Louie Giglio - Opening Session

After amazing worship led by David Crowder Band (I think, if I remember correctly) Louie Giglio, who although I don't personally know him, is one of my favorite people ever, shared a great message with us to kick off Passion 2011 Atlanta.

He opened by telling us it is possible to be free and fully alive. He gave us power, encouraging us that we can change the world. He showed us a Time magazine who named Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year. Mark is only 26 years old and the creator of facebook. Facebook has changed our lives. It has changed the world. It changed the way we communicate, the way we relate to people and the vocabulary we choose. Most people know what it means when someone takes a picture and they say, "tag me!" Louie shared a little bit about Mark, that people have offered him a billion dollars for facebook and he won't sell it. Because he loves it. A BILLION dollars. The article stated that Mark lives in a rented house, doesn't have a tv, drives an acura, and couldn't care less about material things. On his facebook pages, one of his "likes" is - "eliminating desire, it is so easy to get caught up in the things that don't matter."

May our prayers be, "Jesus drown out the desire in my heart for anything that doesn't really matter."

Jesus is the greatest name in history. The greatest of the past, the greatest of the present and will be the greatest name forever. May we make our lives count for what counts. The thing that matters : to him who sits on the throne, and the lamb be blessing and honor, glory and power forever and ever. Thats it.

We have to eliminate worldly desires.

The date that night was 1.1.11. Louie talked about how it was a new start. A fresh beginning. One beginning, one birth, one start, something new. It is possible to be free and fully alive.

We then looked at the first word of Philippians 1:1.

*side note: when Louie said to turn to Philippians and that we would be diving into Philippians this weekend, I got super excited! Philippians has been a theme for me over the last two years. I really want to memorize the whole book of Philippians and have been working on it on and off for the last two years. I also did a bible study on Philippians last year and it is also what I dove into with my mentor my last semester at Calvin. I only have the first chapter of Philippians memorized and have wanted to work on it more, but it is so hard! I just want to really really memorize it. To where I don't even have to think about the words, they just roll off my tongue. And memorizing is hard work. I'm also someone who never makes new years resolutions. Cause I always think that it has to be something that I do everyday and I know that I can't commit to that, so I don't do anything. But...while at Passion, I decided it would be a good new years resolution to have the whole book of Philippians memorized by next year. Totally doable. So keep me accountable to that. Ask me how I'm doing. I'm currently not too much further. I need to work on it.

Okay, so Philippians 1:1 (sorry, this is going to be really really long. It's good information though, I promise!)The first word of Philippians is "Paul." At first I was confused. Louie was making such a big deal about the first word, and all it was was Paul. I knew it. I'd repeated it hundreds of times. But this is why we have teachers :) This greeting, which is typical in many letters, is actually not Paul just saying, "oh hi, I'm Paul." In that first word he announces that all things can be made new. He's saying, "I used to be Saul, but now I'm coming to you as Paul." Back a couple books in Acts, times were not so good for followers of Jesus.

In Acts, Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaimed the name of Jesus. Stephen was a follower of Christ, filled with great faith and boldness. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, the last verse in Acts 6 even says that his face was like the face of an angel. The people of the law at that time hated Stephen. Acts 7:54 says, "when they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him." So mad and furious their teeth were chattering. Acts 7 continues the story. Stephen pointed to heaven and said look - the heavens were opening. The men screamed and covered their ears. They took him and stoned him. Meanwhile, the crowd is laying down cloth for Saul to walk on. Stephen prayed that the Lord would receive his spirit. Acts 8:1 "And Saul was there, giving approval to his death." He approved of it! It had his "blessing." And now fast forward to Philippians and Paul (who was Saul) is writing to encourage the church.

God changed his name. God changed his identity. God opened his eyes, gave him a new passion, a new view of life, a new reason to live. He had a new beginning. In one word "Paul" - we get the gospel. God uses his enemies for the greatest things on Earth.

We were all enemies of God. He has reconciled us by Christ's physical body by death. It is because of His grace. God chooses to use his enemies. He wants to use us. He wants to restore our lives. He wants to be a part of eliminating desire in our lives. Jesus made peace for all of us.

Philippians 1:3-6 Paul prays for us. And he is confident that God is not going to quit on the work that he started in us. God is for us. God is committed to making me like Jesus. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are praying for us right now.

In verse 12 Paul says, "now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel." What had happened?

Paul was arrested and had been put in jail. He was chained to someone. He was not in ideal circumstances. It cost Paul a lot to push for the name of Jesus. Paul is writing this letter to Philippi from jail, with Timothy. He was chained up. In jail. But here he is saying, "oh don't worry, its all good. The whole entire palace guard and everyone else knows the name of Jesus. They know that Christ is the one who changed my life." It's almost as if he's even saying, "we didn't know how we would reach all these people. We didn't know how to share the great news with everyone inside. Well now we have! Everyone inside the palace guard knows the name of Jesus and they know that it is because of him my life is changed." And most of those people probably initially knew Paul as Saul.

We, us, in our culture have become such complainers! Paul understood that circumstances do not have anything to do with our joy and freedom. Circumstances do not have power over us both being free in Christ and fully alive. God does not care about our circumstances - they do not limit Him.

Louie then shared a story of a young guy, John Evans, who had recently died of cancer. He was at Passion 2010; leaving during the breaks to go get treatments. At his funeral his friends and family couldn't stop talking about how much he loved the Lord. Reading from his journal and hearing what people had to say, showed the life he lived. Apparently, cancer can't keep you from being free and fully alive. We preach our own funerals - who we are and what we live for. People cannot say things at our funeral that are not true.

Either our circumstances rise up and chain us there, or we let Jesus set us free. God has a purpose and a plan.

Philippians 1:21 "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Paul is saying, "If I live - great! I'm gonna keep shouting the name of Jesus. If you kill me, and I die - great! That is great gain, I get the prize of going to be with Jesus!" Paul basically said, "You have no chains on me."

The opposite happens to us. We say that we're not going to be chained by anything. We're going to do our own thing. Nothing will chain us down. And we think that by doing our own thing we'll find freedom. But doing our own thing equals chains. All doing our own thing does is wrap a chain around our necks in about 5 seconds. Freedom comes from choosing the chain. The chain of Jesus sets us free. I want to choose for my life to be connected to Him. I choose Jesus. The second we choose to connect our lives to Jesus, we are instantly and forever free. We are free from everything the moment we choose to chain our lives to Jesus. You can choose to not chain your life to anything or anybody. Fine. But know that something is coming back at you and will grab a hold of you. There is no option in the middle. Either you choose it, or it will choose you.

Johnathan Edwards had made a New Years resolution - I will choose to live for God - it is a chain. When I choose that, I said no to every other chain.

This is similar to marriage. And why Louie joked it is so hard for guys to commit sometimes. Because saying yes to one girl, means saying no to every other girl in the world. And sometimes that is much harder.

The same goes for choosing a chain. Saying YES to Jesus, means you are saying NO to everything else this world has to offer.

Louie closed with two John Piper quotes,

"God is glorified best in me when I am satisfied most in him."

"The glory of God is man fully alive."

The Plan: to live to the FULL - being free.

When you say, "Yes" to Jesus, he can do everything. No matter what circumstance we are in.