"What is Your Question?" by Michael Jr

[Music] yo gateway i am so excited to be here like this is so cool listen jimmy and tim ross and pastor robert and all of these different pastors you've seen they've done a great job at bringing you a phenomenal message in a sanctuary that's empty so i was like shoo i know i do comedy i got this too man let's go so i was like yeah let's do it so let me start out by telling you about me uh well when i was a kid i used to struggle my reading a lot you struggled my reading but my uncle would try to make me feel better he would say things to me like don't worry about it michael jr we math people i was like oh okay he said you probably could be a map genius like me you got at least a 40-40 chance um yeah that didn't work at all this is more like it nice and close who needs all of those empty chairs so instead what i'm deciding to do is just sit here with you and share some things with you uh some stories that i have that i think is going to help you understand this overall message that i feel like has been put on my heart to share with you and if you receive this message in a way i'm hoping that you will i think it can make some substantial changes in a good way if not maybe it'll be remotely entertaining and the reason it could be entertaining notice i said it could be it's because uh i actually have some new jokes let me see if i got him right here i got some new jokes that i've been working on i got him on these cards i don't know if these are funny or not gotta be real with you because uh haven't been on stage there's a virus out i know if you're familiar with that or not but it's out there so be careful and then also what else we got cooking oh we have a small group curriculum that i created it's a small group course it's called funny how life works it actually helps you understand some life principles but we use comedy to teach them so you can better understand your purpose and what you're called to deliver so i'm so excited about that if you want to buy that you can for sure that'd be great the proceeds are going to uh a black family in america so so with that being said uh i think we'll just kind of jump in this thing so i've come to learn that there's a question that people are asking even when they're not asking a question sound a little creepy doesn't it sound a little weird like i'm playing mind games but there actually is a question when you're in the midst of doing something there's a reason and you're trying to get an answer to a question that you're asking but you may not even know you're asking before i sound any more weird let me use the example of the profession of comedy which is what i'm known for right so when a comedian gets on stage the question he's asking whether he can articulate it or not we're asking the question how can i get last from people literally that's the question we're always asking how can i get lashing people which means we're going to do pretty much whatever it takes to get the answer to that so if i go like this will that make people laugh or if i say this or if i make this move is that going to make people laugh and then they answer the question by either laughing or not laughing but we're constantly asking that question and i was all about that i was completely about saying how can i get laughs from people but then one day i was outside of a club in los angeles and right before i got on stage i did a prayer and i felt like there was a shift that took place god told me instead of trying to get last from people that i should go up there and give them an opportunity to laugh this changed everything because now i'm not looking to take i'm looking for an opportunity to give i can't even tell you so that same night i remember getting up on stage that night and things were different i it seems like a small tweak but it was huge because i went up on stage and i probably didn't even present a joke for the first seven maybe 15 seconds here's what i realized when you have a gift for someone you don't really shove it in their face if what i have is actually a gift you don't shove it in their face you wait for an opportunity to present the gift you wait till you're invited in so i went up on stage i was very very relaxed i did the event we did the show and had a great time it was so much fun afterwards i leave the club same club i've been to many times there's people around me that want autographs we're taking pictures it's the same scenarios always but this time as i'm taking pictures with the people i look across the street and i saw a homeless guy i had never seen a homeless guy outside this club before ever but that doesn't mean he wasn't there before that just means before i was asking the question how can i get last from people so why would i even notice a homeless guy i'm asking a different question and i see him and i think to myself wow how could i give him an opportunity lab you have to be really careful about what it is you asked for because you're probably going to get an answer so a few days later i'm doing another event and there's people in the autograph line and this lady walks up to me and she says michael your show was really really funny listen i work on skid row at a homeless shelter i was wondering if you might consider doing comedy for some of the homeless people there listen i would really like to tell you that i went and found the nearest phone booth came out with a cape on and a gold microphone and i said yes let's go to those people no i was afraid i hadn't heard a sentence with the phrase comedy and homeless shelter in it at all and then when she said it i i kind of panicked i was like um no i never thought about that before that sounded interesting and i just took her car but then i continued to ask the same question so the next day i was like i caught her up and i said let's do it and i remember going to skid row and we're walking down the street i don't know if you've ever been to skid row before but there's like a four block radius where there's like ten thousand homeless people at in living in tents and they're just i saw an elderly lady eating oatmeal out of his shoe this place was like whoa and i'm thinking this is why am i here i'm not gonna be able to get laughs from people here why am i here i can't get laughs from people i'm not there to get laughs i'm there to give them an opportunity to laugh so we went to the union rescue mission and i remember uh getting up on stage and i was i was going through my routine and people weren't really laughing at all it was a little after 3 30 in the afternoon 3 40 or so and i'm up there nobody's really laughing but more and more people are coming in and i'm kind of panicking i'm a little afraid but then i was just like i'm just here to give laughs and here's the thing about a gift when you have a gift for someone it doesn't really matter how they respond to it your job is to be obedient and deliver the gift if they respond well that should be considered a gift back to you but you're there simply to give so i pressed on and i realized that the reason more and more homeless people are coming in is because probably at four o'clock they're gonna serve food and chances are they're not gonna serve the food until i'm done speaking so i confirmed this with a guy up front he was like yeah we can't eat till you're done and i was like well cool well i'm not gonna be done until y'all start laughing and the place explodes and laughter they're not laughing because they were threatened they laughed because i recognized what was actually going on in the moment they wanted to laugh about what was really happening in their lives right there in that moment i think it's weird when christians say prayers right before they eat at a restaurant like lord bless the hands that made this food first of all it's a human back there making your food you only care about his hands like what what if he got a bad knee like you're not being very christ-like i just want to say that just so we're getting ready to perform in denver colorado and because i'm asking a different question i'm getting different results so instead of just doing a big show in denver we also decide to go to montrose colorado a place called the dolphin house now the dolphin house is a facility that takes care of children who have been abused or they've been through some sort of trauma and the reason they call it the dolphin house is because whenever a dolphin is wounded other dolphins come around it and they stay next to it until it's healed and it can protect itself so before doing a show for all of these abused children and caregivers i decided hey why don't i capture their stories first so i know what they've been through i'd like to tell you that was a great idea but it was really hard to hear these stories because i'm hearing story after story about what these kids have been through and then i got to prepare myself to do a comedy show for them and their caregivers and it was it was kind of hard there's a grandmother who shared the story of her grandson and uh he's around five years old and she's explained to me he's gonna be there that night but when he shows up he's gonna have on a spiderman costume and where the reason he wears this full spiderman outfit is because his mom had been abusing him and one of the things she was doing is she was pulling out his toenails so i hear this little boy's story and i hear all these other kids stories then they bring them all in and now i got to do jokes for them now listen if my mindset was to get last from people there is zero chance i would have been able to do the show but instead i had that shift that i keep telling you about where i was asking the question how can i give them an opportunity lab so i have to do the show i mean who else is going to come there and do like it's me so i remember going up on stage and i'm i'm doing comedy and slowly but surely they start to laugh and and the show starts to get better and better then sitting right up front is spider-man on his grandmother's lap and he doesn't appear to be laughing at all in fact he's kind of clenching his grandmother a little bit and i'm not trying to draw any attention to them so i'm continuing to do jokes and everybody knows everybody's story this is a small community and i remember i had one of my children's books with me and i offered him a children's book i said hey spidey would you like a children's book and he looked to his grandmother then he ran up and grabbed the book and then he he ran back to her lap and um that was a big deal i mean the fact that he was willing to receive from somebody that was a big deal so i carry on i continue to do more and more jokes and then i don't know maybe like 20 minutes later i hear a voice come from this area right here and the voice says my name is ronan and this little boy pulls off his mask and introduce herself to me and he gave me a gift that i'm not going to soon forget like it was him saying here i am and i don't know if that was just because he was in a room full of people and they were laughing and he felt comfortable but by the end of the night me and the kid formerly known as spider-man are on stage together break dancing and laughing and having a great time it's probably i want to say a year or so ago just randomly out of nowhere i get a i get a letter from his grandmother and his grandmother explains that since that day at that comedy event rona never put a spider-man mask on again ever [Music] all i did was show up with my gift and i was asking the question how can i give you have a gift but what question are you asking there's something amazing for you to deliver and the people around you need it and the hard part sometimes is is it the people around you really need it but they have a hard way of telling you they need it it's because they're put on a mask sometimes they'll let you know that they need it in the form of cutting you off in traffic in the form of of of yelling at you or just being mean or ignoring you all of those are masked and those people are using those masks and they're crying out for you to deliver and if you only deliver under the circumstance where you get you will never reach those people but if you ask a different question if you simply ask what can i give regardless to what they look like i think you'll find some amazing opportunities to truly deliver here's the thing about people at walmart i don't think the people at walmart are crazy i think when we go to walmart we become those people like soon as you cross the threshold like three teeth fall out suddenly you got some tobacco in your lip and you got house shoes on you're like i don't even like bunny rabbits where where are these bunny rabbits so as a result of asking a different question i started noticing some parallels because not only am i asking a different question but i'm also still doing comedy like i'm traveling doing comedy and i am a i like to make connections between things right and i'm noticing some parallels between comedy and life let me explain in comedy the way comedy works is there's a setup and there's a punch line the setup is when a comedian will use his talents and resources to seize any opportunity to ensure that you the audience are moving in the same direction well the punch line occurs when he changes that direction in a way you're not expecting when you catch on to this change you've received the punch line and the results of revelation fulfillment and joy express through laughter well life is very similar in life there's a setup and there's a punchline your setup is your talents your resources and your opportunities and most of the time we use our setup to ensure that the people around us are moving in a direction that serves us which means the punchline occurs when you change that direction in a way they're not expecting you actually use your setup for other people the results are the same yet multiplied it's revelation it's fulfillment and it's joy but it's not just for the one receiving the punchline it's also for you who get to deliver the punchline as well but how do you truly deliver the punchline to truly deliver to someone else you have to ask a different question otherwise you'll be under the impression that the punch line is all about you receiving but when you ask the question how can i give as the bible talks about the punchline becomes how can you deliver it's like a game changer if you get a hold of this it will literally change the game my dad when he was getting ready to discipline me he would always say stuff uh he hadn't done this in a while it was about a couple weeks ago my dad would always say to me listen this is gonna hurt me more it's gonna hurt you i'm thinking well why are we doing this then we should cut our losses right now father i don't want to see you hurt father so here's where it got really cool instead of asking the question how can i give them an opportunity to laugh i just start simply asking what can i give to my audience and i'm not just talking about the audience on when i'm on stage i'm referring to the audience that's around me there's gaps and i if i can listen in between those gaps and ask a different question i could get some different results by the way there's gaps in your life no matter what you do no matter where you've been there's gaps what question are you asking in between the gaps are you asking what can i get or you're asking what can i give and if you don't know the answer to that question i think you know the answer to that question by default since the fruit we've been asking what can i get so now i'm asking a different question and i remember i was in a peoria illinois so i'm on stage and we finish up the show we're having a great time or whatever and i've listened between the gaps the show was great we're doing an autographed line and this lady walks by and she says i get it now that's all she said she wanted autographs she didn't buy no merchandise she like she just said i get it now and then she walked off like anyway a year and a half later i'm back peoria illinois same venue the lady walks up to me and says do you remember me and at first i'm like no and i'm going back way too far in my rolodex man it was a high school just i was a little scared for a second but then i thought no i should be good right anyway she says do you remember me and i actually did remember her after a moment and she said when you're done with your autograph line i'd love to share a story with you so i was like cool so she says a year and a half ago i came to your comedy show she said i had no money she was actually 132 in a negative in her bank account a friend gave her bought her a ticket to the comedy show because she knew she had so much weight and heaviness on her she said well just go have a laugh you have a great time and then you can figure out the stuff later she explains to me she comes to the comedy show and she laughed and she really really needed the laughter she said but then michael junior you started talking about your setbacks and your and your setup and how you have a punch line to deliver and she said it really kind of moved her tears she explained to me that she's a school teacher let me say that first she's a school teacher minus 132 in her bank account on top of all of those other issues one of her favorite students had approached her that day which was friday and explained to her that she wouldn't be coming back to class anymore see her her mom was going to prison and she had never met her dad before and she didn't have any place to turn she's like 16 years old she had no place to turn and she did not want to get caught in the system and she was going to just work it out for herself and her teacher having so much drama going on in her own life or things just being so hard she just she didn't know what to do she comes to the comedy show after the comedy show she realizes she has a setup she has something to deliver and she calls up her student and she says listen i don't know what this looks like i don't know exactly why don't you just come stay with me for a little while and maybe we could figure it out together so this this young 16 year old girl she comes and lives with her teacher and they uh and on that sunday they're unpacking her clothes saying you just you'll just be here we'll just work this out they're unpacking her clothes and the teacher found a suicide note that was um that was dated for that friday and uh and then the teacher says to me hey do you do you want to meet her i've adopted her and her little sister and for uh for a few moments it was a couple beats at least it was hard for me to even turn around and look at him because i didn't want to get choked up and uh well kind of like i am now thinking about it the teacher started asking a different question she had a bunch of problems when she was asking what can i get but she changed the question and she'll tell you herself that she saw the opportunities and in her own words she is so much more happier now even though because she just asked a different question i think tears are a good reason to find some jokes i was driving the other day and i saw a road sign that said drive safely is there ever a circumstance where you just driving out of control and you see a sign you're like oh oh yeah that's right that's right my bag i forgot thank you sign i appreciate that cool sorry i knocked you down another song they play that they shouldn't be playing right now this shouldn't be on the radio it's lean on me when you not strong no you can't lean on me we're socially distancing currently lean on yourself when you're not strong and you're not strong yeah you should go get checked out so we're in nashville and i'm on stage the show is sold out there's over 2 000 people at this event i'm listening between the gaps we're having a great time mostly i'm just delivering comedy comedy comedy and then i felt like god said to me see that lady up over there i want you to bring her up on stage i don't know this lady she don't look funny what am i bringing up on stage for i don't understand why we're having such a good time this is what's going on in my head in the midst of having this conversation i'm having this conversation with god in my head while everyone everyone else is laughing having a great time i'm trying to figure out what this is going to look like so i go ahead and do another joke and i look at the lady again and i notice she's not actually looking directly at me she's looking at a sign language lady and she's deaf like i don't know any sign language only sign language i know is this right here and another one before i was a christian i'm not gonna show it to you now because i don't do that plus they would probably blurt out so i feel it again bring her up on stage so i said to the sign language lady hey can you ask her right there can you ask her to come up on stage please that's a white lady she's maybe like 54 or 55 years old she's coming up on stage she's moving really slow because you could tell she's afraid she'll know what's going on well guess what i don't know what's going on either lady i'm just bringing you up here to find out i'm just listening she comes up on stage and uh the audience is froze at this point we were just laughing really hard having a great time now suddenly they don't know what's going on welcome to the club she comes up on stage and i and i asked her a question i've never asked anyone on stage before or since i've no i had never done this before so i looked at her and i said um to the sign language i said hey can you ask her what is her biggest need so she signs over she signs back and she says well um she says she doesn't have any needs she's she's fine looks like nah ask her again so she signs over she signs back and she says well her and her husband they haven't been able to go on vacation in over 11 years not even for a weekend and they could really use some time away i was like okay and what normally happens under this circumstance we pass the hat around we collect a bunch of money and we give it to them we've all seen that before the greatest punchlines are the ones you never see coming and plus money is not a punch line don't get me wrong it is awesome when you get from the hip it's a game changer when you get from the heart so i just simply ask the next question i was like well why not she signs over she signs back and she says well um her husband have a special needs child and they uh they can't afford a nurse who's qualified and can take care of the child in such a way that they feel comfortable and they can leave i was like okay i turn my audience i say where is the special needs nurse who can deliver their punch line and the whole room is quiet they're silent they're still kind of tripping so i just say it again i said where is the special needs nurse who can deliver their punchline and you hear a voice come from the top balcony and this lady says here i am and she comes walking down and we introduce them and they live 30 minutes from each other then the whole room is done like we are blown back by what is taking place but what really happened someone showed up with their setup willing to deliver their punchline and someone else was there willing to receive it there's people around you right now who need you to deliver what you have orders people around you right now who are ready to receive from you but we have to be ready you have to be ready and willing to ask a different question so you can truly deliver or maybe you're in a position right now where you really need to receive jesus where you're having a hard time listening between any gaps or or figuring out life in general well listen the greatest set up punchline story ever is the story of jesus think about it he was the king my bad he was the king of kings and we're the king what does that mean that means everybody should serve you that is the direction everyone was going but what did he do he said no instead of you serving me he changed the direction he said i'm going to serve you i'm going to climb up on this cross and die for you the greatest punchline story ever nobody saw it coming yet he delivered not just for me he has delivered for you and if you want to fully receive what he's delivered you just need to do a prayer you need to pray and ask him to come into your heart and if you're not sure what that looks like you can easily text the word decision to 7 10 10 and somebody will pray with you so you can truly deliver what you're called to deliver could you imagine with everything that's going on in the world right now if everybody just decided to ask a different question it was really about delivering to other people where might we be right now or maybe you're in a position right now where you just need to connect with somebody on some level and all you got to do under that circumstance is just text the word connect to the same thing 7 10 10 or maybe you're just ready to walk in your purpose and deliver your punch line but you need some tools under that circumstance please get the funny how life works course that we set up for you all you got to do is text the word michael which is my name to 7 10 10 and you'll get access to be able to buy the course just text michael to 7 10 10 you can get the course and be on course regardless make some sort of decision if the only decision you make is to change the question you're asking with regards to the people around you that is an amazing tremendous decision that you can make right now because you're asking a question and my question to you is it helping other people is it helping you is it making the community better if it's not you should change it listen i am michael jr i love you i appreciate you you have something amazing to deliver so go deliver you

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Views: 12,571

Rating: 4.9376392 out of 5

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Id: Sf3eDgTWbFA

Length: 27min 34sec (1654 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 03 2020