Michael Jr.

We're gonna have some fun.

It's gonna be so cool.

I'm excited about being here.

Just talk to Pastor Robert.

He's in Vegas right now, so just playing.

He's not in Vegas.

Y'all concerned.

What happened?

I am excited about being here.

The thing with people watching on TV, yo, I want to say what's up to all the other campuses too.

I'm there with you.

I am.

See, I'm gonna wave at you.

The thing that's so cool about Pastor Robert, you guys know this, but the people watching on the internet stuff don't know like this dude does not pass the plate at church.

I know some new people here right now be like, for real?

Like the plate, like they don't pass, you just give on your way out.

That is awesome, Pastor.

That's just how Pastor Robert wrote, you know?

Shoot, man, but but I'm different.

I brought my own ushers in.

If y'all could come out, doctor, doctor.

Oh, security must have got him already.

I don't know what happened.

I love Pastor Robert.

So we hang out sometime, and he'll um I remember him telling about the Holy Spirit.

I already knew about the Holy Spirit.

I was filled, but he was telling me what it means when you're filled with the Holy Spirit and how it makes your life more fuller.

But I didn't know to what degree he was talking about till I was at his house and I saw a picture of him before he was as full.

Actually, I think we got the picture right here.

So it looked like he was walking on two cigarettes right there.

I don't know what his leg is about.

He don't know I got that picture.

I ain't coming back no more.

He ain't gonna have me back.

So he's a good dude.

I really uh love hanging out with Pastor Robert.

I just love going to church and just being my family.

I love being around family.

A lot of people get on stage in front of a lot of people.

They don't like to show photos of their family because they want to be secret and they don't want to, you know.

I'm cool with that.

I'm actually I got a picture of my family right here if you want.

Um so yeah, so that's us, man.

You can take it down now before people take a picture of that was comedy.

I was just playing, that's not really them.

Some people are like wow, the little boy looks just like him.

So it's fun.

I joke, there's a uh, there's I found I like taking pictures, I found a sign that actually is probably the well.

Let me say this first.

I want to be clear, I'm like I talk about different nationalities, but I'm not racist, so I'm gonna be really clear about that, you know.

Uh some of my best friends are black, you know.

So actually, like half my friends are black, really.

Well, I got one friend, um, but he's half black, so that's kind of how that works out, man.

So I don't know how Pastor Robert normally does.

I got two scriptures.

I got two scriptures.

Um I wanted you to turn to two scriptures.

Nobody bring their Bible.

They're like, this is Michael Jr., I ain't bringing no Bible.

No, I got I do.

I got two scriptures.

We got Proverbs uh three, five.

I'm trying to remember it.

It's trust in the Lord.

You got it on the screen, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lay not on your own understanding.

And then we got Romans uh 12 2.

Be not conformed to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Um, those are two scriptures for today.

They might not have anything to do with what I'm talking about today, but you want to read them later on, that's cool, man.

Some of y'all know my story.

As a kid, it was rough going to church because church was a crazy place.

It didn't make any sense to me.

I was like, what is this?

I was seven years old, my grandmother would force me to go to this church, and this dude was up on stage, and he was talking about I don't know what he's talking about, because he's mad at everybody.

And I couldn't figure out, I figured out why he was mad.

I finally figured out he was mad because he had some phlegm caught in his throat.

Because at the end of every sentence, he'd try to get it out.

He'd be like, the Lord said, Ha.

Act like you're ha.

I'm like, grandma, what's wrong with him?

Nobody was teaching.

One time I go to church, it's a dead body in the front.

Nobody explains to a seven-year-old Michael Jr., it's a funeral, it's not church.

I'm thinking, yo, that's how they roll.

Like every third Sunday or so, they bring a dead body in as an example.

Dude on stage yell at everybody like we did it.

Remember, I asked my grandmother, Grandma, what happened to the man in the box, grandma?

Her whole explanation was he in a better place.

I'm like, what kind of box did he live in before?

Dude on stage, all I understood from him was he went to see the king.

That's all I got.

He went to see the king.

They'd have called a kid's choir for singing.

I was in the kids choir.

Not because I could sing, I was in the kids' choir because I was a kid.

And what song we got to sing?

Soon and very soon we are gonna see the king.

I don't want to see the king.

That's what happened to the man in the box.

So my childhood at church was miserable.

I turned 14 years old, my grandmother did something different.

Instead of forcing me to go to church, she asked me if I wanted to go.

I was like, let me think this over for a nope.

Going to no church, that stuff was miserable.

My shoes didn't fit, they were too tight, they were like three sizes too small.

And then she got this thing called a shoehorn.

What is that for?

That stuff should be illegal.

And my feet just sitting in there, my toes all boiled up all night, just the church lasts six hours.

So I said, I ain't going to church.

No, grandma, I'm not gonna go to church.

Then I turned 15 years old.

This was hot.

I turned 15 years old, me and a friend made a pat that we wouldn't curse anymore.

Let's be real.

You don't know nothing about God.

You 14, 15 years old.

Soon as you leave the house, that's what you do.

You're like, bye, mommy.

I love you, bye.

But beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

That's what you do.

Me and a friend made a pact.

We're not gonna curse anymore.

If he heard me curse, he could hit me in the chest as hard as he wanted to.

And then vice versa.

Dude could hit hard.

I stopped cursing immediately.

I just didn't, we were just like, yo, we're just not gonna do it.

And we'd have some fun as 14-year-olds.

We'd do things like any other.

We would talk about each other, they'd be like, Michael Jane, you got some big feet.

I'd be like, Oh, yeah, well, you so dark skinned.

I bet if you ride a motorcycle, you get a ticket for tenant windows.

Right?

We just white people don't know if they can laugh at that joke and I'm like, oh no, motherfucker.

No, I can't.

I'm sorry.

Still funny.

So we were still kids, but we just decided not just me and my friend, we just decided we're not gonna curse.

Then we're gonna fast forward, right?

So so all through high school, let me say this, all through middle school, it was really, really, really hard for me to read.

I'm gonna share this.

I have I don't share this a lot, but it was really hard for me to read.

Let me say it like this.

I couldn't read.

Like for real, like grade school, middle school, if I saw a word and I didn't know what it was, I had to figure it out.

And what I did was I came up with seven different ways to look at one word to determine what the word was.

I didn't even know I was doing it, it was just happening.

So if I saw a big word like uh like the word excite over the doors, if I saw that word, um it's comedy, calm down, I can read now.

But if I saw a word and I didn't know what it was, I would have to figure out what the word was.

So I came up with seven different ways to figure out, I would look at the font size, the color, the positioning of the word, how people responded to it.

I came up with seven different ways to determine what the word was.

And then I got really fast at it.

In high school, I was better at reading, but then I got so good at it, it got to the point where I was able to look at a situation, the same situation you look at, and you're like, yo, that's what it is.

I look at it and I see seven different possibilities almost immediately.

So let's review what the devil really meant for bad in the form of low self-esteem as a child who couldn't read.

God has flipped and turned to good because that's the primary place where I pull my comedy from.

Like you may see things one way.

I'm like, yo, I see seven different, like when I read the Bible, I saw that Jesus had a little brother.

I was like, man, that probably was a lot of pressure.

His name was James.

You know, everybody's like, man, James, why come you can't be more like Jesus?

They never made a what would James do bracelet.

They never made that.

They never made it.

Are you explaining that joke right now, sir?

Are you explaining that joke?

So now I have this ability to look at things seven different ways, and uh and I do it a lot, like a lot.

I'll see stuff and it'll just I'll get these random thoughts.

Like I'll see and I'll be like, yo, this is another thought, and I'll write the thoughts down.

And in fact, today what I've decided to do is I'm gonna share these thoughts with you, but I'm not just gonna share them in a regular way.

I'm gonna I'm gonna introduce you to you another talent that you guys probably weren't even aware of that I had.

All right, so this is called random thoughts with Michael Jr.

These are just my random thoughts, and I'm gonna share them with you as I as I play.

These are random thoughts with Michael Jr.

Now, some of these thoughts you're gonna get, some of them you may not get, okay?

But if you don't get, listen, if you don't get one thought, just move on, okay?

And because you might miss the next thought, okay?

Why are stay-at-home moms always gone?

If a baby comes out with an afro, is that considered natural childbirth?

If a woman gets pregnant in Vegas, does the baby have to stay there?

Is the word tofu short or tried to fool you?

Should Dave Ramsey's website take credit cards?

Where does non-local anesthesia come from?

Take your time.

I met a woman who had one callus on her foot.

Does that make her a unicorn?

Eight out of ten people don't want to be statistics.

But now they are.

And finally, if God clapped his hands, wouldn't that make a big bang?

It's just a theory.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Sir Michael Jimmy.

I appreciate that.

That was fun.

Awesome.

Okay, I'm good.

Man, we gotta work on that for the next one.

So what I thought was a handicap really became a strength.

Like a lot of times we'll have some things that we don't we don't understand and we're going through some stuff, but it's only building you up and making you stronger for something else.

It's like mad cool.

Like I would there's no way if I was regular, I could have came up with that stuff.

I don't even know what regular means.

So then when I turn 26, I moved to New York, right?

There's a club in New York that's really hard to get into.

I hope you guys are tracking.

I was seven, I went 14, 15, I'm 26.

I moved to New York.

And there's this club.

In New York, the clubs are hard to get into.

There's a club there called the Comic Trip Live.

And um they used to have an open mic on Tuesday nights when I first moved.

This is a long time ago when I moved to New York.

The way you get onto the open mic, which starts at seven, is they comedians start lining up at 6 a.m.

So they can possibly do 90 seconds in front of the manager in hopes that they'll take a look at him again a month later.

It's really hard to get into this club.

So I'll finally get into this club.

It's finally my turn to perform.

And this comedian named George Wallace walks in.

I love George Wallace, but here's the problem.

When somebody like that walks into the club, whoever's next automatically gets bumped.

I was next.

I'm about to get bumped.

The manager's walking over to me, and I already know what he's gonna say.

He's about to bump me.

This is where God shows up for the first time in my life.

Well, this is where I first noticed him.

The manager says to me, Michael, listen, George Wallace is here.

You want to go on before him or after him?

I was like, uh, let me go on before him.

So I go on before George Wallace and I got the audience actually laughing.

I'm talking about a New York audience.

If New Yorkers don't like you, the way they let you know is they say, we don't like you.

So I got the New York crowd laughing, and then George Wallace comes in, and now he's laughing too.

I'm like, oh snap.

After the show, there's a bunch of comedians, they're all talking to George Wallace.

I'm giving him his space.

He leaves them and comes over to me and he says, You're really funny.

Let me ask you a question.

He said, Why don't you curse?

I was like, I don't know.

What if my grandmother walk in or something?

You know what I'm saying?

That's all I came up with.

What was I gonna say?

My friend might hit me in the chest.

I'm a grown man.

So then he said to me, He said, You're really funny, I'd love to do a show.

I'd love for you to do a show with me and my best friend in a couple nights.

I was like, oh, snap! It was awesome doing a show with George.

I didn't even know what his best friend was, it ain't matter.

They sent a car to pick me up, we go do the show, it's it's me, George Wallace, and Jerry Seinfeld.

So we do the show, I rip.

It's like three shows, I guess three standing ovations.

I'm like, I'm the man, yeah.

Afterwards, my manager says to me, says, Michael, hey, you you want to go to church with me tomorrow?

I was like, church?

I just got three standing ovations.

Why did I go to church?

You was messing this up.

Am I sick of something?

Why did I go to church?

Because every time I saw church on TV, it was always something wrong with somebody.

So I was like, I almost died, then I found Jesus.

I wasn't about to die.

Or somebody was like, I was on drugs and I found Jesus.

I've never done drugs.

That's not my story.

I've never done drugs, I never, I've never done drugs, I never smoked.

I stopped cursing when I was 14 years old.

I'm not trying to hear about this Jesus stuff.

Then his fiance asked him to go, and she was fine.

I even know pretty people went to church, man.

I didn't know it was necessary.

I didn't know the rules.

She had an accent.

She was like, Michael Jr., would you like to go to church with us?

I was like, absolutely.

Yo, so I go to this church, it's about the size of this one.

The church is huge.

I couldn't even find the people who invited me.

So I sit in the back, right?

And this dude is up on stage talking about Jesus.

He ain't screaming, he ain't yelling, he don't got no perm.

Dude just talking about Jesus, right?

Then he did this thing, he said, Can I get a hallelujah?

He wanted everybody in the audience to say hallelujah.

And it's like 5,000 people in this church.

So 4,999 people said hallelujah.

And I said, I ain't saying that.

I don't know what it means.

Then he said, in case there's someone in here that doesn't know what hallelujah means, I was like, this place is creepy.

He said, it's like the highest praise you can give God.

I was like, man, wow.

Then he did a then he did this thing.

He did an altar call, right?

And he said, if you want Jesus in your life, you know, just scream like a baby.

That's what he said.

Um, I'm sorry.

Sorry, 71.

For those watching online, is a baby screaming.

I'm sorry, that's confusing to you.

People like, I want them.

No, that's that's not.

It's a different church.

You got it's a different church.

He said if you want Jesus in your heart, all you gotta do is believe in your heart, confess with your mouth, and then come down like to the front.

And I wanted to go, but I was like, eh, I gotta read the pamphlet first.

I don't know what this is about, right?

Might be a catch or something, right?

Because I had some friends who became Christian and they turned creepy almost immediately.

You ever know like some creepy Christians?

If you don't know any.

I'm talking about creepy, like you talk to them, and then as soon as they start talking about God, their voice changed.

I had a friend like that, like, yo, what's up, man?

How you doing?

I'm good, man.

What's up with you?

Can I tell you about the Lord?

What is wrong with your voice?

Or some people will pray with you without permission.

You ever had it happen?

Yo, you see the game?

That was a good game.

Man, that game was good, man.

It was so good.

God, we just thank you for being so holy and so awesome, Lord.

I'm like, are we praying right now?

So I ain't wanna be like one of them creepy.

I didn't know, so I read the whole Bible, right?

You know how I feel about reading.

So I'm reading the Bible and I'm going to church, and I want to go up to the altar, but I told myself I'd read the Bible first.

So I read the Bible, I'm going through, I read the whole Bible, I read the copyrights.

The Bible was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Me too.

So I'm reading the Bible, I'm reading, I'm going through it, I'm reading, I keep reading, and I remember getting to the part of Matthew where it said, Jesus died for me.

Yeah, I even know.

It took me like three months to read the Bible.

I had a birthday, and then in February I was done.

I'm 27 years old.

I even know Jesus died for me.

People were screaming and yelling, nobody was teaching.

Not where I could understand it.

And the dude, and I'm like, right there in Matthew, he died.

I even know.

Then I turned to Mark and he died again.

I'm like, what is going on?

And then Luke and John are like, why'd they keep killing them?

What are they doing?

Got to Revelations, I got all scared, the letters are red.

I didn't know what was going on, man.

Reading the Bible is kind of like paying bills.

Supposed to pay attention to everything, but when they show up with some red ink, yeah, you better do something, right?

Now I understand some stuff.

I don't understand everything, but I get I probably understand like a half a percent of the Bible, probably a tenth of that, actually.

And a lot of times I'm in uh green rooms with celebrities, and they'll ask me, they'll be like, explain God to me.

And I'm like, dude, if I could explain God, he wouldn't be God.

I can't explain.

So the best the best understanding I give myself, God is kind of like this.

And this is really, this is this ain't even close.

But God is kind of like this.

Like, um He's like a navigation device in your car.

You ever been in a car with a navigation device before?

You ever been in a car before?

You ever been in a car?

It's kind of like that.

Navigation device in your car.

If it says go, if you punch in the corners as to where you want to go, and it says go ten blocks and turn left.

Then you go ten blocks and turn right.

It doesn't abandon what you're supposed to do.

It recalculates what you're supposed to do to get to where you're supposed to be based upon where you are.

The only problem is if we keep making the wrong turns, the role conditions are gonna be different.

They may be a lot rougher and we're running out of time.

So you gotta make a choice pretty much to change the game about where you're going.

Because if you don't know whether you know it or not, there's a game going on and you're behind some points, and you don't even know how much time is on the clock.

So you gotta change the game.

When I stood up there, when I finally finished reading the Bible, I actually ran up to the altar during announcements.

I was like, yo, I'm ready right now.

I don't gotta wait till the end, dude.

And that was a game-changing moment for me.

I mean, that that changed the entire game.

Because now I understand I'm not just funny, like I'm funny for a reason.

I mean, look at it.

God literally had a plan long before I knew He had a plan.

I'm seven years old, I get a taste of church, I don't like it, I got all this funny as a result of it, but my grandmother was praying.

I turned 14 years old, I decided on my own let's not curse anymore, really?

Imagine how hard it would have been if I would have started doing comedy cursing, and now I'm trying to clean it up.

No.

God was like, I know what I want you to do.

I couldn't, I had a hard time, I couldn't read.

God was like, I know you're struggling, but I want you to look at things differently because I got something for you to do.

I could have checked out a long time ago, but this ain't fair.

But now I can clearly see.

It was all about getting me in shape.

I had to get in game shape.

So when the game changed, I was ready.

I just made that up right now.

It's awesome, God.

Thanks for that.

It was phenomenal.

Alright, so check it.

So look, this is like because of what I've been through, God has given me an additional sensitivity to people similar to me.

So I try to make things as simple as possible.

And one morning I was writing jokes.

I know you don't imagine people writing jokes.

I was up at like four o'clock in the morning writing jokes.

And then while I'm writing a joke, I wrote down the word house.

And God showed me something about a house, and it wasn't even a joke.

It ain't funny.

Like it's like it's real.

So I think everybody listening to my voice about this house thing.

This is fun, this is so cool.

This is what a relationship with Jesus is like.

This is when you change the game.

This is how you change the game, basically.

This is what's going on.

It's as if everyone in this room and everyone at every single campus, and everyone even watching online, I'm talking to everyone.

You gotta listen to this.

It's as if we're all a house.

And outside of the house is Jesus, and he wants to come in.

But he'll never force his way in the house.

He wants you to invite him in the house.

And a lot of people in this room right now, and a lot of people watching, you're okay with having Jesus outside the house.

Because then all you gotta do is open the door, crack it a little bit, tell him what you need, and then close the door back and then go about your business.

But he wants to come in the house.

And one of the main reasons you will not let him in the house is because your house is a mess.

You think you gotta clean it up first.

You've been trying all this time to clean it up, and it's still a mess.

And he knew it was gonna be a mess before you messed it up, and you're still trying to clean it up.

And in fact, he's the only one who can clean it up, and he's standing outside the door right now, wearing an apron with a bucket in his hand, waiting on you to invite him in.

And then there's some people in this room, there's some people watching right now who used to have Jesus in the entire house.

But for some reason or another, you decided to evict them completely.

Or you've just moved them to one area of the house, that one room.

It's the good room.

You ever been in somebody's house?

They got a good room, they got plastic on the furniture, can't nobody go in there.

It's the good room.

And a lot of times that room is the room right up front by the by the big window.

So when people walk by, they're like, wow, that house is clean.

Wow, they got Jesus.

Jesus doesn't have him.

He's only in that one room, and the rest of the house is a mess.

This is what I'm gonna do.

I want everybody, everybody who can hear my voice, who can see me right now online, I need you to just bow your head just for a moment and listen to my voice.

Every head bow, and I just want you to listen to my voice.

And if I'm talking to you, I want you to, I'm gonna ask you to do something.

If I'm talking to you and you know that your house is a mess and that Jesus is outside and you want to invite him in.

On a count of three, I'm just gonna actually do something really simple.

Just just put your hand in the air.

It's almost like reaching for a door a doorknob, but I guess you're really short and just I just want you to put your hand in the air on a count of three.

If you're saying yes, Jesus, come into my house.

One, two, three.

Nice and high in the air.

Praise God.

I see you, praise God, yes, nice and high.

I see you, I got you, I got you.

Wow, that is phenomenal.

I see all these hands.

That is awesome, all in the back.

I see you, I got you, I got you, I got you.

Yeah, she got two hands up.

That's awesome, cool, cool, awesome.

Yeah, I love it.

Wow, praise God, this is phenomenal.

This is a lot of doorknobs turning right now.

This is fabulous, fabulous.

All right, so listen, so to everybody, I'm talking to the people at Frisco, I'm talking to people, we've we're gonna have church in a high school right now in North Fort Worth.

It's awesome, it's like the most high school.

And in North Richmond Hills as well.

So listen, this is what I want to do.

Everyone who raised their hand, I'm gonna ask you to do something else.

And this is so amazingly important.

Because what you did just now is you just reached out and touched the doorknob.

But now I'm gonna ask you to turn the doorknob and open the door.

With this next thing I'm gonna ask you to do.

If you raised your hand, if you should have raised your hand, if you wish you would have raised your hand at all the campuses, at all the locations, even online, on the count of three, I'm gonna ask you guys to stand up and walk your way down here.

The reason I'm asking you to do this is because Jesus essentially says this if you will take a stand for me before men, I will stand for you before my father in heaven.

And if you can take a stand in here, it's huge because if you can't take a stand in here where we're proud of you, it'll be really hard to do it out there.

And to help with that, when I count to three, everyone who's standing, everyone who raised their hand, I want you to come down, but everyone else in this room is gonna applaud like it doesn't make any sense.

But it won't even compare to the applause that'll be going on by the angels in heaven.

One, two, three.

Come on down.

Come on down, come on, come on down, come on down.

Praise God, praise God, praise God, yeah.

Praise God, come on down, come on down, come on down, leave it at the top, leave it at the top, leave it come down too, come down too, yeah, please gown, please gum, yeah, gun, put it down, I'm gonna be crying.

I'm not gonna be crying.

I'm not gonna be crying.

All right.

I'm not gonna be crying, that's what I'm not gonna do.

We hear the Alright, so this is this is this is pretty phenomenal for you guys to allow me to be a part of this.

Um so we're gonna pray together, and then I'm gonna I'm gonna go on the back and not cry.

So uh uh we're gonna we're gonna pray, and if I mess up on the prayer, uh Pastor David is gonna fix it because I do jokes.

So listen, this is amazing.

You guys have just made a life-changing decision.

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

So listen.

What you guys have to understand at every campus, what you have to understand, we we we just look, we've made a life-changing decision and we just laughed in the midst of it.

God is not about God is different than you think.

He wants you to have joy, he wants you to laugh.

He does.

And he and he and he sent me here and he sent me all over the place, this little dude from Michigan who couldn't even read.

So listen, we're gonna pray, we're gonna pray.

I just want y'all to repeat after me.

Pastor David, we're gonna fix it if I miss up.

Oh, I won't.

All right, dear God.

And if there's someone in the audience who needs to pray this prayer too, my goodness, pray this prayer.

Dear God, thank you for sending your son Jesus Christ to the earth to die for me.

I believe it, and I receive it.

Come into my house.

Come into my heart and have your way.

In Jesus' name.