, real quick.

An anchor, listen to this, this is very interesting.

An anchor is a heavy object attached to something to keep the vessel in place, either by its weight or by its grip.

It's a source of security or stability to hold something in place to secure firmly or fix.

As I begin to think about what God wants his church and what he wants for your family and what he wants for your life, he said, while the whole world is drifting, I need somebody to be help me say it.

And right now, the thing that I'm figuring out, the subtitle that God gave me, he said, 2021, and I speak this over you and your family, and I speak it over Gateway.

That this will be the year of the anti-drift.

See, drifting is something that's subtle.

Nobody knows they're drifting till they're too far away from the shore.

And I really feel like this is the season with everything that's happening politically, everything that's happening with the election, everything that's happening racially, everything that's happened with your money, and it being a little funny, everything that's happening with your cousin, everything that's happening with your children.

This is the season where we can lose out on the anchor that God has put us in place and we can start drifting.

You can see it in your Facebook post.

Uh-oh.

You you can see it in some of the responses that we have.

And God said, This year, I need my church to drop their anchor, and I need my church to be ones that will not drift.

And then I started to think about it.

This is how I process when God gives me a word and I'm just giving it to you like He gave it to me.

I started thinking, like, you know what?

You never see anchors in pools.

The reason why you never see an anchor in a pool is because it's not deep enough.

And God began to say to me, Michael, if I'm telling you the word for the year is anchored, write this point down.

It's not safer in the shallow.

And so many of us have been living our Christian life in the shallow.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah, we've been just posting the scripture of the U Version Bible app, but not reading it.

Yeah, I'm coming for you today.

You, you, you, you, you got the tattoo, and and and and and and you got the worship playlist, but you don't meditate on his word day and night.

He said it is not safer in the shallow.

And what I've come to the conclusion of is that Christianity did today looks like a bunch of people who play in the kiddie pool.

Oh, you didn't think I was gonna jump in here?

Because this is what you look like every day.

Going to your job, quoting your scripture, I'm chosen, not forsaken.

I am who he says I am.

You are, and and you walk out, and you go to your job, and it looks like you've been with him, but you're not submerged in him, your character hasn't changed.

Uh-huh.

Your ideas haven't changed.

Oh, you go to that one church, but when they talk about you, your response is like you've never met him.

You are what I call a kiddie pool Christian.

You're one that wants to have the worship playlist, and make sure that we have our small groups, and make sure that we're posting how amazing our desserts were, making sure the LaCroix on tap.

And what ends up happening, oh y'all hear me, is that your Christianity is kiddie pool.

And the problem with kiddie pool Christianity is if God says that he wants to be an anchor, you don't need an anchor in the kiddie pool.

And I don't know what area you've been trying to fake it, and I don't know what area you thought you could keep living the way that you're living, but God's calling us to be anchored, and what he's doing is he's calling us to the deep right now.

He's saying where we've been, the shallow is not safer.

I'm not there, I'm coming deeper.

I'm the one that wants to sustain you through the difficulty, through the relational challenge, through the economic downturn.

He said, if you allow me, I will be your help me.

Hey, y'all better help me preach today.

Now I'm a hot mess up here, and I gotta preach for 24 minutes like this.

But you gotta understand is that it's not until I go to the deep.

Your relationship's not deep enough.

Your prayer life?

Not because the church called to fast, but because there are things that God wants to show you and his purpose for your life, and you're not deep enough.

He's saying, Where is the church that will step outside of the kiddie pool and push off of the shore and go a little deeper?

Somebody shot at me, anchored, and yes, I am preaching the rest of this message with these on.

It reminds me of Luke chapter 5, verse 4.

Luke 5:4

It says, Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push out into the water.

He was in the shallow, he was trying to push to preach to a large group of people.

So he stepped into somebody's boat, and Jesus, the God of the universe, the sovereign one, asked, Could you push out?

God's not gonna force anybody to go to the deep.

He's a gentleman.

And some of y'all he's been asking for a decade.

Could you just push out from the shore?

Could we just move past these elementary things?

Hey, could we stop gossiping about the other people in the small group?

Could we could we push past?

Well, I don't feel like it.

See, this is the thing that God's asking us is to push off the shore.

That was a decision, and the greatest thing that God gave every one of us is choice.

He's not gonna make you do anything, but your choice enables him to do the things that he already saw before in your life before you were even prepared in your mother's womb.

And he's asking you today, go a little deeper.

So Jesus sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.

Verse 4 when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, he talked to him again.

And now I thought this would be the part, like in the story, where I pushed out, I did a little bit, I served a little bit, I came out of the kiddie pool, I gave in the offering.

Like, okay, can we go back to the shallow end right now?

See, because the only reason people want to be in the shallow is because you're in control in the shallow.

You ever met somebody that can't swim?

Now, some of y'all, there's a lot of white people in here, but a lot of black people don't swim.

Let me just I said it, okay?

Do you hear what I'm saying?

And there's some there's some historical reasons for that because when they were slaves, if they ever got um the opportunity to be able to swim, it would be easier for them to escape.

And so they kept them intentionally away from water and learning how to water made them fearful of the water.

And so now that thing is passed down generationally.

So if you're at the pool and you ever see a black dude in sandal and slides, that's because his daddy didn't swim and his daddy didn't swim, and so now his son, they just go to the pool to look cool.

And I am starting black people swimming anonymous, and it's going to go crazy across the country.

Check for your boy, okay?

This is what I'm saying.

But the reason why anybody stays in the shallow end is because I'm in control here.

You can't, you can't make me do anything in the shallow.

That's the same way that you've been living spiritually.

You're choosing what God does in your life.

Because you won't allow him to be in control in deeper waters, and so you stay in the kiddie pool.

And this is what he's asking Simon, like God is asking you in the first month of 2021.

He said, Can we go deeper?

Look what he says.

Now go out where it's deeper.

When he had finished speaking, he said, Now go out where it's deeper.

And the blessing was in the deeper.

See, we know the rest of the story that then they put their nets down and they catch so much they live a blessed life that the people around them had to now be able to come and get some of the blessing.

But the blessing didn't happen in the shallow.

The blessing happened in the deeper.

And what God is asking for all of us is what area of your life do you need to come out a little deeper?

What area of your life do you need to push away from the shore?

It reminds me of Psalms 42 when David is crying out and he says, Deep calls unto deep.

And I begin to think about the deep places of my life where I have emptiness, that it needs to be not just tapped with the water of his Holy Spirit or just touched with God.

I need to be submerged in areas of my life.

And God told me, He said, Michael, you only need an anchor in the deep.

And today, if God is speaking to you that He needs to be our anchor, are you in too shallow of a water for God to move?

I can't answer that question for you.

We did a fast with our church for the first 21 days of the year.

And you know, as a pastor, you're leading, and you know, you we're gonna fast together and we're just gonna believe God.

And on day like 10, God was like 45 days.

I mean, for the church, Lord.

Was that that something you're calling all of us to?

Because I could hear you if it's for all of us, God.

I'll stand up very strong.

He said, I didn't, I'm talking to you.

Deeper.

More.

See, you can't compare what God asks you to do to anybody else.

See, all of us want to be called by committee.

But what he's doing is he's not looking for an organization to answer the call, he's looking for organisms, he's looking for those sons and daughters.

It says when the Son of Man comes back, he's gonna search the whole world and he's gonna look for anybody with faith that would believe him.

And for us to believe him at the beginning of this year, don't nobody know what the rest of this year, we didn't know what 2020 was gonna hold.

And some of y'all lost your wig, you lost your eyebrows, you yet 2020 took you out.

You barely hear, barely.

Why would you want to go through any storm without an anchor?

Let me help you.

Hebrews 6:1.

Hebrews 6:1

It says, Therefore, let us move beyond uh-oh, the kiddie pool, excuse me, the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward into maturity.

Everybody say this cuss word, maturity.

You thought because you was old, you were mature.

Uh-uh.

You're just an old kid.

You know, you know it.

That that just because we got older and grayer and maybe have a little more money in the bank, our attitude can still be very immature.

The way that we think about things cannot be Christ-like.

And God says, Can we move past that?

Not laying again the foundations of repentance from the acts that lead to death and the faith in God.

He's saying, Do you got it yet?

You're saved.

If you've already believed in me and you've done it by faith, you're saved.

You don't have to keep every week jumping in and out of the kiddie pool for your eternity to be.

This is what most of the Christians look like right now.

It's my birthday weekend.

Let me jump up out of here.

Uh oh, it's 4th of July.

Let me get back in God.

Oh, it's Christmas and Easter.

And God said, Can we move past the kiddie pool?

You're saved if you put your faith in me.

That now has affected your eternity.

So now can we start working on your history?

Because our eternity is secure.

But now, what is your history gonna look like?

What are you leaving?

What is the legacy?

What is God?

What are your children going to say about you?

And God's saying to me, if you're not anchored to me, you can be blown to and fro by everything that comes.

But as a church, as gateway, as the church of Jesus Christ, we're gonna be help me anchored.

And so I'm encouraging some of y'all, drop it low.

Sally, did he say drop it low?

I'm not talking about dropping what your mama gave you, I'm talking about your anchor.

Everybody say drop it low.

I love that.

That was for me.

The reason why I'm saying it is because today many of you are deciding right now.

I'm gonna go deeper.

I'm gonna actually wake up and have my devotion every time.

I'm actually gonna work out this year.

I'm actually gonna lead the small group.

You know what?

I'm actually gonna go back and ask for forgiveness.

Oh, because you thought because time went by, then that healed the situation, and that thing is festering under there the whole time.

And God says, I want you to mature right now, and I want you to walk in here and be anchored to me because the depths of your life needs the depths of His love.

The deep places in me that still have holes, the places in me that had years of pornography and perversion running through my heart and my mind, those things that I know it's only by the grace of God that I'm standing here on gateway stage to you proclaiming about a Jesus and a grace that actually can transform somebody from the inside out.

That part of me, the part of me that you don't want a Instagram, that you don't want a Facebook, that you don't want to share that deep hole needs the wholeness of God.

And the only place you can get deluged or submerged is in the deep.

So, what are you trying to say to us, Pastor Mike?

It's not safer in the shallow.

Every area of your life that has been shallow, it's time to go deeper.

So let me just tell you if you don't know, you need an anchor.

Ephesians 4 11.

It says, So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up.

I did this to my church last year.

I said, Who's the minister here?

And everybody pointed at me.

And then I read this scripture and I said, Y'all didn't read the scripture.

My job is to equip the minister.

You're the minister here, you're the minister at your job, you're the minister at your school, you're the minister at your country club, you're the minister on the basketball court.

And I'm here to equip you until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature.

Uh-oh, there's that word again.

Attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, zoning and 14.

Then we will no longer be infants or in the kiddie pool, tossed back to tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching.

It sounds like they needed an anchor.

It sounds like the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming, sounds like the news we hear every day.

Sounds like what we're talking about around the water cooler.

And God's saying is it's not going to get less, it's going to become more.

And that's why I need you to have an anchor that it's me, so that no matter what CNN says, what Fox News says, what CNBC says, what your cousin says, what your big mama says, you've dropped your anchor on the word of God, and you may come and you may go.

I feel like preaching now.

And you might say something, and it might look like this today, but I am sure on the anchor of Jesus Christ.

I dare somebody at every Gateway campus to give God a shout of praise right now.

Yeah.

I feel my help coming on, and I only got 11 minutes left.

But what I'm telling you right now, this is something you might not want to hear from me in my multicolored jacket today, but I'm gonna tell you anyway, the anti-anchor is immaturity.

He said in the scripture, could we move away from being infants?

Tossed back and forth.

See, a lot of y'all got scripture.

A lot of us have our small groups, but we're still being tossed back and forth.

And God's saying it's time for us to mature so that we can be able to be ones who are anchored in Him.

Look at Hebrews 6:19, 18 verses down.

Hebrews 6:19

We have this hope as an look at it, anchor for what?

Our souls, that's our mind, will, and emotions, firm and secure.

It enters into the sanctuary behind the curtain where our forerunner, Jesus, our anchor, has entered on our behalf.

He has become a high priest or our anchor forever in the order of Macedonic.

Can somebody thank God that we have an anchor?

Now, this is the thing.

I just said you need an anchor, and right here I'm telling you, you have an anchor.

But this is the thing I found about an anchor.

What you are anchored to is not about the intention, but it's all about the integrity.

The great thing about this word that God gave me through scripture is that all of us are anchored to something.

Right now, some of you are anchored to your business, some of you are anchored to your relationship, some people are anchored to their idea of success, some people are anchored to their children's success.

The problem is that's good intention to be anchored to that.

It doesn't have the integrity to hold you up when the storm comes.

See, so many people have tied their hope around a career.

And when I get 26, I'm gonna be married, and when I get 34, I'm gonna have my first kid, and when I have 37, I'm gonna be a millionaire, and when I and we have these plans that we've anchored our lives to.

And when the storm of life comes, my question is does it hold you up?

See, for me and my wife, we thought that anchoring our life.

The success would do it for us.

So I'm 26-year-old.

I take over a church.

Three years later, it's doing pretty good.

People aren't cussing me out no more as they walk out to church.

It feels like we're getting some momentum.

And we have our second child.

And it's a son.

He's perfect.

He's beautiful.

He has my name, Michael Alexander Todd Jr.

Two years later, we get a phone call that he's diagnosed with autism.

He won't do this, he won't do this, he won't do this, he won't do this, he won't do this.

I'm at the height of my ministry career.

And now everything, everybody's calling, everybody wants me to come to their conference, everybody wants, and when I pulled for security on what I had put my anchor to, it didn't have the integrity to hold me up.

And I didn't want anything, I didn't want to go anywhere, I didn't want to preach anywhere, I just wanted my son to talk.

I didn't want, I didn't need any more money.

I just needed for him to be okay in the depression that tried to come over his mom to leave her.

And today, my son is five years old and still can't say a complete sentence.

How am I here today?

Speaking to you with as much faith as I've ever had in my life.

It's because I took my anchor and I tied it to something that was everlasting.

I took my hope and I put it on something that would be sure.

And if you're wondering what your anchor is, we don't just need an anchor, we have an anchor.

And our anchor is Jesus Christ.

He's the one that is and is to come.

He's the one who went before us and took death, hell, and the grave on so that I could stand in the midst of a storm with tears running down my face.

And watching people celebrate and celebrate with them because I'm not tied to my ideas anymore.

I'm not tied to a governmental party anymore.

All I'm saying is many of us have put our anchor on something that won't hold you up.

Four years, eight years, twelve years, sixteen years.

The only kingdom that has reigned forever, the only one that has lasted every regime, the only one that has been here through every rise and fall is the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

I mean, look down low.

I mean this for anybody who would believe in me.

I will be God.

Oh, I dare you right now to give God some praise if He is the anchor in every storm.

You don't just need an anchor, you have an anchor.

And together, we be that anchor.

Like if all of us together would anchor to Jesus, then we become an anchor for the world.

Right now, do you know how many of your family members and loved ones and co-workers are drifting?

And they're supposed to be connected to you, but you're drifting too.

But if I would connect to Jesus and they could connect to me, this is why you invite people to Gateway Church.

This is why you share the message.

This is why you talk about it.

It's because they may never be anchored to Jesus yet.

But if they're anchored to you and you look enough like him, it could draw them in so that they could one day see, oh, I can be anchored to him too.

I saw this thing as I was studying about boat parties.

Now, y'all may know about that because it looked like y'all got boats here.

Uh, but in my hood, we don't we ain't got no boats.

And as I was preparing for this, this uh word this year, I went to the lake.

And you know what I'm saying?

I was out there, like, hey, what's up, everybody?

Oh, y'all got skis, okay, cool.

And then we walked out and we saw this thing called a boat party.

And I was like, what are they doing over there?

Oh, they said that that's just a boat party.

It's where one boat drops his anchor, and then all the other boats come and anchor to that boat, and they allow anybody that passes by to come and connect to the next person, and the goal is that they can hop from boat to boat and meet new people and make business deals and do all of this stuff because they are anchored to each other.

Oh, I got a picture of the kingdom of God in 2021.

Do y'all have that picture?

Can you show it real quick?

This is what it looked like.

It was one boat that anchored to another boat that anchored to another boat.

They didn't ask, are you black or are you white?

They said, if you got a boat, pull up and anchor to me.

They didn't ask, are you gay?

Are you straight?

They said, if you got a boat, pull up and anchor to me.

They didn't ask, who did you vote for?

And where do you live?

If you've got a boat, come anchored to me.

All I'm telling you is the world is looking for a church that's anchored together.

And if we could be an anchor together, what would happen when the storms come?

What would happen when one boat or one person or one family is going through the thing that the enemy thought would capsize them?

Not on my watch, because you're anchored to me, and I'm anchored to Gateway, and I'm anchored to transformation, and I'm anchored to Pastor Robert, and I'm anchored to Tim Ross, and I'm anchored to Julie, and I'm anchored to Kevin, and I'm anchored to Daquan, and I'm anchored to Felicia, and I'm anchored to Juan, and I'm anchored to Maria.

It doesn't matter who you are.

Are you anchored enough for somebody to anchor to you?

My question to you as I close is who's depending on you to be anchored?

What are you saying, Pastor Mike?

This year, we're leaving the shallow as a church.

It's not safer there for you.

And yeah, storms come.

But do you know an anchor is also needed in calm water?

Put a boat in calm water when the business is good, when the stock is up, when everything's going right and don't drop the anchor, it will drift to a place you never thought possible.

See, some of you thought this message was for somebody that's in a storm.

This message is for every person.

Even if your life is going great, what are you intentionally dropping your anchor on that will allow you to remain where God has called you to be?

I'll just say it like this: an anchor isn't just to save you from the storm, but an anchor is to sustain you through the storm.

Pastor Mike, how are you still doing it and preaching God?

It's because God told me, I'm not gonna get you through it, I'll sustain you through it.

And I don't know who is out here that was looking at giving up or doing something different.

And you want a miracle, and I believe that God does miracles, but I also believe that God doesn't just get you over things, I believe he sustains you in the middle of them.

And today, if you're going through anything, I want to pray for you.

At every campus, I believe that God wants us all to drop our anchor on him.

And if would you at every campus, would you just stand real quick?

I just I just feel this.

I because I feel like people are leaving the shallow.

Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray.

Come on, hands lifted at every campus all around.

I pray in the name of Jesus that you would not just allow us to be ones who get over it, but you'll sustain us through it.

Father, let us push out of the shallow.

And I thank you, Father, that you are going to anchor us in the deep.

No matter what the situation is, no matter what the report is, no matter, Father, what we're facing.

I pray for my brothers and sisters.

And I believe today, Father God, you are anchoring us so that we will not drift this year.

Father, let us anchor on your word.

Let us anchor on worship.

Let us anchor on time with you.

Let us anchor in community.

And God, we will forever give you the glory, honor, and praise.

If the storms come, we will remain and we will be sustained by the anchor of Jesus Christ.

Have your way in our lives.

It's our prayer.

In Jesus' name, we agree.

Amen.