When All Hope Is Lost, Call on Me — Shane Idleman

I am so happy to be here. And thank you, Pastor Jeff, for trusting me with the pulpit. It's a big responsibility. Is it not? I've learned the lesson the hard way over the years. Who you have in the pulpit matters as long as they're consistent too with what your views are.

And then also, many of you don't know, but Pastor Jeff is on our radio network in Southern California. So we do air these sermons Monday through Friday, I believe around 11 a .m. And I'm in Los Angeles County, to be more specific.

And there's a light everywhere. God has the flames of revival in all areas. From Texas to California to many different areas, and we have to be encouraged in that. And Pastor Jeff mentioned my daughter, Gracie, is here with me.

I try to take one of my kids on each trip. She can stand up. Say hello, Gracie. And I have five kids, 18 and under. So you can pray for us. Three teenagers at home. And before you preach it, you gotta practice it.

And God has a funny way of giving you a crash course in theology through your family. The title this morning is When All Hope Is Gone. When All Hope Is Gone, Call to Me. And the magnitude of what is going on in our nation demands that we look at Scripture seriously.

Calling on God When All Hope Is Lost

And the theme verse is Psalm 91 .15. Psalm 91 .15. He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble and I will deliver him and honor him. And what I love about this ministry is you have something that I also believe in.

It's called context is king. You have to put Bible verses in their context or you can have it say whatever you want. And so I'm gonna pull a little bit from Psalm 91. I didn't have a lot of time to go through all of Psalm 91, but there's some key points here.

Spiritual Decline and the Hope of Revival

And we agree on one thing for sure. America has stage four spiritual cancer. It has metastasized into all areas of life. It is shocking. It is alarming. But thank God there is always hope. And I remind people, God doesn't need the majority.

He is the majority. You plus God is the majority. Did you know that? That should fuel your prayer life. You plus God is the majority. The only reason I'm standing here today is because of God's power of the Holy Spirit into my life.

I should not be here. I should not be here. I was a mess, especially in my early 20s. But thank God that God revives or renews. And anytime there are spiritual cancer, there is only one hope. There is only one remedy.

There is only one solution. And that is when God brings a spiritual awakening. And we use the term revival a lot. And that's a very biblical term. And sometimes people get confused. Have you ever seen weird things on YouTube under the name of revival?

That's not revival. Or you can have, hey, we're gonna have revival meetings. That's good, but that's not really revival. Revival, the root word is a spiritual awakening. Any paramedics here or EMT, what am I doing?

Reviving, reviving the dead. And that's why now more than ever before we need the pulpits of America to be aflame with righteousness, to awaken the sleeping church. You are dead spiritually. And God says, awaken spiritual church.

Let me breathe life into you. Stop the seeker-sensitive messages and let the spirit of God fall upon the church again. That's revival. And he's given me a desire for this. 23 years ago when I came back to the Lord, I love reading books on revival, the Welsh revivals of the 1700s and New Hebrides and what God did in our nation.

And you look back at any great moving of God's spirit and there was always a call to repentance and prayer and fasting and holiness and desperation. It's like a magnet that draws the spirit of God to your life.

Brokenness, Holiness, and the Cost of Truth

And we're missing that because now we wanna be popular and not controversial. And I hear this a lot, Shane, you offend people. Well, here's what I'm worried about. I don't want to offend God because when you preach the God's word and all of its purity through a heart of brokenness and humility, you will offend.

It offends, it quickens. The word of God is like a fire that devours, a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces and a sword that cuts and divides. Oh, we need the pulpits aflame with righteousness again so people come in hungry for more of God.

I love what you're doing on Wednesday night, but can you imagine people saying, we need to do that every night of the week for a season and begin to grab the heart of God because we are desperate for more of Him.

He shall call upon me and I will answer. God says, I will answer. 91 .1, he who dwells in the secret place. He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

This isn't a secret thing like you hear on Oprah. It's actually not a secret where God is saying, oh no, this is secretive. The thing is very few find it. That's why it's secret. Something not known to most people.

Most people don't know the fire of the Spirit, the call to revival and awakening, the hunger, the desire for God. And when you get into the presence of Christ and you're worshiping and I'm abiding in the secret place and God begins to work in your heart and break you and build you up and strengthen you.

That secret place. Did you know that there's a place the Father waits for you? Unless I'm mistaken, Jesus said, when you go into your prayer closet, shut your door and my Father will meet you there. There's a place where God will meet me at two in the morning.

He's not on break. There's a place where I can cry out to God and say, God, we are desperate to hear from you. We need to hear from you. Our nation is in shambles. Children are falling apart. Families are disintegrating.

When is the church of the living God gonna wake up? Business as usual is not gonna cut it anymore, sir. Business as usual. Something's gotta break. You have to seek in order to find. If you seek me with all of your heart, Jeremiah 29, you will find me, God says.

Look at these promises. If you seek me, I've done whole sermons on this topic and people where I pastor at the Church Westside Christian Fellowship are familiar with this, but maybe you're not. That word seeking, especially if you go back into the Hebrew, is not casual.

It's like, I don't know. Oh, I looked. Oh well, back to normal. I believe it's bakash, and it means you don't stop until you're done. You don't stop until you find. So if Pastor Jeff said, hey Shane, come here.

Your daughter went to the restroom, we can't find her. You think I would continue preaching? So hold on, after second service, let's look for her. Can we eat first? Everything would stop. The microphone would be, I have to find that which was lost.

That, now think about that. Oh God, I've got to lay hold of you. I don't feel it, but my feelings are gonna come. My feelings are not the engine of the train. They're the boost. They follow self-discipline.

God, I'm gonna lay on this altar until I find you, because desperate people do desperate things. And I know this is a little extreme for most of America, but we've got to get back to extreme Christianity.

We have extreme snowboarding, extreme mountain biking, extreme makeovers. Why can't we have an extreme and intense love for God, and get back to that passion and that purity of his word? Listen, I'm not trying to just make up emotions.

I know I'm close to Hollywood, and I see a lot of acting, but I'm not acting. The spirit of God has revived my heart. The fire of God is true. What you don't know is I barely graduated high school at the 1 .8, still struggle with dyslexia, learning disabilities, writing books.

That's a miracle. I was called stupid, overweight. I turned to steroids, crystal meth, alcohol, about destroyed my life. And the power of God came in and touched me and transformed me. So forgive me. Some of us might get a little emotional during worship.

I was lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. See, has Christ awakened you? Has Christ come into your heart and truly transformed your life? So there's a passion for God and his word. Well, I have good word for you.

This is not a loving rebuke. It's an exhortation to turn back to God. In the church, we hear a lot about meditation, don't we? Thank God. But when do we hear? We need to hear more about adoration. Adoration, adoration.

And we are waiting for God, are we not? But could it be that God is waiting on us? Think about that. Oh God, would you move? And I was convicted of that some years ago. God, would you just move? Shane, I'll move when you move.

He's a rewarder of those who seek him from time to time. He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And again, I love word studies. You have to look at what the Bible's trying to... It's like a drop of water on a stone.

A couple of years later, it's gonna begin to weave indentations into that stone. He who diligently seek me, I'm a rewarder. I will reward that. How does he reward us? With gold and riches? Oh, praise God, no.

But with the fire of God. Worship comes alive. The word of God came alive in my life when I turned... Oh, I've been missing this. I've been missing this. No wonder my mom put her Bible over my ACDC albums.

No wonder. And called down heaven and said, devil, you will not have this child. And the power of prayer. Oh, if we could get back to the power of prayer, church. Where is that call to prayer? And a lost discipline that I'm so glad I discovered.

The early church had it. We even had it up to a hundred years ago. I don't want to offend, so please understand my heart. But this word, oh, this word is life-changing. It's called fasting. When I tell King, stomach, shut your mouth.

I need to seek God. Because there's a fleshly appetite and a spiritual appetite. And whatever you feed grows the most in your heart. That's the power of fasting. It's not dogmatic and legalistic. Elisha fasted, Jesus fasted, Moses fasted, Ezra fasted, Esther fasted, David fasted, Paul fasted, and much fasting's often.

God doesn't love me more, but I sure love Him more. 9114, because He has set His love upon me. Talking again, God's saying, because we've set our love upon Him, therefore I will deliver Him. I will set Him on high because He has known my name.

One thing I love about the Bible is the promises of God. But what many people don't understand is they claim the promise, but forget it has conditions. His call is not to Washington and Hollywood and the media.

Conditional Promises and the Call to Humility

If my media humbles themself, if Sacramento would just humble themselves, if my people, and again, a guy of context, I know that was applied to Israel under the reign of Solomon when I bring pestilence, when I bring famine, when I bring drought, if my people humble themselves and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, if.

I love those armchair quarterbacks. You know, Shane, that's out of context. Okay, I'll give you the context, but are you telling me that if the church humbles themselves and pray and seeks His face and turn, that God might not revive us?

Are you seriously telling me that? Because the principle still applies. The principle of brokenness and humility, conditional, because He has set His love upon me, set His love upon me. And that word is like setting a bone in place.

And let me be an encouragement to you. Sometimes I don't feel like preaching. Sometimes I don't feel like going to prayer meetings, but that's when you drag your flesh. Your flesh doesn't lead you. You lead your flesh.

Because your flesh just takes you in all the wrong places. I want to sleep in. I want to eat too much. I want to drink too much. I don't want to do that. I don't want to forgive. I don't want to humble myself.

And we've got a church that has given up to the appetites of the flesh. 91 15, He shall, He shall call upon me and I will answer. And I will be with him in trouble. Do you believe that? Do you believe that God is our only hope?

Hope for National Revival in Dark Times

And we're going to all look at where America's going. Yeah, but look at what the possibilities are. Because I'm naive enough to believe that when it's so dark, God can bring the light even brighter. You look at the, you look at the, you look at during the first great awakening, you read the journals of Wesley or Whitefield or Jonathan Edwards.

And Jonathan Edwards was writing, I believe, to one of the chief justices of the Supreme Court. And they acknowledge there's decadence across all of the land. Religion is barren. Drunkenness is abounding.

What is going on? Our nation is crumbling. Oh, could you imagine that being fast forward to now? But God rose up and revived in that darkest hour because I believe in the God who brings promises. And the negative Nelly's and judgmental Jerry's but Shane, haven't you read Revelation?

I sure have, but I've also read the rest of the Bible. Where God says, call upon me and I shall answer. We don't know the timing of things. We don't know that God might give us a measure of revival in our bondage.

I'm not going to be buried six feet under and wish that I would have contended for revival for the generation, next generation. Look at our kids, look at our grandkids. Where is the desperation? So what do you do when all hope is gone?

Individual Revival and a Passion for God

I want to share a few points with you because you can get spiritual, you can get revived spiritually. I'm not as concerned about national revival as I am with individual revival because that's what fuels the fire of a spiritual awakening.

Getting a passion for God. Shouldn't there be a passion for God? Hello, the church of the living God. The word of God is the living word of God, igniting the soul, bringing passion to the heart. There should be a fire and a zeal.

Let me open up the word of God and see what thus saith the Lord means and how it changes my heart. Desperation. Folks, we've got to get desperate. We've got to get desperate. Desperate people do desperate things.

They might say business as usual is not going to cut it anymore. I'm contending for my family. I'm calling a prayer each day. I'm calling a fast. I need to hold on to God again and never let go. I think it was said of the Welsh revival, 1904, 1905, Evan Roberts.

They're interviewing a very old man. And they said, what happened to the flames of that fire? What happened? And he remembered back and he looked at the gentleman and he said his eyes were like fire. And he said, young man, when you lay hold of God, never, never, never let go.

Oh, that could preach. When you lay hold of God, never let go. Sometimes all hell is breaking loose, but I've learned that the God of the mountains is still the God of the valleys. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear evil.

Though all hell is breaking loose, though we are living in a sewer system, God will pull you up and set you back up and you can be the flame of his spirit. Even you, the least, I've learned God uses the least likely.

I love when people ask me, so where did you get your degree? Do you have a PhD? A school of hard knocks? And I'm not a, I think people should study and think, but don't count on that. Count on the spirit of God as you study, as you educate yourself.

Desperate for Brokenness and Humility

So a couple of points that will help, desperate. And just give me this, when it's time's up. Desperate for brokenness and humility. Desperate for brokenness and humility. Do you know when the church humbles herself, God will listen?

You see, many in America are angry and rightly so. Rightly so. Angry, but we're also arrogant. Oh, we're mad and we'll tell people off, but we're not broken. Because I believe you can be just as bold, but also broken.

And as a matter of fact, you'll accomplish a lot more when your boldness is underscored by love. Because boldness, boldness is a direct fruit of the Holy Spirit. You know, we think the Holy Spirit and you know, this, and no, boldness.

Boldness to share the gospel, boldness to confront this culture that is spinning out of control. Brokenness and humility. Humble yourself before God that he may exalt you. What does that look like? You go to your spouse and you say, I've been wrong.

I've been an angry man. I've been an arrogant woman. God help me, I need to see God again like never before I went. I know I need to work on things, but God, please, I wanna be used by you. I don't, do you always have to be right?

Critical Catholics. Listen, I always had to be right. I came back to the Lord and I was reading systematic theology and I could quote Calvin Hodge and of course, Geisler and Spurgeon's lectures to my students and I had all this knowledge.

And I was gonna go tell people off. I was a sin sniffer. I'm gonna walk around and find you today. And then 2005, my mom gave me a wake up call. She said, Shane, nobody wants to be around you because I was too arrogant.

So you can be straight as a gun barrel theologically, but just as empty. But you get a man who's on fire for God with a theological underpinning, that is how God changes the church and changes our nation.

You have to have both. You have to have the spirit of love and humility, but also the boldness and the preaching. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones said, the preaching is theology coming through a man who's on fire.

You need both of those things. And I just released a video on YouTube the other day. And I don't know the exact title, but a plea to conservative voices. I'm not gonna name names. We know who these conservative voices are, but I wanna say, guys, where is the humility?

Where's the humility? This side says this, you come back with this. You do this mean meme, they do this meme. It's just attack, attack, attack. Arrogant, where's the call to repentance? Where's the call to humility?

Where's the call to prayer meetings? Yes, be just as bold and say what is happening on our watch is a perversion at the highest level. And we will not allow it, but I need to get on my face before Almighty God, before I post something, or before I make a video that is full of arrogance.

Desperate for Holiness and Separation from the World

Brokenness and humility are the only key, or one of the keys. The next key is desperate for holiness. Whoo. Desperate, doesn't that word, when I talk about holiness, some people think of a gown and a hat, you know, just, oh, he's so holy.

Holiness just means come out from among them and be separate. You're gonna be a little bit different. There's a difference about you. Lord, I wanna be filled with your Holy Spirit. I can't watch all this garbage.

I can't fill my mind with garbage on a daily basis. I can't be critical and angry and gossiping and expect the spirit of the living God to move powerfully through me. I need to be holy and set apart for you.

I'm not perfect, but God, there's a pursuit of you. I must find you or I will die. I must, God, you continue to break me and humble me. But why is holiness so hard? Because the old man knocks at the door often, doesn't he?

You know the old nature? Some of you, you know that battle? Or is it just me? Am I being too transparent? Right, the devil wants the old Shane to come back and play. He'll plant those seeds, won't he?

I mean, I was shocked. I land in Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, and I start thinking, Amarillo by morning up from San Antone. I'll be looking for eight when they pull that gate. George Straits is coming.

Where did that come from? Where did that come from? Oh, back in the day, grab a 12-pack, put on George Straits, throw the shotgun in the back seat, let's have some fun out in the desert. See, remember those days?

But devil, you didn't show me the vomit. And the DUI, you don't show me those things. You entice with the temporary pleasure. And so the church must come out from among them, be separate. You will look different.

Stop trying to please the world and please Christ. Now notice, notice I didn't say get weird. There's a difference. Anybody heard of Leonard Ravenhill? He said, there's no such thing as a painless Pentecost.

If you want God to change your heart, change your community, change your home, it will cost you. It will cost you. Friends, reputation, the desires of the flesh. And some people might be, oh my goodness, this guy's extreme.

But see, I've tasted of the living water and I can never go back. Come and drink of this water and you will never thirst again, Christ said. There's a unction of the Spirit. There's a baptism of the Spirit.

And you're full of God's love and grace and the truth comes alive. Yes, it's difficult. Yes, it's challenging. But I want to hold on to that anchor for the rest of my life. The passion of Christ working in your life.

Desperate for Truth and Faithful Preaching

And thank God this point applies at this church. I know for certain we need to be desperate for the truth. Oh my goodness, it's embarrassing to watch sermons out there, especially a lot of the, you know, and I'm not gonna put down friends that are mega church pastors, of course.

But a lot of times, man, they're telling people, of course you got thousands of people, so does a cult. You're telling them what they want to hear and not what they need to hear. What do we need to hear right now?

Peace, peace. Peace, peace. Don't worry, everything's good. Do you know that was a sign of a false prophet? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, God's not upset. Peace, peace. No, no, no, don't listen to Jeremiah.

That guy. Definitely don't listen to Isaiah. These guys are extreme and everything's good, man. Just love, just love, just love, man. Don't preach the gospel, just let them see the gospel by your love.

But God said, I've not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I've not spoken to them, yet they spoke. But had they truly stood in my counsel, they would have turned this nation back to me. Is not my word like a fire that devours?

Is not my word like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? But you have perverted the words of the living God by not warning. Because true love warns, does it not? When you truly do not warn and you are hiding behind the banner of love, that's cowardliness.

Trust me, I want to hide behind that banner too. Just love, man, don't get upset at me. I just want to be everybody's. And that's actually was a struggle of mine when I came back to Lord. I'm what they would call people pleaser.

I would do health seminars when I came back to the Lord. And I was a district manager with 24 hour fitness and a fitness background. And my goal was to make everyone in the audience want to come back.

And they would have check sheets like, did you like his presentation? Will you be back? How would you rate the speaker on a scale of one to 10? Was he motivational? I had to throw all of that out of the window when I preached because it'll mess you up.

Like, oh, they're going to think this, they're going to think that, they belong to that political party. They think that they're big givers. They're, oh, well, let me just stick with, let me not wait in those deep waters.

Let me not offend. But the Word of God offends. It calls it out. We must have a love for truth and fear God because God says, my shepherds have become dull hearted. Dull hearted, they are missing the fire of the Spirit.

And you won't always preach repentance. Of course, you want to preach love and encouragement and grace and mercy, but it must come through a heart aflame for the passion of God. That's how you truly change hearts and change a nation.

Desperate, desperate for truth. And then finally, the last two, desperate for prayer. Oh, desperate for prayer. You need to get to a point where everything else can wait. Everything else can wait. Breakthroughs can't be rushed.

Desperate Prayer, Fasting, and Perseverance

That's why the old saints used to call it travail. I'm not, you're not going to prevail until you travail. And there's a time where we wait upon God. Those who wait upon me shall renew their strength.

Their muscle? No, spiritual strength. And there's a call to pray, a call to fast. And we can't have form, we must have fire. The church is great at form. Oh God, just go through the form. But we're losing the fire.

We lose the fire of the Spirit. The groanings, oh God, would you help our school districts? Would you help our children, our grandchildren? God, we are lost. The Titanic has been struck and we are going down.

We need you. And we might say, you know what? I'm going to find myself every morning at 6 a .m. on my floor at home until God answers because I'm so desperate to hear from God. And God says, is that the cry of my child?

Is that the cry of my child crying out to me every morning? You don't think God will hear that cry? That's biblical. If you seek me, you will find me. And then I'm going to use a word. Right now, it's not popular.

Are you ready for this? You guys okay? Got your seatbelt on? Buckle up. But actually, I know you're familiar with it here, so I'm just saying that maybe to people listening later. We have to be desperate for repentance.

Desperate Repentance and Returning to God

Desperate for repentance. I love encouraging emails, but I get a lot of emails that say something like this. People don't want to hear what you're saying. You need to tone it down. You talk about repentance too much.

I think Spurgeon said it. I'd like to say it too. I'll stop talking about repentance since when you repent? But it's actually a beautiful word. It means I'm off course going this direction. Lord, I'm off course and I'm what?

Changing my mind only? Changing my actions. I'm turning. You can look it up in the Hebrew, the Greek. It's a turning back to God. I'm repenting and I'm turning back to God. And the posture might even change from stiff necked to what?

Oh God. Oh God, we're so desperate for you. God, we need to hear from you. See, it's a turning, it's repenting. That's our only hope, folks. Because we can come in, we can go to church, we can sing songs, but if business as usual isn't gonna cut anymore, things have to change.

That's what repentance is. So I know there's three types of people usually listening. Number one, many of you that are saying amen. Amen. This is fueling my spiritual fire. And then there's another group where I camped out for a lot of years.

Don't camp out here. It's what they call the prodigal son state. The wayward daughter, the Laodicean church, lukewarm. I would go to church on Sunday when it fit my schedule, but I wouldn't know God on Monday.

But I was miserable. Hello? You're miserable when you're running from God. So why do we do it, Shane? Well, it's a word called pride. Pride, arrogance. My mom would drag me to church sometimes. I'm in my 20s.

A lot bigger, heavier, steroids, bodybuilding. I'm in there judging all you folks. What is this? What's people at the altar for? What a bunch of sissies. But I'm dying inside. I was spiritually dead. I was dying inside.

And I was mocking the very thing I need. And so that could be a good call this morning. Some of you need to return. God's word is crystal clear. If you return to me, I will return to you. And there's obviously a third group who maybe you've been playing church.

You haven't truly repented and believed. It's not head knowledge, folks. Head knowledge doesn't get us anywhere. It's heart engagement. The heart repents, embraces Christ. And that heart of stone becomes a heart of flesh and the Spirit cries out, Abba, Father, oh God, thank you.

Not get away from me, Father. We say, Abba, Father. The prodigal son. I said, get away from me, Father. I'm not ready. I love eating with the pigs. But it says, Psalm 91 .16, with long life I will satisfy Him and I will show Him my salvation.

Calling on Christ for Salvation and Deliverance

Call to me. Call to me. I wish I could just love to camp out there because that is such a powerful thing. Call to me and you will be saved. Call to me and you will be delivered. Call to me and you will be healed.

I believe in the God that still does all those things. I don't believe in the New Testament God and He's different today. There's a God who heals and sets free and breaks demonic strongholds, a bondage.

Some of you need to get like Jarius and his daughter. I need to find Christ. Oh, Jesus, come and fall on my knees and please come and save my daughter. Please, I'm so desperate. The Syrophoenician woman.

Jesus, she is fixed with the devil. Would you come? We're desperate. You are our only hope. Amen. There's a desperation that must come. Even the demoniac filled with the legion of devils, even he came.

He felt, he pulled away. Oh, if I did. And the Bible says clearly he worshiped Him. I have the stronghold. I have this addiction. God, I need you to set me free. And sometimes a stronghold doesn't come down right at once.

Sometimes it's one brick at a time, one hit at a time, week after week. And you're coming after my family. I'm coming after you, devil. And you just keep hitting, hitting, hitting that brick. But praise God, sometimes the outpouring of the spirit will just break it loose.

There are so many times I was a young boy, I learned how to operate heavy equipment, everything in 17, 18. I'm out here with a sledgehammer. My dad goes and gets a big John Deere with a jackhammer on the back.

He just saved me five weeks worth of work. It just got there. And that's what sometimes breakthrough is. It's pressing in, it's persevering, it's fasting. And I don't see any results. Actually, all hell is breaking loose.

That's actually gonna be a good sign. Just keep pushing, keep persevering. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Perseverance is so important. So when all hope is gone, call on Christ.

Hearing the Word and Doing the Word

There's an urgency building up inside of me and in many of you. And what I found over the years is that many Christians live in deception. Let me explain why, and I'll be done. Be doers of the word and not hearers only, or you live in deception.

So what happens, we come, we hear a message from myself, a pastor, oh yeah, that sounds good. I heard it, so I must be good. Maybe God wants some of your hard hearts to get on this altar. There's no such thing as a tough guy mentality in the church.

Men should actually lead the way. That's what we promote at our church as well. Men must lead the way in worship, the spiritual covering from their homes. Get to the, I don't care how embarrassing it is.

Listen, I'll be the first one to the altar and say, God created me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me. My marriage needs you. My children need you. I will humble myself before you. Oh God, we need you.

And if you don't know the Lord, you need to change that today. Times are getting difficult. Times are getting difficult. How do people get through life without Christ as a foundation? I would lose my mind.

And I just heard it last week. Okay, pastor, pastor. Hey, I'll get to it someday. You know how many times I've heard, I'm sure you've, hey, I'm not ready right now. What they're saying is, let me have my fun.

And once you bury enough people from crystal meth addiction, fentanyl, alcoholism, broken homes, you begin to realize folks, there is no tomorrow. You're not guaranteed your next breath. Procrastination is the greatest tool the enemy has ever used.

Even for believers, he's calling you. I'm convinced he's calling many of you to a deeper life through everything I just said, brokenness and humility and surrender. Shane, God can't do much to me. That's what I thought.

I was a dumb kid. My dad was from the farms of Oklahoma, just country boy. Couldn't talk well, couldn't speak well, but you'd be amazed at what God does through brokenness and humility. He uses the foolish things to confound the wise.

I love when people say, Shane, you're pastoring? I thought you'd be dead by now. You were the high school, just partier and drunk and stupid and cheated your way. What happened? The fire of the Spirit fell and I will never be the same.