Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: All right, let me tell you a story. I'm going
Speaker 1: to ease into the message. We are not singing rattle again,
Speaker 1: y'all trick me into that last week, and I never
Speaker 1: really got to preach a real sermon. You hear me, Joey,
Speaker 1: do not start that Joe Perry guitar thing up again.
Speaker 1: That is the devil back there. Get behind me, Satan,
Speaker 1: get behind me. Signa, Joey, signa everybody. The greatest rock
Speaker 1: and roll worship guitar track of the last twenty years
Speaker 1: was on Rattle. And let me tell you, you'll can
Speaker 1: go ahead and sit down and stuff and if there's
Speaker 1: any debris around, just clear it out. They're gonna come
Speaker 1: back and sit on stools so that I don't feel
Speaker 1: completely and totally alone. You can sit down to if
Speaker 1: you want to. I don't care what you do. Whatever
Speaker 1: you need to do to get your faith charged. I
Speaker 1: saw some people listening to me preach this week and
Speaker 1: they were doing tabata squats with my sermon. I was like, cool, man,
Speaker 1: way to be creative, right, that's what I call exercising
Speaker 1: your faith. Yeah, it's really cool, and we need some exercise.
Speaker 1: So's I'm looking out for you. I realized that some
Speaker 1: of y'all have not moved that much as you just
Speaker 1: did in the last eight minutes, in the last eight days.
Speaker 1: So we're just trying to look after your spiritual and
Speaker 1: body at Elevation Church. And what God gave me today
Speaker 1: kind of goes along with this idea of just put
Speaker 1: this in the chat, all right, that's my thing right now.
Speaker 1: I can't touch your neighbor. I can't hug your neighbor.
Speaker 1: I can't do anything with neighbors. We're not even allowed
Speaker 1: to make eye contact with our neighbors. I'm so scared
Speaker 1: of my neighbors right now. My neighbors are wearing masks
Speaker 1: and gloves, and I don't know what to do with
Speaker 1: my neighbors. So we're just chatting. We're just putting it
Speaker 1: in the chat. That's the new touch your neighbor. I
Speaker 1: want somebody to make a T shirt this week. Put
Speaker 1: it in the chat. It's the new touch your neighbor.
Speaker 1: We're starting it together. It's a revolution. But just put
Speaker 1: it in the chat real quick. Say this is not normal.
Speaker 1: This is not normal. That's really such an expansive thought
Speaker 1: that I think I may spend the next several weeks
Speaker 1: just unpacking the idea of normal as we know it
Speaker 1: is over. You realize that, right, And so last week
Speaker 1: when we were getting ready for Easter, and I was thinking, well,
Speaker 1: what do you wear on Easter Sunday when there's nobody
Speaker 1: else in the room. I was like, oh, man, we
Speaker 1: should do a nice, normal Easter service because there's going
Speaker 1: to be more people watching us than ever before, and
Speaker 1: so I don't want to make a bad impression on
Speaker 1: the first time visitors or give anybody heart palpitations. And
Speaker 1: we were releasing this song called Rattle that sounds like
Speaker 1: an Easter song, right, I was like, God, this is
Speaker 1: not normal. Like East There ever was, Like people getting
Speaker 1: up out of tombs is so normal. Like the dead
Speaker 1: rising again is just an everyday occurrence. Like the idea
Speaker 1: that an angel just moved a stone out of the
Speaker 1: way and somebody who had been there hours ago was
Speaker 1: no longer there is normal, And they got me thinking
Speaker 1: about this phrase that you're hearing a lot right now
Speaker 1: from people, and I actually want to take my time
Speaker 1: with this. I don't know if this message can be
Speaker 1: completed in a week or three weeks or four weeks.
Speaker 1: But uh, I don't know if I might preach I
Speaker 1: might have to preach long today. Are y'all good? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I might have to preach long today. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So you may need to cancel your lunch plans. What
Speaker 1: am I saying? You don't have any lunch plans. You
Speaker 1: don't have any plans for anything. This is like a
Speaker 1: preacher's dream come true. You are so captive right now,
Speaker 1: so we could just do it, okay, The main thing
Speaker 1: you might have to do is turn your crockpot down.
Speaker 1: But this is not normal. This is not normal. And
Speaker 1: we hear a phrase a lot. At least I do
Speaker 1: right now and listen since this is not a normal weekend.
Speaker 1: I'm not a normal preacher. This is not a normal church.
Speaker 1: You're not a normal person either. Matter of fact, the
Speaker 1: only people that think you're normal are the people who
Speaker 1: don't know you. John Hortberg wrote a book called everybody's
Speaker 1: normal till you get to know them. So anybody that
Speaker 1: you think is normal is somebody that you don't really know.
Speaker 1: Come on, talk to me. There's like five people that
Speaker 1: I'm paying to be out here and I can't get
Speaker 1: them to talk to me. Everybody's normal. John Hortburg said,
Speaker 1: till you get to know them. Your wife is weird.
Speaker 1: You didn't see the weirdness of your wife when you
Speaker 1: were dating her. You were wife. Your wife was weird
Speaker 1: when you met her, You just didn't know her yet.
Speaker 1: And so what we're looking at right now is a
Speaker 1: sentiment that a lot of people feel. And here's what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. I did not give them my title for
Speaker 1: the message because I wanted to try something new today
Speaker 1: rather than put it up on the screen fancy. I
Speaker 1: wanted to do my own special effects today because I
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen in the next weeks
Speaker 1: to come. But what if we can't put the title
Speaker 1: up anymore and I still need to preach to people, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to make my own title card. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: doing my own stunts today. And here's the phrase I've
Speaker 1: been hearing from a lot of people. I'm gonna show
Speaker 1: you this. Get ready to zoom in on it once
Speaker 1: I write it. But I've heard this, oh man, like
Speaker 1: I've heard it at least one hundred times, whether it's
Speaker 1: people on the news or people that I know are
Speaker 1: our staff here at Elevation. And here's the phrase. This
Speaker 1: seems to be the goal. Let me shut up for
Speaker 1: a minute so I can concentrate on writing. I'm not
Speaker 1: a very good multitasker spell anything. Oh I love it
Speaker 1: because I've heard this a million times, and I bet
Speaker 1: you've said it a few times too. Here's the phrase.
Speaker 1: I'm hearing this a lot. Can y'all see it? I
Speaker 1: can't see whether you can see it or not, because
Speaker 1: there's no like imag in the screen, because there's nobody
Speaker 1: in the room that needs to see. I'm mag this
Speaker 1: is not normal. Normally, I would just look over here
Speaker 1: to my left or my right, and I would see
Speaker 1: if it's a tight shot. But can y'all see it?
Speaker 1: Is it a good shot? This is what I'm hearing
Speaker 1: a lot of people talk about right now. And this
Speaker 1: is just a piece of Elevation Church stationary. I just
Speaker 1: wrote it down because this is not a normal Sunday,
Speaker 1: So I didn't want to preach a normal sermon to
Speaker 1: a normal title, but I'm hearing this right now, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I just can't wait till things get back
Speaker 1: to normal. Okay, put that in the chat. If your
Speaker 1: thumb still work, put it in the chat. Getting back
Speaker 1: to normal. I'm hearing a lot of people talk about
Speaker 1: how long is it going to be before things get
Speaker 1: back to normal? And honestly, I'm ready for some normalcy
Speaker 1: in the fird E zip code as well. I really am.
Speaker 1: I'm ready for some I'm ready for some normalcy to
Speaker 1: our schedules. I'm ready for some normalcya to date, nights
Speaker 1: with my wife. I mean, I know that sounds like real,
Speaker 1: fancy or freely at a time when people are hurting
Speaker 1: so much, but there's something nice about things just being normal,
Speaker 1: even little things being normal. Like I don't even like
Speaker 1: sports that much, but I miss them. I don't even
Speaker 1: care about the outcome. I just I just like to
Speaker 1: have it in the background because it's normal. It's normal.
Speaker 1: Normal is nice, and you really don't realize how much
Speaker 1: you need normal until you are forced to live without it.
Speaker 1: Because I was talking to one of my friends about
Speaker 1: normal the other day and I promise you I'm gonna
Speaker 1: preach from the scripture in a moment, because my scriptures
Speaker 1: are Exodus fourteen ten through fifteen and Romans twelve one
Speaker 1: and two. So go ahead and turn to those two books,
Speaker 1: one of the Old Testament, one in the New. But
Speaker 1: I've been hearing this phrase so much, oh man, I
Speaker 1: just can't wait till things get back to normal. But
Speaker 1: something arrested my attention the other day is that the
Speaker 1: person who was saying to me how much that she
Speaker 1: was waiting for stuff to get back to normal had
Speaker 1: complained to me two months ago, before any of this
Speaker 1: global pandemic started, about how much she hated her life.
Speaker 1: And that was weird to me because the normal that
Speaker 1: she had been complaining about two months ago was the
Speaker 1: normal that she would give anything to get back to
Speaker 1: right now. Some of us would give anything for normal
Speaker 1: right about now, would give anything to get to deal
Speaker 1: with the annoying person that you work next to. If
Speaker 1: you could get back to work. Oh, I would sit
Speaker 1: next to Teresa all day and pretend like her stories
Speaker 1: were good and funny and interesting and her breath didn't
Speaker 1: smell that. I would love some normal right about now.
Speaker 1: It's like when you go to college. You know, if
Speaker 1: you went to college and you hated your hometown and
Speaker 1: then you get dropped off in the middle of a
Speaker 1: new world and nothing is familiar and you were complaining.
Speaker 1: I just can't wait to leave Monk's Corner. I shout
Speaker 1: out Monk's corner. We sent convoy of hope and elevation,
Speaker 1: outreach resources and teams all week to help those who
Speaker 1: were devastated. You're gonna be seeing about that soon if
Speaker 1: you haven't already. But man, I hated my hometown for
Speaker 1: a minute till I left it, and then everything that
Speaker 1: felt small to me started to feel I don't know,
Speaker 1: like instead of confining, it felt comforting. Here here's what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, because I think I'm being a
Speaker 1: a little bit too vague for you. Okay, some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that you're praying for right now is the
Speaker 1: same stuff you were praying away two months ago. And
Speaker 1: in the weird how quick we can shift to where
Speaker 1: what we want to get back to is the same
Speaker 1: thing that we wanted to escape from. Y'all ain't helping
Speaker 1: the preacher a bit today. It is so so easy
Speaker 1: in a moment like this for us to make our
Speaker 1: goal getting back to normal. But here's what the Lord
Speaker 1: showed me. This is where I need my hot pink sharpie.
Speaker 1: I think red would have been better, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: find one. So I'm doing hot pink and I want
Speaker 1: us to shift our mentality today. And this may be
Speaker 1: a whole teaching series. I don't know, because I'm hearing
Speaker 1: so many people say I want to get back to normal.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to the way things were.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to I want to get
Speaker 1: back to And the Lord post a question to me
Speaker 1: this week, what if normal isn't something to get back to?
Speaker 1: What if normal is something to look forward to? And
Speaker 1: what if the normal that we knew is not the
Speaker 1: normal that God is leading us into. Next I'm about
Speaker 1: to throw my title card at uhale. This might be
Speaker 1: the most annointed message that I've ever preached in my life.
Speaker 1: It's called looking forward to normal. Why do we assume
Speaker 1: that normal is back there? Why would we, as Christians
Speaker 1: who serve a God who is always moving forward from
Speaker 1: glory to glory, from strength to strength. Why would we
Speaker 1: serve a God like that whose very essence is defined
Speaker 1: by resurrection? Why would we serve a God who is
Speaker 1: defined by resurrection, new beginnings, and think that the whole
Speaker 1: goal is to get back to something that we knew before.
Speaker 1: And I hope that certain things are normal again. I
Speaker 1: hope for God's sake that my kids can go back
Speaker 1: to real school again. For God's sake, that certain things
Speaker 1: in our society change. I hope for God's sake that
Speaker 1: there's a time where, you know, these chairs can be
Speaker 1: full of people again. And even the obnoxious parking volunteers
Speaker 1: at elevation, I missed them today. You know, the ones
Speaker 1: that do too much. You know, the extra parking volunteers
Speaker 1: where you're like, is a forty five and they'll take
Speaker 1: all that. Just wave me to my parking man. Just
Speaker 1: because you gotta baton doesn't mean you have to act
Speaker 1: like a clown. But I even miss I even missed
Speaker 1: the hyperactive parking volunteers. I even missed the people in
Speaker 1: the church who look bored while I was preaching, the
Speaker 1: ones who looked like terrorists when I was preaching to them.
Speaker 1: I miss him. Now want normal back. But God has
Speaker 1: been speaking to my spirit e family. God has been
Speaker 1: speaking to my spirit Indonesia. God has been speaking to
Speaker 1: my spirit and yours too, but you just didn't have
Speaker 1: the language for it. God said, I'm bringing you into
Speaker 1: a new normal because what you thought was normal wasn't
Speaker 1: really normal. It was just what you knew. And I'm
Speaker 1: going to show you this from the scripture. Turn in
Speaker 1: your bible, or let's be honest, just wait for it
Speaker 1: to come on the screen. I'm acting like y'all got
Speaker 1: books spread out all over the coffee table. The fact
Speaker 1: of the matter is you're probably stirring your meal right now.
Speaker 1: But turn in your Bible to Exodus chapter fourteen, and
Speaker 1: let me show you how God's people have always been
Speaker 1: trying to go back to normal at the moments when
Speaker 1: God is trying to bring us into something new. Now.
Speaker 1: This message is for my business owners in the church,
Speaker 1: those of you who are hoping things go back to normal,
Speaker 1: but you know that they won't, but you don't know
Speaker 1: what to do. This message is for those in the
Speaker 1: church who are trying to deal with the level of
Speaker 1: uncertainty that was unprecedented in your life before, and you're
Speaker 1: just trying to even get a daily schedule figured out.
Speaker 1: This message is for you. This message is even for
Speaker 1: those who have lost something in this season that you
Speaker 1: will never get back again. And the question becomes, what
Speaker 1: is the new normal that God has known all along?
Speaker 1: What is the what is the new normal that I
Speaker 1: should look forward to? Now remember this and write it down.
Speaker 1: Faith looks forward, Faith looks forward. And you'll see in
Speaker 1: Exodus chapter fourteen, remember a nation who has only known
Speaker 1: slavery in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years, when
Speaker 1: that is all you've known, that's what is normal. On
Speaker 1: one hand, they hated it. They hated it because not
Speaker 1: only was there no freedom in it, but there was
Speaker 1: frustration that was increasing because the Egyptian task masters had
Speaker 1: begun to require more from the Israelites than they could
Speaker 1: reasonably do. I mean, they'd make them make bricks, but
Speaker 1: they wouldn't give them straw. Go fetch your own straw
Speaker 1: and make the same number of bricks. So you still
Speaker 1: got to fulfill your quota, but you're not going to
Speaker 1: have enough to do it with. So now listen, this
Speaker 1: is a generation of people who had gotten used to
Speaker 1: never having enough. I wonder for us, has never enough
Speaker 1: become our normal? Like I'm not talking about last week
Speaker 1: or the week before that, and I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: bank account. I think the spirit of this age is
Speaker 1: the spirit of never enough. We can never get enough information,
Speaker 1: we can never get enough what we call connection, it's
Speaker 1: not really connection. It's just it's just the apparatus. It's
Speaker 1: just the illusion of connection that really keeps us more
Speaker 1: fragmented than ever before. So now we call ourselves connected
Speaker 1: in the world because we have social media. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about introducing a new trend. Social distancing is catching on.
Speaker 1: We're practicing it right now. But how about social media distancing.
Speaker 1: That's when you can go more than five minutes without
Speaker 1: your phone. Y'all ain't saying nothing. Social media distancing. It's
Speaker 1: a thing. Put it in the chat. Five minutes without
Speaker 1: your phone. See us now is just completely normal for
Speaker 1: us to be overloaded all the time and just to
Speaker 1: have access to everything that's happening in the world. And
Speaker 1: then we wonder, why are we so fearful? Why can't
Speaker 1: we feel It's because we were never intended to carry
Speaker 1: so much in our minds and in our hearts. But
Speaker 1: to us, it's just normal. We're used to making bricks
Speaker 1: without straw. Many of us are used to never really
Speaker 1: getting a good night's sleep. It's just normal. We're used
Speaker 1: to running around this and that and the other. We're
Speaker 1: used to spending too much money. It's normal, totally normal.
Speaker 1: It's what the neighbors do, it's what my dad did,
Speaker 1: it's what my dad's dead. So what we're seeing in
Speaker 1: Exodus fourteen isn't just God's people coming out of Egypt
Speaker 1: as a territory. They're coming out of what they've known
Speaker 1: as normal. So while it sounds sexy, open the grave,
Speaker 1: I'm coming out, I'm gonna live. But what if you've
Speaker 1: gotten so used to death that real life seems weird?
Speaker 1: Get back to normal? I'm not so sure. Now this
Speaker 1: is how the Israelites expressed it. You already Exitus fourteen
Speaker 1: to ten, As Pharaoh approached, wait, Pharaoh represents fear. Pharaoh
Speaker 1: represents the old got it. Pharaoh said eat you eat.
Speaker 1: Pharaoh said make bricks, You make bricks. Pharaoh is the
Speaker 1: old boss, the old regime. Pharaoh is the old ruler.
Speaker 1: But he's also the one who fed you. So Pharaoh
Speaker 1: is the one who fed you, and Pharaoh is the
Speaker 1: one that you fear. A lot of the things that
Speaker 1: we get used to meet certain needs in our life,
Speaker 1: and until we know a better way to meet that need,
Speaker 1: we will always depend on the wrong source. That's what
Speaker 1: addiction is. It meets a need that's for some of you.
Speaker 1: What that person that you keep running back to every
Speaker 1: three weeks that isn't good for you is that's a
Speaker 1: form of Pharaoh. That's what certain thought patterns that we
Speaker 1: embrace are to us. See, they're familiar. And this is
Speaker 1: the principle that I want to show you. When you
Speaker 1: are afraid, you reach for what's familiar. When you are afraid,
Speaker 1: you reach for what's familiar. And this is very explicit
Speaker 1: in Exodus fourteen, chapter fourteen, verse ten. As Pharaoh approached,
Speaker 1: the Israelites looked up and there were the Egyptians, the
Speaker 1: ones they were running from, marching after them. They were
Speaker 1: what does the next word say? Terrified? They were afraid.
Speaker 1: Put that right there on one side. They were afraid.
Speaker 1: They experienced fear. They were terrified, And right out to
Speaker 1: the Lord they said to Moses, was it because there
Speaker 1: were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to
Speaker 1: the desert to die? The sarcasm is dripping in this statement.
Speaker 1: Egypt was famous for grapes. Three quarters of their land
Speaker 1: mass was set aside for graves. So when they say,
Speaker 1: were there no graves in Egypt, it's like saying, were
Speaker 1: there no trees in Charlotte. It's like saying, was there
Speaker 1: no orange at elevation? It's like saying, was there no
Speaker 1: electric guitar in slash? I'm gonna keep trying to light
Speaker 1: hit somebody. It's like, that's what Egypt was known for.
Speaker 1: It was known for graves. And watch this. When you
Speaker 1: feel afraid, you crave familiar, even if familiar is killing you,
Speaker 1: killing them. And on one hand, they're crying out, get
Speaker 1: us out of here. We'll go anywhere, We'll do anything. God,
Speaker 1: just make it stop. Some of y'all were praying that
Speaker 1: three months ago. God, I need a change. God. This
Speaker 1: is not working. God. I'm not happy. God, I don't
Speaker 1: feel joyful. Remember remember three months ago when you were
Speaker 1: praying God helped me get my priorities. Remember your New
Speaker 1: Year's resolutions. I know that was like BC before Corona.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, well, I've gained seventeen pounds in sin.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to breathe. That's my new New Year's resolution.
Speaker 1: Take another breath, tak another breath, Take another breath. But
Speaker 1: when you feel fear, you reach for familiar. When God
Speaker 1: showed me this, I realized why to me, sometimes negative
Speaker 1: feels normal. A lot of times when I'm feeling uncertain, unstable,
Speaker 1: little thing, big thing, I reached for something negative because
Speaker 1: negative is what I know, not because I had horrible parents.
Speaker 1: I had great parents. But I will say this, my
Speaker 1: dad was not normal. His childhood was not normal. His
Speaker 1: dad killed himself when he was nine on his ninth birthday.
Speaker 1: That was not normal. In fact, one of the last
Speaker 1: things that my dad said to me while he was alive,
Speaker 1: he said, I only ever wanted to be normal. He
Speaker 1: was talking about how through his upbringing, when he was
Speaker 1: sent to reform school, and just the different things that
Speaker 1: happened in his life, you know, blowing through two marriages
Speaker 1: before he met my mom and all of that. He
Speaker 1: was saying, I just always wanted to be normal. I've
Speaker 1: never been normal. I've never been normal. I've never been normal.
Speaker 1: The Bible says that about Moses, who was leading the
Speaker 1: people out of Egypt. Did you know that says in
Speaker 1: Acts chapter seven, verse twenty that Moses was no ordinary child.
Speaker 1: Isn't that cool? So say this as a compliment to
Speaker 1: whoever you're sitting next to and I hope this doesn't
Speaker 1: start an argument. Tell them you're not normal. In fact,
Speaker 1: tell them stronger, say you've never been normal. You've never
Speaker 1: been normal. There's nothing normal about you. And you look
Speaker 1: at Josh and just tell him. Come on, say it
Speaker 1: in the Josh Blackton voice. You've never been normal, Josh
Speaker 1: blacks in the deepest voice. And the man from Michigan.
Speaker 1: You should have sayen based in a southern gospel quartet.
Speaker 1: Only problem is your tone deaf, but you got the
Speaker 1: range for it. You've never been normal. You were a
Speaker 1: boy scout, but you weren't normal. See look, normal is
Speaker 1: just a story that you've told yourself. And so the Israelites,
Speaker 1: God help them. They are standing at a red Sea,
Speaker 1: which is a body of water that they have no
Speaker 1: con coext for. Like us, right now, we have no
Speaker 1: context for this crisis. We have no context for this challenge.
Speaker 1: We have no precedents for this global pandemic because we've
Speaker 1: never lived through one. So when they fell terrified, watch
Speaker 1: what they did. They craved familiar. Were there no graves
Speaker 1: in Egypt. We'd rather be dead in Egypt than alive
Speaker 1: in uncertainty. They craved the grave over having to stand
Speaker 1: in front of something in an uncertain situation, And so
Speaker 1: do we We do it all the time. We go
Speaker 1: back to places that kill us, people that kill us,
Speaker 1: patterns that kill us, routines that kill us, bottles that
Speaker 1: kill us, pills that kill us, stations that kill us,
Speaker 1: feeds that kill us, keep going websites that kill us,
Speaker 1: accounts that kill us, thoughts to kill us. Because it's normal.
Speaker 1: Normal is nice. Normal is nice if you don't think so.
Speaker 1: You never had a nice old sweatshirt. It's nice because
Speaker 1: it's normal. It's not nice because it looks good. It
Speaker 1: looks terrible. You look homeless, but it's normal. Oh, I
Speaker 1: like this. This is my good sweatshirt. These are my
Speaker 1: good underwear with seven holes in it. But it's got
Speaker 1: seven holes. But it's normal. It feels familiar. So watch this. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm annointed by the spirit of God today to help
Speaker 1: you see normal is not all that is wanted to
Speaker 1: be the way it was. We want to go back
Speaker 1: to Egypt. Take us back to Egypt, the place you
Speaker 1: were crying out to God to take you from. Now
Speaker 1: you want to go back, Yeah, I want to go back.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to normal. God, I will
Speaker 1: never complain about my kid's teacher again, as long as
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be me. I'm going back to normal. Normal.
Speaker 1: I just want normal, just normal, something normal. That's why
Speaker 1: I wanted to come in the building to preach to you.
Speaker 1: It's like, do you want to do it in a studio?
Speaker 1: I was like no, no no, no, no no, because I
Speaker 1: want people to get a little bit of normal. I
Speaker 1: think it'll help people, even our e fam that meets
Speaker 1: all over the world. And y'all, when I say all
Speaker 1: over the world, watch the chat. Put in the chat
Speaker 1: if you're from somewhere other than Charlotte, and put where
Speaker 1: it is. And I just want you to see I'm
Speaker 1: not lying, because there's nothing normal about this church. You know,
Speaker 1: the church I grew up in, it was like one
Speaker 1: hundred people. It was an amazing church. But in the
Speaker 1: town amongst corner is only six thousand. That was my normal.
Speaker 1: So as the ministry grows bigger, to me, it's not familiar.
Speaker 1: So sometimes I fear when something is expanding or getting
Speaker 1: bigger because it's not normal to me. So it's really
Speaker 1: difficult for us to understand those of us that were
Speaker 1: coming to church buildings in river Walk and Concord. Oh God,
Speaker 1: we're building a building for Concord. Now we don't get
Speaker 1: to use it, and so back on. Just let us
Speaker 1: get back to the plan. Let us get back to
Speaker 1: the let us get back to the thing we had
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. I know I was complaining about it,
Speaker 1: but I'll take it. I'll take it. I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: s sorry. Give it back, get back, give me a
Speaker 1: job back. I'm so sorry. God, give my car back.
Speaker 1: I'll ride my Honda Courd. Just let me take it somewhere.
Speaker 1: Just have something for me to do. God, I'll do it.
Speaker 1: I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it, because
Speaker 1: when you're in something you don't know, you crave normal.
Speaker 1: Do you see all those cities and hamlets and provinces
Speaker 1: on that screen. I can't read them all out. There's
Speaker 1: too many. That's amazing, you know. I used to say
Speaker 1: this all the time to our church. I used to say,
Speaker 1: to the people who could come to church here and
Speaker 1: a physical location, I would say, some people came here
Speaker 1: this weekend on their honeymoon, their vacation. They wanted to
Speaker 1: come to Elevation for vague where you want to go
Speaker 1: to vacation this year, I want to go to you
Speaker 1: want to go to Dine World. I want to go
Speaker 1: to Elevation. I want to go to Elevation, the vacation
Speaker 1: destination of the world right here off of five twenty one,
Speaker 1: and be like some people be here, like, man, this
Speaker 1: was on my bucket list to come to Elevation. People
Speaker 1: would say that this is my bucket list. And I
Speaker 1: use this say to those of y'all who were sitting
Speaker 1: out there, I'd say, don't ever take for granted that
Speaker 1: what God put in your backyard is on somebody else's
Speaker 1: bucket list. Didn't I say that? And now I can
Speaker 1: show you better than I can tell you. Some of
Speaker 1: the same people that used to complain about the parking
Speaker 1: lot at Valentine, I bet you would love to have
Speaker 1: to wait for a parking space right now if you
Speaker 1: could just come to church and be in the presence
Speaker 1: of God. Now I know some of you you're like, no,
Speaker 1: I kind of like this church at home thing. Better.
Speaker 1: This is actually pretty awesome, brother Steve. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what that Ephaan was onto something. This is this is
Speaker 1: this is really an innovation right here. I mean I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what. Right now, I'm sitting right here, I've
Speaker 1: got my oreos and I'm getting spiritually fed as well.
Speaker 1: Praise the Lord Christ and carbohydrates. This is the ticket.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I praise God for innovative ministry.
Speaker 1: This is a digital revolution, this is a revival. You know.
Speaker 1: All I'm trying to think about these days. Is not
Speaker 1: the normal that I want to get back to because
Speaker 1: I have a feeling. I have a feeling, and I
Speaker 1: think you do too. Let's just let's just have the
Speaker 1: funeral right now that we are not going back to normal.
Speaker 1: We're not. I was on a zoom call this week
Speaker 1: with a department and our staff, and by the end
Speaker 1: of it, I was beating the desk saying, y'all aren't
Speaker 1: getting it. Everything has changed. Y'all are having a normal meeting.
Speaker 1: This is not a normal time. People need the Gospel
Speaker 1: more than ever before, and y'all are talking about what
Speaker 1: happened ten days ago and right now for our ministry,
Speaker 1: we have to be in the moment because people need
Speaker 1: this oxygen. This is not a normal time. This is
Speaker 1: not a normal church. And I hope, in some ways,
Speaker 1: I hope this building is full again. But I hope
Speaker 1: we never just go back to nor normal where we
Speaker 1: come in church and act like, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: star right to come in here. I hope we never
Speaker 1: go back to normal, where we just come in and
Speaker 1: we can't get the eyebooger out of our eye until
Speaker 1: the fourth song, until they play our favorite song and
Speaker 1: everything has to match our preference and we just kind
Speaker 1: of yawn and wait for it to be old. I
Speaker 1: hope we never go back to normal. I'm never going
Speaker 1: back to normal, never. Never. It's never been normal. So
Speaker 1: I'm up here last week thinking, oh man, this is
Speaker 1: not a normal Easter. I'm wearing leather, we're singing a
Speaker 1: song that sounds more like Stone Temple Pilots and Michael W. Smith.
Speaker 1: We're kicking over stuff. It's supposed to be Easter. Now.
Speaker 1: The weirdest part about that is in twenty and eleven
Speaker 1: we did something called three D Easter. I travel to
Speaker 1: Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon and everybody had three
Speaker 1: D glasses on. It was real budget three D, but
Speaker 1: it was enough for us to market it as three
Speaker 1: D Easter, and it was good to us creative. It
Speaker 1: was the Gospel Jerusalem Judea, Samaria, ends of the Earth,
Speaker 1: the three different places God brings it to. And I
Speaker 1: used an old church to talk about God saving people
Speaker 1: who are religious but don't have a relationship. And then
Speaker 1: I use Vegas to talk about Samaria the wild people
Speaker 1: in the world. And then I talk about the ends
Speaker 1: of the Earth, that the Grand Canyon, no matter how
Speaker 1: far away you feel from God. And everybody's sitting there
Speaker 1: with their three D glasses on, and I have pictures
Speaker 1: of that of meat in a suit with three D
Speaker 1: glasses on, standing there like happy Easter. Jesus. All right,
Speaker 1: and now I want to be normal. Now you want
Speaker 1: to be normal? Can wait till church gets back to normal?
Speaker 1: What normal are you talking about? Because I know many
Speaker 1: people say I just want to go back to the
Speaker 1: old time religion. What they mean by old time is
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, isin't that funny freeze frame. It's like,
Speaker 1: I just like the old hymns. It's like, how old
Speaker 1: hell you want? Like Gregorian chants? You want? You want
Speaker 1: like you want like three ninety seven ad Oh that's
Speaker 1: how Oh no, no, no, no no no, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the old hymns. Oh, you mean the ones that are familiar.
Speaker 1: You mean the ones that you know. You want to
Speaker 1: go back to what you know. And you know what's crazy.
Speaker 1: Those hymns you want to sing now are the ones
Speaker 1: you yawned through when you were little. You didn't even
Speaker 1: know what you had when you had it. And now
Speaker 1: God is teaching us to appreciate some things that we
Speaker 1: took for granted. But we can't right now. I just
Speaker 1: appreciate the opportunity. Some of us who complained about airports,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be begging them to pad us down if
Speaker 1: we can ever go get on a plane again. Please
Speaker 1: tap me down, Pat me anywhere, pat pat pat me
Speaker 1: wants pap me just anything, anything normal. We want to
Speaker 1: go back to. Jup, Really, I thought you wanted to leave.
Speaker 1: All I'm trying to say is God is doing some
Speaker 1: of the stuff we asked him to do, but we
Speaker 1: don't know it because we're trying to what get back
Speaker 1: to normal. I just want to get back to normal.
Speaker 1: You mean when you were running around like a chicken
Speaker 1: with your head cut off? What a graphic graphic idiom? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so vulgar. You see though, it's just normal. We just
Speaker 1: say that a chicken with your head off, you stop
Speaker 1: and picture it. It's grotesque, but see how anything can
Speaker 1: become normalized. And then we get confused because we think
Speaker 1: that what we know is what's normal. That's where a
Speaker 1: phrase is like white privilege come from. It means that
Speaker 1: because as a white man, certain things that I think
Speaker 1: are just normal are not the same experiences of brothers
Speaker 1: or sisters who are not white males. You think it's
Speaker 1: normal somebody else is your normal? Is somebody else's goal.
Speaker 1: Just to even be treated equally, you have to understand
Speaker 1: just because something is normal to you does not mean
Speaker 1: that it's normal to everyone. And that's very important for
Speaker 1: us to understand. Like, the best example I could give
Speaker 1: you is with my kids, Are y'all getting something out
Speaker 1: of this so far? Okay? Abby said to me the
Speaker 1: other day, what would you tell nine year old Steven Ferdie,
Speaker 1: because she's nine if you could tell him anything. So
Speaker 1: I was like, I would tell him that one day,
Speaker 1: you're not going to walk through Walmart looking at CBS
Speaker 1: figuring out which one to buy. You are going to
Speaker 1: be able to instantly listen to any music in the
Speaker 1: history of the universe on the device that is the
Speaker 1: size of a note card. I would tell him that
Speaker 1: video games are going to radically change because see, for us,
Speaker 1: tech mobile was high tech. Now when my kids are
Speaker 1: playing video games now, they laugh at my video games
Speaker 1: because their normal was something that I didn't even know
Speaker 1: to imagine. Like we didn't have, for instance, Abby, we
Speaker 1: didn't have roadblocks and flying unicorns, neon unicorns, flying driving
Speaker 1: neon exploding unicorns. We didn't have any of that. And
Speaker 1: once you bought the game, you didn't have to spend
Speaker 1: any more money on it. That's new, that's new. You
Speaker 1: bought it one dang time, one time. Now you had
Speaker 1: to blow in it until you had a seizure to
Speaker 1: get it to work. But once you bought it, it
Speaker 1: was yours and you didn't have to buy anything else
Speaker 1: for it. You didn't have to grind to get your
Speaker 1: team ready. My god, it's a video game, not a job.
Speaker 1: But it's your normal. It's your normal that we put
Speaker 1: trolls on the video screen. Look at me sounding like
Speaker 1: an old man. It's your normal that we rented the
Speaker 1: movie The Trolls World Tour and we didn't have to
Speaker 1: go see back in the day. Let me give you
Speaker 1: a history lesson back in Yonder Yonder Ye back in
Speaker 1: the times of Jesus. Blockbuster video reigned Supreme. Come on,
Speaker 1: y'all don't know nothing about late fees, and I know
Speaker 1: you don't know anything about rewinding, or you pay an
Speaker 1: extra nine nine cents if you don't rewind the tape.
Speaker 1: I'm taking you back. That was normal, not now, not now.
Speaker 1: My daughter's never been in a Blockbuster in her life. Blockbuster?
Speaker 1: What's blockbuster? All right? So here's the question. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go deep on you. Are you holding onto a Blockbuster blessing?
Speaker 1: Something that God is trying to put out of business
Speaker 1: in your life? Something that God is saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm taking you through, something uncertain right now? Who is
Speaker 1: this for? I'm taking you through something right now that
Speaker 1: you've never seen before. But just because you've never seen
Speaker 1: it before doesn't mean it's not normal, Thank you Jesus.
Speaker 1: Just because I have never known it doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: not normal. You mean it can be normal for me
Speaker 1: to have a heart that is at peace. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's how it's supposed to be. You are supposed to
Speaker 1: have peace in the middle of a storm. Jesus did
Speaker 1: he slept through stuff that we scramble about because he's
Speaker 1: not from here. See when you're from someone else or
Speaker 1: somewhere else, it changes what you see as normal. Help
Speaker 1: me preach, Stand up and help me preach. Because I
Speaker 1: come from a different place, because I am not from
Speaker 1: this world, because it is not my home. I do
Speaker 1: not have to accept the patterns of this world as normal.
Speaker 1: I don't have to accept Egypt as normal. And what
Speaker 1: if God is trying to bring me into a new normal?
Speaker 1: But I'm so I'm so afraid that I reach for
Speaker 1: what's familiar. Can I tell you when new normal? I
Speaker 1: think God is trying to give us right now, better
Speaker 1: priorities because we are so toxic in the way we
Speaker 1: treat each other, what we say to each other, how
Speaker 1: we categorize and box each other. Well, we can't box
Speaker 1: each other like that anymore. Now I need you and
Speaker 1: you need me, And if we don't all do what
Speaker 1: we're supposed to do, we may not ever get out
Speaker 1: of this. God is making a nation. God is bringing
Speaker 1: the people through the red Seed together, but not for
Speaker 1: them to go through for them, for them to get there,
Speaker 1: there's something that they have to give up. Question, what
Speaker 1: is God calling you to give up to get there?
Speaker 1: What if there's a new normal. What if? What if
Speaker 1: your true nature has been so buried and embedded in
Speaker 1: what Romans twelve calls the patterns of this world? Can
Speaker 1: I show you this? Y'all sit down. I'm still I'm
Speaker 1: still feel like I'm just started this message. I'm going
Speaker 1: to teach you again next week, but let me get
Speaker 1: as far as I can today before the time runs out.
Speaker 1: What time am I supposed to be done? Like? Ten minutes?
Speaker 1: Twelve minutes? How long? I don't even know what that
Speaker 1: clock means? How many of y'all kept stop looking at
Speaker 1: clocks and days of the week a while ago? What
Speaker 1: month is this? I don't know. But here's what I
Speaker 1: want to show you from Romans twelve one. Some you've
Speaker 1: heard the scripture before, but let's put it in context. Okay,
Speaker 1: just like the children of Israel, we're going through the
Speaker 1: Red Sea. And remember all they've known as normal. All
Speaker 1: their parents knew is normal, All their parents' parents knew
Speaker 1: is normal, All their parents' parents' parents knew is normal.
Speaker 1: This is four hundred and thirty years. Look how weird
Speaker 1: our world has gotten in just a few weeks. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is four hundred and thirty years of you thinking
Speaker 1: you're never supposed to have enough, you'd never be free.
Speaker 1: This is what it's like to be in bondage. And
Speaker 1: you know this because you've been in bondage to depression.
Speaker 1: You've been in bondage to patterns of thought. And this
Speaker 1: is a chain breaking scripture in Romans twelve to one.
Speaker 1: And I never saw it before, y'all. I never saw
Speaker 1: it before. Rob Debby, Chelsea, Dawn Lis, Sashanika May Sharon,
Speaker 1: I never saw it before. Somebody's name on here is honey.
Speaker 1: That is not a normal name. I like it. If
Speaker 1: it's my message. My name is honey. What's your name?
Speaker 1: My name is honey. That's that's one way to get
Speaker 1: a date. All right, my name is honey, Call me honey.
Speaker 1: But watch the scripture in Romans twelve, verse one. Are
Speaker 1: you ready this revelation to me? I've read both of
Speaker 1: these scriptures a lot. They're both classic passages. The children
Speaker 1: of Israel coming through the Red Sea. They want to
Speaker 1: go back to Egypt. They want to go back to
Speaker 1: what they've known. They want to go back to what's familiar,
Speaker 1: because they are afraid. I'd rather go back to what
Speaker 1: is negative, even if it's not really normal. So we'll
Speaker 1: call negative normal because it's what we know. You see this,
Speaker 1: Some of the things that I've called normal my whole
Speaker 1: life aren't normal, and this scripture shows me just the
Speaker 1: full extent of it. In Jesus Christ, now let's put
Speaker 1: the gospel on this Old Testament passage. Therefore, I urge you,
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy. That's not normal.
Speaker 1: That's not normal. How many of you in a relationship
Speaker 1: can just do wrong over and over and over and
Speaker 1: over and over again, and the person fully accepts you
Speaker 1: only God. So in view of that kind of mercy,
Speaker 1: and that's where we get used to things. We get
Speaker 1: used to things that we used to be grateful for,
Speaker 1: we become entitled to. But remember, for this community that
Speaker 1: Paul is writing to, none of this is normal. They're
Speaker 1: used to relating to God through a sacrificial system. So
Speaker 1: when they come before God, they have to make offerings
Speaker 1: and spill blood in order to have their prayer request heard,
Speaker 1: in order to meet with God in order to atone
Speaker 1: for sin. So this is not normal for Paul to
Speaker 1: be talking about mercy coming to God on the basis
Speaker 1: of grace. This is new, this is a new normal.
Speaker 1: And you know what their temptation was to go back
Speaker 1: to the old way. So he's telling them no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. In view of God's mercy, I urge you
Speaker 1: that needs you to I'm begging you to stop trying
Speaker 1: to get back to normal, stop thinking that there's something
Speaker 1: you could do to earn God's love, and realize that
Speaker 1: it's already been done through the gift of his son
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, that the blood has already been shed. Instead
Speaker 1: of getting back to normal, moved forward into this new
Speaker 1: way of life. And instead of offering pigeons and turtle
Speaker 1: doves and lambs and goats and rams, offer your bodies
Speaker 1: as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This
Speaker 1: is your true, true You're true and proper worship. This
Speaker 1: is your new normal. Your new normal is that you
Speaker 1: are forgiven and not condemned. Your new normal is that
Speaker 1: you are a child of the Most High God. I
Speaker 1: am no ordinary child. I am a child of God.
Speaker 1: Me and Moses have acts seven twenty in common. I
Speaker 1: am no ordinary child. I am a child of God.
Speaker 1: I am a royal priesthood, I am a holy nation.
Speaker 1: I am set apart. I'm not trying to be normal.
Speaker 1: Normal is broken. Normal is broken, The culture is broken.
Speaker 1: The world is weird. And it didn't just get weird
Speaker 1: when a virus was unleashed. The world has been weird
Speaker 1: for a lot long time. I'm gonna show you in
Speaker 1: the Bible, Romans twelve to two. This is way before coronavirus.
Speaker 1: You got it. Romans twelve to two. Do not conform
Speaker 1: to the pattern of this world. Why not? Because the
Speaker 1: world is weird. Ohn't know about Christians, They're weird. You
Speaker 1: know what's you know, what's kind of cool about going
Speaker 1: through something really traumatic? What used to be weird now
Speaker 1: is the only thing that works. That's the only thing
Speaker 1: I'm excited about. I'm not excited about anybody being sick,
Speaker 1: anybody dying, anybody losing their job, anybody losing their company,
Speaker 1: anybody losing their life's work. I'm not excited about anybody
Speaker 1: having to work twenty hour days. I'm not excited about
Speaker 1: any of it. But what I am excited about is
Speaker 1: that our faith finally fits. See, the world always operates
Speaker 1: by logic, but now we've come to a red sea,
Speaker 1: and so the world is trying what is always tried
Speaker 1: ah more information ah rah, and none of it works.
Speaker 1: So now there's room to do what Romans twelve one says,
Speaker 1: and worship isn't weird anymore. It's not weird to worship now,
Speaker 1: is it? Because the only thing I can do now
Speaker 1: is call on God. People are praying right now. Who
Speaker 1: used to think that praying was superstitious? It's not weird anymore.
Speaker 1: For once, we're not the weird ones. We're not weird
Speaker 1: for just a minute. Let's just take this moment. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like we're a middle school boy who finally
Speaker 1: hit a growth spur and our voice isn't cracking, and
Speaker 1: we finally fit. The church finally fits. You could send
Speaker 1: this link to somebody today and they wouldn't be annoyed
Speaker 1: that you invited them to church. They'd be excited. They
Speaker 1: are bored to death. They've got three ulcers. They've got
Speaker 1: ulcers in places where you don't even normally get ulcers.
Speaker 1: So faith finally fits. This is our moment, this is
Speaker 1: our time, this is what we were born to do. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm born to be normal. We fit this amazing moment.
Speaker 1: Finally there's space for faith in your life as long
Speaker 1: as everything's normal, there's no space for faith. Oh I
Speaker 1: got this, I figured this out. Here's what I do.
Speaker 1: I took the kids here, and I took the kids there,
Speaker 1: and I took the kids there, and I take the
Speaker 1: kids here. The Lord said that in this season, he
Speaker 1: is helping people reset their schedule. And since you didn't
Speaker 1: want to do it manually, now as the whole thing
Speaker 1: is shut down, one of the new normals that God
Speaker 1: might bring us into is that we have a different
Speaker 1: baseline for busy or a reordering of priorities. Think about this.
Speaker 1: Many of us us worshiped soccer more than we worshiped
Speaker 1: the Savior. I know that sounds like one of those
Speaker 1: cliches I would normally do it in the country preacher voice, Oh,
Speaker 1: worship soccer more than the Savior. But it's the dang truth.
Speaker 1: And I don't have anything against soccer other than I
Speaker 1: hate it. But listen to me, Church, listen, you're listening
Speaker 1: to me right now, Sit up and listen to this.
Speaker 1: God said, I'm not trying to get you back to
Speaker 1: the normal to where you worshiped your kids' activities and
Speaker 1: left no space for me. I'm not trying to bring
Speaker 1: you back to that Egypt where you had to make
Speaker 1: bricks without straw, and you were just spending your money
Speaker 1: and spending your time and never full and holds in
Speaker 1: your purses and just running after this and running after
Speaker 1: that to impress people. So now you're going through a
Speaker 1: season where you can put on any clothes you want,
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna see them. God's reordering some priorities because Romans
Speaker 1: twelve to two. Put it back on the screen. Please
Speaker 1: I feel this message. I want another week of this
Speaker 1: next week. Thank you Jesus. Do not conform anymore to
Speaker 1: the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
Speaker 1: renewing of your mind. Why the world was weird to
Speaker 1: begin with. It's not normal, and even the way you
Speaker 1: develop your construct of the world is important. Right. If
Speaker 1: you get your construct of what the world is like
Speaker 1: from the news, you will not know normal. The news
Speaker 1: does not make money by showing you normal. The news
Speaker 1: makes money by showing you the most extreme example to
Speaker 1: keep you watching. You think the news is there to
Speaker 1: inform you. The news is not there to inform you.
Speaker 1: The news is there to engage you, so you'll keep watching.
Speaker 1: So you're getting your construct of the world right. Now
Speaker 1: from the news, the news, the news, the news. That's
Speaker 1: not normal. I'm not telling you not to check the news.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you not to watch it. Just all the time.
Speaker 1: It's not normal. That is not normal. You know how
Speaker 1: the world has these patterns. It's like all these patterns
Speaker 1: of the world where we overextend ourselves all the time,
Speaker 1: and we do all these things to impress people. That
Speaker 1: has never been normal, that's just been culturally accepted. That
Speaker 1: doesn't make it normal. What does God call normal? That's
Speaker 1: what I want to know in this season. What does
Speaker 1: God call normal? I've told Elijah the other day, I
Speaker 1: don't care if you like sports or don't like sports,
Speaker 1: if music is your thing, because I grew up with
Speaker 1: this too. The kids who did sports were normal. The
Speaker 1: kids who liked music were weird. You know what. I'm
Speaker 1: forty and I probably can't play sports anymore either, even
Speaker 1: if I was good at them at one time. But
Speaker 1: I can still make music. So watch this. What was weird?
Speaker 1: There is making ministry happen? Now? Can I preach? Do
Speaker 1: not be conformed. That's to be acted upon by the outside.
Speaker 1: That's conform. You can make it what you want it
Speaker 1: to be. That's what the world has done to us
Speaker 1: for so long. Your faith goes here. Don't talk about
Speaker 1: your faith. Your faith is just Thus that's not normal.
Speaker 1: The world is weird. Faith is normal. Faith is the
Speaker 1: substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things
Speaker 1: not seen. And now we get it that the unseen
Speaker 1: is the most significant. I've been preaching this since the
Speaker 1: beginning of the year, but now we finally get it
Speaker 1: that what is unseen is most significant. We get it
Speaker 1: because we're fighting a virus that we can't see. So
Speaker 1: now we understand that the things which are seen were
Speaker 1: made of things which do not appear. Faith finally fits
Speaker 1: because we are standing in front of the red Sea
Speaker 1: and we no longer understand, and we can't count on
Speaker 1: the things we used to count on. And in one
Speaker 1: sense we want them back for comfort. But God cannot
Speaker 1: bring change while we hold to comfort. There is a
Speaker 1: new normal. There is a better you, a truer you,
Speaker 1: are real you. The patterns of this world are just pretend.
Speaker 1: It is not real. There is a peace that comes
Speaker 1: from above. There is a wisdom that whispers, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't show. And God said, I'm not trying to get
Speaker 1: you back to normal. I'm trying to bring you into it.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to normal. Somebody say it in the check.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to God
Speaker 1: reinventing me. I'm looking forward to God increasing my capacity
Speaker 1: to connect with people for real. I'm looking forward to God.
Speaker 1: I prayed that God would help me with my gratitude.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to being able to put it into
Speaker 1: practice in the next season. I'm looking forward to normal,
Speaker 1: not trying to get back to it. I left Egypt
Speaker 1: not trying to conform to the pattern of this world.
Speaker 1: I want God to transform me by the renewing of
Speaker 1: my mind. And that starts with what I thought was normal.
Speaker 1: What I thought was normal wasn't normal. It's just what
Speaker 1: I knew. I'm so glad my dad wasn't normal. I
Speaker 1: mean at times I wasn't, But looking back, I got
Speaker 1: my passion to preach from the fact that he wasn't normal.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be normal. I found out that
Speaker 1: what the world calls normal, God calls broken. So when
Speaker 1: I pray for healing, understand I'm not just praying for
Speaker 1: bodies to be healed in the season. I'm not just
Speaker 1: talking about immune systems. I'm talking about belief systems. Do
Speaker 1: you hear this preacher? I don't know. He looks kind
Speaker 1: of wild today. I am wild today. I'm ready. I'm
Speaker 1: ready to flip this thing upside down. And what the
Speaker 1: world calls weird, God calls normal. Jesus was the only
Speaker 1: one on the boat who was normal. Everybody who was
Speaker 1: freaking out in fear, they were weird. So I pray
Speaker 1: that God would bring us into watch this a new normal.
Speaker 1: There's nothing normal about faith. There was never meant to be.
Speaker 1: There's nothing normal. There was nothing normal about a shepherd
Speaker 1: boy fighting a giant with a slingshot. You thought that
Speaker 1: was normal. What was normal was all the boys with
Speaker 1: the heavy equipment who didn't know how to do anything
Speaker 1: with it. There was nothing normal about a virgin birth.
Speaker 1: You ever had one? Did you get here that way? Well,
Speaker 1: if that's the way Jesus came into the world, what
Speaker 1: makes us think it's gonna be any different now? So
Speaker 1: when we pray for him to show up, he's not
Speaker 1: gonna show up looking normal. There's nothing normal about stretching
Speaker 1: your staff over the sea. There's nothing normal. There's nothing
Speaker 1: normal about what we're going through. Right now. There's nothing
Speaker 1: normal about the panic. There's nothing normal about the fear.
Speaker 1: There's nothing normal about the order of things. There's nothing
Speaker 1: normal about the rules. I pulled up to a red
Speaker 1: light today on the way to church, and I was like,
Speaker 1: do we still stop for these? I don't know? Is it?
Speaker 1: Maybe we don't anymore? Nothing is normal, And yet maybe
Speaker 1: God is bringing us closer to what He wanted for
Speaker 1: us all along. Maybe maybe God is resetting and revealing, resetting, revealing.
Speaker 1: Be not conformed outside into the patterns of the storld,
Speaker 1: but be transform inside out, transform inside out. Stuck in
Speaker 1: my house, but God transformed my family, Transform my mind,
Speaker 1: transform my habit. Give me new neural pathways, give teach
Speaker 1: me new wayte to trust you. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: get back to normal. I'm moving forward into a new normal.
Speaker 1: That's what the Kingdom of God is. It's a new normal,
Speaker 1: a new way of being, a new form of humanity,
Speaker 1: a new level of faith. Do it, God, That's what
Speaker 1: faith is. It's a new normal. Blessed or the poor
Speaker 1: in spirit? Huh, that's weird. No, that's the way it is.
Speaker 1: We've just been weird for so long that we got
Speaker 1: it out of order. But God is bringing us into
Speaker 1: new normals. How long until we get back to normal?
Speaker 1: You can keep waiting all you want, or you can worship.
Speaker 1: You could keep resisting, or you can receive, not love.
Speaker 1: What God told Moses when the people were looking for
Speaker 1: someone to blame, you know how we do. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was the bats, It was the lab It was to this,
Speaker 1: It was the that it was heard that God, we
Speaker 1: always want somebody to blame. But blaming somebody doesn't bring
Speaker 1: you into what God is taking you into. And no,
Speaker 1: sooner did they get to this uncertain place till they
Speaker 1: start to say to Moses, didn't we say to you
Speaker 1: in Egypt, leave us alone? This is verse twelve Exodus fourteen.
Speaker 1: Let us serve the Egyptians. It would have been better
Speaker 1: for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in
Speaker 1: the desert. But Moses answered the people, hear the word
Speaker 1: of the Lord. Hear the word of the Lord. Do
Speaker 1: not be afraid. Stand firm, and you will see the
Speaker 1: deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you
Speaker 1: see today, you will never see again. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: You're never going back to normal, You're moving into a
Speaker 1: new freedom. I minister this to you like it was
Speaker 1: just us. I love it because it can just be
Speaker 1: like we're having a conversation right now. We're not in
Speaker 1: a big crowd right now, it's just me and you,
Speaker 1: and the Lord told me to tell you you're never
Speaker 1: going back to normal. In fact, some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that you thought was normal, it wasn't really normal. It
Speaker 1: was just old. This is a season to embrace the
Speaker 1: new normal. Lord, God of our fathers, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses,
Speaker 1: the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We
Speaker 1: call on your name now because you never change and
Speaker 1: you never fail. We stand before you, not only as
Speaker 1: a nation, but as a planet, and we so crave normal.
Speaker 1: We stand before sees that we don't know how to park,
Speaker 1: holding nothing more than a stick in our hand, and
Speaker 1: our natural defenses are nothing for the principalities that we
Speaker 1: face that we cannot see. If there were only a
Speaker 1: virus that we were fighting, we could solve it on
Speaker 1: a physiological level. But God, the truth is, we need
Speaker 1: something more than that. Many of us were controlled by
Speaker 1: fear long before there was a virus to fight. Many
Speaker 1: of us were dominated by depression, way before we were quarantined.
Speaker 1: So when we've been asking you, God, make it normal again,
Speaker 1: make it normal again, get us back to Egypt, we've
Speaker 1: been really praying the wrong thing. We've been praying for familiar,
Speaker 1: but what we really want is freedom. And I pray
Speaker 1: that you would use this season in our life, as
Speaker 1: horrible as it may be, weird as it may be,
Speaker 1: to make something beautiful, creative, supernatural. Do it, God, do
Speaker 1: it for your people, Do it for every man, woman, boy,
Speaker 1: and girl. Give us a new normal. The old one
Speaker 1: wasn't really normal. It just felt familiar. We trust you Lord,
Speaker 1: not always like we want to, but we kind of
Speaker 1: feel like the Disciples did in John six. Where else
Speaker 1: are we going to go? You're our hope, You're our normal.
Speaker 1: We pray like you taught us to pray, and I
Speaker 1: want you to repeat this prayer after me, our Father,
Speaker 1: who are in heaven Hell. It would be your name,
Speaker 1: your kingdom, Come, Your will be done on earth as
Speaker 1: it is in heaven. That's what Romans twelve two says
Speaker 1: that after you have shattered the patterns of this world,
Speaker 1: you can be transformed by the renewing of your mind,
Speaker 1: and you will be able to prove what his will is,
Speaker 1: his good, pleasing and perfect will. God. I pray that
Speaker 1: you would reveal your will to people right now. We
Speaker 1: need strategy. We need you to speak. We need you
Speaker 1: to speak into the unseen places of our life. Part waters, God,
Speaker 1: do it, part the waters of worry until we can
Speaker 1: clearly see how your sovereign hand is moving through it all.
Speaker 1: We thank you Lord, What a great God you are.
Speaker 1: What an awesome cove that we have in you, that
Speaker 1: you will lead us through it. And the Egyptians that
Speaker 1: we see today, We're never going back to normal. With
Speaker 1: your head bowed and your eyes closed. Right where you are,
Speaker 1: The scripture says in tewod Corinthians five point seventeen that
Speaker 1: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
Speaker 1: The old has gone, the new has come. I believe
Speaker 1: that today there may be somebody who needs to give
Speaker 1: your life to Jesus Christ. You've never surrendered control of
Speaker 1: your life to God, and you've heard this message today
Speaker 1: about a new normal. God wants to create a new
Speaker 1: You give you a brand new start. On the cross
Speaker 1: was nailed everything that stood against you, and when Jesus
Speaker 1: rose from the dead in his body, it was that
Speaker 1: He might raise you to life in your spirit and
Speaker 1: you never be the same. Right now, I want to
Speaker 1: pray with you. We do this every single week. This
Speaker 1: is our custom, this is our normal. But for somebody,
Speaker 1: there's nothing normal about this moment. This is your moment
Speaker 1: to come home to God, to come back to God,
Speaker 1: to come to God for the first time. Pray this
Speaker 1: prayer after me out loud, Heavenly Father. I am a
Speaker 1: sinner in need of a savior, and I believe that
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the savior
Speaker 1: of the world. And today I make Jesus the lord
Speaker 1: of my life. I believe he died that I would
Speaker 1: be forgiven and rose again to give me life. I
Speaker 1: receive this new life. This is my new beginning in
Speaker 1: Jesus's name. If you just pray that, I want you
Speaker 1: to type in the chat I receive Jesus. I receive Jesus.
Speaker 1: We're going to celebrate with you. Right now. We're clapping
Speaker 1: our he has angels are rejoicing. Come on. It's a
Speaker 1: new day, a new nature, a new normal. I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to it new found freedom. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Come on, somebody say I'm looking forward to it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to preach part two of this next weekend. Somebody say,
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it? Are you looking forward to it?
Speaker 1: A new normal, a new nature. I did not even
Speaker 1: get to these notes today. Do you know how many
Speaker 1: notes God gave me to talk to us about normal?
Speaker 1: Look how abnormally I wrote my notes. I couldn't get
Speaker 1: it down fast enough. I'm telling you, I'm excited about
Speaker 1: the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by
Speaker 1: the word of God. We're not normal. Is not a
Speaker 1: normal church, never have been, never will be. God deliver
Speaker 1: us from normal and bring us into new. I am
Speaker 1: so thankful for you, so thankful. I'm headed home now.
Speaker 1: The Graham's been begging me to leave the church for
Speaker 1: about three hours now, Ain't that right? Abby? Definitely right?
Speaker 1: And we can't see you. Definitely right. Hey, don't worry,
Speaker 1: Holly's driving completely safe. But I just wanted to thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for not being a normal church. I just
Speaker 1: quoted a verse at the end of that message. Faith
Speaker 1: comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. But
Speaker 1: the verses right before that in Romans chapter ten say,
Speaker 1: how can they preach unless they're sin And it takes
Speaker 1: people like you, a family like this, to send the
Speaker 1: gospel into the world. Thank you for your giving, Thank
Speaker 1: you for sharing the gospel. Don't stop now. God is
Speaker 1: bringing us into new opportunities. Just so we're praying for you.
Speaker 1: We're here for you. Make sure you subscribe, make sure
Speaker 1: you share. I want to hear from you this week
Speaker 1: what this message means to you. And let's get ready
Speaker 1: for what God has next. Into one thing, it's not
Speaker 1: going to be normal.