Elevation with Steven Furtick - Looking Forward To Normal

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

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This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your fate. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. All right, let me tell you a story. I'm going to ease into the message. We are not singing Rattle again. Y'all tricked me into that last week, and I never really got to preach a real sermon. You hear me, Joey? Do not start that. Joe Perry.

guitar thing up again. That is the devil back there. Get behind me, Satan. Get behind me, Cigna. Joey Cigna, everybody. The greatest rock and roll worship guitar track of the last 20 years was unrattled. And let me tell you, y'all can go ahead and sit down and stuff and if there's any debris around, just clear it out. They're going to come back and sit on stools so that I don't feel completely and totally alone. You can sit down, too, if you want to. I don't care what you do. Whatever you need to do to get your faith charged. I saw some people listening to me preach this week, and they were doing Tabata squats with my sermon. I was like, cool, man.

Way to be creative, right? That's what I call exercising your faith. Yeah, it's really cool. And we need some exercise, so that's... I'm looking out for you. I realize that some of y'all have not moved that much as you just did in the last eight minutes in the last eight days. So we're just trying to look after your spirit, soul, and body at Elevation Church. And what God gave me today kind of goes along with this idea of just put this in the chat,

all right? That's my thing right now. I can't touch your neighbor. I can't hug your neighbor. I can't do anything with neighbors. We're not even allowed to make eye contact with our neighbors. I'm so scared of my neighbors right now. My neighbors are wearing masks and gloves, and I don't know what to do with my neighbors.

So we're just chatting. We're just putting it in the chat. That's the new touch your neighbor. I want somebody to make a T-shirt this week. Put it in the chat. It's the new touch your neighbor. We're starting it together. It's a revolution. But just put it in the chat real quick. Say, this is not normal. This is not normal. That's really such an expansive thought that I think I may spend the next several weeks just unpacking the idea of normal as we know it is over. You realize that, right? And so last week, when we were getting ready for Easter, and I was thinking, well, what do you wear on Easter Sunday? When there's nobody else in the room, I was like, oh, man, we should do a nice, normal Easter service because there's going to be more people watching us than ever before.

And so I don't want to make a bad impression on the first-time visitors or give anybody heart palpitations. and we were releasing this song called Rattle. That sounds like an Easter song, right? I was like, God, this is not normal. Like Easter ever was. Like people getting up out of tombs is so normal. Like the dead rising again is just an everyday occurrence. Like the idea that an angel just

moved a stone out of the way, and somebody who had been there hours ago was no longer there is normal. They got me thinking about this phrase that you're hearing a lot right now from people. And I actually want to take my time with this. I don't know if this message can be completed in a week or three weeks or four weeks, but I don't know if I might preach. I might have to preach long today. Are y'all good?

Yeah. I might have to preach long today. I don't know. So you may need to cancel your lunch plans. What am I saying? You don't have any lunch plans. You don't have any plans for anything. This is like a preacher's dream come true.

You are so captive right now. So we could just do it. Okay. The main thing you might have to do is turn your crock pot down. But this is not normal. This is not normal. And we hear a phrase a lot, at least I do right now. And listen, since this is not a normal weekend, I'm not a normal preacher.

This is not a normal church. You're not a normal person either. Matter of fact, the only people that think you're normal are the people who don't know you. John Hortberg wrote a book called Everybody's Normal till you get to know them. So anybody that you think is normal is somebody that you don't really know. Come on, talk to me. There's like five people that I'm paying to be out here and I can't get them to talk to me. Everybody's normal, John Ortberg said, till you get to know them.

Your wife is weird. You didn't see the weirdness of your wife when you were dating her. You were... Your wife was weird when you met her. You just didn't know her yet. And so what we're looking at right now is a sentiment that a lot of people feel. And here's what I'm doing. I did not give them my title for the message because I wanted to try something new today.

Rather than put it up on the screen fancy, I wanted to do my own special effect. today. Because I don't know what's going to happen in the next weeks to come, but what if we can't put the title up anymore and I still need to preach to people? Well, I'm going to make my own title card, okay? I'm doing my own stunts today. And here's the phrase I've been hearing from a lot of people. I'm going to show you this. Get ready to zoom in on it once I write it. But I've heard this, oh, man, like I've heard it at least a hundred times, whether it's people on the news or people that I know or our staff here at elevation. And here's the phrase, this seems to be the goal. Let me shut up for a minute so I can concentrate on writing. I'm not a very

good multitasker. I want to misspell anything. Oh, I love it, because I've heard this a million times, and I bet you've said it a few times too. Here's the phrase, I'm hearing this a lot. Can y'all see it? I can't see whether you can see it or not, because there's no, like, iMag in the screen, because there's nobody in the room that needs to see IMAG. This is not normal. Normally, I would just look over here to my left or my right, and I would see if it's a tight shot. But can y'all see it? Is it a good shot? This is what I'm hearing a lot of people talk about right now. This is just a piece of elevation church stationary. I just wrote it down because it's not a normal Sunday, so I don't want to preach a normal

sermon and throw it to a normal title. But I'm hearing this right now like, oh man, I just can't wait to things get back to normal. Okay, put that in the chat. If your thumb still work, put it in the chat. Getting back to normal. I'm hearing a lot of people. talk about how long is it going to be before things get back to normal. And honestly, I'm ready for some normalcy in the Ferdick zip code as well. I really am. I'm ready for some normalcy to our schedules. I'm ready for some normalcy to date nights with my wife.

I mean, I know that sounds like real fancy or freely at a time when people are hurting so much, But there's something nice about things just being normal. Even little things being normal. I don't even like sports that much, but I miss them. I don't even care about the outcome. I just like to have it in the background. Because it's normal. It's normal.

Normal is nice. And you really don't realize how much you need normal until you are forced to live without it. I was talking to one of my friends about normal the other day, and I promise you I'm going to preach from the scripture in a moment because my scriptures are Exodus 14, 10 through 15, and Romans 12, 1 and 2. So go ahead and turn to those two books, one in the Old Testament, one in the new. But I've been hearing this phrase so much, oh man, I just can't wait until things get back to normal.

But something arrested my attention the other day is that the person who was saying to me how much that she was waiting for stuff to get back to normal had complained to me two months ago before any of this global pandemic started about how much she hated her life. And that was weird to me, because the normal that she had been complaining about two months ago was the normal that she would give anything to get back to right now. Some of us would give anything for normal right about now. Would give anything to get to deal with the annoying person that you work next to if you could get back to work. Oh, I would sit next to Teresa all day and pretend like her stories were good and funny and interesting and her breath didn't smell bad.

I would love some normal right about now. It's like when you go to college, you know, if you went to college and you hated your hometown and then you get dropped off in the middle of a new world and nothing is familiar and you were complaining, I just can't wait to leave Monk's Corner. I shout out Monk's Corner. We sent Convoy of Hope and Elevation Outreach, resources, and teams all week to help those who were devastated. You're going to be seeing about that soon if you haven't already. But, man, I hated my hometown for a minute until I left it. And then everything that felt small to me started to feel, I don't know. Like instead of confining, it felt comforting.

Here's what I'm trying to say, because I think I'm being a little bit too vague for you. Okay. Some of the stuff that you're praying for right now is the same stuff you were praying away two months ago. And isn't it weird? How quick we can shift. to where what we want to get back to is the same thing that we wanted to escape from. Y'all ain't helping the preacher a bit today. It's so, so easy in a moment like this for us to make our goal getting back to normal.

But here's what the Lord showed me. This is where I need my hot pink Sharpie. I think red would have been better, but I couldn't find one, so I'm doing hot pink. I want us to shift our mentality today. This may be a whole teaching series. I don't know, because I'm hearing so many people say, I want to get back to normal. I want to get back to the way things were. I want to get back to them.

And the Lord posed a question to me this week, what if normal isn't something to get back to? What if normal is something to look forward to? And what if the normal that we knew is not the normal? that God is leading us into next. I'm about to throw my title card at you, Holly. This might be the most anointed message that I've ever preached in my life. It's called Looking Forward to Normal. Why do we assume that normal is back there?

Why would we as Christians who serve a God who is always moving forward from glory to glory from strength to strength. Why would we serve a God like that? A God whose very essence is defined by resurrection? Why would we serve a God who is defined by resurrection, new beginnings, and think that the whole goal is to get back to something that we knew before? And I hope that certain things are normal again. I hope, for God's sake, that my kids can go back to real school again. I hope for God's sake that certain things in our society change. I hope for God's sake that there's a time where these chairs can be full of people again. And even the obnoxious parking volunteers at elevation, I missed them today. You know the

ones that do too much, you know, the extra parking volunteers where you're like, it's 845 and don't take all that. Just wait me through my parking space, man. Just because you got a baton doesn't mean you have to act like a clown. But I even miss the high- hyperactive parking volunteers. I even miss the people in the church who look bored while I was preaching. The ones who looked like terrorists when I was preaching to them. I miss them. I want normal back. But God has been speaking to my spirit, E, fam. God has been speaking to my spirit Indonesia. God has been speaking to my spirit and yours too, but you just didn't have the language for it. God said, I'm bringing you into a new normal. Because what you think is, you

thought was normal, wasn't really normal. It was just what you knew. And I'm going to show you this from the scripture. Turn in your Bible, or let's be honest, just wait for it to come on the screen. I'm acting like y'all got books spread out all over the coffee table. The fact of the matter is you're probably stirring your oatmeal right now. But turn in your Bible to Exodus chapter 14 and let me show you how God's people have always been trying to go back to normal at the moments when God is trying to bring us into something new. Now this message is for my business owners in the church. Those of you who are hoping things go back to normal, but you know that they won't, but you don't know what to do. This message is for those in the church

who are trying to deal with a level of uncertainty that was unprecedented in your life before and you're just trying to even get a daily schedule figured out, this message is for you. This message is even for those who have lost something in this season that you will never get back again. And the question becomes, what is the new normal that God has known all along? What is the new normal that I should look forward to? Now, remember this and write it down. Faith looks forward. Faith looks forward. And you'll see in Exodus chapter 14, remember a nation who has only known slavery in Egypt for 430 years.

When that is all you've known, that's what is normal. On one hand, they hated it. They hated it because not only was there no freedom in it, but there was frustration that was increasing because the Egyptian taskmasters had begun to require more from the Israelites than they could reasonably do? I mean, they'd make them bricks, but they wouldn't give them straw. Go fetch your own straw and make the same number of bricks. So you still got to fulfill your quota, but you're not going to have enough to do it with. So now listen, this is a generation of people who had gotten used to never having enough.

I wonder for us has never enough become our normal. I'm not talking about last week or the week before that, and I'm not talking about bank account. I think the spirit of this age is the spirit of never enough. We can never get enough information. We can never get enough what we call connection. It's not really connection. It's just the apparatus.

It's just the illusion of connection that really keeps us more fragmented than ever. before. So now we call ourselves connected in the world because we have social media. I'm thinking about introducing a new trend. Social distancing is catching on. We're practicing it right now. But how about social media distancing? That's when you can go more than five minutes without your phone. Y'all ain't saying nothing. Social media distancing. It's a thing. Put it in the chat. Five minutes without your phone. See, to us now, it's just completely normal for you. us to be overloaded all the time, and just to have access to everything that's happening in the world.

And then we wonder, why are we so fearful? Why can't we feel? It's because we were never intended to carry so much in our minds and in our hearts, but to us it's just normal. We're used to making bricks without straw. Many of us are used to never really getting a good night's sleep. It's just normal. We're used to running around this and that and the other.

We're used to spending too much money. It's normal. Totally normal. It's what the neighbors do. It's what my dad did. It's what my dad's dad. So what we're seeing in Exodus 14 isn't just God's people coming out of Egypt as a territory. They're coming out of what they've known as normal. So while it sounds sexy, open the grave, I'm coming out, I'm going to live. But what if you've gotten so used to death? That real life seems weird. Get back to normal. I'm not so sure. Now this is how the Israelites expressed it. Y'all ready? Exodus 1410 as Pharaoh approached, wait, Pharaoh represents fear. Pharaoh represents the old. Got it? Pharaoh said eat, you eat. Pharaoh said make bricks, you make bricks. Pharaoh is the old boss, the old regime. Pharaoh is the old ruler. But, you eat. But, you make bricks. Pharaoh is the old boss. But

He's also the one who fed you. So Pharaoh is the one who fed you and Pharaoh is the one that you fear. A lot of the things that we get used to meet certain needs in our life, and until we know a better way to meet that need, we will always depend on the wrong source. That's what addiction is. It meets a need. That's for some of you what that person that you keep running back to every three weeks that isn't good for you is. That's a form of Pharaoh. That's what certain thought patterns that we embrace

are to us. See, they're familiar. And this is the principle that I want to show you. When you are afraid, you reach for what's familiar. When you are afraid, you reach for what's familiar. And this is very explicit in Exodus 14, Chapter 14, verse 10. As Pharaoh approach, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, the ones they were running for. from marching after them. They were, what does the next word say? Terrified. They were afraid. Put that right there on one side. They were afraid. They experienced fear. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die, the sarcasm is dripping in this statement.

Egypt was famous for grapes. Three quarters of their landmass was set aside for graves. So when they say, were there no graves in Egypt, it's like saying, were there no trees in Charlotte? It's like saying, was there no orange at elevation? It's like saying, was there no electric guitar in slash? I'm going to keep trying until I hit somebody. It's like that's what Egypt was known for.

It was known for graves. And watch this. When you feel afraid, you crave familiar, even if familiar is killing you. Egypt was killing them. And on one hand, they're crying out. Get us out of here. We'll go anywhere. We'll do anything.

God, just make it stop. Some of y'all were praying that three months ago. God, I need a change. God, this is not working. God, I'm not happy. God, I don't feel joy. Remember? Remember three months ago? When you were praying, God, help me get my priorities. Remember your New Year's resolutions? I know that was like BC before Corona. You're like, oh, well, I've gained 17 pounds since in. I'm just trying to breathe. That's my new New Year's resolution. Take another breath, take another breath. But when you feel fear, you reach for familiar. When God, God,

showed me this, I realized why to me sometimes negative feels normal. A lot of times when I'm feeling uncertain, unstable, little thing, big thing, I reach for something negative because negative is what I know. Not because I had horrible parents, I had great parents. But I will say this, my dad was not normal. His childhood was not normal. His dad killed himself when he was nine on his night's birthday. That was not normal. In fact, one of the last things that my dad said to me while he was alive, he said, I only ever wanted to be normal. He was talking about how, through his upbringing, when he was sent to reform school, and just the different things that happened in his life, you know, blowing through two marriages before he met my mom and all of that, he was saying, I just always wanted to be normal. I've never been normal.

I've never been normal. I've never been normal. The Bible says that about Moses, who was leading the people out of Egypt. Did you know that? It says in Acts 7, verse 20, that Moses was no ordinary child. Isn't that cool? So say this as a compliment to whoever you're sitting next to. And I hope this doesn't start an argument.

Tell them, you're not normal. In fact, tell them stronger. Say, you've never been normal. You've never been normal. There's nothing normal about you. Angie, look at Josh and just tell him, come on, say it in the Josh Blackton voice. You've never been normal. Josh Blackson, the deepest voice and the man from Michigan.

You should have sang based in a Southern gospel quartet. Only problem is your tone deaf, but you got the range for it. You've never been normal. You were a Boy Scout, but you weren't normal. See, look, normal is just a sense. story that you've told yourself. And so the Israelites, God help them, they are standing

at a Red Sea, which is a body of water that they have no context for. Like us right now, we have no context for this crisis. We have no context for this challenge. We have no precedence for this global pandemic because we've never lived through one. So when they felt terrified,

watch what they did. They craved familiar. Were there? no graves in Egypt, we'd rather be dead in Egypt than alive in uncertainty. They craved the grave over having to stand in front of something in an uncertain situation. And so do we. We do it all the time. We go back to places that kill us, people that kill us, patterns that kill us, routines that kill us, bottles that kill us, pills that kill us, stations that kill us, stations that kill us, feeds that kill us. Keep going.

Websites to kill us. Accounts to kill us. Thoughts to kill us. Because it's normal. And normal is nice. Normal is nice. If you don't think so, you never had a nice old sweatshirt. It's nice because it's normal.

It's not nice because it looks good. It looks terrible. You look homeless, but it's normal. Oh, I like this. This is my good sweatshirt. These are my good underwear. with seven holes in it, but it's got seven holes, but it's normal. It feels familiar. So watch this. Oh, I'm anointed by the Spirit of God today to help you see.

Normal is not all that. I just wanted to be the way it was. We want to go back to Egypt. Take us back to Egypt. The place you were crying out to God to take you from, now you want to go back? Yeah, I want to go back. I want to go back to normal. God, I will never complain about my country. kid's teacher again just long as it doesn't have to be me. I'm going back to normal. Normal. I just want normal. Just normal. I just need something normal. That's why I wanted to come in the building to preach to you. I was like, do you want to do it in a studio? I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Because I want people to get a little bit of normal. I think it'll help people. Even our eFAM that meets all over the world. And y'all, when I say all over the world,

watch the chat. Put in the chat if you're from somewhere other than Charlotte. and put where it is. And I just want you to see I'm not lying. Because there's nothing normal about this church. You know, the church I grew up in, it was like a hundred people. It was an amazing church, but in the town of Monks Corner is only 6,000. That was my normal. So as the ministry grows bigger, to me, it's not familiar. So sometimes I fear when something is expanding or getting bigger because it's not normal to me. So it's really difficult for us to understand. Those of us that were coming to church buildings and Riverwalk and Concord, oh God, we're building a building for coming. concord, now we don't get to use it. It's so bad, God. Just let us get back to the plan. Let us get back to the let us get back to the thing we had a few weeks ago. I know I was complaining about it, but I'll take it. I'll take it. I'm sorry, God. Give it back. Give it back. Give it my job back. I'm so sorry, God. Give my car back. I'll ride my Honda Accord. Just let me take it somewhere. Just have something for me to do. God, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. Because when you're in something you don't know, you crave normal. Do you see all those cities and hamlets and provinces on that screen? I can't read them all out.

There's too many. That's amazing. You know, I used to say this all the time to our church. I used to say to the people who could come to church here in a physical location. I would say some people came here this weekend on their honeymoon, their vacation. They wanted to come to elevation. Where do you want to go to vacation this year? I want to go to Disney World.

I want to go to elevation. I want to go to elevation. The vacation destination of the world right here off of 521. It'd be like some people be here like, man, this was on my bucket list to come to elevation. People would say that, this is my bucket list. And I used to say to those of y'all who were sitting out there, I'd say, don't ever take for granted that what God put in your backyard is on somebody else's bucket list. Didn't I say that?

And now I can show you better and I can tell you Some of the same people that used to complain about the parking lot at Valentine I bet you would love to have to wait for a parking space right now if you could just come to church and be in the presence of God Now, I know some of you, you're like no, I kind of like this church at home thing better This is actually pretty awesome brother Steve I'll tell you what that eFAM was on to something This is this is really an innovation right here I mean I'll tell you what right now I'm sitting there

Right here, I've got my Oreos and I'm getting spiritually fed as well. Praise the Lord. Christ and carbohydrates. This is the ticket. I'll tell you what. I praise God for innovative ministry. This is a digital revolution. This is a revival.

You know, all I'm trying to think about these days is not the normal that I want to get back to because I have a feeling. I have a feeling. And I think you do too. Let's just have the funeral right now. that we are not going back to normal. We're not. I was on a Zoom call this week with a department and our staff,

and by the end of it, I was beating the desk saying, y'all aren't getting it. Everything has changed. Y'all are having a normal meeting. This is not a normal time. People need the gospel more than ever before, and y'all are talking about what happened 10 days ago. And right now for our ministry, we have to be in the moment because people need this oxygen.

This is not a normal time. This is not a normal church. And I hope in some ways, I hope this building is full again, but I hope we never just go back to normal, where we come in church and act like, you know, it's just our right to come in here. I hope we never go back to normal where we just come in and we can't get the i-bougar out of our eye. until the fourth song, until they play our favorite song, and everything has to match our preference, and we just kind of yawn and wait for it to be over. I hope we never go back to normal. I'm never going back to normal.

Never. Never. It's never been normal. So I'm up here last week thinking, oh, man, this is not a normal Easter. I'm wearing leather. We're singing a song that sounds more like Stone Temple Pilots and Michael W. Smith. We're kicking over stuff. It's supposed to be Easter. Now, the weirdest part about that is, in 2011, we did something called 3D Easter. I traveled to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon,

and everybody had 3D glasses on. It was real budget 3D, but it was enough for us to market it as 3D Easter. And it was good to his creative. It was the gospel. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth. The three different places God brings it to. And I used an old church to talk about God saving people who are religious but don't have a relationship. And then I use Vegas to talk about Samaria, the wild people in the world. Then I talk about the ends of the earth at the Grand Canyon, no matter how far away you feel from God. And everybody's sitting there with their 3D glasses on. And I have pictures of that of me in a suit with 3D glasses on, standing there like happy Easter Jesus.

All right? And now I want to be normal? Now you want to be normal? I can wait until church gets back to normal. What normal are you talking about? Because normally people say, I just want to go back to the old-time religion. What they mean by old time is 1955. Isn't that funny?

How we freeze frame, it's like, I just like the old hymns. It's like, how old? You want like Gregorian chants? You want like 397 AD? Oh, that's how, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about the old hymns. Oh, you mean the ones that are familiar. You mean the ones that you know.

You want to go back to what you know. And you know what's crazy? Those hymns you want to sing now are the ones you yawned through when you were little. You didn't even know what you had when you had it. And now God is teaching us to appreciate some things that we took for Granted, but we can't right now. I just appreciate the opportunity. Some of us who complained about airports, we're going to be begging them to pat us down

if we can ever go get on a plane again. Please pat me down. Pat me anywhere. Pat me. Pat me once. Just anything. Anything normal. We want to go back to Egypt.

Really? I thought you wanted to leave. All I'm trying to say is God is doing some of the stuff we asked him to do, but we don't know it because we're trying to what? Get back to normal. I just want to get back to normal. You mean when you were running around like a chicken with your head cut off? What a graphic idiom. It's so vulgar. You see though, it's just normal. We just say that a chicken with your head cut off. If you stop and picture it, it's grotesque. But see how anything can become normalized? And then we get confused.

because we think that what we know is what's normal. That's where a phrase is like white privilege come from. It means that because as a white man, certain things that I think are just normal are not the same experiences of brothers or sisters who are not white males. You think it's normal? Your normal is somebody else's goal. Just to even be treated equally. You have to understand. Just because something is normal to you does not mean that it's normal to everyone. That's very important for us to understand. Best example I could give you is with my kids.

Are y'all getting something out of this so far? Abby said to me the other day, what would you tell nine-year-old Stephen Ferdit, because she's nine, if you could tell him anything. So I was like, I would tell him. that one day you're not going to walk through Walmart, looking at CDs, figuring out which one to buy, you are going to be able to instantly listen to any music in the history of the universe on a device that is the size of a note card. I would tell him that video games are going to radically change. Because see, for us, tech mobile.

was high-tech. Now, when my kids are playing video games now, they laugh at my video games because their normal was something that I didn't even know to imagine. Like, we didn't have, for instance, Abby, we didn't have Roblox flying unicorns, neon unicorns, flying, driving, neon exploding unicorns. We didn't have any of that. And once you bought the game, you didn't have to spend any more money on it. That's new. That's new. You bought it one dang time. One time.

Now you had to blow in it until you had a seizure to get it to work. But once you bought it, it was yours. And you didn't have to buy anything else for it. You didn't have to grind to get your team ready. My God, it's a video game, not a job. But it's your normal. It's your normal that we put trolls on the video screen. Look at me sounding like an old man.

It's your normal that we rented the movie, the Trolls World Tour. And we didn't have to go. See, back in the day, let me give you a history lesson. Back in yonder, yonder ye. Back in the times of Jesus, blockbuster video, reigns supreme. Come on, y'all don't know nothing about late fees. And I know you don't know anything about rewinding or you pay an extra 99 cents. If you don't rewind the tape, I'm taking you back.

That was normal. Not now. Not now. My daughter's never been in a blockbuster in her life. Blockbuster. What's blockbuster? All right. So here's the question.

I'm going to go deep on you. Are you holding on to a blockbuster blessing? Something that God is trying to put out of business in your life? Something that God is saying, you know what? I'm taking you through something uncertain right now. Who is this for? I'm taking you through something. you through something right now that you've never seen before. But just because you've never

seen it before doesn't mean it's not normal. Thank you, Jesus. Just because I have never known it doesn't mean it's not normal. You mean it can be normal for me to have a heart that is at peace? Yes. Yes. That's how it's supposed to be. You are supposed to have peace in the middle of a storm. Jesus did. He slept through stuff that we scramble about because he's not from here. See, when you're from someone else, it changes what you see as normal. Help me preach. Stand up and help me preach. Because I come from a different place, because I am not from this world, because it is not my home, I do not have to accept the patterns of this world as normal. I don't have to accept Egypt as normal.

And what if God is trying to bring me into a new normal? But I'm so afraid that I reach for what's familiar. Can I tell you one new normal I think God is trying to give us right now? Better priorities. Because we are so toxic in the way we treat each other, what we say to each other, how we categorize and box each other. Well, we can't box each other like that anymore. I need you and you need me.

And if we don't all do what we're supposed to do, we may not ever get out of this. God is making a nation. God is bringing the people through the Red Sea together, but not for them to go through. For them to get there, there's something that they have to give up. Question. What is God calling you to give up to get there? What if there's a new normal? What if your true nature has been so buried and embedded in what Romans 12 calls the patterns

of this world? Can I show you this? Y'all sit down. I'm still feel like I just barely started this message. I'm going to teach it again next week, but let me get as far as I can today before the time runs out. What time am I supposed to be done? Like 10 minutes, 12 minutes?

How long? I don't even know what that clock means. How many of y'all kept looking at clocks and days of the week a while ago? What month is this? I don't know. But here's what I want to show you from Romans 12. Some of you've heard the scripture before, but let's put it in context, okay? Just like the children of Israel were going through the Red Sea and remember all they've known

as normal. All their parents' parents knew as normal. All their parents' parents' parents knew as normal. All their parents' parents' parents knew as normal. This is 430 years. Look how weird our world has got. in just a few weeks. This is 430 years of you thinking you're never supposed to have enough.

You never be free. This is what it's like to be in bondage. And some of you know this because you've been in bondage to depression. You've been in bondage to patterns of thought. And this is a chain-breaking scripture in Romans 12. And I never saw it before, y'all. I never saw it before Rob, Debbie Chelsea, Dawn, Lisa, Shinnika, Mae, Sharon. I never saw it before. Somebody's name on here is honey. That is not a normal name. I like it.

It fits my message. My name is honey. What's your name? My name is honey. That's one way to get a date. All right. My name is honey. Call me honey. But watch this scripture in Romans 12 verse 1. Are you ready? This revelation to me, I've read both of these scriptures a lot. They're both classic passages. The children of Israel coming through the Red Sea, they want to go back to Egypt. They want to go back to what they've known. They want to go back to what's familiar because they are afraid. I'd rather go back to what is negative, even if it's not really normal. So we'll call negative normal just because it's what we know. You see this? Some of the things that I've called normal my whole life aren't normal.

And this scripture shows me just the full extent of it in Jesus Christ. Now let's put the gospel on this Old Testament passage. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy. That's not normal. That's not normal. How many of you in a relationship can just do wrong over and over and over and over and over again, and the person fully accepts you? Only God.

So in view of that kind of mercy, and that's where we get used to things, we get used to things that we used to be grateful for we become entitled to. But remember, for this. This community that Paul is writing to, none of this is normal. They're used to relating to God through a sacrificial system. So when they come before God, they have to make offerings and spill blood in order to have their prayer requests heard, in order to meet with God in order to atone for sin. So this is not normal for Paul to be talking about mercy, coming to God on the basis of grace.

This is new. This is a new normal. And you know what their temptation was? To go back to the old way. So he's telling them, no, no, no, no, no. In view of God's mercy, I urge you. I need you to. I'm begging you to.

Stop trying to get back to normal. Stop thinking that there's something you could do to earn God's love and realize that it's already been done through the gift of his son, Jesus Christ, that the blood has already been shed. Instead of getting back to normal, move forward into this new way of life, and instead of offering pigeons and turtle doves and lambs and goats and rams, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true, true and proper worship.

This is your new normal. Your new normal is that you are forgiven and not condemned. Your new normal is that you are a child of the Most High God. I am no ordinary child. I am a child of God. Me and Moses have Acts 720 in common. I am no ordinary child. I am a child of God.

I am a royal priesthood. I am a holy nation. I am set apart. I'm not trying to be normal. Normal is broken. Normal is broken. The culture is broken. The world is weird and it didn't just get weird when a virus was unleashed. The world has been weird for a long time. I'm going to show you in the Bible. Romans 12 too. This is way before coronavirus. You got it? Romans 12 too. Do not conform to the pattern of this world. Why not? Because the world is weird. I don't know about Christians. They're weird. You know what's kind of cool about going through something really traumatic?

What used to be weird now is the only thing that works. That's the only thing I'm excited about. I'm not excited about anybody being sick, anybody dying, anybody losing their job, anybody losing their company, anybody losing their life's work. I'm not excited about anybody having work 20-hour days. I'm not excited about any of it. But what I am excited about is that our faith finally fits. See, the world always operates by logic, but now we've come to a red sea. And so the world is trying what has always tried. Ah, more information. Ah, blah, ah, and none of it works. So now there's room to do what Romans 12-1 says, and worship isn't weird anymore. It's not weird to worship now, is it?

Because the only thing I can do now is call on God. People are praying right now who used to think that praying was superstitious. It's not weird anymore. For once, we're not the weird ones. We're not weird. For just a minute, let's just take this moment. It's like we're a middle school boy who finally hit a growth spur and our voice isn't cracking. And we finally fit.

The church finally fits. You could send this link to somebody today and they wouldn't be annoyed that you're You invited them to church. They'd be excited. They are bored to death. They've got three ulcers. They've got ulcers in places where you don't even normally get ulcers. So faith finally fits.

This is our moment. This is our time. This is what we were born to do. I want born to be normal. We fit. It's an amazing moment. Finally, there's space for faith in your life. As long as everything's normal, there's no space for faith.

Oh, I got this. I figured this out. Here's what I do. I take the kids here and I take the kids there and I take the kids there and I take the kids there. The Lord said that in this season, he is helping people reset their schedule. And since you didn't want to do it manually, now as the whole thing is shut down, one of the The new normals that God might bring us into is that we have a different baseline for busy or a reordering of priorities.

Think about this. Many of us worshipped soccer more than we worshiped the Savior. I know that sounds like one of those cliches. I would normally do it in the country preacher voice. You worship soccer more than the Savior, but it's the dang truth. I don't have anything against soccer other than I hate it. But listen to me, church. You're listening to me right now.

Sit up and listen to this. God said, I'm not trying to get you back to the normal to where you worshiped your kids' activities and left no space for me. I'm not trying to bring you back to that Egypt where you had to make bricks without straw. You were just spending your money and spending your time and never full and holes in your purses and just running after this and running after that to impress people. So now you're going through a season where you can put on any clothes you want. Nobody's going to see them.

God's reordering some priorities because Romans 12, too, put it back on the screen, please. I feel this message. Don't want another week of this next week? Thank you, Jesus. Do not conform anymore to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Why? The world was weird to begin with. It's not normal. And even the way you develop your construct of the world is important, right? If you get your construct of what the world is like from the news, you will not know normal. The news does not make money by showing you normal. The news makes

money by showing you the most extreme example to keep you watching. You think the news is there to inform you? The news is not there to inform you. The news is there to engage you so you'll keep watching. So you're getting your construct of the world right now from the news, the news, the news, the news. That's not normal. I'm not telling you not to check the news. I'm telling you not to watch it. Just all the time. It's not normal. That is not normal. You know how the world has these patterns. It's like all these patterns of the world where we overextend ourselves all the time. And we do all these things to impress people. That has never been normal. That's just been culturally accepted. That doesn't make it normal. What does God call normal? That's what I want to know in this season. What does

God call normal? I told Elijah the other day, I don't care if you like sports or don't like sports. If music is your thing, because I grew up with this too. The kids, who did sports were normal. The kids who liked music were weird. You know what? I'm 40 and I probably can't play sports anymore, even if I was good at them at one time, but I can still make music. So watch this. What was weird then is making ministry happen now. Can I preach? Do not be conformed. That's to be acted upon by the outside. That's conform. You can make it what you want it to be. That's what the world has done to us for so long. Your faith goes here. Don't talk about your faith. Your faith is just this. That's not normal.

The world is weird. Faith is normal. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. And now we get it that the unseen is the most significant. I've been preaching this since the beginning of the year, but now we finally get it that what is unseen is the most significant. I've been preaching this since the beginning of the year, but now we finally get it that what is unseen. seen is most significant. We get it because we're fighting a virus that we can't see. So now we understand that the things which are seen were made of things which do not appear. Faith finally fits because we are standing in front of the Red Sea, and we no longer understand. And we can't count on the things we used to count on. And in one sense, we want them back for comfort, but God cannot bring change while we hold to comfort. There is a new normal,

There is a better you, a truer you, a real you. The patterns of this world are just pretend. It is not real. There is a peace that comes from above. There is a wisdom that whispers and it doesn't shout. And God said, I'm not trying to get you back to normal. I'm trying to bring you into it. I'm looking forward to normal.

Somebody say it in the chat. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to God reinventing me. I'm looking forward to God increasing my capacity to connect with people for real. I'm looking forward to God. I prayed that God would help me with my gratitude. I'm looking forward to being able to put it into practice in the next season. I'm looking forward to normal.

Not trying to get back to it. I left Egypt. I'm not trying to conform to the pattern of this world. I want God to transform me by the renewing of my life. mind. And that starts with what I thought was normal. What I thought was normal. Wasn't normal. It's just what I knew. I'm so glad my dad wasn't normal. I mean, at times I wasn't, but looking back, I got my passion to preach from the fact that he wasn't normal. I'm not trying to be normal. I found out that what the world calls normal.

God calls broken. So when I pray for healing, understand I'm not just praying for bodies to be healed in this season. I'm not just talking about immune systems. I'm talking about belief systems. Do you hear this preacher? I don't know. He looks kind of wild today. I am wild today. I'm ready. I'm ready to flip this thing upside down. And what the world calls weird, God calls normal. Jesus was the only one on the boat who was normal. Everybody who was freaking out in fear, they were weird. So I pray that God would bring us into, watch this, a new normal. There's nothing normal about faith.

There was never meant to be. There's nothing normal. There was nothing normal about a shepherd boy fighting a giant with a son. You thought that was normal? What was normal was all the boys with the heavy equipment who didn't know how to do anything with it. There was nothing normal about a virgin birth. You ever had one? Did you get here that way?

Well, if that's the way Jesus came into the world, what makes us think it's going to be any different now? So when we pray for him to show up, he's not going to show up looking normal. There's nothing normal about stretching your staff over the sea. There's nothing normal. There's nothing normal about what we're going through right now. There's nothing normal about the panic. There's nothing normal about the fear. There's nothing normal about the order of things.

There's nothing normal about the rules. I pulled up to a red light today on the way to church, and I was like, do we still stop for these? I don't know. Maybe we don't anymore. Nothing is normal. and yet maybe God is bringing us closer to what he wanted for us all along. Maybe. Maybe God is resetting and revealing, resetting, revealing.

Be not conformed outside in to the patterns of this world, but be transformed inside out, transformed inside out. Stuck in my house, but God transform my family, transform my mind, transform my habit. Give me new neural pathways Give me teach me new ways to trust you I'm not trying to get back to normal I'm moving forward into a new normal That's what the kingdom of God is

It's a new normal a new way of being a new form of humanity A new level of faith Do it God That's what faith is It's a new normal Blessed or the poor in spirit, huh? That's weird No, that's the way it is We've just been weird for so long that we got it out of order.

But God is bringing us into new normals. How long till we get back to normal? You can keep waiting all you want, or you can worship. You could keep resisting or you can receive. And I love what God told Moses. When the people were looking for someone to blame, you know how we do? Yeah, it was the bats, it was the lab, it was the this, it was the dad, it was the dad, It was heard that God, we always want somebody to blame, but blaming somebody doesn't bring

you into what God is taking you into. No sooner did they get to this uncertain place until they start to say to Moses, didn't we say to you in Egypt, leave us alone? This is verse 12, Exodus 14, let us serve the Egyptians. It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert. Moses answered the people. Hear the word of the Lord. Hear the word of the Lord. Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance. The Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. What does that mean? You're never going back to normal.

You're moving into a new freedom. I minister this to you like it was just us. I love it because it can just be like we're having a conversation right now. We're not in a big crowd right now. It's just me and you. And the Lord told me to tell you, you're never going back to normal. In fact, some of the stuff that you thought was normal, it wasn't really normal. It was just old.

This is a season to embrace the new normal. Normal. Lord God of our fathers, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the God and Father of of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call on your name now because you never change and you never fail. We stand before you not only as a nation but as a planet, and we so crave normal. We stand before a C's that we don't know how to park holding nothing more than a stick in our hand. And our natural defenses are nothing for the principalities that we face that we cannot see.

If there were only a virus that we were fighting, we could solve it on a physiological level. But God, the truth is we need something more than that. Many of us were controlled by fear long before there was a virus to fight. Many of us were dominated by depression way before we were quarantined. So when we've been asking you, God, make it normal again, make it normal again, get us back to Egypt. We've been really praying the wrong thing. We've been praying for familiar, but what we really want is freedom. I pray that you would use this season in our life, as horrible as it may be, weird as it may be,

to make something beautiful, creative, supernatural. Do it, God. Do it for your people. Do it for every man, woman, boy and girl. Give us a new normal. The old one wasn't really normal. It just felt familiar. We trust you, Lord, not always like we want to, but we kind of feel like the disciples did in John 6.

Where else are we going to go? You're our hope. You're our normal. We pray like you taught us to pray. And I want you to repeat this prayer after me. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallow it be your name. your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's what Romans 12 says that after you have shattered the patterns of this world,

you can be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and you will be able to prove what his will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. God, I pray that you would reveal your will to people right now. We need strategy. We need you to speak. We need you to speak into the unseen places of our life. Part waters, God, do it. Part the waters of worry until we can clearly see how your sovereign hand is moving through it all.

We thank you, Lord. What a great God you are. What an awesome covenant that we have in you. That you will lead us through it. And the Egyptians that we see today. We're never going back to normal. With your head bowed and your eyes closed right where you are, the scripture says in 2 Corinthians 517 that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has gone. The new has come. I believe that today there may be somebody who needs to give your life to Jesus Christ. never surrendered control of your life to God. You've heard this message today about a new normal. God wants to create a new you. Give you a brand new start. On the cross was nailed everything that stood against you.

When Jesus rose from the dead in his body, it was that he might raise you to life in your spirit. And you never be the same. Right now I want to pray with you. We do this every single week. This is our custom. This is our normal. But for somebody, there's nothing normal about this moment.

This is your moment to come home to God, to come back to God, to come to God for the first time. Pray this prayer after me. Out loud, Heavenly Father, I am a sinner in need of a Savior. And I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. And today I make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he died, that I would be forgiven, and rose again to give me life. I receive this new life.

This is my new beginning. In Jesus' name. If you just prayed that, I want you to type in the chat. I receive Jesus. I receive Jesus. We're going to celebrate with you right now. We're clapping our hands. Angels are rejoicing.

Come on, it's a new day, a new nature, a new normal. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. Newfound freedom. I'm looking forward to it. Come on, somebody say, I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to preach part two of this next weekend.

Somebody say, I'm looking forward to it. Are you looking forward to it? A new normal. A new nature. I did not even get. to these notes today. Do you know how many notes God gave me to talk to us about normal? Look how abnormally I wrote my notes. I couldn't get it down fast enough. I'm telling you I'm excited about the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. We're not normal. This is not a

normal church. Never have been, never will be. God deliver us from normal and bring us into new. for you. So thankful. I'm headed home now. Graham's been begging me to leave the church for about three hours now. Isn't that right, Abby? Definitely right. And we can't see you. Definitely right. Hey. Don't worry, Holly's driving. Completely safe, but I just wanted to thank you. Thank you for not being a normal church. I just quoted a verse at the end of that message. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

But the verses right before that in Romans chapter 10 say, how can they preach unless they're sent? And it takes people like you, a family like this, to send the gospel into the world. Thank you for your giving. Thank you for sharing the gospel. Don't stop now. God is bringing us into new opportunities. Just know we're praying for you. We're here for you.

Make sure you subscribe. Make sure you share. I want to hear from you this week what this message means to you. And let's get ready for what God has next. send the one thing. It's not going to be normal. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.