Louie Giglio - What Have We Witnessed?
So, "What have we witnessed"? That's the question. Cause as soon as we witness something, that story is gonna travel. One of the crazy things, the crazy good things about Passion, there were so many, and I know we're talking about Passion a lot and if you weren't there, then you didn't really even know what was going on, it can make you kinda feel little bit like an outsider today. But you're a part of Passion 'cause we are Passion and this is kinda like, I guess the other last session of Passion right now. And hopefully, there'll be some more of those through the year so I just wanna invite you in with us to Passion.
Set your mind and heart on being in Mercedes Benz stadium next year for Passion 2024. Never miss it if you have a chance. Be in the space. There's really not anything like it and it's very hard to describe it. But one of the things this year, Grant Parcher can send a text around on the morning of the first day of Atlanta, I think it was 3rd, January. And if you remember, we talked about it a little bit last year, but it's talking at the very beginning about those cats that got up at 6:00 o'clock or got there at 6:00 o'clock 'cause they just wanna be there that early. Well, last year on the middle day of Passion, in the Benz, in Mercedes Benz stadium, there were these two girls that got up before sunrise and they wanted to be the first two people at the stadium.
And they weren't just contending to get the two best seat, they said they wanted to get there and begin the worship before the sun came up. So, they're cruising through downtown, few blocks away from the stadium, they're walking across a crosswalk at an intersection and a car runs through a red light and runs over both of these girls. I hate to say it for our city, but the person stopped when they realized that he smashed into something, this is like 4:30 in the morning, 5:00 o'clock in the morning, realized that what had happened, drove over one of the two girls that was still under the car and drove off, and left these two girls for dead in the middle of an intersection, freezing cold in the middle of the night.
Both of them had skull fractures, we found out that day, and all of Passion begin to pray for them. They were taken to Atlanta Regional, which is no longer there. They were both admitted into the trauma ICU there, and we all, again were in that moment of realizing just how brief life is. Grant texted on the year anniversary as we were heading in to State Farm and he said, "Hey, I just want to let everybody know in this text thread that today is the one year from when Ally and Riley had their accident".
And wanted you to know that they're both gonna be in State Farm arena at Passion tonight. They were both released from the hospital within a few days. Both of them ex-rays had multiple fractures, skull fractures, but God just did a miracle. And they came into prayer with our team on one of the nights of Passion or one of the mornings, I don't remember, we got a chance to meet them, I never really had a chance to say, "Hi," to them before but these two girls they are in the space, in the building, and it's a miracle. Both of them have long term issues with their legs and we prayed for them in our prayer gathering, and I want you to pray for them that they will have full and complete, and total healing of their legs. That will be an added testimony of what God has done in their lives.
But walking away from meeting them, I was walking back down the hall, and someone had said something a day earlier that kinda connected in, and this is pretty profound but I'm not overstating this. They came early with praise for a generation. There was something in them that said, "Lets get there before everyone and let's prepare the way of the Lord". And the enemy tried to kill them on the way to wield the weapon of praise. And I'm not overstating again today when I say that he wants to kill you. Jesus said, "I'm not trying to freak you out, but the enemy comes to steal and to kill, and to destroy. But I've come that you might have life and not just days on Earth, real life".
We preach out of this text a bunch of times, but in Luke 7:11, it says, "Soon afterwards, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and His disciples in a large crowd went with Him," He was doing phenomenal miracles. He's just done and amazing miracle and the verse is right above this, and people were joining on to the story of Jesus. "As He approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out, the only son of his mother and she was a widow, and a large crowd from the town was with her..."
So there's a large crowd coming up with Jesus and a crowd coming out with her, it's a little bitty town so it's a scene. There's a lot of people and there's a huge problem. And the huge problem is that this widow is already behind the eight ball in her culture. She can't own property, she can't have a proper standing in the community. And her only hope is that she would have a son. And she only had one child, and praise God it was a son and so he could have standing in the community and he could cover her. But now, he's gone, and Jesus, it says, "When He saw her, not the dead son but when He saw her, His heart went out to her and He said, 'Don't cry,'"
Now, He's gonna tell us when we're going to funerals of our loved ones not to cry but she wouldn't have understood all of that in this moment because she didn't fully comprehend that He was gonna trade His innocent life FOR the sinful lives of everybody else on the planet, that He was gonna die in our place, be put in our tomb, but then He was gonna do something extraordinary. That He was gonna overwhelm death, overcome the grave, that He was gonna conquer sin, that He was gonna see the stone rolled away, that He was gonna be triumphant ultimately so through faith in Him, we could all go to the cemetery knowing this is not my final resting place, and even in the grief of death, we can say to people, "Don't cry. This is not the end. This is not our end. We have a future with God".
It was Benjamin Watson, former NFL'er on CNN with Anderson Cooper talking about DeMar, saying to the whole nation, "Ben Watson was", the bigger question here is, "What would have happened next? What was on the other side of this moment"? And we, it's talking about believers, he said, "But we have the answer. We know what we believe and we know that we can have confidence in what is on the other side of this moment because of our Savior, Jesus Christ".
So, we have a full story of death being overwhelmed, but this woman didn't have that story, so the only way Jesus could say to her, "Don't cry," if He knew He was gonna do a miracle in that moment, and He did. He did something that absolutely stunned people because no Religious leader of that day would be anywhere near a dead body because it would make them ceremonially unclean. But Jesus, He's the Lord of all, and He went up and he touched the coffin. That wasn't a coffin like they would put someone in today, it was a stretcher, if you will with a wrapped body of a deceased person on it. "He went up and touched this stretcher and those carrying it stood still and He said, 'Young man, I say to you, get up.'"
Doesn't take a monologue from Jesus to change your direction, and your future, and your circumstance. "The dead man sat up and begin to talk and Jesus gave Him back to his mother". Are we all here still? We going good? We alright? Dead guy just got raised from the dead by our savior, Jesus Christ and give him back to his mom. They were all filled, remember there was a big crowd coming in, and there was a big crowd coming out, "And they were all filled with awe and praised God," and they said, "A great Prophet has appeared among us, 'God has come to help His people".
They were all filled with awe and praised God. I don't know, I mean, we are living in a very skeptical time and it's tough to impress all the people, it's tough to see all come to all the people, it's tough to see all the people praising God and I'm not even convinced that if we were at a funeral and a son of a widow was coming through and Jesus touched the stretcher and the kid sat up. I'm still thinking right now, just knowing kinda the way our world is, some people would have been like, "Was he really dead? I mean, you know for a fact he was dead? I don't. Oh, let's give him a couple days and, you know, see if he stays alive. Let's check back on Monday and see if he's still alive on Monday..."
That's kinda the world we're in. I'm not kidding when I tell you I think Jesus could walk in here right now and raise a dead person, and there'd still be somebody here going, "Yeah, but I saw a YouTube video and I was listening to this guy talk about blah-blah-blah-blah-blah". And there's somebody in this room that would still just walk out that door. And I want us to pray today that God will do something in our midst that will crack off of our lives, whatever walls we have built up around us, so that we can be amazed again that God is in our midst. They were all filled with awe. The word that had has it's root, not amazement, but fear. They were terrified in their hearts.
"Who is this Man? Where did He come from? Who has this kind of power"? And in the last part of it is what we're really praying for, "The news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country". That's what we wanna see happen in 2023, we wanna see the news of Jesus spread. We want Atlanta to hear people testifying, "No, I saw Him do it. He did it for me, for us. We saw him do it". And that can happen. We have a God who is unusual, who does the supernatural, and we're more linked together in communication than we've ever been in the history of humanity.
And you and I, collectively together can tell a large portion of the world something right now on our collective TikTok... I'm not saying you have TikTok but thank you for letting me know. I don't need it, but a lot of people do. Twitter, don't have that either, certain. Facebook, okay, I'm just kidding you. We collectively, right now can all bond together and say for the next 10 hours, we're gonna just hash tag whatever. We have this capacity now to communicate quickly, so what happened with DeMar, if you were alive, and maybe some of you still don't know what we're talking about, but if you we're alive in America on Tuesday, you knew what was happening.
And I want us to believe for that again. I want us to believe that people are alive in America on Monday, they'll know what happened in church on Sunday. If people were alive in America on Thursday, they'll know what God did for your family on Wednesday because we're gonna testify and we're gonna tell them that we have witnessed it. What's so crazy to me, this guy, Sammy Levitt took over the world. I know, I'm just kidding, can we just joke for a second? I know a lot of people here don't have social media and that's great I applause you. So, you won't know what I'm talking about. But Sam Levitt, this guy comes out of nowhere, and if you have social media, if you're, you know, Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or something, I guarantee you, you've heard a 100 times, Sam Levitt, "And with that, the 2022 season comes to an end," anybody?
I'm telling you, this guy came out of nowhere. He's a broadcaster for the San Diego Padres, first year in the majors, has been minor leaguer and that's where he would in every baseball season, at the end of that broadcast, on the last game of the year, he would say, "And with that, the 2020 season comes to an end, and with that". But this time somebody grabbed it, put it out into the world and everybody's recap video, recap collage, recap whatever of the year has that dude's voice on it. Sam Levitt went from being a guy to being the guy, and I'm like, "This is possible in our world. Anyone can go from being a guy, to being the guy if they have a testimony of what God has done".
And you may think, "Oh, you know, only this many people are hearing my voice". You have no idea how in an instant like that, God can take your story and magnify it, and multiply it as His story in ways it would blow your mind. We have an unusual God, and we have more connectivity than ever. It's possible that the world can start hearing on a regular basis. You would not believe what Jesus is doing. And so, we're gonna pray together as we close out today. And I want us to pray that God would do right now what He did that day, what we've been singing about today. Every story of lives changed in empty graves. And I want us to pray for someone today who says he's trying to kill me, but he's not going to, 'cause I believe if Jesus stretches out His hand and touches my life that my funeral can be interrupted today.
That poor widow couldn't afford a nice tomb like Joseph of Arimathea where they put our Lord. Scholars say she most likely could only afford a hole in the ground, and there he is, stick her son in it like that. And I'm telling you, some of you are not too far away from a hole in the ground. Because this is not a rehearsal, this is your one shot on planet Earth and you were made to glorify God and use your breath, your gifts, your life, your time, and your opportunity to shine a light on Him. And if the enemy can snuff that out, he snuffs out your one shot at life.
And so, what does the prayer I come willing to hear? And in a moment I'm gonna ask you to stand if you fit into this prayer but not until I ask you to. They're three specific things and we can pray for 35 things, but I want us to pray for these three people. And if it's you today, I'm gonna have you stand when we come to the end and we're gonna pray for you as a house. It may not be that every single thing in your entire life changes during that prayer but I believe that because of that prayer, everything in your life can change. And the first one is depression. And we've talked about depression a lot at Passion City Church.
We're not trying to take lightly the massive amount of mental illness. I know, personally it comes in all shapes and sizes and all reasons and causes, and it needs all kinds of remedies. But I do know God is bigger than depression. I have been in that hole, and I know that God is bigger than that hole. And so, no platitude today, no spiritual slogan today, no, you know, "Raise your hand and you'll be free in five second". But you could be, 'cause God is that big. But it might take a process, it might take some people. But here's the big idea, you have a future and calling on your life, and it is not going to be short circuited by depression.
This is, just hold on just for a second, I know we all believe that, your story is not gonna be, "I would have stepped in my purpose, but I couldn't because of my condition. because God is bigger than your condition". And if nothing else in 2023, your narrative is gonna change and you are gonna say and believe:
"You know what, God has a plan for me. And you know what, I am able to do what God has planned for me. And you know what, there is a future for me and an assignment for my life and a calling on me. There is an anointing for me to do what God has called me to do. I am not going to sit under the cloud of depression all the days of my life and say, 'What if.' No, I'm gonna proclaim that Jesus is powerful enough to touch stretchers that are carrying people out to their graves and to change stories, and I'm just gonna keep calling on Jesus to touch me. The second person is a person who's just dead inside. Maybe apathetic to the Lord, but maybe just dead to the world. You don't taste, you don't see, you don't smell, you certainly don't feel. You're here today at church, but you haven't open this book with the desire, an appetite for God in so long, you don't remember the last time. There's not a connection between what we're saying right now and the real story of your life, you'd be like, 'I do acknowledge God and I know I need God, but that last part where I said I wanted God, I don't know about that part, and I don't know, maybe I just, you know, TikTok'd my way into just a side cul-de-sac somewhere. I don't dislike God, but I certainly am not on fire for God.'"
And I believe that Jesus wants for you a fire in your heart for Him because that's best for you and it's best for those around you, and it's best for Him because He gets glory. A third person, is a person trapped in addiction. Could be addiction of dozens of varieties, but God is just tryna say to you today, "It's not just an addiction, he's trying to kill you, physically kill you, emotionally kill you, relationally kill you, mentally kill you. It's not just you choosing an addiction, it's him trying to take you out". But Jesus, He's not afraid of that man. He knew the power that was in His hand.