Planted and Underqualified Planted Not Buried (Part 6)

0:35 I am so excited that you decided to join us in the house of God today. I promise you today, your expectation is going to be exceeded, not because I'm here, but because God is here. And we believe that God has something specific for you. So if this is your first time, welcome. There are thousands of people watching live right now online. Can we give it up for everybody? We love you transformation nation. Well, I got a word in the place today and i'm excited So I want you to get out your notes because we believe god is going to do something amazing We are in week six. Can you believe it? This is six weeks of a series that we've been calling planted Not buried and the beautiful thing about this series is that there are so many people that are getting their lives transformed because they're finding the simple truth that under does not mean over. And there are so many people who are under right now. They're under pressure. They're feeling undervalued.

1:35 They're feeling underfunded. There are people that are feeling under fire, but I'm telling you that sometimes being under is exactly where God wants you to be so that he can do something in you that nobody else can take credit for. So many times we find ourselves asking, God, is this it? Should I not be married? Should I not start the business? Should I go back to what's familiar? I even think about the children of Israel at one point thinking like, it would be better for us to go back to our slavery. And doesn't that sound like us so many times? You're going back to old relationships, back to old ways of thinking, back to ways. But I'm trying to tell you no no no no if you stay planted if you realize that the place that God has you is the place that God's making you it can be one of the greatest testimonies that when you start to come up when people start to notice what God's doing in your heart when people start to see that the past five years have not been for no reason I wasn't on your radar but I was growing deep under the surface I'm telling you somebody just shot at me under doesn't mean over And you gotta believe this Or you will allow your situation to dictate your joy And there are too many people that are not everybody say content See this is one of those things that god wants us to be is okay with the season not because the season's okay It's because god is good Like when you realize that god is good my season will be all right when I realized that I may be making less money than I've ever made in my life, but somehow everything is getting provided for.

3:15 God is good. Somebody needs to hear this today because my situation does not have to reflect how good God is for him to be good. And so I want you to know that under doesn't mean over. This week, we're gonna go one step further. And honestly, I almost didn't teach this message because if I'm hot, this one I struggle with every day. And I heard a preacher once say to me, he said, if you preach from your weakness, you'll never lack material. And so today I need us to be, this may be a family therapy session today, but I need us to go with this together because today I'm talking about being underqualified. The title of today's message is Planted and Underqualified. See because for many of us we don't realize that that there are things that god will call us to That we will not have all of the tools to do when he calls us And a lot of people are paralyzed because of what they think they don't have and what they need to reach purpose And and and we feel underqualified as people we feel underqualified as as as um Parents we feel underqualified as business people we feel underqualified in so many different areas and I don't know about you, but there's been so many times in my life that I felt underdeveloped.

4:36 I haven't felt ready. I felt too messed up to serve. Dealing with too much crap. Can I be real? I'm dealing with too much myself to give out to anybody else. I felt insufficient. Like, God, are you sure you know that you call me? Like, are you sure you wanted to give me these kids? Like like I mean, you didn't just do it once. You did it three times. You gave me three. Are you sure you wanted me to go to this school? Are you sure you wanted me to have this job? And the crazy thing about it is many of us are underqualified and the enemy reminds us of our deficiencies all the time. See, the battle is in here. Everybody's talking about people hating on me. A lot of times my biggest hater is me. Now, I know a lot of people won't say that, but my biggest hater, you're not going to sound right. And you can't do it like that.

5:32 And you don't do it like them. And what if they find out who you really are? But the thing that I love about God is he picked me and he knew me. Like when God calls you, he doesn't call the version of you that one day you will morph into. He calls you. and and it's a beautiful thing that I think about it there are many times in the bible that God changes people's names there are many times in the bible where God says I took you from this place you remember Paul the great man of God who's written three-fourths of the bible his name used to be Saul and God had a Damascus road moment with Saul not Paul not the great man of God that would be able to praise down the jail I'm talking about the Christian killing Saul the ugly version of you the weed smoking pornography addicted greedy you ah y'all don't want to be real he saw that you and he said I choose you I want you because this will bring me glory if you really get it if if I can touch people through your life maybe they'll know I'm really real. And so I, I battle with this daily. I battle because I want to see what Psalms one verse three says, which is our anchor scripture. And if you haven't, I want you to turn to that real quick. I want to be like this. I want to be like a tree planted. Everybody say planted.

7:00 I want to be like a tree planted along the riverbanks, bearing fruit in each season where their leaves never wither and they prosper in all they do, all they do. But that seems really like a big idea. It seems like something maybe I'll get to when I die. Like maybe if I could just have one day of being like that tree and then God call me home. But God said, no, no, no, no. I see you like that while I see you like you are. And the enemy's plan is to convince you that you are too ill-equipped to move from where you are to the next step of where God wants you to be. But today I came to encourage somebody's faith that you may feel underqualified now. That you may feel like God has forgotten and is not have a plan for you.

7:56 but I'm trying to tell you that God does his best with less. I'm excited to let you know that God will do more with a little than we could ever do with everything that we ever would want and have. And so I want to study a person in the Bible today named Gideon. And some of you know Gideon's story and maybe some of you don't, but I'm going to help you because I don't want us to believe another day that we have to have everything together. I got to have my degree. I got to have a husband. I got to have a wife. I got to have two kids and a half a dog. Like I got to have, like whatever we think, white picket fence and 401k. There are so many people that put stipulations on obeying God. Like I talk to people and I'm like, Pastor Mike, I'm going to step out and do that, but I just need to get these few things in order first. And God's laughing at you. Do you think Noah had everything in order when he called him to build the ark?

8:54 Do you think Abraham had everything in order when he called him to sacrifice his son? Do you think David had everything? David wasn't even invited to the party. Do you think everything was in order? No, no, no, no, no. I think God's attracted to people who don't have it all together. Like maybe your best quality to God is that you don't have all the qualities you think you need. and when I start to look at my own life and I start to compare it to Gideon's life I said man I've had a Gideon complex for years to feel like I wasn't enough I didn't have enough I couldn't do it but I think that's what God is attracted to so I want us to look at Judges chapter 6 now I have to tell you this is a lot of Bible that I'm going to paraphrase just for the sake of time but at this church we believe in studying the word of God and so I'm encouraging you this week, I want you to go and read all of Judges chapter 6 and Judges chapter 7 because it'll give you a foundation to this. There's so much stuff I'm not even going to be able to touch in this story, but I want to pull out a few things to help you know if you're planted and you are underqualified, I think this message is going to help you. Let me give you a snapshot of Judges chapter 6. Israel has come out of Egypt. Moses has led them out of Egypt, okay? They are now in the promised land. Moses is dead. Joshua's led them into the promised land, but they start devaluing their relationship with God. The same God that took them out of situations. Now they, they got to another place. I think, uh, prophet Drake said it started at the bottom. Now we here. And now when they got to this next level, they stopped doing the things that they did to keep connection with God. Doesn't that sound like some of us, we prayed for the relationship and then we get it.

10:37 And then we don't have time for God. We prayed for the job and then we get it. And then we're like, God, I'm too busy to go to church. I'm too busy to serve. Uh-oh, I'm just stepping on a few toes. But all I'm saying to you is they started putting God on the back burner and devaluing him and valuing other things. They called them idols back in this day. And so God got frustrated. He said, cool, cool, cool, cool. You thought I was going to deliver you into this land for you to forget about me? I'm not going to do it to you, but I'm going to take my protection away from you. See many times people are like god did this no, no, no god didn't do it You just put him in a place for him to take his hand off of what you were doing And what was already coming that he was holding back is just able to actually hit See we always talk about no weapon formed against us will prosper that is in correlation to who's defending us But when we tell god I don't need your defense. I don't need to serve you He says i'm not gonna do it to you but I don't let my hand of protection.

11:37 They call it a hedge of protection. He said, I'm covering you where you go, where you don't go. He said, that's why you need me. And these people, they forgot that they needed God. And this is the dumbest thing for an unqualified person to do. Like if you know you're not good enough, if you know that in yourself, you don't have sufficiency to be the mom, to be the lawyer, to be the student, you know in you, you don't have it. Do not dismiss God. Don't stop praying. Don't stop believing don't stop because you know you need him. Somebody say I need God See see when you realize that you need God Then you don't allow his presence to go away from you But these people forgot that they needed God and so what ended up happening is for seven years Seven years He let the midianite army, which is a huge army Punk them the whole children of israel. They would literally go to pick up their crops and they would come in on their camels and steal everything they had.

12:38 They'd steal their wives. They ransack their homes. For seven years, these people went from conquering the entire Pharaoh's army and all this other stuff to hiding out in holes just hoping to keep their life because they dismiss God. This ain't even my message, but I just need somebody to hear me say that if you feel like you're hiding at this moment and like everything is coming at you and that it feels like there's no let up my only question is is there somewhere on your journey that you dismiss God if you dismiss them is so good that his grace and his mercy is amazing that he will come back if you just invite him back in and so we're gonna pick up this story at Judges chapter six, verse 11. God said, I can't leave my kids like this. I gotta send somebody to help them.

13:32 So let's see who he finds. He says, then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Orphan, at Orphan, these names in the Bible sometimes, I just make them up as I go because they are hard sometimes. At Orphan, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abazir, Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press to hide the grain from the Midianites. I want you to see what just happened. It tells us that Gideon is at the bottom of a wine press. And if you know anything about a wine press, these were underground. He was at the bottom of an underground hole and he was trying to make wheat. Now, if you know anything about making wheat, which probably nobody in this room does because you go buy Wonder Bread. But but if you know anything about making wheat you wanted to make wheat in open areas So that you could throw it up and the chaff the wind would take the chaff away and the actual wheat would fall back down So you usually do this in the open usually on the top of hills Gideon and the people of israel were so scared That they were trying to get their food in a place that wasn't even conducive for what they were trying to do They were underground trying to do what they could do to not be seen and to not be killed because they were scared So this is I just want to set the picture for you how scared these people were. They wouldn't even go to the grocery store They were so scared that they wouldn't even come out of their home Because they were afraid of what could happen to them. I just want to set this picture for you verse 12 Then the angel of the lord appeared to him. This is gideon. He appeared to gideon said mighty hero the lord is with you Gideon was like what who like you can't be talking to me do you understand that I'm underground scared right now and you just showed up and you didn't call me scaredy cat you didn't call me wimp you didn't call me punk you said mighty hero

15:40 I need somebody to hear me say this because you've been in a state in your faith that you've been underground You've been in a state where you felt so underqualified that you don't even share your gifts with people no more You you don't even show people what you have because you've been in comparison and you don't want any enemy to come at you You don't want any enemy to say you're not good enough. So you have started hiding what you have and you've been hiding it so long that when somebody shows up and encourages your gift you're like who are you talking to that can't that can't be me there's no way that that's me but this is what God says to you and this is the word of the Lord to you today hello mighty hero hello woman of God hello man of God hello person who's gonna change the world hello and see like Gideon many of us can't even receive it because we're looking at what we're under he was underground literally in a wine press trying to do what he should be doing on top of ground but he was too afraid this is my first point for you oh my gosh you can't be serious you

18:10 When you're planted and you're underqualified, hiding doesn't mean you're hidden. See, you may be hiding your gift, but God has a GPS on your purpose. I need you to hear me say that was good I need you to hear me say this again if you're hiding your gifts if you're hiding what God placed on the inside of you if you're hiding you're still not hidden God is searching you down he knows just where you're at that's why you listening to this message right now this is God pinpointing your location and telling you you've been hiding what I put in you, but you're not hidden from me. I'm chasing you down. I'm coming after you. I want what I put in you to come out. Oh, I feel the presence of God. I'm telling you that just because you've been hiding it doesn't mean God don't know where to find you. And there's been so many of us that have pressed down our worship gifts and pressed down our gift of giving and press down our hospitality gift and press down our gift of administration because maybe that's not what God called me to do. And God said, I'm calling for what I put in you. This is the time that I'm about to give you the opportunity to come from under what you've been under and for you to know that you may feel underqualified, but I do not call people who are qualified. I qualify people who answered the call.

19:35 And today, ring, ring, God is calling you. Hotline bling, you better pick it up because God is trying to get out of you what he put in you. Somebody say, God wants to get out of me. What he put in me. That means it's time for you to realize that you can run, but you can't hide. This is the year that God, you know he put that gift in you to speak. You know he put that gift in you to love on children. You know that he put that gift in you to organize it and administrate and decorate and all these other things. And you've been hiding it. Your friends don't know, but God does. Out of everybody he could have picked, he went down into a cave and found somebody who was willingly hiding and showed up and said, mighty hero. can you imagine how underqualified Gideon felt that number one, the Lord would send an angel to come and actually talk to him in person. See, Moses had, had, had, he probably heard the stories of his ancestor, the burning bush talking to him and, and, and on the different ways that, but he sent an actual angel. That's what the Bible says to talk to him and call him what he currently wasn't. I need you to hear me that this is the season where if you're underqualified, God's going to start to call you what you currently aren't walking in.

21:15 I need you to get the picture. Gideon's in this cave. trying to make this weak because he was scared of who God had called him to defeat many times we are afraid of becoming and going after the thing I'll never forget I had somebody tell me they said I just can't do what you do pastor Mike you up there every Sunday in front of people and all this other stuff. And I said, what has God called you to do? Speak. And the very thing that they have been hiding from was the very thing that God had called them to conquer. My question to you is maybe not what has God called you to. My question to you is what is the thing you're most afraid of? Because that may be the very thing that God's calling you to, and he will give you the strength to conquer.

22:15 See, this is what's going to happen with Gideon. He said, I've called you to conquer this mighty hero. The Lord is with you. Verse 13, sir, Gideon replied, I can't even believe that. And then he gets angry. And if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Isn't it crazy that when God tries to give you a glimpse of your future, you start blaming him for everything that's happened already? Like if you if you wanted me to do this, why did my cousin die? If you wanted me to do this, why didn't I get into the college? If you wanted me to do this, why am I sitting here jobless? Look what he says. And then he says, and where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Pastor Mike always talking about God healing and God doing this. Where are all those miracles? Didn't they say that the Lord brought us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and he's handed us over to the Midianites.

23:10 See, he was focused on where he was at. He wasn't focused on what God wanted to do through him. And many times, if you do not get your focus off of where you're at, you will only be able to experience what you expect. And a lot of people don't experience more than what they expect because your expectation has to raise. No, God can do more with me. I won't be broke for my whole life. I am underqualified, but under doesn't mean over. You got to raise your expectation or you limit what God wants to do in your life. Look at Gideon. He's frustrated. Verse 14. And then the Lord turned to him and said, this is so G. Go with the strength you have. You want to talk about pressure?

25:40 And rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you. Let me tell you point number two. When you are planted and underqualified, God often ignores your questions to give you instructions. Gideon asked three questions and the Lord didn't answer none of them he gave him instructions instead of wallowing in the past he was trying to push him to his future somebody needs to hear me say this you want why did this happen why did that happen why did that happen God like I ain't answering none of them questions because I'm sovereign I'm good and I have a plan for you matter of fact I have a plan to prosper you and not to harm you to give you a hope in the future but you want to go to the past and I want to talk about the future and so many of us so frustrated about why I got hurt when I was about to go d1 and why my child had to come with that sickness and why did that let me go at that job and God said I'm not answering your questions but I will give you instructions. See, he gives them instructions. Go with the strength you have.

26:55 And I mean, we could stop the message right now because this is all you need to know. If all you have is all you need. God literally told him with your scared making bread in the cave self go with the strength you have with the speaking ability you have with the money you have y'all better hear me with the with the hurt you have i want you to go with the strength everybody says what i already got god does not need you to come equipped with what you think you need he knows you're underqualified but you're planted and when you're planted and underqualified he will supply what you need. He said, go with the strength you have. For me, this played out in my life because I was called to be a pastor and I didn't have any formal education. I've never, I have completed one semester of TCC for everybody in Transformation Nation. That is Tulsa Community College. Do you hear what I'm saying? And it was free. Thank you, OLAP. I'm telling you, Like that's all the education I have.

28:06 So when God called me to be a pastor, there was this weight that the enemy tried to place on me every day I woke up is you're not educated enough to lead these people. You still have struggle pronouncing four syllable words. you you you don't even you don't even have the business sense to run your own budget let alone to run a company that that handles large assets so you don't have enough and one day I was about to go back to school and I was about to stress myself out because I was going to go back nothing wrong with school I believe in education I may still go back but I was going to go back for the wrong reason. I was going to go back to prove to people that I was good enough. I was going to go back so people could see a piece of paper and say, oh, he's good. But God said, why do you need anybody else's approval for what I've already called you to do? He said, Michael, I want you to stand there and I want you to go in the strength that you have. I need somebody to hear me say you may be unqualified to to write that book but write the chapter that you can write like I know you may be underqualified to start that business but write the vision down and make it like go with the strength that you have I know that you didn't have a father and now you have to be a father but I'm telling you do everything that you have on the inside of you I don't know if it's right to do this. Go with the strength that you have. Do what you can do, and God will do what you can't. I need you to hear me say this. If you are unqualified, you do what you can do, and God will do what you can't. He told him, because if it was me, if I was Gideon, and I don't know, I would have probably changed my name too to G. Dion, or something like that, like, because I'm scared. Like, I need an alias, you know, on them shows, when they looking for somebody, and they

30:15 take you to another place and they give you a new name and all that other stuff he's scared i'm like no my name is not gideon my name is g d on and and at this moment g d on he says he says go with the strength you have and i would have said in my mind what strength is that like like i don't have any strength but look at the response he says i'm sending you that's your confidence See see there's a place that you get to That when you're not striving to do stuff Using all your effort and energy, but you're striding Walking in the direction that god has called you to be There were some days that I only had the confidence To do what i've been called to do at transformation church by knowing god called me to this He sent me Like like this is why it's so important not to just do stuff but to find out, God, did you call me here?

31:14 This looks horrible, but did you call me here? Did you send me here? Did you send me to that marriage? Did you send me? Because that will be your confidence. His entire confidence was going the strength that I'm giving you. What strength is that, that I sent you? I sent you to that school. I sent you to that family. But God, they all crazy. They all crazy. God, they are all. park park like I can't do this with them he said but I knew what family you needed to be born into for the purpose I've called you to I sent you there and so many times we're focused on what's wrong that we're never able to change what needs to be made right in the situation and so Gideon sitting here like yo I don't really understand how I need to be confident right now and all I have is a word from God. That's all you need. My Bible tells me in Romans 8 31, if God before us, who, who, who, who can be against me when God is for me? And I don't know if Gideon had that understanding yet. Um, but, but you're going to see how this story plays out that when God tells you, he's for you, take it to the bank. If, if he tells you that I'm going to do this, y'all, do y'all realize when I started at transformation church as the sound man, I was the sound man at this church. I was right back there in the sound booth. And when God called me to pastor this church, we had less than 400 people here and they were all black. Everybody except the pastor.

32:52 And it was, it was one of those things. And God told me the pastor and Darren, Darren's here. Thank you, Darren. And the, and the pastor, he, he, when I stood up as the pastor, God said, I want you to declare what this church will be. I need you to know, God, what strength do I have to declare this? He said, I'm sending you. And I stood in this very spot and said, we will be a multi-ethnic church, a multi-generational church, a multiplying church, and a multi-campus church. We were none of those things at this time. Look around. Isn't God faithful? What strength do you have that God said it? What strength do you have that God is for you? It looks bad, but if you're underqualified, that may be the very spot God wants you at to get the glory out of this situation. Look at verse 15, Judges 6, 15. Gideon's still struggling like most of us.

33:47 But Lord, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh. And I, I'm the least in my entire family. he he's again proving that the voices in his head the the mental battles that he has believed he is now saying them out because the bible says out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks see if you stay around somebody long enough you'll find out how they really feel about themselves and he tells them we have the weakest clan and matter of fact not just the weakest clan out of the whole clan. My family's the weakest and out of my family, your boy. Like, like, so if you could, listen, you couldn't have picked a worse person for the job. Like, and I believe God did this on purpose to show us at the moment we think we're the worst person for the job. That's the moment that God says, I've found the one I can use. Can I help you? When you're planted and underqualified, don't let comparison be your counsel. I need you to hear me say this because the only reason you feel underqualified is that you're comparing yourself to somebody else. If you're the only one, there's nothing to compare it to. But if you're comparing yourself, if you're getting your counsel from what everybody, look what he said. He said, out of everybody, our tribe is the weakest.

35:18 So he's standing there looking at their tribe, their tribe, their tribe, their tribe, their tribe, and then coming back and saying, we're the weakest. And then he took it personal. He said, and in my family, all my brothers and sisters, he allowed comparison to give him a picture and a narrative of how unqualified he was. Like I'm telling you right now, if you put yourself up against somebody else and you're comparing your process to their finished picture, what ends up happening is you allow the enemy's voice to be put on a megaphone. See, you'll never do it. They were 15 when they started. Their parents had more and supported them. And you just, yep, I can't do this. Nobody, no, I've already messed up. I had two kids at a wedlock.

36:11 There's no way anybody will love me now. They won't take my whole family. What? Why believe the lie of the enemy when God is standing with you? And Gideon had convinced himself that he was a less than because of what God was doing in other people's lives. Can I take you to Hebrews 12, one of my favorite scriptures that's going to encourage somebody today?

37:58 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, everybody say faith. This whole thing is about faith. God is trying to build faith in us to believe him no matter what the situation looks like. He said, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially sin. I need everybody to hear me because I used to think this said to strip off every sin. This says every weight. Guess what a weight is? Comparison. And it did not say that God is going to strip it off. It says, let us. I need you to hear me say this. It says, let us strip off comparison, anxiety, frustration. We have to choose. It's almost like my garments right now. I can choose to put this on or I can choose to take it off. God's saying, you're going to have to decide that you have a race to run.

38:55 And I am two way down by this jacket. I'm two way down by these jeans. Have you ever seen a race? They are running in the lightest material. some of them no material there's barely no material back there but why it's because they cannot be their greatest and fastest why they have weight on them there's some of us that have been underqualified and then on top of feeling underqualified we're putting on anxiety and we're putting on stress and we're putting on what we could or should or would have done and today You got to strip off every weight. Somebody say every weight. And this is the beautiful thing. It says every weight that number one slows us down. And then it says and sin. Like, like, like, so there are things that can slow you down that aren't sin.

39:51 Oh, I'm coming for you today. Good morning. I'm telling you that there are people that are slowing you down that aren't sin to be around, but they're slowing you. There are ideas and shows. I ain't going to hell for watching power, but it makes you fight with your flesh half the day. all I'm saying to you is there's a reason why they want us to strip off these weights, especially sin that so easily trips us up. Because why? Because we all need to run our race with endurance. The race that God has set before a group of people? No, us. See, this was Gideon's problem is he felt underqualified because he was comparing his race to other people's race. And if you want to get into the place where you can allow God to start using you and allowing the plan of God for your life to come to pass, you have to stop focusing on how others run and you have to focus on your lane. I saw something the other day that was very, very awesome for me to see. I'm not into the Kentucky Derby or any of those races, the Preakness and all this other stuff.

41:11 But if you've ever seen a horse race, I got caught on an ESPN 30 for 30. And what happens is I saw something I never saw before. When a horse races, they put blinders over their eyes. And they literally take away their peripheral view so that all they can see while they're running is their lane. And I came to tell you today by the spirit, some of us need to put on blinders. We need to stop looking at what this church is doing, what my friend is doing. I need to stay focused on my lane because if I don't, I invite the spirit of disqualification into my life. Because you know what happens in those races? If a horse gets outside of their lane, they get disqualified. And the enemy is already trying to unqualify you. He's trying to tell you you're underqualified.

42:05 And what we do is start trying to be like our friend. And we start trying to be like that church. And we start getting, and they, ah, you can't run this race anymore because you've gotten out of your lane. Gideon had gotten out of his lane looking at what other people do. Well, Pastor Mike, how am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to stay in my lane with social media? How am I supposed to stay in my lane when I'm in a competition with everybody that comes? This is how I was bred. This is how I functioned in my family. Look at verse two of that. It says, we do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Peter was able to do the impossible by walking on water as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus. All I'm encouraging you, if you feel underqualified, do you know Peter was underqualified to get out of that boat and walk on water? No man, no human has ever done that before and no one has done it ever since but god called him to do the impossible and god was going to qualify him literally make him defy laws of gravity and buoyancy to be able to do something as long as his focus was on jesus all i'm telling you is you can be underqualified as long as your focus is on jesus you don't have to have everything together as long as your focus is on jesus you do not have to know how it's going to work out as long as your focus is on Jesus. How do I keep my focus on Jesus? Stay in the word. How do I keep my focus on Jesus? I pray, commune with them, worship. How do I keep my focus on Jesus? Get around other people whose focus is on Jesus.

43:51 That's why everybody in this room listening to the, under the sound of my voice needs to join a small group. And hundreds of you have already done that, but you need to do that because sometimes I can get off focus, but if I get in a group of believers that are trying to go, it refocuses me to what I need to do. How do I keep my eyes on Jesus? I serve people when I don't feel like it. So many of us, y'all know we're about to go to more services. So many of you need to every week be serving and putting your flesh under because it makes you dependent on Jesus. All I'm saying to you today is you may be in this room and you are planted, but you feel underqualified. I'm telling you that God does some of his best work with less and he will allow you to do the impossible. If you will keep your eyes on Jesus. So what ends up happening in Judges 6, 16 is that the Lord said to him, and this has held me many days pastoring this church. It said, I will be with you.

44:48 Like, like I need you to realize, like, if you are in a struggle where you're feeling, I can't run this business. I can't raise these kids. I can't even take care of me. Like, I don't know if I'm going to finish school. I don't know if I can make it through this marriage. I don't know if I can deal with my son's condition. I don't know if I, I need you to hear God saying through my voice today, I will be with you. And sometimes I know with all the other things that are going on in your life, it can seem like maybe that's not that's not that important but I'm telling you there have been days that I've stood up and I've come into this office and I didn't know what I was going to preach and I didn't know how we were going to do stuff and I didn't know if the we were going to be able to pay the bills and God would just say you're not alone I'm with you as a matter of fact Michael I go before you I'm in front of you matter of fact you're surrounded like if you if you turn around. I am with you. And somebody needs to know you're surrounded. That it may seem like you're in the deepest, darkest place and you're underqualified and you can't do this, but you're surrounded. Look at your neighbor and tell them you're surrounded. You're surrounded. Find one more person and say, you're surrounded. I'm telling you, God will be with you. And I can't go through all of it, but then it's so cool because I watched Gideon ask God to confirm his word.

46:18 like like and this is okay for us to do like to ask God God if you're calling me to do this now I ain't about to go out there crazy and just be like Midianites what it do though pal like I'm not like I'm not about to do that I need to know you call me to do this and so God confirmed his word twice in the rest of um that chapter six and then God asked um Gideon to do something that he's gonna ask a lot of us to do he asked him to tear down an idol that his father had constructed to other gods. And let me help you understand this. I can't really go into it, but there's ways that your parents did stuff that God's going to say, you can't do it like that no more. There's ways that people did things before you pastors, before you leaders, before you, but he said, you're not going to have to. And he literally had to sacrifice something and tear down an old way of doing something so that he could obey God in this new way. I'm going to just skip the rest of that. You got to read it on your own time, but I want you to go to judges chapter seven, verse two. okay so Gideon got his confidence up now yes G GD on hey what's going on everybody all right y'all he puts out a trumpet call and all of these people start coming because they're about to now you know when somebody gets hype and they're like we can do this we can make this happen and I'm like y'all ready yeah y'all ready yeah and and and they're getting their confidence up and look what God says to Gideon.

47:41 The Lord said to Gideon, you have too many warriors with you. Now, what? Hold on. We don't got enough time out. God, hold on. Y'all just stay right there. Keep doing what you say. I gotta go talk to God. God, you know their army's still way bigger than ours. And you're saying we have too many? Yeah, too many. Too many people with you. God could you please elaborate on how if we're going to win the victory how this is too many people he said if I let all of you fight the Midianites the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength so if I let you get that higher paying job without doing a miracle you'll think you did it uh oh if I let the relationship work out in this current state but you don't change you'll think that it's okay. He said, so I got to subtract so that I get the glory.

48:43 And literally in the next few verses, they go from 22,000 men to 10,000 men. And if I'm Gideon, I'm like, okay, God, we just lost over half of the people that were going to help us win the victory. But then we try to be faithful, but you're a good father. You know what I'm saying? And I know that you got good plans for us and you're going to prosper us and not harm us. So I think we can still get them with 10,000. 10,000! 10,000! And they getting hype on their 10,000. And then look, look, look. God says, still too many. Oh no, you cannot be serious. is you you're telling me that we still have too much for you to get the glory so you gotta let go of more people you you you you you still have to cut social media away from me for six months and you still have to ask me to fast every week one day a week and you're still cutting at me and I've already given up my old lifestyle and oh come on y'all and I've already given up my old but you're still cutting at me and he said yeah yeah um we're gonna take this 10,000 down to and I bet Gideon said like 2,000 right 2,000 nah a thousand don't please don't tell this guy

51:31 Uh-uh. 999? He said 300. I'm going to make the first movie, 300. he said 300 men is all you need and at this moment if I'm Gideon I think God's lost it he first found me in an unqualified place he saw that I was the most unqualified person at the moment that I felt like I had enough he took away what seemed to be the way that I was going to get the victory. Doesn't that sound like when everything's just about to be perfect in your life, when you got enough money in savings, when your boyfriend just got his six pack and y'all got to get engaged. I mean, like everything is perfect. And then it's like, God's like, takes you through this pruning process and he takes you out of a position and somebody passes away and it's just random stuff but look verse 7 of chapter 7 says the Lord told Gideon with these 300 men with the money you have with the church you're in with the building you got oh I'm preaching to myself right now with the volunteers you have he said I will rescue you and give you victory over the midianites send all the others home uh-oh now you're gonna make me do something you didn't just take it away you're asking me to facilitate their dismissal y'all want people to magically disappear out of your life and forgot you're gonna you may have to tell them, I am so sorry. We have been friends for a long time, but I have to make, he made Gideon dismiss the other 9,700 people. And all I'm asking you today is you may be underqualified

53:45 and then God will ask you to sacrifice some more. Guys, all I want you to know is when you're planted and underqualified, the setback is a setup. I'm telling you at this moment with 300 men, they think it's a suicide mission now. And at this point, you're just crazy. Gideon probably gets in front of them and is like, guys, we're going to die. But what I want you to know is that God said he'd be with us. So I guess we have to go out here with all of everything that we got. We're not going to hold nothing back. Take two swords. I mean, you better just come at it. I mean, and what happened is they probably started getting prepared to do something with reckless abandon because they knew they didn't have enough. They couldn't play it safe anymore.

54:40 They couldn't keep the job and the pension and the 401k safe because I don't have enough to do this. So I'm going to have to step out on faith. and these guys get ready to step out on faith and I think about it in my own life like I said I've I've felt underqualified for the position I'm in since I've started and I felt underqualified this week but God reminds me I'm with you and he takes me back to a moment where I had lost almost I was one year into pastoring and I had lost for different reasons almost all of my staff it was me and three other people on transformation churches staff. I was the graphic designer. I was the pastor. I was doing literally, and nobody knew it, but I would go back into that office and miss Tammy can verify this story. I will walk into our office with empty desk with everybody. And I just start in faith saying hello to people who were not there.

55:36 I will walk in. Good morning, everybody. Miss Tammy would just start cracking up because it was only me and her there. And I would say, oh, today, wasn't service awesome this weekend? God is faithful. Man, I am excited about this meeting we're about to have. And I go sit in my office and have a meeting with myself. And I remember the enemy trying to tell me, see, you came in one year, everybody's gone. You're unqualified for this. And at the moment, the enemy wanted me to think where God had me planted was where I was supposed to die. He told me I was buried. But do you know what happened? I said, I am going to stand firm and I'm going to do everything God's called me to do. And what God was trying to teach me in that moment is that I was called to ministry besides anybody else. He told me that it wasn't dependent if I had a graphics team and great music and all this other. He said, I called you.

56:33 And there was a confidence and something that got built in me in that season that I don't need a prop. I don't need nothing. I can stand flat footed and preach the word of God. And what you see today is a result of me being planted in a season where I felt underqualified. And what God did is he set me up. Have you ever seen a slingshot? The power of a slingshot is always tied into how much it gets pulled back. so a set back for a slingshot is the very thing that sets it up to be efficient what I'm trying to tell you is there's a slingshot anointing on some of your lives that you've been feeling underqualified and the very thing that looks like I don't got less money I'm demoted again my kids aren't God said I'm just pulling you back I'm just pulling you back I'm taking less so that you can go further and do more.

57:36 Somebody needs to hear this today. In the closing of this message, if you read down in chapter 20, I mean, verse 20, it says, God gave them unique instructions. I want you to tell, to understand this. They didn't have swords to fight this fight because God told them, I'm going to give you the victory. And so now Gideon stands there and he gets different instructions. And long story short, just paraphrasing it, he gives them some jars, some horns, and some torches and says, I want y'all to go and do these weird instructions. When the horns blow, then I want you to listen. And when I say it, I want you to bust these pots and I want you to hold these torches and I want you to yell for God and for Gideon. Gideon, are you sure that's the plan? And sometimes God will give us plans that don't make sense to cement that it will not be for your glory, that it will be for his. Do y'all know what happened? They obeyed God and they went to battle. I can just imagine marching to battle with my jar and my torch and my trumpet in my mouth like, bro, we about to die.

58:51 we are here to die and and what happened what happened as they look stupid to the world as like when they tell you to represent god to the lost and found and they send you to the north side of tulsa and say build a multi-ethnic church when they tell you it can't be done when you're sitting there looking stupid what happened was they they blew the horns the men woke up in Confusion. They started, the Bible says, killing each other. They didn't even have to fight. They broke the jars and the enemy killed themselves. and from that point on Gideon in the 300 the underqualified the not talked about the least likely went on to defeat and have one of the most triumphant victories and check this out they never had to swing somebody needs to hear me the reason God chose you and if you're planted and you're underqualified it's because god gets the glory every time you tell your story like that's not like this was a setup for god in the first place he knew you couldn't do it without him he knew you had a jacked up past he knew you've had two divorces he knew you didn't have a father he knew that you were illiterate he knew and he said when i do it with them i'll get all the glory all i'm trying to tell you is that the reason I rehearse my story all the time is because I was unqualified when God called me and I'm unqualified now. It doesn't matter because God never calls people who are qualified. He only qualifies people who will answer the call. And then you get to say stuff like this, like David said in Psalms 115, not to us, O Lord, not to us, O Lord, but to your name

1:00:57 goes all the glory for your unfailing love and faithfulness and i need somebody to know that you're where you're at right now not because of you not to us on lord but for your glory i dare somebody to take three seconds and begin to give god praise because this story that he's writing in your life is all come on y'all let's give god glory right there god it's not unto us but it's for your glory. Right where you are, come on, just lift your hands right now. Come on, stand all over this building. Come on, stand up. Father, I thank you for every person that feels unqualified in whatever area of their life, whether it be in business or family, as a man, as a woman, as a child. Father, I thank you that right now you are bringing us into a knowing that, Father, we are planted and we are not buried. You saw us in the state we were in and you said them. I choose you. And father, even as the song said that we've sung so many times, God, I am chosen, not forsaken.

1:02:00 I am who you say I am. You call Gideon mighty warrior. Father God, you call us man of valor. You call us pastor. You call us leader. You call us faithful. You call us pure. Father, we agree with what you say we are and father god we cancel the lies we no longer counsel father god with comparison and we allow you father to get the glory out of our story father we will stay planted even if we feel unqualified because you do your best with less and we will be careful to give you all the glory honor and praise come on somebody let's give god a shot of praise Thank you.