Louie Giglio - Wide Awake At The Dawn of the End of Time
The message is: God Restores. And yes, there's been lost, but God repays for the years that the locust have eaten. So, if that's where you are, there are two talks parked there for you. This message today is for us collectively as the church. And the message today is coming out of global pandemic, we're gonna make it, and the church is gonna make it. I was hoping people would be excited about that.
You say, "Well, Louie, I don't know if you're really paying attention or not, because every statistic and every article I'm reading is saying that the church is shrinking. People are leaving the church, lots of people are leaving the church, a lot of people left the church and didn't come back to church. You can go to almost every church today and there's less people there than there were when the pandemic started. So, how can you encourage us and assure us today that the church is gonna make it"? Because God is a God who restores, and God's committed to the church. And on top of that, a shrinking church is not necessarily a weaker church. A weakened church is a weaker church.
And so, the church, theoretically, could get smaller and be stronger. So, we're not counting up how many people come through the door, what we're really interested in is what kind of church are we? And I know that God doesn't waste anything, and God certainly isn't gonna waste us going through a pandemic. And so, how is He wanna use that to shape the church? Well, I think in a few simple ways. Number one, I think that the church after the pandemic, God wants it to be a church that is awake, and alert, and wise. Awake, alert, and wise.
If you look in Ephesians 5, this is what Paul is encouraging. And the times in Ephesians apparently were challenging. He calls them many times in this book, "Evil days". The days are evil in the book of Ephesians. And so, he says in verse one of chapter five, "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you," He's talking to these believers now, he's saying, "Let's focus on us now".
"But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, or impure or greedy person, such a man is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient".
So, all of a sudden, Paul is putting us in a context where there is conflict and the church is caught in the middle of it, the people are caught in the middle of it. How are we gonna live? And he comes on down a little bit later in this passage, and in verse 14 he says, "For it is light that makes everything visible. That is why it is said: 'Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.'" And this is God's word for us as His people in this moment coming through what we've all come through, He says, "Wake up. Be awake in this moment".
And what God is saying is, you gotta be alert. You got to be awake, and you have to be alert. You have to be able to discern the time at lasting and wise. If you go back to chapter five right after he says, "Wake up O sleeper and rise from the dead," and look what happens when you do, "Christ shines on you". Light shines on you. He says, "Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because," here it comes again, "Because the days are evil".
So, when Paul is writing this, 2,000 years ago, in Ephesus, it was evil. And he's saying, in the midst of an evil time that we're living in, be careful how you live, and don't walk like unwise people, but walk like wise people understanding what the will of God is. "Do not get drunk which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ". And he closes this section by saying, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ".
We'll come back to that at the end. Don't be drunk because that's a waste, is the word in Greek. Basically, it's saying, 2,000 years ago, "Don't get wasted because it's a waste. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit". And why did he put these two ideas together? Because one shows what being under the influence of something looks like, and he wanted the other one to show what being under the influence of something look like. And the primary shift of what being under the influence of spirit looked like was the way you speak.
Interesting. Lots of other ways, whole chapter filled with other ways, but the primary way here is it's the way you talk to each other is what's changing under the influence of the spirit. And he calls them "Evil Days," and he's trying to help us understand that we are not up against flesh and blood, we are up against spiritual powers. Your neighborhood is a spiritual municipality. Your family lives in a spiritual municipality. This city is in a spiritual municipality, and we just can't show up and, you know, sing some songs and then rock on outta here and go, "Man, that was a great Sunday," when we're living in a spiritual municipality. We have to be awake and alert and wise.
What should I do? Do the wise thing. Weigh up God's word. You submit to one another in community and then when you make the decision, make the wise decision because you understand what God's will is in this moment. This is how the church looks going forward into the future. In 1 John 2, John is sharing with his listener and reader the same, "Dear children," Verse 18, "This is the last hour, and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come".
And this is what we're up against. We're up against the spirit that is anti-Christ. It may be anti this right now and anti this tomorrow and anti this on another day, but ultimately, the spirit that is moving in the world is against Christ. So, be ready because where this culminates is with an anti-Christ spirit. So, yes, there are important things for us to talk about, there are important ways for us to live our lives, there are important light to be shined into our story, but ultimately, it all is pointing to being against Christ. And there are spirits of anti-Christ right now.
And a discerning, alert, awake person can sense what is happening around them. He says, "Even now, many anti-Christ have come. This is how we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us they would've remained with us, but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One," Church you have an anointing from the Holy One.
"And all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist. He denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us, even eternal life".
When Jesus sent His followers out in Matthew 10, He said, "I'm sending you into the world as sheep among wolves. So, I want you to be as innocent as doves and as smart as snakes. I want you to be awake and alert and wise". Second thing about this church coming through the pandemic is this, the church is humble and bold. Put these two words together because we need humility. We need in our vocabulary to recapture the humility of not knowing on what day the world's gonna come to a stop. And we need to be able to say, "You know what? I would love to meet you next Friday if God wills". And you're like, "Louie, that's just gonna be silly if we just start putting that I every sentence".
Okay, just have it in your mind. When we were starting this series, we were in Joel 2, and the prophet is talking about God repaying what the locust have eaten. And he comes down to the middle of chapter 2, and he says, "Yes, you're gonna be autumn rains and spring rains. And your crops are gonna grow, your threshing floor is gonna be full. Your vats are gonna have new wine and new oil". And this is like the restoration of God. But then he comes down to the next verse and he says, "And".
And when I was reading this, I'm like, "Why is there an and? What more would you need? There was a wipe out of the locust, God restored, our crops are back, our threshing floor is back, our vats are back, our oil is back, our wine is back, our grapes are back. We're good". He says, "No, no, no. That's not the end goal. It's just to get the vats full, there's something more". And He says in this verse, verse 28, He says, "And, so I'm gonna do that, but I'm gonna do something else and the something else is really crazy. And afterward I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old, men will dream dreams and young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I'll show you wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood".
It's like, "Hello, we've had some blood moons Louie". "Before the coming of the great," Hello, "And dreadful day of the Lord". Can we just read this sentence maybe one more time? "Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls". Last verse of Joel. "Their blood guilt which I have not pardoned, I will pardon. The Lord dwells in Zion! And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance".
Now, something powerful is happening here. Joel is saying that there is a time coming. So, yes, thank you God that our vats are full. Thank you, God, that our account is full, thank you God that our stake is back up. Thank you for restoring. Thank you for repaying. Thank you for that. But there's something more to life than just having your vats full and it is that God's gonna pour out His spirit on everybody. This would be absolutely shocking to the hearer because a shift is happening where the spirit of God, which is now calling for prophecy, which is a witness to Christ, is moving from the prophet, who's been a witness to Christ, to the people who are now the witness to Christ. It used to be the big hitters, now it's everybody.
The spirit of God now is on everyone to do what? To prophesy. You say, "Prophesy sounds scary Louie. I don't really know about prophecy. I don't know about all that and what that means". Simplest definition from Strong's Exhaustive Concordance is, "Prophesy means to speak to sing by inspiration, and prediction, or in simple discourse". You're like, "Ah, I don't, I don't. Didn't grow up in that church". You know how to prophesy. Prophesy is when he says, "Well, I'll tell you what I think". Okay? Prophesy. Or "Let me tell you what you should do". Okay?
Go ahead and prophesy. Or even more, when you say, "You know what? I just had a hunch. I have a feeling. I don't know, but I don't think that camping thing, I don't have a good feeling abut that". Okay? Prophesy. We prophesy all the time. But what the text is now saying, is that when the spirit of God comes on us, on our sons and daughters, men and women, all of us included in this outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that we become witnesses to Christ. So, there's an anti-Christ coming, but there are witnesses to Christ coming also. There is an anti-Christ spirit. It's gonna try to shut down the whole world, but there is a for Christ spirit that is now influencing all the people of God to seek Christ and to proclaim Christ under the influence of the Spirit of God.
That's why when the Holy Spirit came in Acts 2, that's exactly what it looked like. We see these two things again. We see being drunk and being filled with the spirit in the same text again right next to each other. It's festival time, there are Jews from all over the known world in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirt comes down in the upper room. These followers of Jesus who've been waiting on the Holy Spirit, now are touched with these tongues of fire that came from heaven, and they all started proclaiming the gospel in different languages. And all the people who were there were like, "What is going on? All these people are Galileans. We know that, but they're telling us the gospel in our own languages right now. What is happening"?
And there was a smart aleck there that got recorded by Luke, and that person said, "I think they're all drunk". And Peter, who just a few weeks before denied Jesus, stood up, and he spoke to them and he said, "They're not drunk, it's only nine in the morning. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit, and they will prophesy.'"
And he comes down to verse 21 in this little section, he's quoting all of what we just read. "And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved". And they're like, "Okay, well which lord? I mean, Lord, God, okay? Everybody call on God. Call on the Lord". No, then he says very clearly in verse 22, "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through Him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross. But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him".
Turn the page, he comes a little further down connecting more and more prophesy, and then he comes down and he calls for them to repent and to call on the name of Jesus. And thousands of people in that moment under the powerful preaching of the Holy Spirit had their hearts cracked open, and put their faith and their trust in Jesus and the church is born in this moment, and they are bold. In the face of even death, they don't flinch. They keep pointing in the anti-Christ darkness to the light of Christ who is alive from the dead and the church is born on hostile ground and explodes around the world. It wasn't very big, got lot bigger after Peter's sermon, but it wasn't super big on day one.
Just a couple thousand people on earth in it, but it was strong, and it was bold, and this is what God is calling for as the dreadful day nears. So, Passion always preaches, "Be excellent in what you do. Credibility gains you an opportunity to share your story of faith with people who don't even wanna hear about your story of faith". I.E, you're the best architect in California and everybody thinks that you are the deal. And now, here comes some very talented person who wants be an intern with you, and they're not interested at all in the things of God or the gospel, but they're interested in you and they want to come and study under you because you're the best.
And at some point, you have an opportunity, because of your credibility, to say to say to them, "Well, you know, the reason why... What I get inspired by most in doing the architecture I'm doing is my relationship with God, and He inspires me, and I want to reflect His beauty and creativity in all the things that I do. And that's how, you know, I approach every single project". And they don't say to you, "I don't wanna hear anymore about your faith". They just go, "Great. You can talk about your faith cause I want this internship really, really bad and I respect you a lot".
That's why it's important to be great at whatever you do, because it gains you credibility with people around you and gives you opportunities to share the gospel. But it can't stop with, "Hey, people see the way I live. People see my example, people know that I don't treat our employees like other people treat their employees. They know that we're different/ They can sense There's difference". At some point we actually have to prophesy. Because yes, the Holy Spirit influences us to live lives in the light and not the dark, to live holy lives that reflect the holiness of God. But the Holy Spirit also leads us to prophesy. And the spirit now is moved from the prophet to the people.
The last thing, just quickly, is what does church look like? It looks like everybody's all in. Church after pandemic looks like everybody's all in. In other words, church becomes a way of life, not a weekly gathering. You say, "You know, a lot of people left church during pandemic". I don't know why they all left. A hundred reasons probably, and some of them didn't come back and maybe they didn't come back for a hundred reasons. But maybe one of the reasons, I don't know, maybe one of the reasons why it is that they left church and they were gone for a few months, and they realized they didn't really miss church at all.
They're like, "I don't know. I don't feel really any different from being there". Why? Because maybe we've packaged this thing to be a moment, and we worked really hard in that moment to lift your spirit, so that you leave here going, "I feel better about myself and about life than I did when I went in. I got a boost". And maybe there's a practical nugget for you that you can use during the week. Now, that's church. I'm telling you, that kind of church isn't gonna make it when the spirit of antichrist tries to shut down the world. That kind of church isn't gonna make it through the pandemic. That kind of church isn't gonna make it through a diagnosis.
It's not even gonna make it through something that doesn't make sense. it's not gonna make it through hardship or difficulty or persecution. That kinda church won't make it. The kinda church that's gonna make it is the church where people in the church are all into church. You're like, "Are you tryna get us to show up now"? No, no, no. Opposite. I'm trying to say that it's not most about how many people come through the door, it's most about what kind of people go out the door. And we obviously wanna make room for a lot more people in this house, but not people who just come and sit in a seat and feel a little bit better when they leave and think that's church, because you're deceiving yourself.
Together we move. The church that was born under the people who were prophesying by the influence of the Holy Spirit, "Devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching and to the fellowship. To the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe". Everyone was filled with awe. "And many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved". Holy Spirit, prophet to people, prophesying salvation church, and the church is all in. That's what Joel was saying. He calls it out at the end and he says, "For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance". And God is saying, "I wanna invite you in. I want you to be rooted in this word. In this word, I want you to root in this word. I don't want you to follow a man, I want you to follow this word".
'Cause you can go find a church and a preacher who will amen whatever it is you want amened in your life. You can find a church and a preacher who will say, "Yes, I agree with you," and will amen whatever it is that you feel like is right for you. You need to get filled with the spirit and get in this word, and get around people who are filled with the spirit and are in this word, and submit yourself to one another under the spirit and this word. We will preach it, this church will follow it, we will build on it, but you need to be knitted into a community of spirit-filled, word-soaked people who are awake, and alert, and who are wise, and who understand what the will of the Lord is and know what time it is on planet earth.