Your Distraction Is Playing You // Death To Distraction: Week 8 // Michael Todd

Welcome to Transformation Church podcast, where we represent God to

the lost and found for transformation in Christ. We're so

glad you're here and wherever you're listening from, we believe

God will transform your life. To today's message.

Today, as we start the last week of an eight

week series, we're calling death to Distraction. Today, I want

to remind you that God is requiring from you another

level of focus. If you're taking notes, I want you

to write focus real big at the.

Top of your notes.

I want you to type it and push the header

and make it bold on your phone. Because the truth

of the matter is that you're too distracted for the

destiny God's called you too. I don't know what your

distraction is. I'm not saying we even have the same distraction.

Some of our distractions do overlap. But the truth of

the matter is, many times I'm worried about your distraction

when I'm imprisoned by mine.

And I believe that God wants everybody to.

Focus focus on Him so that then he can give

you what to focus on.

Everybody hear what I'm saying.

God doesn't just say focus, Because a lot of times

I come to people and I'm like, yo, I need

you to focus on God, But what about my bills?

What about my relationship? What about my kids. God's never

telling you to focus on him to forget other things.

He's telling you to focus on Him so he can

give you priority of how.

To focus, where to focus. When the focus that friend

he's been trying to get you to let go of

for years. He's trying to help prioritize the patterns and

the people in your life. So when God says focus,

the Bible tells us he's the one that lights our path.

Acknowledge him and all your ways, and he will direct

your He's trying to give you instructions, and you just

keep turning because the street looks familiar.

You keep going down these back.

Roads, trying to take shortcuts to a place that God said,

I'll lead you there. And so when God says focus,

it's not for any of the reason except he knows

the destination.

He knows the intended end.

And so everybody, by faith, we have to shout it

out me one more time.

Focus.

So that's why Hebrews twelve one, our scripture of the year,

It says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a

great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every weight

or everything that hinders us, especially sin that so easily

entangles us, and let us run with perseverance the race

that God has marked out for us. Fixing our eyes

on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith. He's

saying focus for the joy that was set before him.

He endured the cross, scorning its shame. Now he been

chilling sat down at the right hand of the Father

of the throne of God. I say it every week,

but fixing your eyes on Jesus gives you the faith

to focus. As we end this series, I was reminded

of a story and today I'm just, honestly, more than

preaching to you, I want to talk to you like

it was just me and you at a coffee table

or in the place I feel most raw to talk

to people.

Is in my garage, in my little gym.

I got a little gym in my garage, and when

people come into my little gym garage, I just feel

like these weights already beating us up while we lying

to each other. Like when I'm in my little gym garage,

I'm like, if you come in here, you want to

know the truth. I'm gonna tell you the truth because

these thirties it's killing me right now. And some of

my most open and honest dialogue has been as I'm

sitting there in a vulnerable, vulnerable position, and I'm sitting

there with somebody who's talking about nonsense, and I'm like,

I gotta.

Just tell them the truth. Y'all know how sometimes you.

Be trying to be politically correct and like let people like, yeah,

I kind of understand, and you the whole time you

think it that's dumb. No, come on, y'all, y'all know

you know you're like uh huh uh huh uh huh

uh huh, and you figured you know what needs to

be said, but maybe you don't have the relational equity

to say it to them in the way it needs

to be said. Do you ever wish you could go

to your boss and just tell them you talk too much?

Okay?

You ever wish you go to a family memorer like

you make us all uncomfortable, or you go to a

family member like you eat too much food? You not

eat too much food, like you take too much. See,

y'all's so judgmental. Y'all know that one family member that

comes and makes a plate to go.

Before they make.

Their actual plate, you need to tell them you didn't

bring anything.

Why why you?

But to have an honest conversation, you have to have

relational equity.

And so I begin to pray.

This week that that in this last cause I could

literally take this series for another ten weeks, but I

know I got to move on. And so I just said, Lord,

help me have the courage to talk to all these

people like it was just me and them, and we

have real relational equity that no matter what I say

in this conversation.

We still gonna be friends after this.

And so today, with that lens of love, I need

to tell you that your distraction is playing you. The

title of my sermon today is your distraction is playing you.

The thing that has begun, the thing that you go

to run to, are taken off of what you know

to do. For some of you, it's a TV show.

For others you, it's a person. For some of you,

it's a career path. For others of you, it's your children.

I'm saying, real thing. You are distracted on what God

puts you on this earth to do because of something

He's allowed you to be in proximity to and now

you're obsessed with a title. You're obsessed with living in

a neighborhood. You're obsessed with people liking you. You're obsessed

with the number of likes and follows. And God said,

all of that is a distraction, and what I put

on you and put in you is for your destiny.

But you are, but you are being distracted, and that

distraction is playing you.

Has anybody ever been played before?

No, no, no, no, I'm talking about like you really thought

somebody was in it for you and you got played. Okay,

Is anybody confused if you getting played? Right?

Now? Come on? Just hands up, Come on.

You talking to him and he like, yeah, in about

ten years, I'll marry you. Hold on, wait, he told

you up front ten years from now you're gonna marry you.

And you sitting there like, oh my god. Twenty thirty five.

What I remember this time? I got played with one

of my brothers. He's in the room, John Stanton. Yeah,

if you're my friend, you know you're gonna get used.

John Stanton played me as we both got played.

Let me tell you the story.

There was this brand of shoe that was really popular

about nine years ago.

Both of us didn't really have no money, but we

really liked nice things.

And these shoes were selling for like a thousand dollars, yeah,

on resale, and neither one of us had that. And

he worked at a shoe store and found this girl

who worked at another shoe store that could get them

for three hundred dollars a pair.

He was excited, he was jubilant.

He was so sure that this was a thing that

he came and shared his glee with me, And in

sharing his excitement, I got excited and was like, yo,

I can get three hundred. I can't get the thouh wow,

but I can get three hundred.

Let's do it together. And so both of us.

Scraped together with our small children, and we got kids

in the diapers and bottles and all kinds.

Of stuff, y'all. We was young, Okay.

We gave this three hundred dollars away to this person

that neither of us had ever met, not in person,

but they were real on ig. They contacted us back.

They doing all the things, and needless to say, the

time they said the shoes would be here, they were

not here. We started messaging them, They started deleting our messages.

To this day, I have never seen that product.

And at some point watch this, I had to come

to the realization that I was getting played. I had

to stop planning my outfits.

Oh come on, y'all. Y'all know when you know.

Something on the way, you'd be like, oh, I'm a

killing with this one.

I'll kill him.

I had to stop planning my outfits. I had to

stop planning for a refund. I had to come clean

to my wife. At some point I had to acknowledge

I am getting this is planning.

They planned me.

I tried to get mad at John, but I realized

he was getting played too. What I'm saying to you

right now is if you don't acknowledge that something is

using you, or using you in an abnormal way, you

won't realize that it's abuse.

It's abuse.

And if I could say it to you in a

raw way, that distraction that you have made a part

of your character, it's abusing you. Your confidence has taken

a hit like nothing.

You've ever experienced.

You you can't even remember the things God told you.

You used to be.

So sure of certain things, and because of what has happened,

and you've been getting played by the distraction of alcohol.

Alcohol ain't a sin. No, it's not a sin, but

you're no good on it. Alcohol's playing you. You make

poor decisions.

It's just a shot. Yes, it's just a shot.

It's not a sin, it's not a sin, but you're

not wise. See, you don't need to be like everybody's

trying to find this line.

I'm just trying.

If you won't be honest with yourself, your distraction is

playing you. Your desire for those things is making you

so upset about your now.

You can't even enjoy what God has done for.

You because that distraction is playing you. And today I

just I don't want to come and just acknowledge all

of our distraction. I just want to say, whatever it is,

there is no distraction that is for your good, not one.

And so for the past seven weeks, we've been looking

at the life of Samson, and then we looked.

At the life of Saul, and I just want to.

Say it to you like this, Your distraction is a

disguise and a destiny killer. Think about the thing you've

been distracted by. Some of y'all be on Facebook looking

at people you ain't been in school with for eighteen years.

I'm in your business. He's growing about on Facebook trying

to see what Lisa Santaaz is doing, not Sanchaez Santaaz.

And I'm just saying it's a small distraction.

But the energy that you're given to that is the

same energy that your wife is missing, a feeling cared for.

And you don't know why little pieces of you are

being eroded. Why it's not like it used to be.

It's not how it's because your distraction is playing.

You pastor Mike. Do you have precedence for this?

Yes, I do, as we've been looking at Samson's life.

And we've gone through the whole thing.

So if you can't pick up with us, you got

to go back and start from zero point one. But

Judges sixteen, verse seventeen, this is after Samson has been

with Delilah, I mean distraction for a period of time,

and it says verse seventeen. Finally Sampson shared his secret

with her. My hair has never been cut, girl, stop

nagging me, he confessed, for I dedicated. I was dedicated

to God as a Nazarite me. I can't mess with

anything that's dead, can't I can't take any strong drink,

and I can't cut my hair like this is what

God and my mam, and then made a deal with

I've known it my whole life, but I've been playing

with what could kill me my whole life from birth.

I've known this.

If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me

and I would become as weak as anyone else.

Verse eighteen.

Delilah, I mean distraction, realized he had finally told her

the truth. The distraction is looking for the truth of

what takes away your power.

Your distraction is looking for the thing? Can I get

them off?

And literally, Delilah finds out, and she tells the Philistine.

Rulers come back one off time.

I'd have found it, girl, I'd have found it, she said,

for he has finally told me his secret. So the

Philistine rulers returned with the money in her hand. Now

this is the person that Samson had been trusting. This

was a distraction he had been putting his faith in.

Sells him out Verse nineteen. Delilah, I mean distraction lulled

Samson to sleep with his head in her lap, and

then she called in all the men to shave off

the seven locks of his hair. In this way, she

began to bring him down, and his strength left him.

His strength left while he was sleep. He didn't even

get to fight.

For his strength.

He was so comfortable with his distraction that he put

his head in his distraction's laugh and lost his power

while sleeping. This is the plan of the enemy for

our lives, is to get us so distracted with things

that don't matter that we lose the power that God

has placed on the inside of us to reach our destiny.

And we don't even realize it. Okay, he said. When

he woke up, he thought like I thought, like a

lot of us thought.

I'll do as I did before and shake myself free.

I'll do as I did before. I'll just apologize and

our marriage will be putting back together.

I'll do as I did before. I'll just go back

and I'll try it again.

But he didn't realize the Lord had left him. So

the Philistines captured him, and look what they did. It's

very specific. They gouged out his eyes. They weren't after

his life life, they were after his vision. I need

everybody to hear me. The distractions in your life are

not after just.

Your life, They're after your vision.

Why wouldn't they just kill them all of his time.

They wanted to take something that would allow his power

to be useless. They took him to Gaza, where he

was bound with bronze chains and forced to grind grain

in the prison. This is how we're going to end

this whole thing, the six exits of distraction. Today, if

you're being distracted in any area, I'm going to give

you six times in your life where you can get

off of that highway that's leading to hell. You're on

a highway to hell. And I'm not talking about in

the afterlife. I'm talking about right on this earth. Some

of y'all don't got to wait to die to go

to hell. You living in it every sing.

No, y'all gotta come on you. This is hell going

through all of this. And I'm trying to give you.

The ability to understand what distractions do so you can

get off on the exit.

Okay. The first thing you need to know about.

A distraction is a distraction always starts off neutral. Anything

that is a distraction in your life was not no

big distraction trying to take your life at the beginning.

It was something you discovered.

Wow, that drink is good Wow, her butt is nice.

Hmm are those apps?

It's never malicious. It's like, oh, that's a nice vacation.

They went on. It's neutral.

The best place to get off the highway of hell

is when you notice it, leave it right. His wife

is fine, that ain't my wife? Yeah? See, so many

times were trying to demonize the discovery. Yeah, why are

we demonizing the discovery when a child has never had

ice cream before? If you ever see a child that's

been just eating like Kiwi's and and and uh, guacamole

and broccoli.

The first time.

They get some Bluebel vanilla ice cream, their whole bodies

starts shaking it. WHOA, my god? Why why we don't go? Ah,

that's not good. It's it's discovery. It's it's if that

becomes their only place to eat. Yeah, it's and if

that's what they think is breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Do you understand what I'm saying. So what I'm saying

is it's neutral.

But many of us have things right now that are

neutral that if you don't get off of making that

thing something you keep looking at. I heard it said

like this, the first look is not the issue. It's

the second look, y'all hear.

What I'm saying. The first look is not the issue.

If I go and I'm walking and I'm like, oh okay.

It's the y'all know.

What I'm talking about is the I'm putting myself in danger?

What are you looking at too long?

I'm just we're in the gym, we're talking vulnerable.

Why do you keep looking at it? Why do you

keep looking at them? Why do you keep looking at

what you don't have? Why do you keep looking at

what church?

And what that? What place? And what car? And what?

Why do you why do you keep looking at it?

Some of y'all need to have a block party.

I'm not talking about outside New York.

I'm just talking about everything in your life that is

something that you can look at and that takes your

attention or your focus. You need to block it. And

the reason you don't is because of an easy word

that most people don't understand.

It's pride.

You actually think you better than you are in that situation.

I can handle that. I can swipe past it. I

can look at it.

Until you can't. That's some ke Why are you saying this?

Because some of you would save your family's line if

you would get off the exit of this distraction while

it's neutral. Because after a distraction is neutral, this what happens.

It becomes nurtured. If you don't kill the distraction at neutral,

then you start to nurture it. Then you start to

make provisions for it. Then you start to do it

secretly when nobody's around in only every six weeks and

every six months, and then you start to make provisions

for it, and then you make excuses for it. And

I know it's quiet in here because I'm in your business.

The truth of the matter is right now. Some of

you have been nurturing these things just for the right

opportunity for them to get grown enough to kill you.

And God's telling you this is the season. I'm telling

you the focus put death to distraction. I forgive you.

It's gone past neutral. You started to nurture it. Get

off of this highway right now. And while you've nurtured it,

before it takes you off, you need to exit.

Delilah started off neutral.

It was just another philistine woman that he saw.

And the crazy thing is he was supposed to.

Be the hero, the chance being for the philistine to

actually kill all the Philistines. But he started to love

what he was supposed to conquer, and it went from

neutral to he started nurturing it. Remember he said to

his father earlier, he said, I must have her.

I got it. I mean, it's my birthday. I gotta

go to the club. I'm only turning thirty once. I'm

only turning forty once. I'm only like, we make these

things in our head, Like I'm forty six.

What happens at forty six, I don't know, but today

I'm gonna do it. We make these things, and what

we're doing many times, watch this is nurturing our distractions.

And anytime you nurture something, you give it enough fuel,

enough food for it to grow. So I'm just asking you,

wherever you're at right now, if your distraction you've started

to actually nurture it, I'm asking you to develop it.

I'm asking you put a.

Death to that distraction right here, because if you don't,

it goes from being neutral something you discovered, to something

that you nurture, which is developed. To watch this, it

becomes natural. And when your distraction and you are natural

with each other, it becomes the thing that desensitizes you.

Some of us right now, if your closest friends told

you your real issue, you would get so triggered.

If your friends just so.

You have an issue shopping and you're like, this is

you shopping?

What you talking about? I don't have no issues sho.

And your card on Amazon right now has ninety eight

things in them. Okay, I know that that got that

got personal. I saw the eyes come at me right there.

I mean, and I'm not not saying that it's wrong

or bad or not, but like when.

You have an issue, you know what you go to do.

You're not gonna pray, You're not gonna go talk to God,

You're not gonna ask for counsel.

You're gonna go shop. He done pissed me off. I oh,

I damn, I ain't that. Come on, let's be honest.

Why are you saying that?

Because now, because of culture, because of your friends, because

of it being secret, nobody even thinks it's an issue.

So right now many of us are distraction is covert.

It's not an issue. Everybody does it, and God says,

but this takes your focus. Every time I try to

tell you to come spend some time with me, you

buying a new dress. It's only five ninety nine. It's

costing you more than five ninety nine. It's causing you direction,

it's costing you wisdom, it's costing hearing from me.

But it's so natural, it's so natural, and.

Please don't feel this criminated against. I'm not calling everybody's

situation because I gotta get us past this point. But

I'm just saying, whatever your distraction is, if it's comfortable

and natural to you, you may be desensitized when the

Holy Spirit tries to touch you and say, hey, this

is an issue. You don't even feel it no more.

I don't got no conviction around that. No, your numb.

He he you should. He's touching you.

He's saying, stop saying that, Stop talking like that, stop

cussing like that, stop talking to them kids like that.

He's hey, hey, hey, hey, but you don't feel it

no more because it's been so natural.

Okay, I gotta move. If you don't kill it when

it's neutral, then it gets nurtured. If you don't kill

it when it's nurtured, it becomes natural. If you don't

kill it when it's natural.

Y'all know that Sampson.

Has tried, has been assassin has had an assassination attempt

against his life four times, and this dumby, no I

have to call him what he is at this moment,

is still going to continue to stay around the thing

that he nearly escaped death three other times that he

knows of how many of y'all pray that pray God,

if you get me out it is Lord. I'm telling

you right now, if you get me out of this situation,

I'll promise you.

I promise, I'll make ather. And he gets you out

of there, and you forget.

Okay, you become desensitized, and watch this Judge is sixteen nineteen.

Delilah lulls Himpson to sleep with his head in her lap,

and then she called in the men to shave off

his seven locks. After it becomes natural, your distraction ask

you to take a nap. And when your distraction ask

you to take a nap, this is what happened. You

become detached. You're not even, you're not even, you're not

even cognizant of reality.

No more.

Have you ever had a friend doing something so dumb

that's obvious that everybody else, but they really think that

it's the thing to do.

They become detached.

I heard a story of somebody doing something really, really,

really like, I can't even believe you would leave all

of what God has done for this thing that's not

even real. But they were so detached from reality. They

had taken a nap in the lap of a distraction.

And I think about this, and said he had seven dreadlocks.

He was a brother, by the way, because he had dreadlocks.

Y'all see that. Okay, there's just blues clues. Put it together.

Okay, my man takes a nap and they cut off

seven locks of hair.

I wonder which one did his witch cut? Was the

one he lost his power? Which one? Y'all think it

was the first one? No, it wasn't the last one.

It couldn't have been the last one, because he said

his hair should have never been cut.

So the first cut, and.

He probably had seven, thinking the grace wasn't gonna run out. Surely,

surely God's gonna And he told him, Hey, don't let none.

Of y'all and some of us play with God like that.

And your distraction is playing you. You're laying in the

lap of the thing that's about to take your power.

He loses his power. And if you're at the place

where you where you're taking a napew your sleep on

a distraction.

Wake God, no, no, no, hear what I'm saying to you.

I needed to be loud like an alarm. Wake God.

Hear me, because the only thing that could have saved

Samson at that moment, yeah before as the sisters were coming,

as if he would have woken up. And some of

y'all are so close, You've been playing with it so long.

This is my last time I can talk about this

for a couple of weeks, and I just gotta tell

somebody you may not have next month. I'm just saying

Tomorrow's not promise. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm

just trying to tell you the truth. Like like you're

waiting for this thing that happened for you to actually

obey God, and God's like, ay, you might not have

all the chances you think you got. I'm not't even

talking about death. You think you're gonna play that woman

again and she gonna stay with you. You think you're

gonna lie of those children again and they're gonna still

have the same respect level for you. You think that

you're going to steal from that job again, and you

still gonna have a job. I'm saying there are consequences in.

Some of y'all like that's extreme. Apply it for you.

Came as an oracle of God today to tell you your

distraction is playing you. Your distraction is going to be

sitting there watching you lose what God promised you.

This is where we end.

If you don't get off the exit at Neutral, and

you don't get off the exit at nurtured, and you

don't get off the exit at natural, and you don't

get off the exit.

At NAP, this is what happens.

Then something gets mixed in your life. See, everybody thinks

that the nixing or the cutting or the taking away

or the ending of something was his hair. That wasn't

the only thing they took. It's enough, he's powerless. Now

watch what I'm saying to you.

They cut his hair, they take his hair, they take

his strength, but they take something else.

So the Philistines verse twenty one, Judge sixteen twenty one

captured him and gallup out his eyes. They took his sight,

they took his vision. What are you saying, pastor mic

They wanted him to live in the dark. Your distraction

ultimate goal is for you to live in the dark.

They could have killed him. It could have been death.

They said, Nah, it's better for everybody to see him

still survive, but in his state of weakness. Your distraction

wants you to still be seen, but still be bound.

Oh God, your distraction wants you to still be able

to show up, but not be able to say anything.

Your distraction wants you to be alive, but not be living. God,

your distraction is playing you. And the reason I know

is because it played me for years. My distractions of pornography, addiction,

my distractions of comparison, my distractions I'm not telling you

something that I just want you to go do.

I've walked this thing out.

My distraction of lust, my distractions of perversion, my distractions

of a love for money. This series I'm about to

preach next week is from my life. I had wicked

things in my heart when it came to money and

wealth and what it would make me, and God had

to take and strip me of all of those things

to actually let me see that wealth is supposed to

work for the kingdom.

It's supposed to be a tool.

A few weeks ago, we told the church that as

a church, in the last ten years, we've given away

thirty four million dollars.

Y'all don't understand. Yeah, praise God.

But the thing that you don't understand is if God

wouldn't have stripped me of the distraction.

Of a wicked.

That money would have had me doing other things. Guys,

I'm trying to plead with you today. I'm not trying

to make you feel bad. I've done the same thing.

All I'm saying to you is you're not gonna change

nothing you think is helping you.

And I just came to tell you your distraction is

playing you.

They take Samson's vision, and after his vision is gone,

it turns nuclear. I'm stopping for a moment because I'm

just thinking about what would have happened if I got distracted.

I'm sitting here on this day actually messed up because

I was told earlier this week that March ninth today

is the day that God gave me a vision ten

years ago in my daughter's room at seven twenty nine.

Many of you know the story.

Many of you know.

Just bring it to me real quick, and I blew

it up so that you could see the reality of this,

and I start getting emotional because ten years ago today

I had nothing. I had just become the lead pastor

of Transformation Church. Thirty seven days earlier. I was sitting

there with three hundred people in the church, and I

woke up under anxiety and pressure, not knowing if I

could stay pure and not look at pornography, and how

can I lead people my parents' age, and how I

just had all this the what is anybody gonna give?

Are they gonna trust me?

Are they gonna find out that I went to jail

and I had to serve community service.

They did, they found out. Let me be let me

be clear, like.

But God said, he said, Michael, I'm gonna give you

a vision. I'm gonna give you a destiny. I'm gonna

give you a destination. And sitting in my daughter's room

at seven twenty nine to eight m Bella's room, I

wrote it down. March ninety, twenty fifteen, the Spirit Bank

Event Center will be Transformation Church.

I wrote it down.

I took this picture off of Google. I tried to

make the image as good as I can. If you

get close up on it, you can see how my

pages document didn't really allow me to win. I even

spelled transformation wrong. I spelled transfer may on. I forgot

the tea. I leave it just like this to let

people know that it doesn't have to be perfect. It

has to be written down, it has to.

Come from God.

I wrote this down, and as I think of us

on March nineteen years later, shooting a movie on this

exact day, in this facility, that was not Oh God,

in this facility, that was just a vision on a.

Piece of paper. And the first thing said, we will

have a state of.

The art facility. This is before we had a speaker,

a stage of light. And it just goes on to

say all of these things. I start to think, what

would happen if I would have got distracted believe the

lies and believe what they said. And when God told

me to represent and God told us to do ransom,

and then we got people writing blogs on.

Us and all that other stuff.

What if I would have got distracted, I would have

missed out on one of the many destinies destinations. Today,

I'm just here to ask you don't miss out on

whatever God has for you because you've fallen in love.

With a distraction. Your distraction is playing you.

My favorite part about this whole scripture. I'm gonna just

set this right here. It's Judges verse sixteen and twenty two.

This is gonna encourage somebody. He gets captured, his eyes

get gouged.

Out, he gets put on display. But somebody shot at me.

But I'm not talking about your glutiest maximism.

But I'm talking.

About the word that interrupts whatever sentence is being written

about you.

Whatever lie has been said, God says, but oh God,

whatever thing that you've been going down, and everything that

you've been going, God will significantly stop being and say,

but not them, but not my children, but not this family.

But no, no, no, no, no, no.

They were this, but they've been redeemed.

They were a liar. But any man that be in

Christ here is a new creation.

They were addicted. But I'm the one who sets you free.

And if I set you free, you are free in

team Samson has been distracted his whole life. But before long,

the Bible says in verse twenty two.

His hair began to grow back.

I feel like God is about to do a road

gain situation in some of y'all situations, y'all your hair

about to your faith is about to grow back. Your

confidence is about to grow back. Your integrity is about

to grow back. God is not gonna let it in

like this, standing.

All over this building. What are you saying, pastor Mike?

You can have focus After the failure, Samson, After he

lost his eyes, he didn't lose his voice, and he

began to pray to God. Some of y'all are in

darkness right now, but you still got your voice.

Some of you can't see your way forward.

But the enemy wants you to shut up, and you

need to use your voice Judge of sixteen twenty. And

then Samson prayed to the Lord, Sovereign, Lord, just remember

me again. Oh God, please strengthen me just one more time.

With one blow, let me pay back these Philistines. What

he's saying, with one blow, this one last act? Can

I please still reach destiny? You assigned me from birth

to defeat the Philistines. I had to go through a

lot because I was distracted.

I lost my.

Place, I lost my sight, I lost my hair. But

one more time, God, could you use me so I

can actually fulfill my destiny?

He said, Can I pay them back for the loss

of my two eyes?

Then Samson put his hands on the two center pillars

that held up the temple, pushing against them, not with

just his own strength, but with the strength of Heaven's

army behind him, with both hands. Watch what he did.

He's pushing and praying. He's pushing and praying. He's not

just pushing. He's just not using his own strength. He's

pushing and praying. It says with both hands. He pushed

Verse thirty, and he prayed, let me die with the Philistines,

and the temple crashed down on the Philistine rulers and.

All the people. So he killed more people when he

died then during the time that he was alive.

When you turn to Jesus, you can steal fulfill your

destiny after distraction, give God praise in this frost. Somebody

say it's not finished. Y'all missed it. Somebody say it's

not finished. So you decide, You decide today. I just

want to pray for everybody that knows they got to

get off one of these exits.

I'm gonna pray for you, and.

I'm gonna ask anybody that wants to ask Jesus into

your life. I want you to have an opportunity because

that's the only thing that changed my focus. And as

we do that again, this moment right here is about

people giving their life to Christ. Yeah, we're about to

shoot a scene from a movie right after this, and

if you got to go, you can do that. But

there is nothing more important that will happen today, not

one thing than this right here, because we're talking about

life and death. We're talking about walking around in darkness

or walking around in His marvelous light. Today is the

only thing that changed my life. And I need our

church to be praying. If you're watching online right now,

today is the day of salvation. If there is any

area in your life that you know distraction has been

leading you down the wrong path, would you just identify

by just lifting your hand. I want to pray for

you today, just in any area I'm in the right place,

And would you join one of those hands and just

lift it like you're ready to receive.

Yeah.

Father, today, I just thank you that we're coming to

you vulnerably, humbly, and we're repenting, we're turning, and we're

saying God, forgive us for being committed to our distraction more.

Than we have been committed to your instructions. Today we

turn back to you.

Whatever you tell us to do, we shall do whatever

you say that we need to do. We will be obedient, Father,

even if we're in the dark. Right now, we don't

feel like we could hear you speak, Lord, because your servants,

your sons and daughters are listening. Father. We need more

than what's happening right now, and today we know we

can't do it without you.

God, let us be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Father. Some

of us have been so familiar with our.

Delilahs and our distractions, Father God, that we don't even

know who we are without them. But today I thank

you for giving us a brand new identity. Yeah, that

we can let go of relationships that have nothing for us,

Father and actually live in freedom. That we can, Father, God,

take our careers that have not.

Been serving us, but been running us.

God, we can put them in their proper perspective.

God.

Today we are saying there is no one else else

that we will focus on more than You, And so

today we look to you. Thank You that today will

be a line of demarcation, because we will not let

our distraction steal our vision Another day. Hell us, redeem us,

refocus us, and I just declare, Father God, that everybody

that's making this decision there will be divine help that

comes to their every day life. Father, your Holy Spirit

is not just for a church experience.

It is actually for how we live in the streets.

So God, I thank you.

That tomorrow and today and the rest of this week

and the rest of this year, Father, you will allow

us to walk and focus.

We will hear you. Since you Father, it will be

so detailed.

You'll be able to say, don't go there, and we

will listen and obey. You'll be able to say, stop

talking to them, and you will will listen and obey.

You will be able to say.

Father, God, sit and wait on me, will wait on you.

Do what work on the inside of us.

As our prayer.

Now for anybody in here in the same attitude, because

God's doing heart surgery right now. If you're in this room,

if you've never accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and savior, I.

Don't care who you are. I don't care if you're.

A producer from Hollywood, and I don't care if you

came out of here off the street.

Today is your day of salvation.

God has divinely orchestrated all of these moments to get

you to this moment right here. And I don't want

nothing for you. I want everything for I don't want

anything from you. I want everything for you. I want

you to experience the freedom that comes when you surrender

your life to Jesus.

And it's very simple.

According to Romans ten nine, it said as if you

confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that

Jesus Christ is Lord, you.

Will be saved. Is that it? Yeah, there's some other

things that you're gonna have to.

Go through to actually get your life in line with that.

But I'm telling you your name will be written in

the Lamb's Book of Life.

If you're watching online or you're in this room, I'm.

Telling you right now today, God wants to transform your life.

On the count of three.

If that's you, and there will be multiple people, there's

hands already going up.

I just want you to throw your hand in the air.

One, you're making the greatest decision of your life.

Two, I'm proud of you.

But your name is gonna be written in the Lamb's

Book of Life. Three just lift your hands all up.

I see you, I see you, My sister, my brother,

I see you.

I see you.

Come on, y'all, I see you, my brother. More than

I see you. God sees you, y'all.

Let's celebrate what's happening in here. Hallelujah, Thank you Lord.

Hey, listen, we're a family at TC. Nobody prays alone.

Everybody just live here and say God.

Thank you for sending Jesus just for me. Today.

I give up my distractions and I focus on you.

I believe you lived, you die, and you rose again

with all power just for me. Here's my life. Change me,

renew me, transform me. I'm yours in Jesus' name. Hey man, Hey,

can we celebrate with all that heaven? Oh?

Y'all gotta do better than that? Can we celebrate? Holler luljah?

Thank you for joining us today.

If you said that prayer and accept it Jesus into

your heart, it's the best decision you could ever make.

We want to celebrate with you, and we have some

tools to help you on your journey. Tech saved to

A two A two A two and to find out

more about TC text connect to A two A two

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with your friends. Thanks for listening now, Go out and

live a transform life.