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We're in the midst of a series called "Become," but my church has hijacked the sermon series. All over social media—Instagram, TikTok, Facebook—people are saying the series is actually called "Let Them." People from across the world have been messaging me saying this series is blessing their lives. So officially, I'm changing the name of this series to "Let Them."
We've been saying that let them is not passivity. Let me be really clear about this. I am not telling you to be the type of Christian that lets people walk all over you. I'm not saying "whatever happens, happens" and you just give up. Let them is permission without paralysis. It's release without retreat. It is trust without entitlement.
Let them does not mean God does everything. That's something I really want to tackle today. When we say "let them," we are not saying that God will do everything for you. It means you stop trying to control what God has already assigned to you.
For some of you, this is a season where God may be waiting on you to do it yourself. You don't have to say amen to that. For some of you, you've been sitting, you've been idle, you've been patient—but what if this is the season where God is saying, "Do it yourself"?
Do it yourself isn't a statement of independence from God, but rather a detachment from the spirit of entitlement to assistance. When I say "do it yourself," I'm not saying this is independent from you and God. I'm saying it's a detachment from expecting someone else to always rescue you.
The worst thing that God has done for some of you is been good. The worst thing that God could have ever done for you sometimes is been good. God has come through for you so much, so soon, so consistently, that you actually think you are entitled to a breakthrough.
You can live any kind of way, but you think he's going to bless you. You can be nasty to people, but favor is going to find you. You cannot work, not show diligence, not be a good steward, but you expect your bills to get paid anyway. You cannot tithe, not pray, not fast, but you think you're entitled to God showing up for you.
What I'm trying to get you to realize is this: we went wrong in church when we started teaching that you can do nothing and God will do everything. For some of you, you are in a season where God is waiting on you to do your part so he can do his part.
The ideology that has crept in is that people are supposed to help you. That you can't make it alone. That you need to be rescued. This is the spirit of entitlement to assistance, and helplessness doesn't look good on you.
Some of you have become professional victims. How are you upset because people won't help you when you had every opportunity to help yourself? I'm not saying there won't be seasons of your life where you need assistance. But many of us have developed an entitlement to assistance. You can be whatever and people are supposed to fix it.
The idea is this: God won't do everything for you. You have to participate. Throughout Scripture, I see a pattern—more often than not, God does his part, but you have to participate.
Biblical faith was never meant to freeze us while we wait on God. It was designed to move us while we walk with God.
Dependence on God is never framed from passivity in Scripture. God is not going to open the door and carry you through it. Now, there may be a season where God does it all, but what I'm trying to get you to realize is that throughout the Bible, I see God doing his part while you do yours.
I'm a church baby. That's all I know. From the moment I was a little kid, everybody told me there was something different about me. My dad looked at me and said, "Baby, you're called. There's something different. There's a light on you, Mike."
In the late '90s, I wasn't a kid running the streets. I was at the Baptist convention, at Bible college in West End, watching all the preachers gather to study Scripture. Then this word of faith movement happened. Five preachers in Alabama—Mike Moore, Steve Gray, Derek Houston, George Matthews, and my dad—shook up what we call the non-denominational church.
We were a traditional Missionary Baptist Church with robes and devotion and deacons. Then something shifted. They started doing praise and worship instead of choirs. They played tracks instead of live music. The preachers stopped preaching from the pulpit—they started wearing lapels and walking through Scripture. These preachers were called "word of faith."
From the word of faith movement came prosperity gospel. Suddenly everybody was saying, "God wants you to be rich. Name it and claim it. If you put this much money on the altar, by tomorrow you'll have X, Y, Z." This generation grew up thinking God is supposed to do it all. It's this entitlement to assistance—the idea that you can do nothing but because God is good, you get it anyway. Just because you want something doesn't mean God has to do it.
Faith is partnership, not paralysis. Let me illustrate this. I want you to write down something you believed God for in the past. Something you were really believing God for. Now write the word "faith" under it.
That's how many of us lived. We saw what we wanted, said we had faith, and then we froze. You started waiting on it instead of doing your part to pursue it. Partner, faith is partnership, not paralysis.
You thought when Scripture said "they that wait on the Lord," you were supposed to stand still and watch God do it. But in the text, the word "wait" means the work of a waiter. He's saying they that serve while waiting. They that are praying while waiting. They that went and got a job to make sure they were prepared for it when it came.
You cannot do nothing and then think God is going to do everything. Partnership means God provides the promise and we provide the participation. God provides the promise. We provide the participation.
We see this pattern throughout the Bible. God tells Noah a flood is coming. Does God build the ark? No. Who built the ark? If Noah would have drowned, whose fault would it have been? Then why are you blaming God?
God gave you the idea, but now you want God to fund it, create it, work it, market it, and blow it up. God is saying, "I gave you the promise. I'm waiting on your participation."
God promised Israel the land. He said, "I'll take you to the land that I am giving you." But does he carry them across the Jordan? Jesus tells the man with the withered hand to stretch it, but nowhere in the Bible does he stretch it for him.
Faith doesn't cancel effort. One of the worst things you can do in life is get saved because you think God is going to fix it. I'm 42 years old, and in 42 years of living, I've discovered that most of the time, God didn't fix it—he fixed me. He didn't fix it, he fixed me.
God would rather fix me so I can fix it than fix it for me, because if he keeps having to fix it, I will never become what he called me to be. God is not going to take you out of a storm that he can develop you in. So you're in the storm saying, "God, take me out." And God says, "I'm not taking you out because that storm is going to help you more than you think it is."
But we become so thirsty and desperate for what God can do that we miss who God can help us become. And God is not offended by your effort. He's offended by your presumption. Faith doesn't cancel effort.
When I say partnership versus paralysis, what I'm telling you is this: partnership faith acts. What I would love many of you to do when you leave here today is approach whatever you're believing God for in 2026 from partnership faith. Ask yourself, "What step is mine?"
God may reveal to you, "Get the name, I'll handle the rest." God may reveal to you, "Go find the building and I got you." God may tell you, "I don't need you to do nothing this time. I'mma speak this over." There are two types of seasons. There are seasons when you have to participate, and seasons where you sit back and God says, "Watch me work."
I don't know who I'm preaching to in here, but you'll be surprised—most people will shout over "watch me work." But in this season of my life, I'm in a participate season.
I was so proud of my son Mason yesterday. He went to a media day with some of the top athletes in the country. I love seeing him challenge himself. In the car, I was interviewing him—telling him how to introduce himself better, how to turn weaknesses into strengths.
I told him, "Mason, I'm going to give you one word of advice that won't sound like advice until we get back in the car. Don't be scared to fail." I said, "Find the best person out there and pray he beats you, but don't run from him. The worst person isn't going to give you what losing to the best person will give you."
I watched him go against the best. He made a catch. Then he went against him again and didn't get anything. Then again—nothing. Then the fourth time, he made a catch. By the end of the practice, they were battling back and forth, and after every rep Mason would analyze what he did. When he didn't get it, the other player would tell him, "You're sitting up too much. When I saw you sit up, I knew you were going to break. If you stay low..."
And I realized: Mason, you learned more when you lost than you did when you won. You're so ready to tell people you made it that you don't realize the only reason you made it was because you went through a season where losing was making you.
I'm going to say this, and seven of y'all are going to receive it: God's making me better this year. I'm growing through my pain. I'm growing through my trial. I am not the person I used to be—the one who would sit still and cry and whine and complain and say "woe is me" and "won't nobody help me." If don't none of y'all help me, God's given me the power to pick myself up.
I pray God sends me a circle that will help me become what he called me to be. But if by chance I got to walk through this valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil—not because my girlfriend's with me, not because my cousin's with me, not because my circle's with me, but because God is with me.
Are you waiting passively or are you putting forth effort? Because partnership means God provides the promise and we provide the participation. Faith does not cancel effort—it consecrates it.
If you're taking notes, write this: Partnership faith asks, "What step is mine?" Lord, I just want you to fix my marriage. Okay, cool—what step do you have to take? I'm believing God for a new job. Great—what step do you have to take?
Now, every step isn't a move. What step do I need to take? Sometimes the answer is, "Stand still and see the power of the Lord." It took more faith for me to stand than it took for me to step. Most of the time you'll be ready to move, but whenever the Lord says, "Stand still," that's where the real faith is.
Paralysis faith asks, "Why hasn't God done it yet?" Paralysis faith compares. "You mean to tell me I ain't engaged yet? And she just got married?" And then something toxic creeps in.
All of us have got a little hater in us. There's toxic hater and hurt hater. The hurt hater won't cheer for anybody else's win. You might not do anything to them, but when you get by yourself... "Hey, guess what? He just got a promotion." "Oh, okay. I make $175 a year now." "Plus benefits and vacation?" "And you're getting that car? Now God, I know you ain't blessed this scammer with all that."
You start telling their business. They be lying, half going to work, don't even tithe. You're dry snitching about whether they tithe.
When I was 27 years old with 5,000 people in the arena, I would go home and watch other young preachers on TV and on the Word Network at big conferences, and I was hating. I'm watching them preach and thinking, "I would have killed that. I would have..." You know what the Lord said to me? "That's why I ain't did it for you yet. That's why I ain't did it for you yet."
Somebody hit me yesterday and tried to make me feel good. They said, "You should have won that Grammy. 'Amen' was the biggest song of the year." You know what I said? I said, "Man, thank you so much, but no, I shouldn't have." I said, "I went to LA and didn't realize getting a Grammy was a campaign. I should have been in New York, LA, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville."
But I got five kids who won't let me go nowhere. I got a million members who'd be looking at me like I don't have any more days off. I was missing all of August, and they told me I can't miss consecutive Sundays again till 2027.
I didn't put forth the effort, so I can't cry about the result. You half-fasted, half-tithed, half-lived right. That ain't good enough effort. Instead of saying why God didn't do that, you might as well have been saying, "God, thank you that at least you did this."
God is not offended by your effort. He is offended by your presumption. When you assume things, when you think something is owed to you—that's where God corrects us.
God never rebuked people for trying. He corrected them for assuming. Remember the man with the talents who buried his? He assumed that not losing them would please God, but God said, "No, you should at least try." When Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it, he assumed that past permission guaranteed future approval. What worked in the last season doesn't automatically work in this season. Obedience is not transferable across moments.
Old keys don't always open new doors. What God told you to do in one situation doesn't apply to the next one. Just because the temperature was 30 degrees in February doesn't mean you wear that same heavy coat in August.
Here's what God told me to tell you: Let them stop rescuing you. Just because people will come through for you doesn't mean you should always bank on them coming through. That's not fair to them. No one should walk around with a sense of pressure or guilt because they can't tell you no.
Let them stop validating you. I don't care what people think. That's not arrogance—it's being so locked in with God that you don't need validation from others. Many of you won't step into what God's calling you to be because you're waiting on validation from your friends. But they weren't on the call when He called you. God will not do for you what requires your faith to move.
Let's look at the woman with the issue of blood in Mark chapter 5. The first thing that leaps out of the text is simple: "A woman in the crowd."
Throughout the Old Testament, people were known for their gifts. In the New Testament, people are known for their issues. We have blind Bartimaeus—his issue and his name. We have Zacchaeus who was short. But this woman? They don't even give her a name. A nameless woman with an issue.
Be careful when you are surrounded by people who can tell folk what you got going on, but can't tell them who you are.
I am more than my problem. I am more than my debt. I am more than my circumstance.
Ofttentimes we become depressed and frustrated because we find ourselves lost in the crowd. You're in a crowd with no connection. In company with no companion. You're so much to so many people that you don't realize how small your real support system is.
When life gets thick, you realize how small the world is. When you really need something, everybody you count, you can't count on. Everybody loves you till they really gotta fight for you. Everybody says they'll ride for you till they gotta choose between connection and comfort.
Let them surround you but don't let them define you.
When you first get saved, they tell you to come out from around certain people—change playmates, change playgrounds. But if you have to spend the rest of your life away from certain people, it's because you're not growing. If you're truly growing in God, you can sit with people, hear their foolishness, and your light doesn't dim. But if the only reason you can't be around them is because you're not strong enough yet, that's a season. Once you're anchored in God, you can walk back into darkness and your light doesn't dim.
Shine your light so that man may see your good work and glorify your father.
This woman has suffered for 12 years. That's 4,236 days of pain. Constant pain is deemed chronic. Chronic equals constant.
The number 12 breaks down significantly: 4 (representing earth—north, south, east, west), 2 (witness and agreement), and 3 (the signature of God). So this number tells us that from all over the earth, people will come to bear witness to what God is doing in man. There's no wasted ink in the Bible.
The text says she was "unclean." She was chronically sick. She's disconnected. But look deeper—she has suffered a great deal from many doctors. Most people focus on the fact that she's bleeding, but they don't realize she's suffering on two levels:
She's also emotionally depleted because every doctor gave her false hope. And her faith is depleted because she wonders when God will help her.
Be careful how you treat people, because you don't know all the levels they're struggling and suffering on.
Sometimes when someone loses it on you, it's not because of what you said. It's because they have compounded problems. They're going through this and that and a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And sometimes they blow not because what you did was so bad, but because they're at a point where they just don't have anything left in them.
If you're going to do it yourself and let them this year, it requires wisdom and discernment. Many people fail because they haven't deciphered whether someone is ignorant, arrogant, or impotent.
I've been in situations where there was nothing I could do to fix them. I had a property on the west side where everything they told me was wrong. Everything I fixed would break. I was in mountains of debt trying to fix it, and it was beyond my capabilities. Sometimes you don't know enough. Sometimes you're too proud to ask for help. Sometimes you're just ignorant.
This woman is suffering emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Arguably one of the most significant capacities of the human mind is its ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us something called the four doors of the mind—and this is what we need to understand.
When you're coping with pain, you go through what classic thinking calls the four doors of the mind. Understanding these doors is crucial because arguably one of the most significant capacities of the human mind is its ability to cope with pain.
The first door is sleep. When you're going through pain, your instinct is to sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all this pain. It marks the passing of time and gives us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded, the first thing they do is fall unconscious—this is the mind's way of protecting itself from the pain by stepping through the first door.
When you go through a level of pain, you feel like you just need to take a nap. You're ready to go to bed. You just want to lay down. Because if you can go to sleep, you can detach from your reality and your pain.
The second door is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. Many memories are simply painful and there is no healing to be done. We say "time heals all wounds," but that's false—time heals most wounds. The rest stay hidden behind door number two. You suppress it.
The third door is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow that it hides itself in insanity. When reality is so full of pain that to escape it, the mind must create a different version of reality for itself.
The last door is death. There are times when the mind's final resort is death—the thinking that nothing can hurt us after we die. You might think to yourself, "If I just die, the pain will stop. Nothing can hurt me after I'm dead." But that's a lie. You may not hurt physically, but it hurts your soul.
Pain will convince you of routes absent God. But "Yea, though I walk through the valley"—not around it, not looking into it—walk through it. Here is the final resort: Stop believing that God can't because people didn't.
This woman is going through a lot. It's deeper than we understand just from the surface. She touched the hem of his garment. She has spent all her money. Friends cannot even come around her because according to Leviticus, she's deemed unclean. She can't go out in public because she can't stop bleeding. She's been to every revival possible. Every prophet that came to the city said, "If you sow this much, I'm going to heal you." She's broken.
You may feel more like her than you think. Stop believing that their opinion is greater than God's promise. Doctors said there was nothing they could do, but God is a God who, when man can't do it, can still do it.
There are six of you sitting here right now who, when you look back over your life, people still don't know how you came through half the stuff you've been through. They don't realize God didn't allow anyone to help you because had someone helped you, you would have been having to testify about them for the next 50 years. God got you in a situation where couldn't nobody do it but God. And you can tell the whole world: can't nobody do you like Jesus.
Look at verse 27: "Since she had heard about Jesus." Can I ask you a question that nobody ever answered for me? What did she hear?
I found out what she heard because I went all the way back to Mark chapter 1. In Mark chapter 1, she heard about the man that was healed at Capernaum. In Mark chapter 1 verse 29, she heard about Peter's mother-in-law being healed. In Mark chapter 1 verse 40, she heard about the man with leprosy. In Mark chapter 2, she heard about the paralytic man at Capernaum. In Mark chapter 4, she heard Jesus was on a boat and a storm broke loose and he said, "Peace be calm. Peace be still." In Mark chapter 5 verses 1 through 20, Jesus heals a man who's demon-possessed.
If you're going to do anything in 2026, be in the right people in the right company so you can hear the words you need that are going to flip your situation. Can you reach over a hater and high-five somebody and tell them, "Sit close to me next time"? Tell them, "I got enough stuff that can get your mind out of where it is."
But here's the thing: she probably didn't hear testimonies. She probably heard gossip. Keep in mind Jesus wasn't liked. You could be killed for being a follower of Jesus. The word was spread quietly. "Peter's mother was sick. Jesus went to the house and nobody was able to come in the house, but we saw her down at the well yesterday." "You know old buddy with leprosy? He used to be outside the city. He couldn't even come in the city. Yeah, the one who used to scream 'unclean.' That's him now?" "I heard they were on a boat. I heard it was a storm. And he literally just walked over there and said, 'Hey, peace. Chill out.'"
She's in chapter five hearing about stuff that happened in chapter one. And if you're in chapter five, that's the present. Chapter one would be the past. She's hearing about old stuff. And a message ain't nothing but mess with a little age on it. And so she thought, "If God did that for them, surely he can do it for me."
Some things aren't taught, they're caught. Did somebody sit you down and explain to you why we lift our hands in worship? Not really. You were in the atmosphere so many times that when you felt it, it might not have been taught, but it was caught.
Our lives are built around what we think is true. And the foundation of that belief is based on wrong information or impressions that can result in being devastating. You've been receiving the wrong information. "Well, don't nobody from our family do stuff like that. That's the wrong information. Well, I ain't never seen that. That's the wrong information."
But My God is able to do exceeding and abundant above all I could ever ask, think, dream, or imagine.
Mark chapter 5 verse 27: "Since she had heard about Jesus, she came from behind in the crowd and touched his clothes." She busted a faith move that didn't make sense. Everyone was waiting on Jesus to touch them. She said, "I'm going to touch him." Everybody was waiting on Jesus to lay hands on them.
The word "touch" means to cling or to adhere. Everybody else was just in the crowd, but when she touched him, she was holding on to something. In other words, she held on to him until she got what she needed.
Mark chapter 5 verse 28 says, "For she thought to herself, 'If I can just touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed.'" This is so important. Go back to verse 27: "She heard about Jesus, so she came from behind and touched his clothes." Then verse 28: "She thought to herself."
You missed it. Verse 27, "She did it." Verse 28, "She thought it."
Why would Mark tell you what she did, then tell you what she thought? Because had he told you the idea first, you would have been stuck on planning. He wanted you to see that her action was the result of her idea.
You keep saying, "God, I got the idea." When are you going to bust a move? She thought to herself, "If I can just get this loan, I'll start this business." You thought to yourself, "If I can just get in school, I'll figure out how to pay for it." You thought to yourself, "If some kind of way I can get that building on Valley Dale, I know what our church could become."
But listen to the back end of the thought. She thought to herself, "If I can just touch the hem of his garment..." Look at the next line. "I will be healed." In her mind, this got to work. I want to prophesy over your life that God's giving you a God-sized idea, and that when you put your faith on it, it got to work. Your next move will be the best move of your life.
Why would Mark tell us what she did before telling us what she was thinking? Because he wanted to show you it was an inside job. Didn't nobody motivate her. If you want to come out, you've got to come out head first.
Can you grab the back of your head and push it? Your back doesn't come with it, does it? If you're going to come out, you always got to come out head first.
I speak over your life the self-motivation needed to be what God called you to be. I come against the spirit of entitlement. Yes, you need help at times. There are moments when I need somebody to have my back. There are moments in my life where I need somebody to tell me, "Look, you are good enough. You got what it takes. Block out the noise." But that is not an entitlement. If don't nobody pick up the phone, if don't nobody come through, God, give them the faith to say, "I will encourage myself."
The woman trembled with fear. Why? Because she could have been stoned. She's bleeding publicly, and according to Levitical law, if you were outside bleeding, you were unclean. So Jesus could have turned her over. She didn't know what to expect. She just had faith.
But look at this: She knew what had happened to her. She quickly came forward and told him the whole truth. God can't heal your lie or your version of the truth. Jesus never found her. She came forward. Jesus didn't say, "It was you." No. She came and said, "Hey, it was me."
And she told him the truth: "I've been bleeding for 12 years. I've spent every dime. I'm unclean. I know they're going to get me because according to Leviticus...I'm so tired. My hurt has consumed me. I can't do nothing."
And look what Jesus told her in verse 34: "Daughter."
Some of you are too grown to get what God has got for you. I don't see nowhere in the Bible where we're called "adults of God." We're called children. What he does to her is he says, "You're mine. Daughter, your faith has made you well."
But here's the part that messed me up. Here's the part that brought me to tears this morning at 4:00 a.m.: "Go in peace." Because I've been healed, but I don't think I've ever had a season of my life of peace. Not no problems, but a season where my problems didn't have me.
So not only did she get healed—she got peace. That means she slept good that night. I'm talking to some of y'all who sleep, but you don't rest. She got healed. And she got peace.
I want to acknowledge something important: I don't know what it's like to bleed as a woman. As much as I preach this scripture, it would be narcissistic—or rather, patriarchal—for me to preach it as if I have autonomy over what it feels like to bleed as a woman, because I've never been through that experience. I've never bled. I can learn from this story, but I've never experienced it.
Here's the part of the story that brought me to tears this morning at 4:00 a.m.: "Go in peace." Because I've been healed, but I don't think I've ever had a season of my life of peace. Listen carefully—I'm not talking about having no problems. I'm talking about a season where my problems didn't have me.
What I'm trying to show you is this: not only did she get healed. She got peace. She slept good that night. I'm talking to some of you who sleep, but you don't rest. She had one of those sleeps where she woke up truly cured of her illness.
And that's what I speak over your life right there. I speak peace.
We're in the midst of a series called "Become," but my church has hijacked the sermon series. All over social media—Instagram, TikTok, Facebook—people are saying the series is actually called "Let Them." People from across the world have been messaging me saying this series is blessing their lives. So officially, I'm changing the name of this series to "Let Them."
We've been saying that let them is not passivity. Let me be really clear about this. I am not telling you to be the type of Christian that lets people walk all over you. I'm not saying "whatever happens, happens" and you just give up. Let them is permission without paralysis. It's release without retreat. It is trust without entitlement.
Let them does not mean God does everything. That's something I really want to tackle today. When we say "let them," we are not saying that God will do everything for you. It means you stop trying to control what God has already assigned to you.
For some of you, this is a season where God may be waiting on you to do it yourself. You don't have to say amen to that. For some of you, you've been sitting, you've been idle, you've been patient—but what if this is the season where God is saying, "Do it yourself"?
Do it yourself isn't a statement of independence from God, but rather a detachment from the spirit of entitlement to assistance. When I say "do it yourself," I'm not saying this is independent from you and God. I'm saying it's a detachment from expecting someone else to always rescue you.
The worst thing that God has done for some of you is been good. The worst thing that God could have ever done for you sometimes is been good. God has come through for you so much, so soon, so consistently, that you actually think you are entitled to a breakthrough.
You can live any kind of way, but you think he's going to bless you. You can be nasty to people, but favor is going to find you. You cannot work, not show diligence, not be a good steward, but you expect your bills to get paid anyway. You cannot tithe, not pray, not fast, but you think you're entitled to God showing up for you.
What I'm trying to get you to realize is this: we went wrong in church when we started teaching that you can do nothing and God will do everything. For some of you, you are in a season where God is waiting on you to do your part so he can do his part.
The ideology that has crept in is that people are supposed to help you. That you can't make it alone. That you need to be rescued. This is the spirit of entitlement to assistance, and helplessness doesn't look good on you.
Some of you have become professional victims. How are you upset because people won't help you when you had every opportunity to help yourself? I'm not saying there won't be seasons of your life where you need assistance. But many of us have developed an entitlement to assistance. You can be whatever and people are supposed to fix it.
The idea is this: God won't do everything for you. You have to participate. Throughout Scripture, I see a pattern—more often than not, God does his part, but you have to participate.
Biblical faith was never meant to freeze us while we wait on God. It was designed to move us while we walk with God.
Dependence on God is never framed from passivity in Scripture. God is not going to open the door and carry you through it. Now, there may be a season where God does it all, but what I'm trying to get you to realize is that throughout the Bible, I see God doing his part while you do yours.
I'm a church baby. That's all I know. From the moment I was a little kid, everybody told me there was something different about me. My dad looked at me and said, "Baby, you're called. There's something different. There's a light on you, Mike."
In the late '90s, I wasn't a kid running the streets. I was at the Baptist convention, at Bible college in West End, watching all the preachers gather to study Scripture. Then this word of faith movement happened. Five preachers in Alabama—Mike Moore, Steve Gray, Derek Houston, George Matthews, and my dad—shook up what we call the non-denominational church.
We were a traditional Missionary Baptist Church with robes and devotion and deacons. Then something shifted. They started doing praise and worship instead of choirs. They played tracks instead of live music. The preachers stopped preaching from the pulpit—they started wearing lapels and walking through Scripture. These preachers were called "word of faith."
From the word of faith movement came prosperity gospel. Suddenly everybody was saying, "God wants you to be rich. Name it and claim it. If you put this much money on the altar, by tomorrow you'll have X, Y, Z." This generation grew up thinking God is supposed to do it all. It's this entitlement to assistance—the idea that you can do nothing but because God is good, you get it anyway. Just because you want something doesn't mean God has to do it.
Faith is partnership, not paralysis. Let me illustrate this. I want you to write down something you believed God for in the past. Something you were really believing God for. Now write the word "faith" under it.
That's how many of us lived. We saw what we wanted, said we had faith, and then we froze. You started waiting on it instead of doing your part to pursue it. Partner, faith is partnership, not paralysis.
You thought when Scripture said "they that wait on the Lord," you were supposed to stand still and watch God do it. But in the text, the word "wait" means the work of a waiter. He's saying they that serve while waiting. They that are praying while waiting. They that went and got a job to make sure they were prepared for it when it came.
You cannot do nothing and then think God is going to do everything. Partnership means God provides the promise and we provide the participation. God provides the promise. We provide the participation.
We see this pattern throughout the Bible. God tells Noah a flood is coming. Does God build the ark? No. Who built the ark? If Noah would have drowned, whose fault would it have been? Then why are you blaming God?
God gave you the idea, but now you want God to fund it, create it, work it, market it, and blow it up. God is saying, "I gave you the promise. I'm waiting on your participation."
God promised Israel the land. He said, "I'll take you to the land that I am giving you." But does he carry them across the Jordan? Jesus tells the man with the withered hand to stretch it, but nowhere in the Bible does he stretch it for him.
Faith doesn't cancel effort. One of the worst things you can do in life is get saved because you think God is going to fix it. I'm 42 years old, and in 42 years of living, I've discovered that most of the time, God didn't fix it—he fixed me. He didn't fix it, he fixed me.
God would rather fix me so I can fix it than fix it for me, because if he keeps having to fix it, I will never become what he called me to be. God is not going to take you out of a storm that he can develop you in. So you're in the storm saying, "God, take me out." And God says, "I'm not taking you out because that storm is going to help you more than you think it is."
But we become so thirsty and desperate for what God can do that we miss who God can help us become. And God is not offended by your effort. He's offended by your presumption. Faith doesn't cancel effort.
When I say partnership versus paralysis, what I'm telling you is this: partnership faith acts. What I would love many of you to do when you leave here today is approach whatever you're believing God for in 2026 from partnership faith. Ask yourself, "What step is mine?"
God may reveal to you, "Get the name, I'll handle the rest." God may reveal to you, "Go find the building and I got you." God may tell you, "I don't need you to do nothing this time. I'mma speak this over." There are two types of seasons. There are seasons when you have to participate, and seasons where you sit back and God says, "Watch me work."
I don't know who I'm preaching to in here, but you'll be surprised—most people will shout over "watch me work." But in this season of my life, I'm in a participate season.
I was so proud of my son Mason yesterday. He went to a media day with some of the top athletes in the country. I love seeing him challenge himself. In the car, I was interviewing him—telling him how to introduce himself better, how to turn weaknesses into strengths.
I told him, "Mason, I'm going to give you one word of advice that won't sound like advice until we get back in the car. Don't be scared to fail." I said, "Find the best person out there and pray he beats you, but don't run from him. The worst person isn't going to give you what losing to the best person will give you."
I watched him go against the best. He made a catch. Then he went against him again and didn't get anything. Then again—nothing. Then the fourth time, he made a catch. By the end of the practice, they were battling back and forth, and after every rep Mason would analyze what he did. When he didn't get it, the other player would tell him, "You're sitting up too much. When I saw you sit up, I knew you were going to break. If you stay low..."
And I realized: Mason, you learned more when you lost than you did when you won. You're so ready to tell people you made it that you don't realize the only reason you made it was because you went through a season where losing was making you.
I'm going to say this, and seven of y'all are going to receive it: God's making me better this year. I'm growing through my pain. I'm growing through my trial. I am not the person I used to be—the one who would sit still and cry and whine and complain and say "woe is me" and "won't nobody help me." If don't none of y'all help me, God's given me the power to pick myself up.
I pray God sends me a circle that will help me become what he called me to be. But if by chance I got to walk through this valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil—not because my girlfriend's with me, not because my cousin's with me, not because my circle's with me, but because God is with me.
Are you waiting passively or are you putting forth effort? Because partnership means God provides the promise and we provide the participation. Faith does not cancel effort—it consecrates it.
If you're taking notes, write this: Partnership faith asks, "What step is mine?" Lord, I just want you to fix my marriage. Okay, cool—what step do you have to take? I'm believing God for a new job. Great—what step do you have to take?
Now, every step isn't a move. What step do I need to take? Sometimes the answer is, "Stand still and see the power of the Lord." It took more faith for me to stand than it took for me to step. Most of the time you'll be ready to move, but whenever the Lord says, "Stand still," that's where the real faith is.
Paralysis faith asks, "Why hasn't God done it yet?" Paralysis faith compares. "You mean to tell me I ain't engaged yet? And she just got married?" And then something toxic creeps in.
All of us have got a little hater in us. There's toxic hater and hurt hater. The hurt hater won't cheer for anybody else's win. You might not do anything to them, but when you get by yourself... "Hey, guess what? He just got a promotion." "Oh, okay. I make $175 a year now." "Plus benefits and vacation?" "And you're getting that car? Now God, I know you ain't blessed this scammer with all that."
You start telling their business. They be lying, half going to work, don't even tithe. You're dry snitching about whether they tithe.
When I was 27 years old with 5,000 people in the arena, I would go home and watch other young preachers on TV and on the Word Network at big conferences, and I was hating. I'm watching them preach and thinking, "I would have killed that. I would have..." You know what the Lord said to me? "That's why I ain't did it for you yet. That's why I ain't did it for you yet."
Somebody hit me yesterday and tried to make me feel good. They said, "You should have won that Grammy. 'Amen' was the biggest song of the year." You know what I said? I said, "Man, thank you so much, but no, I shouldn't have." I said, "I went to LA and didn't realize getting a Grammy was a campaign. I should have been in New York, LA, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville."
But I got five kids who won't let me go nowhere. I got a million members who'd be looking at me like I don't have any more days off. I was missing all of August, and they told me I can't miss consecutive Sundays again till 2027.
I didn't put forth the effort, so I can't cry about the result. You half-fasted, half-tithed, half-lived right. That ain't good enough effort. Instead of saying why God didn't do that, you might as well have been saying, "God, thank you that at least you did this."
God is not offended by your effort. He is offended by your presumption. When you assume things, when you think something is owed to you—that's where God corrects us.
God never rebuked people for trying. He corrected them for assuming. Remember the man with the talents who buried his? He assumed that not losing them would please God, but God said, "No, you should at least try." When Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it, he assumed that past permission guaranteed future approval. What worked in the last season doesn't automatically work in this season. Obedience is not transferable across moments.
Old keys don't always open new doors. What God told you to do in one situation doesn't apply to the next one. Just because the temperature was 30 degrees in February doesn't mean you wear that same heavy coat in August.
Here's what God told me to tell you: Let them stop rescuing you. Just because people will come through for you doesn't mean you should always bank on them coming through. That's not fair to them. No one should walk around with a sense of pressure or guilt because they can't tell you no.
Let them stop validating you. I don't care what people think. That's not arrogance—it's being so locked in with God that you don't need validation from others. Many of you won't step into what God's calling you to be because you're waiting on validation from your friends. But they weren't on the call when He called you. God will not do for you what requires your faith to move.
Let's look at the woman with the issue of blood in Mark chapter 5. The first thing that leaps out of the text is simple: "A woman in the crowd."
Throughout the Old Testament, people were known for their gifts. In the New Testament, people are known for their issues. We have blind Bartimaeus—his issue and his name. We have Zacchaeus who was short. But this woman? They don't even give her a name. A nameless woman with an issue.
Be careful when you are surrounded by people who can tell folk what you got going on, but can't tell them who you are.
I am more than my problem. I am more than my debt. I am more than my circumstance.
Ofttentimes we become depressed and frustrated because we find ourselves lost in the crowd. You're in a crowd with no connection. In company with no companion. You're so much to so many people that you don't realize how small your real support system is.
When life gets thick, you realize how small the world is. When you really need something, everybody you count, you can't count on. Everybody loves you till they really gotta fight for you. Everybody says they'll ride for you till they gotta choose between connection and comfort.
Let them surround you but don't let them define you.
When you first get saved, they tell you to come out from around certain people—change playmates, change playgrounds. But if you have to spend the rest of your life away from certain people, it's because you're not growing. If you're truly growing in God, you can sit with people, hear their foolishness, and your light doesn't dim. But if the only reason you can't be around them is because you're not strong enough yet, that's a season. Once you're anchored in God, you can walk back into darkness and your light doesn't dim.
Shine your light so that man may see your good work and glorify your father.
This woman has suffered for 12 years. That's 4,236 days of pain. Constant pain is deemed chronic. Chronic equals constant.
The number 12 breaks down significantly: 4 (representing earth—north, south, east, west), 2 (witness and agreement), and 3 (the signature of God). So this number tells us that from all over the earth, people will come to bear witness to what God is doing in man. There's no wasted ink in the Bible.
The text says she was "unclean." She was chronically sick. She's disconnected. But look deeper—she has suffered a great deal from many doctors. Most people focus on the fact that she's bleeding, but they don't realize she's suffering on two levels:
She's also emotionally depleted because every doctor gave her false hope. And her faith is depleted because she wonders when God will help her.
Be careful how you treat people, because you don't know all the levels they're struggling and suffering on.
Sometimes when someone loses it on you, it's not because of what you said. It's because they have compounded problems. They're going through this and that and a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And sometimes they blow not because what you did was so bad, but because they're at a point where they just don't have anything left in them.
If you're going to do it yourself and let them this year, it requires wisdom and discernment. Many people fail because they haven't deciphered whether someone is ignorant, arrogant, or impotent.
I've been in situations where there was nothing I could do to fix them. I had a property on the west side where everything they told me was wrong. Everything I fixed would break. I was in mountains of debt trying to fix it, and it was beyond my capabilities. Sometimes you don't know enough. Sometimes you're too proud to ask for help. Sometimes you're just ignorant.
This woman is suffering emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Arguably one of the most significant capacities of the human mind is its ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us something called the four doors of the mind—and this is what we need to understand.
When you're coping with pain, you go through what classic thinking calls the four doors of the mind. Understanding these doors is crucial because arguably one of the most significant capacities of the human mind is its ability to cope with pain.
The first door is sleep. When you're going through pain, your instinct is to sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all this pain. It marks the passing of time and gives us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded, the first thing they do is fall unconscious—this is the mind's way of protecting itself from the pain by stepping through the first door.
When you go through a level of pain, you feel like you just need to take a nap. You're ready to go to bed. You just want to lay down. Because if you can go to sleep, you can detach from your reality and your pain.
The second door is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. Many memories are simply painful and there is no healing to be done. We say "time heals all wounds," but that's false—time heals most wounds. The rest stay hidden behind door number two. You suppress it.
The third door is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow that it hides itself in insanity. When reality is so full of pain that to escape it, the mind must create a different version of reality for itself.
The last door is death. There are times when the mind's final resort is death—the thinking that nothing can hurt us after we die. You might think to yourself, "If I just die, the pain will stop. Nothing can hurt me after I'm dead." But that's a lie. You may not hurt physically, but it hurts your soul.
Pain will convince you of routes absent God. But "Yea, though I walk through the valley"—not around it, not looking into it—walk through it. Here is the final resort: Stop believing that God can't because people didn't.
This woman is going through a lot. It's deeper than we understand just from the surface. She touched the hem of his garment. She has spent all her money. Friends cannot even come around her because according to Leviticus, she's deemed unclean. She can't go out in public because she can't stop bleeding. She's been to every revival possible. Every prophet that came to the city said, "If you sow this much, I'm going to heal you." She's broken.
You may feel more like her than you think. Stop believing that their opinion is greater than God's promise. Doctors said there was nothing they could do, but God is a God who, when man can't do it, can still do it.
There are six of you sitting here right now who, when you look back over your life, people still don't know how you came through half the stuff you've been through. They don't realize God didn't allow anyone to help you because had someone helped you, you would have been having to testify about them for the next 50 years. God got you in a situation where couldn't nobody do it but God. And you can tell the whole world: can't nobody do you like Jesus.
Look at verse 27: "Since she had heard about Jesus." Can I ask you a question that nobody ever answered for me? What did she hear?
I found out what she heard because I went all the way back to Mark chapter 1. In Mark chapter 1, she heard about the man that was healed at Capernaum. In Mark chapter 1 verse 29, she heard about Peter's mother-in-law being healed. In Mark chapter 1 verse 40, she heard about the man with leprosy. In Mark chapter 2, she heard about the paralytic man at Capernaum. In Mark chapter 4, she heard Jesus was on a boat and a storm broke loose and he said, "Peace be calm. Peace be still." In Mark chapter 5 verses 1 through 20, Jesus heals a man who's demon-possessed.
If you're going to do anything in 2026, be in the right people in the right company so you can hear the words you need that are going to flip your situation. Can you reach over a hater and high-five somebody and tell them, "Sit close to me next time"? Tell them, "I got enough stuff that can get your mind out of where it is."
But here's the thing: she probably didn't hear testimonies. She probably heard gossip. Keep in mind Jesus wasn't liked. You could be killed for being a follower of Jesus. The word was spread quietly. "Peter's mother was sick. Jesus went to the house and nobody was able to come in the house, but we saw her down at the well yesterday." "You know old buddy with leprosy? He used to be outside the city. He couldn't even come in the city. Yeah, the one who used to scream 'unclean.' That's him now?" "I heard they were on a boat. I heard it was a storm. And he literally just walked over there and said, 'Hey, peace. Chill out.'"
She's in chapter five hearing about stuff that happened in chapter one. And if you're in chapter five, that's the present. Chapter one would be the past. She's hearing about old stuff. And a message ain't nothing but mess with a little age on it. And so she thought, "If God did that for them, surely he can do it for me."
Some things aren't taught, they're caught. Did somebody sit you down and explain to you why we lift our hands in worship? Not really. You were in the atmosphere so many times that when you felt it, it might not have been taught, but it was caught.
Our lives are built around what we think is true. And the foundation of that belief is based on wrong information or impressions that can result in being devastating. You've been receiving the wrong information. "Well, don't nobody from our family do stuff like that. That's the wrong information. Well, I ain't never seen that. That's the wrong information."
But My God is able to do exceeding and abundant above all I could ever ask, think, dream, or imagine.
Mark chapter 5 verse 27: "Since she had heard about Jesus, she came from behind in the crowd and touched his clothes." She busted a faith move that didn't make sense. Everyone was waiting on Jesus to touch them. She said, "I'm going to touch him." Everybody was waiting on Jesus to lay hands on them.
The word "touch" means to cling or to adhere. Everybody else was just in the crowd, but when she touched him, she was holding on to something. In other words, she held on to him until she got what she needed.
Mark chapter 5 verse 28 says, "For she thought to herself, 'If I can just touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed.'" This is so important. Go back to verse 27: "She heard about Jesus, so she came from behind and touched his clothes." Then verse 28: "She thought to herself."
You missed it. Verse 27, "She did it." Verse 28, "She thought it."
Why would Mark tell you what she did, then tell you what she thought? Because had he told you the idea first, you would have been stuck on planning. He wanted you to see that her action was the result of her idea.
You keep saying, "God, I got the idea." When are you going to bust a move? She thought to herself, "If I can just get this loan, I'll start this business." You thought to yourself, "If I can just get in school, I'll figure out how to pay for it." You thought to yourself, "If some kind of way I can get that building on Valley Dale, I know what our church could become."
But listen to the back end of the thought. She thought to herself, "If I can just touch the hem of his garment..." Look at the next line. "I will be healed." In her mind, this got to work. I want to prophesy over your life that God's giving you a God-sized idea, and that when you put your faith on it, it got to work. Your next move will be the best move of your life.
Why would Mark tell us what she did before telling us what she was thinking? Because he wanted to show you it was an inside job. Didn't nobody motivate her. If you want to come out, you've got to come out head first.
Can you grab the back of your head and push it? Your back doesn't come with it, does it? If you're going to come out, you always got to come out head first.
I speak over your life the self-motivation needed to be what God called you to be. I come against the spirit of entitlement. Yes, you need help at times. There are moments when I need somebody to have my back. There are moments in my life where I need somebody to tell me, "Look, you are good enough. You got what it takes. Block out the noise." But that is not an entitlement. If don't nobody pick up the phone, if don't nobody come through, God, give them the faith to say, "I will encourage myself."
The woman trembled with fear. Why? Because she could have been stoned. She's bleeding publicly, and according to Levitical law, if you were outside bleeding, you were unclean. So Jesus could have turned her over. She didn't know what to expect. She just had faith.
But look at this: She knew what had happened to her. She quickly came forward and told him the whole truth. God can't heal your lie or your version of the truth. Jesus never found her. She came forward. Jesus didn't say, "It was you." No. She came and said, "Hey, it was me."
And she told him the truth: "I've been bleeding for 12 years. I've spent every dime. I'm unclean. I know they're going to get me because according to Leviticus...I'm so tired. My hurt has consumed me. I can't do nothing."
And look what Jesus told her in verse 34: "Daughter."
Some of you are too grown to get what God has got for you. I don't see nowhere in the Bible where we're called "adults of God." We're called children. What he does to her is he says, "You're mine. Daughter, your faith has made you well."
But here's the part that messed me up. Here's the part that brought me to tears this morning at 4:00 a.m.: "Go in peace." Because I've been healed, but I don't think I've ever had a season of my life of peace. Not no problems, but a season where my problems didn't have me.
So not only did she get healed—she got peace. That means she slept good that night. I'm talking to some of y'all who sleep, but you don't rest. She got healed. And she got peace.
I want to acknowledge something important: I don't know what it's like to bleed as a woman. As much as I preach this scripture, it would be narcissistic—or rather, patriarchal—for me to preach it as if I have autonomy over what it feels like to bleed as a woman, because I've never been through that experience. I've never bled. I can learn from this story, but I've never experienced it.
Here's the part of the story that brought me to tears this morning at 4:00 a.m.: "Go in peace." Because I've been healed, but I don't think I've ever had a season of my life of peace. Listen carefully—I'm not talking about having no problems. I'm talking about a season where my problems didn't have me.
What I'm trying to show you is this: not only did she get healed. She got peace. She slept good that night. I'm talking to some of you who sleep, but you don't rest. She had one of those sleeps where she woke up truly cured of her illness.
And that's what I speak over your life right there. I speak peace.
