Welcome to week one of a series we are calling Here is HOLY!
Ps Mike, walks us through how we came to this phrase of the year that God is letting us gather our Faith around:
INTRODUCTION
You are not too bad; you have not gone too far to go outside the grace and the love of God. Ps Mike reminds us that he too has messed up, yet God has seen in his love to continue to use him over and over and over again. That he is living proof that no one is too damaged for God to use what is left. For those that feel like damaged goods right now, but the value is still inside of you and God is going to do something strategic and unusual with your life if we give him a big yes. Ps Mike prays that whoever that we may be and over any one of us that is playing church, who are being religious and lukewarm, that we would give God a complete YES!
Ps Mike feels that his assignment for today’s message will be a diagnosis of where we are, so that we may get the right prescription next week and that we can start a process of healing after that, the problem with the church is that we are healing what Is not broken that we are prescribing medicine that doesn’t touch the pain. God is that doctor and physician that can show us who we are so that we can understand the purpose that God has called for us to serve. Which means we need to recognize some things HERE that will prepare us for THERE!
STORYTIME
It was December 11th, 2020. Ps Mike says, “I didn’t think that this was going to be an amazing day or anything, he just woke up thinking it was going to be another day that God’s faithfulness is good. We gathered in an Air Bnb with some of the worship leaders here in Tulsa and God told me that this was one of those seasons that I want you to begin to write songs that the world will sing but write them for your church and speak to where the church is. Don’t think about any charts don’t think about any other worship bands I just want you to write. So, we went into that room, and we began to pray and literally the first song that came is Here Is Holy. And I wasn’t really thinking much about it because that was one of ten songs that we wrote (And I am talking about good songs) we wrote ten songs in two days anybody that has heard it knows it’s fire! Transformation Nation wait on us, because Here Is Holy! So, I didn’t think much of any of this, but it was a seed that God knew I would need. God gave me something in a season where I wasn’t even paying attention, that I would need four-hundred and eight days later. We are four hundred and eight days from the day God said Here is Holy to me. During that time, I was like ah okay, but each year I go on a sabbatical asking God what he wants to say to the church for the next year. Because you know that this church is built on strong vision, where there is no vision the people perish, they cast of restraint (Proverbs 29:18). We need to be focused on the vison that God has asked us to work on. So, I asked Go what are you saying this year? And if you do not know anything about us (Transformation church) every year God gives us a word and we center all of our faith, all of our giving all of our instruction around that word and God begins to speak. For seven years it has been spot on! And literally God said, “I am giving you what I already gave you”. And I was like God I don’t want no warmed-up word, no microwavable -left over word. And he said, “No you haven’t eaten this one before, I showed you what it was, but you haven’t digested it yet, the word for this year is HERE IS HOLY. Then I said but God there is a problem with that, it ain’t a word and that’s a phrase. In the other season the words you gave us have really worked well for promotion, branding words like RELEASE and BEYOND. And then He said, “Do you want my words or your words?” I said, okay okay I got you, HERE IS HOLY! I tried to ignore it, and hope that God would give me something else, something sexier to brand. Because you know how it is everyone will be asking, what y’all talking about? And you say here is holy and they just awkwardly smile back at you. People don’t even have concept of this phrase, yet God has said I am about to make an example of people to get the words that I speak, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work branding wise, it works for transformation Not the Church but your life. In September he confirmed this, I was in a hotel fasting and praying. And He said, “If you ask me again what the word of the year is and I have already told you it will not be good.” I called Bree in that moment and told her the word of the year has just been upgraded to a phrase. She acted like she knew what it meant but she didn’t because I didn’t even know what it meant. The thing I want to let you know is that God isn’t committed to your understanding, he is committed to your obedience. And somebody needs to hear that very clearly, right now at the TOP. He will reveal understanding if you will be obedient. It was getting printed on staff shirts, even before I had full revelation of what God wanted through this. Then God started walking me down understanding the definitions.”
MESSAGE INTRO
Definition 1: “HERE”
- In this place, locally, opposed to there.
HERE is the enemy of THERE, if I am focused HERE, I do not give any attention to THERE. It is the opponent, the antithesis of THERE. You cannot be fully committed to HERE when you are giving your attention to THERE!
Definition 2: “HOLY”
- Set Apart, completely other than, Declared Sacred
If something is holy it is set apart. You cannot be liked by everybody and be holy. You cannot get committee agreement for all of your ideas, situations and assignments and be completely set apart. God said, “I am declaring this year HOLY”.
Working definition for: “HERE IS HOLY”
- The awareness that your current situation is sacred and being intentionally used by God to prepare you for your purpose; it’s opposed to there.
Here is holy means- I am aware that no matter what my current situation is, God is using this situation sacredly and intentionally to prepare me for the purpose he has called me for that I do not know about yet. You will not know your purpose before you are prepared for it. The training comes before the raining. We are looking to have a position, yet we have a lack of preparation. God is saying, “I want you to consecrate all of 2022, to separate it, declare it sacred, move yourself and remove yourself from thinking about THERE and focus on HERE!” Because if you do not focus on HERE, you will not be ready for there!”
And the truth of the matter is many of you are praying for what you will never be prepared for.
You are believing for what your character does not have the ability to hold up. God is so good that he is trying to tell us and give us a pause. God wants to take the hustle out of his house. We are always working towards something and moving quickly, yet God says, “I have never been in a hurry to do anything, I have always been strategic about my movements. I have always thought about every step, because the steps of a good man and woman are ordered by the Lord. He says step here and then here.” He is not worried about there because if you take care of here you will end up there.
In the natural we all don’t want to stay HERE; we hate it here. Ps Mike says he doesn’t like HERE. We tolerate here, we want to upgrade and go to the next thing or place. When we were young, we all wanted to grow up and make our own decisions and do what we wanted to do. Now that we are older and HERE, we realise that adulting sucks! Yet, we missed so much when we were THERE. Some of us were open, exposed too early, we were violated and indoctrinated because we were trying to get there. And now we are working through problems and generational cycles that were built up too early because others went there so we went there, it seemed like the cool thing to do. Yet, God said, “I am trying to do work on you HERE”.
The Church hasn’t done a very good job at keeping us from thinking about THERE, in fact they have indoctrinated us with a theology of THERE. What if your situation didn’t turn around today like the preacher said, and your situation only turned around in seven months? Would you still praise God? We are so worried about getting out that we don’t consider what God is trying to bring out of us HERE!
This is how we sound, “When we get there, The amount of money I will have there, What house will I be living in there, What will my Net Worth be worth THERE, These are the relationships that I will have THERE, I can’t wait to get married because this is what we are going to do THERE.
God says, “Michael, I need you to stop escapism evangelism”, Because what we have been trying to teach people is to escape HERE. And we are evangelizing people, telling them that they don’t need counselling and that they need deliverance. Although it may be true that you will receive healing in deliverance, that deliverance is a seed to your healing and it may take you years to fully step into the healing, God wants us to focus on the work he is doing HERE as that healing progresses.
What if you had to go in for major surgery and you laid on the table and the moment it got uncomfortable, you had a group of people shouting at you to, “Claim your victory, you ain’t got to stay there, run up out of this place, stand up and walk?” You would literally kill yourself trying to escape what is meant to heal you. The adversity it meant to heal you; the pain is meant to heal you. Right where you are and you hate it, may be the very operating table that God is using to heal you of pride, to heal you of comparison, to heal you of insecurities but you have to stay HERE!
James 1 verse 2 – 4 NLT
“Dear Brothers and sisters when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your Faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
- So let it grow, Stay Here.
Many of us are potted plant Christians, God wants us to stay somewhere long enough so we get some roots. LET IT GROW, you can’t grow on the move.
Many of us are in a season that we are so uncomfortable with where we are. It may be a job we are trying to get out of, and God is saying to us the reason it’s been so hard for you to get out of this place is because that place is HOLY. It’s not lucrative, or comfortable but its HOLY. You will look back at this moment and say that is where God worked on me and it cannot be undone, that is where God changed my name.
- HERE is a prerequisite for THERE!
Here is sanctification for There. “Sanctification is the action of making or declaring something Holy.”
I do not become Holy unless I go through what God has for me Here. For instance, if we ignore marriage counselling our relationships won’t get to where we want our relationships to get.
The whole problem with THERE is, THERE devalues HERE. We start focusing on There and think that Here is trash. We ultimately miss what God is doing HERE. THERE discourages HERE. Especially when you think about where God is, God is Here! Here is where he wants to work on us.
THERE diminishes HERE, THERE dilutes HERE, it diverts HERE. We are all so excited about opportunities that will make us go THERE. However, God isn’t concerned about opportunities he is interested in assignments. Don’t divert from HERE. Some of us are being robbed of life because we will not accept where we are right HERE.
Matthew 6: 31-34 NLT
So don’t worry about these things, saying. What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? These things dominate the thought of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already know all your needs. See the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”
- “…Unbelievers focus on THERE because they have to escape HERE.”
“I have to pop a pill so I can go THERE, I have got to get a drink, so I don’t have to deal with HERE, I serve my church more than I serve my church because I cannot deal with failing HERE.”
- “…Unbelievers allow what THERE looks like to dominate their thinking, but our heavenly father already knows what we need HERE.”
WE cannot see the kingdom from THERE, the only place we can seek GOD is HERE. As broken as we may be, as busted as we are, the liars that we are. God says just need me from HERE. HERE is Holy, God is not asking us to become a future version of ourselves to then seek for him.
- “…and live righteously and he will give you everything you need.”
Which means THERE is taken care of, if we live righteously (not perfectly) HERE.
- “…So don’t worry about tomorrow (Which is THERE) for tomorrow (THERE)will bring its own worries, todays trouble is enough for you (right HERE).”
Raising those kids HERE is enough, working that job right HERE is enough, stop thinking about THERE. Because we don’t have enough to deal with what’s THERE, we need to be focused on HERE. So, if we want to walk in CRAZY FAITH Ps Mike is asking us to say this statement with him, “I LOVE IT HERE!”
I love it here, is a statement of Faith in God. Declare it in your life that even if it is uncomfortable HERE, that you LOVE it HERE. When you feel busted and uncertain that you, LOVE IT HERE!
Ps Mike talks about how he understands how hard that statement is to make, because he even finds it difficult to say out loud. He recalls when it was difficult to say it when there were only a few members in the church, and he still had to say I love it here.
God says, ‘It’s okay to say I love it here, because you are loved here. Ps Mike believes that it’s okay to love it here because he knows the one who sent him loves him HERE, also allowed me to be HERE, will sustain me HERE and will help me leave HERE.
I CAN LOVE IT HERE, BECAUSE I AM LOVED HERE.
I love it here because I am learning here, I am living here, I am also losing everything that can’t go with me, HERE. The reason that we have to stay here is because we are losing everything we can’t take to the promised land. The children of Israel had to go into the wilderness because they had to LOSE! The bible tells us that we have to lose some things to posses the promise. We have to lose the attitude, to be able to deal with the people there, we have to lose the pride to be able to ask for help. Some of us wont even ask a brother or sister for gas money because of our pride.
Ps Mike is asking us, What do we need to lose HERE?
Romans 8 verse 35-39 NLT
“Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s Love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power from the sky above or the earth below; indeed, nothing and all creation nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
- You have to see yourself loved HERE.
Ps Mike reminds us that in order for the training and preparation to work, we need to remember that we are loved, because it will feel like the opposite. The trick of the enemy all the way back to the garden, was to trick Adam and Eve that God was keeping something from them. However, God was keeping them for something, God was making them Holy. But they were convinced by the enemy that they were not loved in this place. If God really loved us he would let us eat from this tree.
Story Time: Ps Mike talks about his basketball days. And when they played basketball for the first few weeks, they would go through Hell week. He says he didn’t really understand them until he really started participating in them. What happened in hell week is that you don’t really play basketball. Hell, week had nothing to with basketball, they never really ever touched the basketball. Hell, week was about conditioning them and preparing them for when they had to endure and actually play basketball. When they went through the training of suicides and burpees (which he says he does not like AT ALL). He would often question his coaches love for him, because of how he prepared him. Could it be that our preparation, the season of training the uncomfortable seasons and spaces are built that way because God knows what’s up ahead and if we look at how we feel while we are being trained we could find ourselves being lied to, that somehow God doesn’t love us, because this training sucks.
The question of humanity comes down to why am I HERE. God why do we have to go through all that we have to and still lose? Why do others fall pregnant and still lose the child? Ps Mike refers to his own life why give us the child and still have us to take him to therapy for Autism. WHY God are we HERE? The truth is this can only be solved here. The only thing you take everywhere is you, so if you are broken and frustrated HERE you will be broken and frustrated THERE.
Why don’t we just deal with it because eventually THERE will become HERE, and you will still need to deal with everything you were trying to escape from HERE.
Exodus 3 verse 1
“One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the wilderness and came Sinai, the mountain of God.”
This wasn’t a spectacular day it was just another day and Ps Mike says its significant because, we can never know when God is about to move in our lives. It could be any day, One day!
God Specializes in making REGULAR SPECTACULAR
God will use common situations to invite you into extraordinary calling.
Ps Mike became the pastor through a common situation, he produced music for greenwood Christian centers big idea conference. This is how God started inviting him to this extraordinary calling. It wasn’t some over spiritual manifestation. It was very common, he was overseeing the microphones being tuned up, rolling the cables making sure the mics are tuned.
What could you be missing? Where is God calling you into an extraordinary situation, but you won’t stay HERE long enough to even notice it?
God will test your willingness in the wilderness.
Even Jesus himself after being baptized, was led into the wilderness by the holy spirit and not the devil. What if this year we are going to be tested by the Holy Spirit?
Moses then goes on to confront culture, he goes on to tell pharaoh what God said, the only way he could tell pharaoh there, is because he got confirmed in his calling HERE.
verse 2
“…There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up.”
What’s fascinating about this bush is that although it was burning it still had all its leaves, all its fruit. It was still standing even when it was in fire. If God is in the fire, scripture tells us that God was in the fire. And if God is in the fire with you, you will not look like what you have been through.
Ask Shadrack, Mishack and Abadnigo, they said we know our God can deliver us but even if he doesn’t we will not bow. They turned it up so high that even the people that put them in dropped dead. Yet, when they checked for them they saw four people. Because when God is in the fire, God will sustain what should be desecrated.
The Place that is actually on Fire in your life is a meeting place with GOD.
God uses every burning bush to get your attention. Scriptures tells us that often Jesus would withdraw and meet with God in the midst of it burning we need to withdraw and meet with GOD.
God is a relational God he doesn’t want just a transaction with us. Yet, we often go to him for resources and not for the relationship he wants for us.
Verse 3
“This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it”
- Confusing situations are many times God confronting you with you calling.
The things that bother you, bother you on purpose. The reason most of us miss it, is because of the fear of here.
- Stay curious even when you’re confused.
Most of us do not stay curious when we are confused. We often try to solve it and get out of it. Moses doesn’t bring water to the burning bush; he doesn’t try to play God because this isn’t his moment. All he wanted to do was get curious about the burning bush.
Why God striped me from everything I was good at to teach me to learn a new skill? Why didn’t God use none of my degrees? Why did God let me go through all of that and still tell me to write a book?
Verse 4
“When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush. “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied.
When its confusing look for confirmation. God is not speaking until you step towards what he is showing you.
- When you step God speaks.
What instruction are we missing because we are not stepping closer to what God is revealing to us?
God called Moses twice, and he did this because Moses had some insecurities. He had some deformities, he made big mistakes. When God calls us sometimes, we wonder if he is even calling us, we second guess ourselves, and he has to call us twice.
God is saying, don’t doubt your calling, because he knows what he put inside if you.
And then Moses responds: HERE I AM! (Title of the message)
The reason why this is a profound response to what God invited Moses into, is because many times God will call and specify it is us and we still do not surrender to what God wants to do in our lives.
[HERE I AM] is the proper response when God calls you.
Verse 5
“Do not come any closer,” the Lord warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.” In other words, HERE IS HOLY.
Sandals or shoes were the things that protected them when they walked on different terrains. So, the sandals were keeping them from experiencing thorns, sticks and rocks. And God says, “take off your protection because I need you to feel this, because there is something between you and the ground that has got you too high. I need you to take off your shoes so I can touch your soul.”
When Moses was exposed and vulnerable, he could experience God and things that he had never felt before when his feet touched the ground. He had to leave all that he had known behind and focus on the ground before him.
What kept you back is not allowed HERE
Ps Mike talks to those holding on to things, and asks us to take off the bitterness that is stopping us from experiencing HERE.
Illustration: Ps Mike has two volunteers, one without shoes and one with shoes. He asks them to walk across a mat from point A to B after he has thrown objects on the mat, he throws Legos, toys, syrup, feathers, money and metal nails. During all this he asks the volunteer without shoes to run up and down, to dance and even walk backwards whilst the person who is shoeless walks slowly and carefully watching each and every step he makes. Why? Because he can feel every single thing he steps on, so every step must be intentional.
When the shoeless volunteer eventually gets to the end he shows us his feet, and although it looked like he would never make it to the end his feet did not look like what he had been through.
Often the wilderness we have been put into is not even for our destiny alone. Moses, wilderness wasn’t even for him, but for who he would lead. When you stop worrying about the wilderness affecting you, you will qualify it to transform others.
HERE IS HOLY!
Ps Mike then shows the shoes of the volunteer with shoes. And his shoes are filthy, you can see all that he went through. But the beauty of God is that when you come to him all busted and filthy. After the world has humiliated you. He will take you on the same platform that they tried to embarrass you. God will take you in front of everybody and he will begin to wash you and clean you up.
When you say HERE, I AM, this is a declaration of availability.
Exposing your feet to God, makes you feel not only the lows but also the highs. Do not miss feeling God in this season because of fear of being vulnerable. In order to live a full life, we need to Feel. Feeling reminds us of Gods Faithfulness. What good is Faith if we can not feel?
Ps. Mike asks to be vulnerable this week. To go to a place of frustration of us, this could be work for others. To remove our shoes and take a picture whilst declaring that HERE IS HOLY!
[HERE IS HOLY plays]
ALTER CALL: Lift your hands up in the air and say,
“God Thank you for seeing me HERE. Just as I am and giving me Jesus. Today I believe that he lived, that He died, and He rose again, just for me. I am vulnerable so take me, change me, use me, transform me, I am yours.”
In Jesus Name
AMEN
