You are invited to stop relying on your own strength and let God break you down to build you up for His purpose. Embrace the journey of obedience that leads to weakness, knowing it is the only place where true revival happens. Take up your cross and step out in faith, trusting that God will supply the evangelistic grace you need.
Alright. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of my story. So my I'm not gonna give you my my testimony because there's just no time for it, but I will give you briefly a little bit of my childhood. My mom and dad were not in the picture. I was dropped off when I was in third grade at my grandparents' house.
My grandma was on her knees in prayer in her room, and the Lord said to her, you're pregnant? She says, I'm not pregnant. The Lord says, no, you're pregnant. She goes, I can't be pregnant. That's just that doesn't happen anymore at my age, all right?
And the Lord says, you are pregnant, and she hears the door, someone knock on the door. She goes to the door, it's my mom dropping me off at her house, and my mom says, I can't take care of any take care of Michael anymore, I'm leaving him with you. My grandparents raised me from that day forward. My mom had a crack addiction, heroin addiction, lived under a bridge in Downtown Los Angeles most of my teenage life. Now, she's been clean and sober for over 20 years, owns a home, just moved to Fort Worth, Texas, all right, All because she heard the audible voice of God in her jail cell after she had overdosed and completely transformed her life.
And that's a whole another story that would blow your mind, all right? But I just like to make sure not leave my mom under the bus there and just say, she's doing great now, but thank the Lord, Alright, but my grandparents raised us, or raised me, and my grandparents were in ministry, they got saved in the Jesus movement, and they had this gift on their life of miracles. And growing up as a child, my grandfather had an office in his back room that he would minister healing and deliverance to people. And as a kid growing up, I saw countless miracles take place. People healed of AIDS, people healed of cancer.
My my friend Kevin came over with really bad scoliosis. His arm was probably like, you know, almost a hand's length shorter than the other. I watched it grow out in front of my eyes. I remember coming home, walking home from from school 1 day, I think I was in sixth or seventh grade, maybe around there, maybe even fifth grade, back when kids, you know, could walk home from school. And walking home and I hear screaming.
And I'm like, what is that sound, you know, and I'm getting closer to my house, and the closer I get to my I'm like, probably a block away from my house, I'm hearing screaming, might have even been 2 blocks. I'm walking, I'm like, it's getting louder. And pretty soon I get to my house, it's coming from my house. My grandma has the door open, I see her pacing, she's praying, I walk in, I'm like, what is going on? You know, and she goes, don't go to the back bathroom if you have to use the bathroom, use the other bathroom, your grandpa's casting the demon out of someone, or casting a demon out of someone in his office, I don't want you to go back there.
Well, what does a little kid do? I'm like, I'm curious, you know, I'm gonna go check this out. So I go to the back bathroom, and I walk past his office, his door's right here, the bathroom's here, and I'm just like, and what I see is a guy levitating off the floor with his back bent, not naturally, screaming in a not natural voice as my grandpa's rebuking a demon. And that guy left our house completely free. And I grew up seeing these things, right?
And just these wild, supernatural things as a kid. I grew up in church. I I fully believed in Jesus because of everything that I saw. And I I gotta pause right there because I'm gonna go into my testimony, I'm not gonna go there. Okay?
But long story short, I got "born again" at 21. And when I got born again, I didn't know my grandfather had just passed away. Okay. I got saved maybe 2 weeks after he died. And long story short, I didn't know anything other than you're just supposed to go and pray for the sick and cast out demons.
Literally, because that's what I watched my grandparents do. So I come into the kingdom and I am going after it. I'm praying for everything that moves, all right? I'm just binding demons the best I knew how. I'm like, not even a month old in the Lord, and I'm just going after it, and praise God for that, and we should do that, and we should teach those we're discipling to do that, okay?
But that's all I knew, literally. And I wasn't in a church that was teaching you how to preach the gospel, they never talked about it, they never encouraged it. Time goes by and I'm overseas for a little while doing some missions work. I come home and I basically get introduced to, this band called Jesus Culture which introduces me to Bill Johnson and after listening to Bill Johnson, I say I'm gonna go to this ministry school but I, long story short on that, I was burnt out, I didn't wanna do ministry anymore because of something that had happened overseas, and the Lord speaks to me supernaturally, supplies $9,000 to go to his ministry school. I end up at ministry school, my life's dedicated to ministry.
I go to the school because I want a greater measure of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I want to meet my wife. She's being real with you, all right? So I met my wife, praise God. That's a whole another story that took a while. She's amazing.
And and so but I go through this ministry school, and I come out of the ministry school, and I saw tons of miracles happen now. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are flowing, just the prophetics flowing, "words of knowledge" are flowing. It's it's amazing and it's wonderful. Me and my wife start pastoring on the East Coast for about 2 and a half years, and the Lord put it on my heart, I really wanted to plant a ministry school. Well, we were gonna move back to California to spend time with my grandma because she was getting older and I wanted her to be around my wife Emily.
And so we had made plans to move back, but I was like, Lord, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Like if I have, I was doing refinery work for a while working in the oil fields, I was like, I'll go back and I'll do that, whatever I have to do. And the Lord, or the pastor of the church I got saved in calls me 1 day, him and is the executive pastor and they said, hey, we heard you might be moving back to California, would you help us plant a ministry school? I said, absolutely. So I come back, I get to pioneer a ministry school, I get to lead that for 5 years.
Wasn't huge, it's about 55 students in the school. We had a first and second year. God's doing incredible things, miracles, people are being activated in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It's in it's awesome. And then about, we were in California for about 5 years, 2017 to 2022.
And about 2019, every time I opened the Bible, I saw something about the preaching of the gospel. And I couldn't get away from it. I mean, every single time I opened the Bible was something about preaching the gospel. And, it brought me to this place to where 1 day I'm sitting in my office and I'm just like, Lord, I just gotta be really honest with you. I've been doing ministry now for like, at that point, maybe 10 years.
I don't know how to preach the gospel. I've been to ministry school, I've been a pastor for a few years now, and I don't even know how to preach the gospel. All I know how to say to someone is *Jesus* died on the cross for your sins. And I don't know what else to say. And I had, I got I got to this place of humbling.
And and I was like, Lord, I I that's that's not right. Like, I need to preach the gospel. And the Lord began to reveal to me why we're here. We're here to minister the gospel. And I started having these pictures go through my head of all the people that I had gotten prophetic words for, or I prayed for that were healed, and the missions trips we had gone on, and all the cool things we saw God do.
I remember, I was just sharing this with someone and I forget who it was. But being in India on a ministry trip and saw this absolute outpouring of the spirit, Like a room a little bigger than this, full of Hindu people crowding around our team of about 10 people. I mean like throngs of people pulling on our clothes. And all we had to do was touch them and say, in Jesus' name, be healed. And they were instantly healed.
It was a divine, like supernatural, just sovereign outpouring of God, right in front of mother Teresa's house of the dying, and the god goddess temple of death, destruction, and lust. Who wants to serve that God? No. All right. Right in front, there's Brahmin priests.
I mean, was absolutely incredible. And it breaks my heart, but not 1 of them heard the gospel. Not 1 of them heard the gospel. I don't know how many healings happened. Not 1 person heard the gospel.
And I just sat there in my office just thinking, my, Lord, something's not right. That's not right. And I brought just it humbled me. And I I was just in a place of like, Lord, I don't know what to do, but I need you to help me with this. And so the Lord began to speak to me about what the gospel was and he gave me this revelation of the gospel.
And and just just put it in my heart, this is what the gospel is, Mike. And then I'm like, okay, that's great Lord, but how do I actually share this with someone? Because I, my knees are shaking at the thought doing this. I could walk up and pray for a sick person, no problem, no fear whatsoever. When it comes to sharing the gospel though, there was like this fear attached to it.
And so all I knew to do was watch Todd White videos. Alright? So I just started watching Todd White, and started watching, you know what I mean, pretty much just Todd White, because he's pretty much the only person that was doing that that I thought, okay? And I'm going through these videos, and I'm like, hey, that's great, Lord, but he's like this spiritual superman, I'm not that. I can't do that.
And I would walk into Trader Joe's, or I'd walk into a place where there's a lot of people and I'd just be like, I know I'm supposed to share with you, but I can't share with all of you. I don't know what to do. I'm just, I'm frozen now. And I'm just praying. I'm asking the Lord for help.
Well, our our church would do a conference every year called epicenter, and we were trying to have, Dan Mueller come. Anyone know who Dan Mueller is? We're trying to have Dan Mueller come and speak. And, that fell through, and then we're gonna have another speaker come, and that fell through. And then we were gonna get this guy named Chris Donald.
I'm like, who is Chris Donald? I'm like, whatever, you know what I mean? Like, sure. I go to pick up Chris at the airport, at Los Angeles Airport, and I see this super tall white guy praying for this guy right outside the terminal, and the guy is just sobbing as people are just walking by just staring at him. And I'm like, if that's not Chris, then I don't know, that's awesome.
I don't know, this is wild, you never see this. And finally it was because he walks over to my car and he goes, that guy just got born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit standing right there. I'm like, wow. And we're driving down the street, I'm taking him to a Mexican restaurant in Redondo Beach over by my house where I grew up. And we I pull over to the side of the road really quick to get some directions, and there's couple gentlemen walking on the side of the road, and I hear Chris.
And I'm looking at my phone, and Chris was looking at his phone too, and then he goes, oh, my heart. And I'm like, oh, are you okay? You know, like, it startled me. He said it so loud, and he goes, I feel the "love of God" for those guys across the street. And I'm like, 2 things went through my head.
1, I'm like, that's a little weird. And 2, I'm like, if that's legit, I don't have love like that. I've never felt that for a person before. And we get to the to the restaurant, this beach, and there's like this strand where everyone walks, this boardwalk. And I mean, pretty much every other group of people, we got a word of knowledge and they would get healed and they get touched by God.
We walk into the restaurant, the manager and the hostess said, which 1 of you has the knee problem? This lady's, this girl's like, me, I got hit by a bus 2 years ago, it still gives me problems, she gets healed. Go to the table, sit down, a guy comes to make our guacamole, he manifests the demon while he's making our guacamole. We didn't even I think Chris said Jesus loves you and the guy manifests the demon. And I'm sitting there like, who is this dude?
Right? And I get to spend the next 3 days with Chris. Turns out to be 4 because he missed his flight, hallelujah. And, me and my wife get to spend time 4 days with Chris and get to pick his brain. And after that time, and I'm sharing this very purposefully.
Alright? After that time when he left, we were never the same, me and my wife. We were never the same. There was a kindling of something on the inside of us. There was a transference of the grace of the evangelist that came upon us.
I couldn't look at people at the market the same. I couldn't pray for the sick the same. I couldn't just get prophetic words and walk away like I used to. Everything changed. Even for my wife, everything changed.
And now we had this every single day. It's like it increased a little every day. And pretty soon, I'm just like, ah. Like, I gotta share with someone. I can't keep it out of me.
It's burning on the inside for me to share the gospel. And I finally, it got to where I was gonna explode, and I got out of myself, and I started sharing. And it was 1 person here, and then a week would go by. And then it was another person here, and then 2 people. And then it was only like 3 days, and then I'd share again.
And then all of a sudden it was happening. But then I hit this wall and I just kinda, like, would burn out. And I'd call Chris. I'm like, dude, how do you do this? I don't no one's doing this except me.
And my wife, we had 2 kids under 2 at the time, so it was a little different for her. All the moms in here, if you've been through that, you know. All right? She wasn't able to do it as much, but I'm over here just like, ugh. And long story short, stepped down from pastoring.
I'm skipping over a lot of stuff. In 2022, we feel the call to partner with 30 third company and Chris invites us to come to Fort Worth, Texas. I come there fully with the intention of being an intern under Chris because I wanted to grow more. And he says, no, you're actually gonna be our internship coordinator. And I'm like, you don't understand.
That's not where I'm at right now. And had I known Robbie was the reaper, I would have been super intimidated. But I didn't know Robbie at the time, he was in that class when I was invited to come be the coordinator. And, what happened was when I got to Texas was God began to break me. I mean break me.
Every single time, every meeting, I was in the weakest place I'd ever been to in my entire life. I remember sitting outside because when we got to Texas, there's so much stuff I could share with you guys. Just supernatural provision from God like you couldn't even believe, all right. And spiritual warfare on another level like you would never believe, All right. But I'm sitting in front of my house, I had to take up a job at FedEx for a season.
And I'm sitting outside of my house, it's late at night, I had gotten home late, I'm exhausted. And I'm sitting in my car outside just tears running down my face. I'm like, God, what is going on? What is happening? And he says to me, he goes, Michael, no 1 knows who you are.
You have no message to preach. You have no pulpit to preach it in. You have no influence. I've taken everything from you and it's exactly where I want you to be. And it just broke.
And I was in so much warfare, you guys. Every single day, it's like hell was coming against me. And the Lord's like, you're right where I want you to be. And I go into worship and I'm just broken before the Lord. I'm just broken.
2, 3 months of this goes by. And then 1 day, it finally clicks. I'm sitting there, and I'm like, I'm in this place in worship. We would have worship. I actually forget what day it was now, but we'd be in Chris's living room for our equipping times, I think it was.
And we'd be in worship and I'd just be sobbing. And it clicked 1 day. I'm like, *Lord*, I don't ever wanna leave this. Because what happened was is I would go out in such a broken state. We'd go out and we'd have to preach the gospel.
And we'd be out for hours in the heat, in the freezing cold. Texas weather is no joke. All right? And I'm in this broken place. And God, I literally I don't know how else to describe it other than I became putty in his hands.
I'm like, literally, God, I have nothing to give right now. I am 1000 percent broken and empty. So if you don't show up, nothing will happen. And he showed up every time. And I began to see more fruit than I'd ever seen in my entire life.
There was a boldness that came upon me that I cannot describe to you. I was approaching people that I would never in my life have thought of approaching because I was so empty and so broken, I just didn't care. It was God. And this kept increasing and increasing until I got to this place where I'm just like, Lord, I don't ever want this to end. I started praying crazy prayers because the season began to shift.
And all of a sudden, I was being invited to speak. And all of a sudden, there was there was change beginning to happen. There was influence that was coming. There was promotion happening. And I'm like, Lord, I don't wanna ever leave this place of weakness.
It's the closest I've ever been to you. I don't wanna leave this place of weakness, Lord. How do I stay weak? How do I stay broken? And the Lord spoke to me super clear in a worship service at church 1 morning.
He said, Michael, obedience will always lead you to the place of weakness. Obedience will always lead you to a place of weakness. Because if we're obedient to the Lord and what he's asked us to do, there's no way you can do it in your own strength. It will have to be him. I say this, this is all gonna sink in, I promise.
If it hasn't sunk in yet, it's gonna sink in for you. I say all this because we had this make disciples event and we're asking you to not be a Sunday Christian, but to be a full time Christian. And to embrace something called the Great Commission, not the Great Suggestion, and to step out and do it in your everyday life when no one's around and no one's watching. And it's going to have to be God. And if this makes you nervous, I'm sorry.
But he's gonna break you just like he broke me. He's gonna break you like he broke Taylor, like he broke Hannah, like he broke Robbie, like he broke your pastors, like he broke Elisha. We all had to have a moment of, Lord I have nothing left it's all yours. I surrender all. "I surrender all".
I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna I I'm I have nothing but your will be done. Because I love you. And if I get you, that's all I want. Whatever you're asking.
Break me. Have your way with me. Here I am. And when you get to that place, everything changes. But I say this to, this is where I wanna go with this.
It all started with a revelation of the *gospel* and being around an evangelist who had an evangelistic grace on his life that was imparted to me. And when that happened, it was like this perpetual thing. It just kept growing this wave of what God was doing in my heart. And now, and I say this humbly, seen hundreds of people born again. There's more people on my discipleship list than I can keep up with.
Every single week now I'm hanging out with my friends who are all young in the Lord, 2 months or less maybe, some of them a little bit more. My friends, I actually miss them. I want to spend time with them. God has done this thing I would have never in my wildest dreams ever imagined he could do through my life. I get to direct an internship that is seen I just got the numbers from 1 of our guys who tracks them.
After today's outreach, because some of our Jesus year interns led people to the Lord, we're at, like, 1,604 people born again. Right? Incredible. So tonight, we're about to pray. There's an evangelistic grace on my life and I say that humbly.
There's an evangelistic grace on our Jesus your interns. There's an evangelistic grace on Robbie and on your pastors. It's why you're blessed to be at a church that embraces the will of God and preaching the gospel and discipleship. And tonight, I'm gonna invite you to come forward, to have hands laid upon you. But when we lay our hands upon you, it's not gonna be some flash in the pan.
It's not gonna be some, like, something. It it's it's gonna it's gonna it's gonna mark the beginning of a journey of the Lord breaking you down and building you up. Bringing you to the point of where he can work with you and develop you. And if you're scared, I totally get that, but it is the best thing that will ever happen. Jesus said, you can't find life unless you lose it.
Our interns can tell you right now, never in their wildest dreams would they have experienced what they're experiencing unless they got out of themselves and they let their lives go. Unless they let the Lord, unless they took up their cross, he's gonna do it in your life. But tonight, our impartation time, I don't even know how to describe it, I've been wrestling with it since Robbie told me this is what we're going to do tonight. There's going to be a grace that comes upon you when we touch you. All right?
But but what else is gonna happen is is there's gonna be a journey started of of breaking, and of surrender, and an invitation to take up your cross like never before. But the end of "it is gonna be glorious". Chris used to say this all the time, it's not gonna be glamorous, but it is gonna be glorious. It's not glamorous when you're in a 115 degree weather in Texas knocking on doors and you're soaking wet with sweat, and people are cussing you out on the doorstep. It ain't glamorous.
No 1 knows who you are, you don't have some big crowd in front of you of, you know, millions of people. You're just knocking on doors in the middle of a neighborhood in the hood in Texas and no 1 knows you're there. But all of heaven's going whacko over it. It's glorious and you feel the pleasure of God on every door you knock on. It's revival.
It's revival. It's why we've seen over 1,600 people born again. And that's just our interns alone, just 14 people, and 3 staff that really go out on a regular basis. It's probably over 2,000 if we include our Belong outreaches. It's not glamorous, but it is glorious, can you all stand?