Get Use to Different — Shane Idleman

Embracing Change While Guarding Against Disorder

I do want to set this up a little bit. The title to just exhort you with is Get Used to Different. Get used to different. But I think to some degree, I can be a hindrance to revival here because I care what people think, right?

That conservative crowd. You know, I have the John MacArthur Study Bible. I like Reformed theology and we don't get carried away and I've got friends and so there's that we're church. You know, look at what's going on out there.

And so I've had to struggle with that for a long time because image, right? To guys, you know, I've got it together, you know, but when I can see a former army ranger up here worshiping, it gives me hope.

You know, in Kevin's testimony, all you guys have just been breaking me, to be honest with you. And because there is an image we have. Many churches, even in the Valley, it's this image of not getting it carried away and having it together.

And when God wants to just break something, it's hard, you can't maintain that. And so I've been on my knees a lot and just, Lord, whatever you wanna do. But you do wanna, you have to steward something well, because if you just say, if it's odd, it's God, then the devil's gonna take advantage of that.

And you'll see all kinds of crazy things. So you have to steward what God is doing, be open to what God is doing, and also restrain some of the demonic types of things that are happening. If I told you about today, you wouldn't believe it.

Let's just say that. From what, all hell has been breaking loose. I won't go into details, it's, you name it. And the enemy, I know, is wanting to stop a lot of what God is doing. But get used to different.

The Call to Get Used to Different

And I borrowed that term, many of you, if you've been watching The Chosen, I know I'm gonna get emails right there just criticizing that. But, you know, hard hearts, they don't like certain things. So, but Jesus, they're saying, we're not used to this.

We're not used to what you're doing. He said, get used to different. And that has really stuck with me, because that is, I think, a message for our church today. Get used to different. That doesn't mean weird, that doesn't mean out of God's word, that doesn't mean chaotic.

It means anchored and grounded, and God's word, the Holy Spirit, you are free to move in this place. And I also know, I also know, just because of that, not a lot of, not everyone is gonna stick around.

They, you go too long, you sing a song too long, they start to see people weeping at the altar, and I love to hear crying at the altar, and people crying throughout the congregation, and crying out to God.

I love that, but not everyone does. And so I understand that, there's a cost. In two verses, I just wanna share with you, Mark 16. You can read it up there. He who believes and is baptized will be saved.

He who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs, these signs might follow. These signs could potentially follow. If you follow a checklist, and really been a Christian for 20 years, and what do you guys do with this?

What am I supposed to do with this verse? Cut it out? These signs will follow those who believe in me. Either you believe that or you don't. This is Jesus Christ speaking. In my name they will cast out demons.

They'll basically take authority over the demonic realm. When a demonic stronghold is in someone, the believer in the authority of Christ can begin to rebuke that stronghold. They will speak with new tongues.

Look at 1 Corinthians 12. Camp out there for a while if you'd like to learn more about that. Paul actually says, I'm not speaking to man, I'm speaking unto God, and I'm edifying myself. In my name cast out demons, speak in new tongues.

They will take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. In other words, God's sovereignty will protect you and can protect you in the center of God's will. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

Sign Gifts and the Continuing Work of the Spirit

So we either have to come to grips that this is for us today, or say it's not. That is one portion of Christianity does believe that. They don't think really, they call it the sign gifts, are not for us today.

And for the life of me, I cannot fathom that. I can't make that connection. You might say, well, you're not a theologian, Shane, you're not as smart as them. Okay, well, it's pretty simple. Those who believe, it's not talking about something 2 ,000 years ago, it's talking to believers.

And if you've experienced this, you know the truth of it. And I can tell you, once I really began to experience the power of God and the Holy Spirit, my conservative friends didn't understand it. They've never experienced it.

So how do you explain something to somebody they've never experienced, and they think they're intellectually superior to you because they've been studying the Bible longer? And so it prohibits them from receiving a lot from God.

What about John 14, 12? Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also. And greater works than these, he will do because I go to my Father. So because the Holy Spirit is given to the believer, the same Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, the believer has that.

Authority has that power. Now, I'll be honest with you, I don't quite understand it. It makes me a little nervous. I mean, that's a, do the same things that Jesus did? And I believe we have to just own that and begin to have faith and believe that because doubt will kill the moving of the Holy Spirit in your life.

If you're like, yeah, tongues, I don't know about that. I guarantee you'll never experience it. Healing, oh, I'm not sure. I don't think you'll experience it. There's gotta be some amount of faith there.

And also, there's a, the closer you draw to God with holiness and reverence and respect and fill with the Spirit, the more you will see those things being manifest in your life by the power of the Spirit.

And when you quench and grieve the Spirit, no Spirit, no power. And that's why I believe the majority of Americans don't see what Christ called us to do. Pray for the sick, cast out demons. So five ways we're gonna get used to different and then I'll be done.

Jesus Speaks With Authority

Jesus spoke with authority, John 7, 45 and 46. Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees and said to them, why have you brought him to us? Why haven't you? And the officers answered and said, no man ever spoke like this man.

So you see, Jesus ran counter-cultural. I'm gonna get to that in a minute. But things that are different, there's gonna be an authority of God's Word. Nobody ever spoke like this man. So get used to different.

The difference is the authority of God's Word and a church that's on fire for God is filled with the Spirit of God. There's an authority, there's anointing, there's an unction and a lot of people aren't used to that, brings in a lot of conviction.

And like Rahim said, when Pastor Abram was preaching, he felt the conviction, he had to leave early because there's an authority in God's Word. Get used to different. And then the other point, Jesus was counter-cultural.

Jesus Challenges Cultural Values

Luke 16, 15, what people value highly is detestable in God's sight. The guy by the name of Pastor Joe Witwer said the culture allowed for divorce for any reason. Jesus said that's not the case. The culture devalued children and thought them unworthy of adult attention.

Jesus said that's not the case. The culture thought wealth was a sign of God's blessing. Jesus said that's not the case. They had to get used to different. The culture valued power and authority over others.

Jesus said just the opposite, he valued humility. And the culture considered a blind beggar unworthy of Jesus' attention and he actually gave that person more attention than even the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Jesus was different in all these areas. The authority of God's Word going against the standards. And also, number three, Jesus was not religious. Matthew 15, nine, and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

There was vain worship because they were teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. And Jesus wasn't religious because religion is about following rules and doing certain things. Relationship is about embracing faith and belief in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Brings Division Through Truth

And get used to different, it can lead to division. Number four, Jesus caused division. Did you know that? Matthew 10, 34, do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. Wait a minute, he's the peacemaker.

I did not come to bring peace but a sword. Now don't go up and buy a sword or a gun. And he'll go on to say father against son or brother against sister. The whole family will be against each other. The reason is because the truth of God's Word is the dividing line.

It will bring conflict in the family. When you're in the light and others are in the darkness, it's hard to fellowship. You have to be quiet. You don't talk about religion and politics. That's what's coming up on Thanksgiving.

Be careful who you talk to. When God is moving, there will be division. You don't see it but I have to deal with it a lot at this church. They're divided and people are down talking and they don't understand what God is doing and they don't understand the supernatural moving of God and there's too much worship or there's too much at the altar and people are crying out and calling out.

It causes division. Those who want it will seek it. Those who don't will run for the exit. There's a dividing line there. And I've seen it too as well. Churches will get jealous. If their church is dead and flat and numbers are declining and they're just not seeing God's power, they will get upset at churches that are moving and are under God's covering and really seeing lives radically changed.

There's jealousy. There's a division that happens. Division in a church should be a last resort. When you have two people, like Barnabas and Paul, they eventually went different ways. Two people, they're filled with God's spirit.

They want to do what is right, but they can tell that maybe God is moving them differently. That can be a healthy division. But the unhealthy division is when the light is shining and the darkness doesn't like it and the darkness comes against you.

The darkness will begin to fight you. And then again, what we just read, Jesus releases supernatural power on the believer. In my name, they will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will take up serpents and everything we just read.

Normal Christianity Appears Abnormal

In a nutshell, what is considered normal Christianity to most people is actually abnormal if you look at the Bible. I talked about this in the video I did. When you're really following New Testament Christianity, which is normal, you're going to look abnormal to your friends.

Can you imagine some of your conservative friends or other churches if they saw what God does here? And sometimes me and Morgan, it's our heart, but we kind of worry sometimes. I wonder what they're going to think.

The whole altar's full. People are back this way and everybody's just crying out to God. Now I know that's a wrong thought process, but the enemy puts in fiery darts here as well. But isn't that interesting?

We read throughout the New Testament what Jesus did, the Holy Spirit did. We teach about it. I preach about it. We talk about it. We read about it. But when it actually happens, that's when you'll see the dividing line.

Critics of Revival and the Marks of Spiritual Life

There's always a word spoken against revival. I've got books. It's called the Calvinistic Methodist Fathers of Wells back in the 1700s. Big volumes of the revivals that swept through all of Wells in Scotland, 1700s.

There were always dissenters. And these guys were solid theologians. And God was moving. There was always people putting it down. You get to the Wells revivals, even in 1904, 1905, there's critics. The early 1950s with Duncan Campbell, the First Great Awakening, all these things.

Anytime God is moving, there's always a word spoken against it. Always. Because you get judgmental jerrys who are not happy with what's going on at the church down the street. And they'll write things against it.

They'll speak against it. They'll call you certain names. Those on fire convict those who are not. There's, when you're pressing in, it's extreme, it's intense. The words like blazing, burning, charged, demonstrative, emotional, fervent, fiery, passionate.

Those are terms for alive. You never describe a corpse like that. So when you're alive with the power of God, you might be fiery, you might be passionate, you're fervent, you're emotional, you're demonstrative, you're charged up, you're burning, you're blazing, you're intense because the spirit of God is moving within you, changing lives, crushing idols, repairing marriages, breaking hearts, bringing joy, bringing freedom, bringing contentment, bringing marriages back together and families restored.

Why isn't there an excitement or a burning for that? So get used to different. And I believe here's how we experience that different calling here and what you might be searching for. What they would call the marching orders and Rahim, just about every one of these is in what you talked about.

Obedience and the Filling of the Spirit

Number one, the Bible talks about if you keep my commandments. Now the word keep is like steering a ship through uncharted territory, through windy territory on the sea and on the ocean. Keep, you know, it's blowing off course and you keep that course.

That's the word keep. And if you keep my commandments. In other words, if there's obedience on this side of heaven, I don't know if there's anything such as 100 perfect, full surrender. We're all holding on to a few little things, right?

That we have to give up. I don't know if I'm fully surrendering. You have any of those issues or just me? Well, there's not too much honesty in this building, but some people get to that point and they give up everything, but then other things creep in and we want to keep God's commandment, but we disobey and we disobey and we disobey until we lay that down.

There will not be that mighty filling of the Holy Spirit. And then number two, if you're filled with humility, the reason I talk about this so much is because you have to remove self-will in order to experience God's will.

Humility, Character, and Revival Fire

If I came in here and said, okay, Lord, here's what I'm gonna do tonight. Here's what I'm gonna do this week. This is my plan. I'm not gonna be open to anything. I just removed God's will in my life or I just moved Him moving in a powerful way because of my self-will.

I think it was Andrew Murray who said, pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. And many times those who start out humble do not finish well. I've seen many people, they start out good, God's using them, but they get a little notoriety.

A little gifting begins to put them on the stage and that humility begins to fade away and they begin to lose that anointing. They begin to lose that unction of the Holy Spirit because what got them there is gonna keep them there.

What's humility? Your gift will take you somewhere, but it's your character that keeps you there. A lack of humility extinguishes revival and fire falls when there is something to burn. And then also to experience this fire of God, we must align ourself with the Father's will.

We must align ourself with God's will. And of course that lines up with obedience. And then finally, if we burn with the fire of faith. If you do a word study, faith is so important. Faith is believing that something is true and then committing our lives to it.

Let your faith roar so loud that you can't be heard, so you can't hear what doubt is saying to you. I'm gonna say that again. I saw a picture of this. Let your faith roar so loud that you can't hear what doubt is saying to you.

We have to burn with the fire of faith. And I mentioned Evan Roberts before, 1904, 1905 revivals. They asked this during that period. What is the secret of having so many people come and so many people being transformed?

Is it his learning or his eloquence? Is it anything that he's doing? Nothing of the kind. The secret of his power is that he is full of faith and love and zeal and the Holy Spirit. He is full of faith, full of love, full of fire.

Readiness for Unplanned Revival

And so I just wanna piggyback on back of the testimony and remind us we need to get used to different. We need to get used to different and understand that God isn't going to do things the way we want to do things.

God isn't going to orchestrate things how we wanna orchestrate things. Of course, the word of God has guidelines and principles. And it is interesting that people think they know exactly what the Bible talks about for church.

All it says is they sang Psalms, they took of the Lord's Supper, and they fellowshiped and they looked at God's word. But then we take that and we make it, okay, this is exactly how you have to have church.

So I just encourage us as we're closing this out this weekend is to get used to different. I'm gonna read something to you that many of you have heard, some of you have heard, I should say, a lot of you are new.

It's in some of my books, I've put in my articles. I believe it was around, probably eight years ago, I don't know exactly, eight or nine years ago, I was sitting in a chair, I remember the chair, I remember the room, and I was praying for this whole topic of revival.

It felt as if God just poured into my heart and I couldn't stop writing. Have you ever done that? You're just like, I don't know if you have, you're just writing and writing and it's just, then you're done.

It's like, wow, that was incredible. I've only had that happen a few other times. One was the very first sermon I preached, just the way it came to me. But I wrote this down almost as God was giving me this thought.

The Cost and Disruption of Revival

You don't want revival. It will ruin your schedule, your dignity, your image, and your reputation as a person who is well-balanced. Men will weep throughout the congregation. Women will travail because of, I'm sorry, women will wail because of the travail of their own souls.

Young adults will cry out like children at the magnitude of their sin. With the strength of my presence, the worship team will cease playing. Time will seem to stand still. You won't be able to preach because of the emotions flooding your own soul.

You'll struggle to find words, but only find tears. Even the most dignified and reserved among you will be broken and humble as little children. The proud and self-righteous will not be able to stand in my presence.

The doubter and unbeliever will either run for fear or fall on their knees and worship me. There can be no middle ground. The church will never be the same again. Do you really want revival? And that's what I struggled with for years.

So I'm like, based on that, no. And then there was a conference here in 2018. You can probably find that sermon on YouTube, The Cost of Revival, when I spoke about that. And I just publicly declared and said, Lord, we're ready, I'm ready for that.

Spiritual Upheaval During Revival

And then there was groundwork, the groundwork that had to be laid. Because a lot of, maybe you see it in your own personal life, but when God does things like this, what he's been doing the last two weeks, incredible, I think most of us can testify to that.

When I see correctional officers next to felons on the altar, and people loving each other, that were fighting, and God is doing incredible things. But at the height of this, that's why there's no high like the most high.

I mean, there's an experience of God. There's no hangover, there's no headaches, there's no regret, there's no depression, there's no, what did I do last night? We are saying, though, can you believe what happened last night?

Sounds like what I used to say 25 years ago, but the meaning is a lot different now. But when you're doing that, those tremendous highs, there is tremendous valleys and demonic attacks like we haven't seen before.

The spiritual realm is being shaken up. God is moving powerfully here, the enemy's moving powerfully over there. This is happening gloriously, that's happening out there something else, and it's just tremendous amount of spiritual upheaval.

And sometimes it makes you want to quit and give up. But I think as a church, this will be a defining moment these last two weeks. Get used to different. Personally, I'm not prophetic, but I think God is going to give us seasons of mighty moves of his spirit that we cannot plan.

Preparing for God's Unpredictable Moves

We cannot pick a date. We cannot try to, and I believe God honors what we did. I believe it was wonderful, it was God-breathed, but I think he's gonna continue to do things, continue to move in powerful, unexpected ways.

I can just sense that. I think we've been prepared for that. And it's nothing you can plan. Like, hey, next Sunday night, let's, you know, it's just boom. God's gonna fall on a people whose hearts are ready.

The fire is burning. They want more of God. It might mean adding a service on Saturday nights. It might mean doing this. It might mean more, maybe Sundays, where after the third service, people are just, cannot get off the altar, and God is just working in their hearts for an extra hour after.

We don't know. All we know is we need to get used to different. If we don't get used to different, what are we used to? We're used to sing a song, hear some announcements. Worship team's gonna do three more songs.

I'll be back up here. Quick little 35-minute message, one more song, and let's go eat lunch. I mean, isn't that what most, I did church for years. That's what we do. You just kinda go through the motions.

Go through the motions. Go through the motions. There are churches that if some of what is happening here happened there, they would have ushers escort you out the building, and we begin to hinder what God wants to do.

A Final Call to Surrender and Expectation

Get used to different. I don't know what that looks like. I think we still need to be wise and steward things, but it's something I think we need to be prepared for. I think, I personally feel that God is just beginning to work in the hearts of people.

I think it was just, he said, okay, Shane, you planned it, you and Abram, you guys planned it. Now watch what I can do when there's no planning.