In this 12‑noon teaching, Dr. Michael Lyris Woods continues his “Bulldog Faith” series during the second tier of a 21‑day fast and prayer. He defines “bulldog faith” as aggressive, bold, relentless, and action‑driven belief that never quits. Using Hebrews 11:32‑34 as the series’ foundation, he emphasizes that choosing the faith route eliminates the right to complain and requires persistent pressure on circumstances. He unpacks 1 John 5:4 (the Greek word nike meaning victory), illustrating that faith itself is the means to success. He then illustrates the principle with two New Testament stories: the paralytic man whose friends tore through a roof to bring him to Jesus (Mark 2:1‑5) and the bleeding woman who touched Jesus’ garment (Mark 5:25‑34). Both examples highlight determination, spoken faith, and immediate action. Woods stresses that faith must be present now (Hebrews 11:1) and that hearing God’s word fuels it (Romans 10:17). Throughout, he urges listeners to share the message, declare determined faith in the chat, and commit to upcoming prayer sessions (5 AM and noon) and a later restoration teaching. The sermon blends scriptural exegesis, personal testimony, and practical calls to action, aiming to motivate believers to adopt a relentless, victorious faith that overcomes the world.
Chapters
All right, well, praise the Lord, everybody. Welcome to our 12 noon teaching. Glory to God. This is day 10 of 40 days I'm sorry, 21 days of fasting plus prayer. I'm super excited, man. We have had just some amazing opportunities to share. This fast has been phenomenal, and I'm not gonna waste a lot of time because I'm getting ready to actually do a session in this room. I mean, glory to God, I'm in Austin. Glory to God. But I want to, um, jump in here really quick and give you What Thus Said the Lord. Um, and we will definitely pick up on Determined Faith again on tomorrow. Uh, we're still talking about Bulldog Faith. This is like part 8 of that series. Uh, we're in our second tier of our fast. Glory to God. And I just believe that this fast is benefiting so many people, uh, even that we're not hearing from— hearing from so many people who are fasting with us. Getting the great benefit. Now here's what I need you to do really quick, guys. I need you to share this. I need you to share it like right now. Glory to God. Because I'm gonna— although I'm gonna be quick, I'm gonna share some information that I believe is gonna be, um, very beneficial. As a matter of fact, that you could take away from this and use it like right now. So let's, um, just review a little bit what we've been discussing about Bulldog Faith. So, um, Hebrews 11:32-34 has been our foundational text for this series. Hebrews 11:32-34. And we began talking about how you cannot complain about what you are allowing. And one of the things we made very clear in this series is that every opportunity that you have before you is either an opportunity for faith or opportunity for failure. Now, if you choose to go the faith route, listen to me, if you choose to take the opportunity that's before you as a faith route, what's going to happen? Glory to God, you're going to have to be persistent in your faith at all times.
You're gonna have to keep going.
You can't let up on it. And you know, God this week just actually challenged me in so many ways, man. He said, man, you, you're expanding your faith. You're believing for this level of billions, you're believing for God, for me to do things in your life, glory to God, that has never been done. You got to stay on it, and you gotta trust me, glory to God, when you cannot trace me.
Praise Jesus.
So we, we understand, we've, we've come to a reality that— watch this— if we choose the faith route, we cannot complain about what we permit. See, if you're not trusting God for it, if you're not moving in faith and being aggressive in your faith, you're not seeing results. Uh, you honestly, man, you don't get— you don't get to complain about it. You don't get the opportunity to complain about what you're allowing. But you gotta have some determined faith. And you know, I remember a season in my life I was complaining, man, years ago. And the Lord said to me, he said, listen, son, I want you to get aggressive about your faith.
You gotta have faith like a bulldog.
So that's where this teaching comes from you, which means you got to grab hold of something by faith and don't let up until you see the manifestation. So we learned that faith is aggressive, is bold, is forceful, it's tough, and it's not faith if it doesn't have any action connected to it.
We also learned that faith is persistent.
It applies constant, relentless pressure to a situation until the desired result is manifested.
So we're learning in this series how to develop bulldog faith, how to keep going and not let up on it until we see the results.
Glory to God.
Hallelujah. So you got to get on your faith basically and don't get off it.
Matter of fact, type that in the comments so somebody can be encouraged that's scrolling by.
Just type, get on your faith and don't get off it.
So once you get on faith, you take the faith opportunity over the failure, the feelings, the emotional opportunity.
You got to get on faith and don't get off it. So let's go to 1 John—
glory to God— 5:4.
The Bible says, for whosoever is born of God—
1 John 5:4—
for whosoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. So victory in this particular text in the New Testament is only used in this Greek connotation or form only once, and it's right here. The word victory here in Greek is nike.
It's where we get words actually like Nike.
Nike is a Greek word, glory to God, that means this is the very essence or means of success. So when you see Nike on a shoe, what they're saying is this shoe— they're trying to communicate that this shoe is the means to your success. Now, I've played against—
in my basketball days, in my baseball days, glory to God, I played against the people that had on Nikes, but it just wasn't the shoe, they didn't have talent.
But when it comes down to it, when you look at this Greek word, the very means to your success, if you got faith That's the very means to your success that's going to help you overcome, overtake, subdue, take control, or take authority over the world. So you got to make sure, glory be to God, that you have the Nike kind of faith— not the shoes, but in the K in Greek. You got to have faith that's going to overtake the world, faith that's going to conquer every opposition that's coming against you. I'm telling you, Faith, listen to this, when it is determined, it never loses.
That's the first thing I want you to grab today when you walk away from this line.
Faith, when it is determined, it never ever loses. It can't lose because you can bet on God every day, and I promise you, he cannot lie. I'm a living witness. He will come to pass, and what he said he's gonna do, he gonna do it. He gonna line up with it and he's gonna perform it.
Glory to God.
In every sense of the word.
Praise the name of Jesus.
So our bulldog faith is the faith that overcomes the world. Let's go to Mark 2, verses 1 through 5, and I'm reading out of the New Living Translation.
Listen to this.
The Bible says, when Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home.
Listen to this.
Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room even outside the door. While he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. Listen to this. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above Jesus's head. Then they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus. Watch this. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralyzed man, my child, your sins are forgiven.
Now look, it was a crowd of people, as it always was when Jesus was ministering. There wasn't a time that Jesus stepped out of the door to start ministering and working miracles that there wasn't a crowd.
Glory to the name of God.
Which tells me that when we become faithful to the glory, faithful to God's power, people are going to be attracted to that.
They're going to want to be a part of that because they see tangibly the miraculous working in the life of that ministry. That's why we're so driven and focused even in our Atlanta church, our—
the birthing of our Woodbridge church, and in Jackson, Mississippi, as proven going back for the first time in a long time on our own. We've been invited, but But we went back, we paid for that pulpit we had Saturday night.
Glory to the name of God.
And it was just a great experience. The glory was pure, it was tangible, and people were attracted to it.
And the more we produce glory, the more people are going to want to be a part of what we're doing. Because again, Jesus ministered, there was a crowd. Now, because there was a crowd, these men couldn't get their friend who needed healing to Jesus. Well, they were so determined, the Bible said that they put a hole in the roof and let the man down in front of Jesus. Well, let's get a definition of determination because we're talking about determined faith. Determination is an unwavering resolve— watch this— that nothing can stand in the way or deter— oh my God— the focus of the one trying to achieve the result. You know, so in other words, When you got determination, that you're resolved that nothing is going to stop you from getting the result you're trying to achieve. And when you got determined faith, you realize ain't nothing gonna stop what I'm trying to go after. There's nothing that's going to hinder what I'm trying to go after, because at the end of the day, God promised it, it's mine, and I'm gonna keep going. Listen, until I get it. Glory be to God. I wish I had some help here. I wish I had some determined people. Glory to God. Just type in the comments right now, I am determined and I will not quit. You ought to make up your mind, I am resolved that I'm gonna keep going until I get what God promised me I can have.
You got to have determined faith, people.
So we look at verse 4 of this same text. The men, again, we see it, they're so resolved to get to Jesus that they tore up a roof. Now, couldn't be my house because somebody gonna pay for that roof. Glory to God, they tear it up, I'm gonna get them healed, but somebody's paying for that roof. Glory to God. But they tore up the roof and lowered the paralytic man into the meeting. There was— they were determined that they tore up a roof. What are you willing to tear up with your faith to get to Jesus so you can get the victory in your body, the victory in your finances? Glory to God!
The victory—
hallelujah!— in your family, in your marriage.
What are you willing to tear a hole in? What are you willing to cause your faith—
glory to the name of God—
to be elevated in so you could see the promises of God manifested in your life?
What are you willing to tear a hole in? Glory to God. Verse 5, the Bible says Jesus basically saw their aggressive, determined bulldog faith.
Watch this, and the man was totally healed.
First of all, he saw the faith of the men that lowered him, and he saw the faith of the paralyzed man because he had no fear. He like, I'm gonna let these jokers take me on the roof, take me down through a hole in the roof, because I need to be healed. He wasn't afraid. He was willing to do whatever needed to be done.
Hear me, to get healed.
I'm almost done. Look at, uh, Mark 5:25-34 for context.
Somebody type it on the screen.
Mark 25 through 34. I don't have time to read it all, but there was a woman with an issue of blood that had bulldog faith. The Bible says she heard— watch this— faith come by hearing. She heard that Jesus was coming back, and just by hearing that, her faith was ignited, and she began this— oh, she opened her mouth. So I told you, faith always has something to do with how you speak. You got to speak those things that are not as though they were. She began to open her mouth and said, if I could just touch— oh my God— the hem of his garment, I will be made whole. So her faith was relentless in her words. Watch this in verse 34. Glory to God, she got to Jesus no matter what it cost her. She touched the hem of his garment. Verse 34 says, daughter, you're a bulldog faith. Because again, she heard, she spoke, She aggressed. She found out where Jesus was.
She did exactly what she said out of her mouth, and it got her healed.
It didn't just start— see, we preach— most preachers preach this from the standpoint when she touched the hem of Jesus's garment. Oh my God, it's so much more. Listen to me, than when she touched the hem of Jesus's garment. She heard it and her faith was ignited. First, that's why faith, Romans 10:17, come by hearing, hearing by the word. So every time you hear the word, word talk, word preach, prophetic word of your life, you speaking it out of your mouth, you hear it, it turns up your faith. Look, God have mercy. And then she began to press through the crowd so she could just touch the hem of his garment.
Watch this. So she had action, words, and faith.
Faith would cause money and action.
Faith without works is dead. I'm almost through, believe it or not.
Glory to God.
Faith is not something you do later. If faith is not now, it's not faith. I'm gonna say that again. The Bible said, Hebrews 11:1, now faith is If faith is not right now, if you're not believing to— you're not determined and believing to possess it right now, it ain't faith, it's you. God, faith doesn't delay. Glory to God. Faith is always engaged in the process. Faith always wants to see huge results. I'm almost done, man. Listen, it's the supernatural way to live in the natural. See, when you start moving in faith, you immediately open up the realm of the supernatural to operate alongside your natural life. So many people spend so much time trying to figure things out, hook things up themselves, and they try to do it without God.
Then they try to employ faith on the back end.
No, faith is leaving what you can see for what you cannot see and being determined that you're gonna see what you cannot see, just like you see what you can see.
It becomes your alternate way of viewing life. It becomes the only vantage point that you look at things. So you got the option to look at life through several vantage points, but when you walk by faith Listen to me, it's the only vantage point that you view things in your life.
Not by your flesh, not by your circumstances, not by your job.
God— I said it yesterday, I said it again— God is only limited to your job if you want him to be. But your faith can do more than your job can ever do for you. You better believe what I'm telling you. I'm telling you that right now.
I'm a living witness. Of what faith can do. Glory to God. Hallelujah.
I'm through, I'm through, I'm through. I ain't got time. Just declare this with me. Say this room, say, I've made up my mind. Come on, say it. I made up my mind. Say, I have made my decision. Say, I have set my faith. Say, I am fully persuaded that I going to make it. Say this with me. Say, nothing is going to stop me. Say, nothing is going to hold me back. Say, nothing is going to keep me down. Say, nothing is going to stand in the way of the blessing. Say, I am determined. Oh God, Say this, say, you can't talk me out of it. Glory to God. You say it, come on, speak it. Say, you can't discourage me from it. Ooh-wee. You can't deter me, for all that is mine in Christ is mine. Say, I am determined. Say, I'm undaunted, unbending, unflagging, unflinching. And no matter what happens, I am going to make it. Say this, say, according to the word of God, I am gonna make it, for I have determined faith.
Father, in Jesus' name, you heard the confession of faith of your people. I pray that this message— it was short, but it was to the point, and it was nothing but word. I pray they will apply to their lives right now and move in determined faith. I ask these things in your name.
Amen.
And thank God.
Listen, God bless your hearts.
Join me tomorrow, day 11 of 21 days plus of fasting plus prayer for 5 AM prayer. And again at 12 noon. I love you guys, man.
Listen, keep on the lookout.
We're gonna post a message from Saturday in Jackson, Mississippi later on tonight. Man, you want to make sure you tune in today, probably about 9, 10 o'clock tonight, but it'll be something good for you to sleep on. We taught a message about restoration that you need to hear. Make sure you tune in tonight.
