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Pastor Mike has set the vision for 2026: the year to become. But here's what's critical—you cannot become the right person in the wrong place.
Some of you are trying to become a new version of yourself, but you're still being loyal to old places that no longer fit you. Becoming is not just about who God is forming, but becoming is also about where God is forming you. For some of us, we haven't gotten in the right place yet, and because we're not in the right place, God can't pour what He wants to pour. Some places simply can't receive what God wants to pour out—what we call in the old school church "bad ground."
Some of you would have recognized this as your frustration in the last season with your circle. You were trying to pour into people who couldn't handle your pour. You had fun with them, but you couldn't build your faith with them.
God does not just work on people. He also works through places. This is why attending the right church matters, regardless of the weather. When you get into the right place, something happens that takes your faith to another level.
This principle is even personified in the creation narrative. In Genesis, God shows us His creative process: He created the place before He created the people. Five days working on the place, but only one day creating the person. Why is this important? Because you cannot become the right person in the wrong place.
Watch what happened when the serpent showed up in the Garden—the right place. The first thing he did was try to deceive Adam and Eve to make them leave. But he didn't push them out; he changed their perspective.
One of the most dangerous places to be is in the right place with the wrong perspective. What happens when you work at the right place but show up with the wrong perspective? What happens when you're in a relationship with the right person but with the wrong perspective? What happens when you have the right opportunity but the wrong perspective? What happens when you worship in the right place but with the wrong perspective?
The devil didn't feed Adam and Eve the forbidden fruit directly. He deceived them about how they saw the forbidden tree, and they chose to eat the fruit themselves. One of the first weapons of spiritual warfare that the devil has been using since the beginning was not demons, but self-sabotage. He knows that if he can't destroy you, he'll deceive you into destroying yourself.
Because the enemy understands this, he'll do anything to block you from staying in the right place. He uses several tactics:
Offense. He'll get the right person to say the wrong thing, send the wrong email, or give you the wrong look—all to get you to leave the right place.
Entitlement. For some of us, God has been so good for so long that we start acting like He owes us being even better.
Attraction. The enemy will tempt you with what you want and who you want. But I wonder—do you have the maturity to say, "I know it looks good to me, but I've matured to a place where I realize it's no longer good for me"? Just because you like something doesn't mean you have to be led to it.
Praise God that He's changing your appetite. Praise God that you don't like who you used to like. God has given you the wisdom to see what's best for you and your destiny so you don't have to cry later.
People are trying to still talk to you in old group chats that you can no longer relate to. Why? Because I'm in a different place. People are expecting you to react to certain situations the way you used to react, but you're looking back at them and saying, "I'm not even there anymore."
You may look the same, but God is doing something on the inside of you. This is what is happening in Luke 15.
Jesus told a parable to illustrate His point. A man had two sons. But most of the time we only preach about one son. What if the prodigal son wasn't the only son that was lost?
What do you do when you're the prodigal brother—in the house and lost? What do you do when you serve on Sunday but have a nasty attitude on Monday? What do you do when you speak in tongues but can't speak to your family?
I wonder if anyone in this room can say, "I'm not just judging the prodigal son. I also have to look at the prodigal brother because I may not be guilty of being unrighteous, but I may be guilty of being self-righteous." When you're unrighteous, everyone sees your badness. But when you're self-righteous, you can't see your blindness. You're saved with blind spots.
You pray to God, but once you're done praying, you don't reflect God's character. What do you do when you work good in the church but you're difficult to work with at work? What do you do when you're saved but hypersensitive and everyone has to walk on eggshells around you? What do you do when you're saved and easily offended? Now people love you but they can't tell you the truth. What do you do when you're saved but impatient, so only God can tell you things but nobody else?
In verse 12, the younger son tells his father, "I want my share of your estate now before you die." His father agrees.
You might have missed this, but this is disrespectful. In Jewish culture, this is like saying, "Go ahead and die and give me what I want now. I don't want to wait for it." But notice something important: the text shows us that the father is patient. The "younger son" is not talking about age—it's talking about maturity, mindset, and motive.
The father has grace because he understands the maturity level of this son. He realizes that his son is at a place of maturity where he doesn't want to learn from instruction. So the father blesses him to learn from experience.
Can I preach to parents in this room who love their kids but know they don't listen? The prodigal father loves his son enough to let him leave. Nowhere in the text does the father chase after him. He lets him make his own decisions.
For some of us, we've been losing our peace and productivity trying to chase people who don't want to be captured. But in 2026, are you done chasing people who don't want to win? Our immaturity is revealed in how we manage our impulses. Where would you be if you had not impulsively said yes to your ex? Where would you be if you had not allowed your impulsive nature to waste an opportunity you should have waited on?
When the prodigal son leaves, he loses. He doesn't even know he's losing. Sometimes leaving feels like freedom first, before it becomes a famine.
Once he leaves, a few days later he begins to go to a distant place and enters a season of perpetual losses. He steps into what I call a season of self-sabotage. This is when the enemy doesn't have to fight you—he just has to agree with you. If the devil can't slow you down, he'll speed you up. Sometimes we're blaming the devil when it's really our decisions.
A season of self-sabotage is when a person confuses relief with healing. You feel like you're praying but prayer isn't working. But what if the problem is how you're going to God in prayer? What if you're going to God for relief when God is saying, "No, come to me for renewal"? When you come to Me for relief, you only see Me as a place of escape. But when you come to Me for renewal, you'll see Me as a place to be equipped.
For some of you, God is saying, "You're praying about the same thing, and it's not going to change until you change the way you're approaching Me. You're coming to Me to escape from it when I want to equip you for it."
The text says he "packed all his belongings" and "moved to a distant land. And there he wasted all of his money in wild living." He shows up to the city, and everybody screams, "Go Prodigal! Go Prodigal!" Drinks are on Prodigal. The DJ announces he's in the building. He's got an entourage because now everybody sees what they get when they get him.
With distance comes a lack of discernment. He can't tell the difference between who really loves him and who's using him.
But here's what he doesn't realize: he's wasting all this money on wild living. All of this fun is costing him his funds. What would you do if you could get all your dumb money back? What would you do if you could get all your dumb decisions back? Aren't you glad that God is shifting you from being wild to being wise?
He becomes addicted to waste. Waste is one of the greatest insults to God. The opposite of worship is waste. You were created to worship.
We only see worship through the lens of a song. But if you study worship, it has to do with sacrifice and stewardship. Worship goes beyond lyrics into your lifestyle. When you honor God in your work, that's worship. When you honor God with your family, that's worship. When you honor God with your attendance at church, that's worship. It's not just when you sing a song.
Worship is when you're constantly crucifying your flesh, killing who you used to be, becoming who God has called you to be. You have to be careful because when you go back to certain places, they resurrect the old you.
Notice we don't even know him by his name anymore. We know him by his issue. We only know him as "Prodigal" because prodigal means wasteful. Have you ever been in a season when you look back and say, "Man, I wasted that season of my life"?
This represents a shift from a season of self-sabotage to a season of shortage. This is when God stops rescuing you from the outcomes of your own decisions. You might be confused and say, "The devil is busy." But God says, "No, he's not. You've been doing too much."
In a seasonal shortage, God is not absent. God is being honest. We confuse His honesty for absence. You cry out, "God, where are You?" And He says, "I'm right here, but I'm not going to give you what you're asking for. In this season, I rather you lose stuff than I lose you. You're going to have to endure a season of Me constantly telling you no for what you're not ready to handle yet."
God won't give you what you pray for. He'll give you what you can manage.
This is what happens when resources get thin, relationships go quiet, your energy begins to run out, and now you start feeling alone and lonely in a world that you created. Sometimes God will leave you in a season long enough so you can feel the weight of the season. Once He brings you out of it, you don't forget what shortage feels like.
The text says a famine has swept the land. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land. You need to have eagle eyes to see what's in the text but not directly leaping out.
Sometimes you have to read the same thing a few times so you can have not just information but revelation. Information is when your head understands something. Revelation is when your heart embraces something. Information may change what you think about it. Revelation will change how you live about it.
He goes from a season of self-sabotage to a season of shortage, and now enters a third season: a season of shrinking. This is when you become less than who you are in order to survive where you are.
When you're shrinking, the place starts shaping the person instead of the person shaping the place. You find yourself in relationships where you can't be your full self. You work in places where you stay silent about problems you could have solved weeks ago. You're editing your thoughts, lowering expectations, no longer dreaming.
The reality is that when you shrink for so long, you stop talking faith. You start saying, "Let's just be real about it. Let's be practical." You've gotten to the lowest of the low—your money is gone, your cattle is gone, your popularity is gone, your self-esteem is gone. Everything in your life is low.
But here's what the Bible shows us. In verse 17, the text says, "And he came to himself." He stopped going back to who he used to be. When triggered, instead of returning to his old nature, he said, "No, I'm coming to who God is calling me to be."
Notice something crucial: he doesn't get out physically first. When he came to his senses, it wasn't about changing his location—it was about changing his mind. The Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, "Get your mind right. Stop blaming everybody for your problems. You put yourself in here. You cannot have blame and blessings at the same time."
You know God is changing your mind when He starts prioritizing you having conversations with yourself. He's looking in the mirror, having a mirror conversation, and saying, "I know we're in this pig pen, but mentally I'm not there anymore. Spiritually, I'm not there anymore. Emotionally, I'm not there anymore. I had to get my mind out before I got my life out."
This is critical: if you can get your mind out, you can get your money out. You can get your family out. You can get your life out.
Here's what most people miss: he doesn't get his mind out and go back to a new place. He goes back to where he should have been all along, but this time he's in the same place with a new perspective. Sometimes you don't appreciate what you have until you lose it.
I left Rock City for almost a decade. I was offended. I was angry. I was frustrated. I couldn't stand my pastor—he's my brother too, so I can say that. I allowed offense, ego, and pride to lead me into pastoring my own church. Many pastors aren't called; they're offended.
Seven years into pastoring my own church, which was doing pretty good, the Holy Spirit convicted me and said, "I never called you to do this." Do you understand the level of pain and humility that comes with busting a U-turn and saying, "I'm the problem. I was wrong. I repent"?
When I made that U-turn and came back, I realized I had gotten into a large role with a small soul. I was shrinking the role down to the size of my soul. For some of you, you're shrinking relationships, opportunities, and seasons down to the level of your insecurities.
But when I came back, I didn't come back better. I came back new. My life's mission is now repentance, because on the other side of repentance is harvest. When God's people repent, there's a harvest on the other side of it.
Some of you may not be the prodigal son. What do you do when you're the prodigal father—when you've been disappointed or betrayed by the prodigal son who wants to come back, but you can't get over what they did?
For some of you, God favored you to handle the place. But no one talks about the pain of being picked. Because being picked means sometimes loving people and forgiving people who did you wrong—people who don't even deserve another chance. But because God picked you, you're the only person through whom they're going to be able to see God.
There's a moment of forgiveness that needs to happen right now. For some of us in this new year, we fasted, but did we really forgive what happened last year? Did we let some stuff go?
These are tools to help you avoid the prodigal son's decisions that led to self-sabotage, shortage, and shrinking.
He waited to interrupt himself when he got in the pig's pit. But maturity begins when you learn how to interrupt yourself mid-conversation, mid-thought. It's a scary thing for the enemy to put negative thoughts in your mind and you don't fight back. You can't fight the enemy with social media quotes. You need the Word of God—that double-edged sword that pierces the soul and the spirit.
He realized that his current behavior no longer matched his internal identity. Ask yourself: What version of you does this season require that you have not fully committed to becoming? Does this season require you to be more assertive and less passive? More patient and less impulsive? More stern and less sensitive? More focused and less procrastinating? More silent and less talking?
He said, "Here I am dying of hunger," but what felt good in the moment was about to cost him for a lifetime. There was an experiment with children ages four to five. They put one piece of candy in front of each child and said, "You can have this now, or if you wait a week, you can have the whole store." Only about 5 to 10 kids waited. The rest got it now.
They tracked those kids into their 40s and 50s. The difference between someone thriving and surviving was delayed gratification. Is your impatience costing you? Impatience is an enemy to your increase.
