LIVE | What Happened? | Rev. Joshua Thomas | Freedom Church ATL April 11, 2026 | Luke 24:9-12

He has heard this report, and he says, I can't take anything else. So I've gotta do something different. Yep. And one of the things I've learned my brothers and my sisters is that when life hits you so hard where you don't know what has happened, you gotta learn to do something different. That's right. There's a saying and a definition that to do the same thing over and over and expect different results is the definition of insanity. Mhmm. And some of us, if we'd be honest, if we look at how we handle our emotions, we're little crazy. Look at your neighbor. Type in the chat. You're talking about me. Because we do the same thing, expecting different results. Yeah. Yeah. But Peter said, no. I cannot stay here any longer. [00:46:48] (52 seconds)  #DoSomethingDifferent

Maybe, just maybe, you've been on this journey, you've been on this path because God's taking you somewhere. But when you get there, you're need a firsthand testimony of what it was like to see an empty tomb. You will need a firsthand testimony of what a miracle looked like when it showed up for you. So that when you stand in your car, you won't have to preach about what you heard. You can preach about what you've seen for yourself. [01:09:08] (38 seconds)  #SeenNotHeard

They're not saying that if we could use a team analogy, this was not three of the players had a great game and a couple just missed some key shots. Mhmm. This is everybody was terrible. Yeah. And they all sitting in this room looking at each other sad, looking at each other down with no clue. And Peter said, if I stay here, I'll never get beyond the sadness. So I gotta get up to get some more data because if I try to solve this with the data I have, the conclusion won't be good. That's right. And it's so important, my brothers and sisters, that when we're going through in life and we don't know what's going on, that we do not try to figure it out with solely what's already in our heads. [00:49:41] (47 seconds)  #BroadenYourLens

So many of us, whether our lives or relatives, we know people who live for years, decades, sometimes even generations, with the question of what happened. Never seeking to get new data. And if we can be honest, sometimes doubling down on the incorrect data they have that leads to confusion but blocks them from becoming who God wants them to be. This is the season, my brothers and my sisters, when God's calling us not to settle wondering what happened, but to go seek his face until we figure out what he wants us to do next. [01:14:06] (48 seconds)  #StopRepeatingOldNarratives

The blessing of God is he shows us enough of who he is for where we are. Yeah. But when we change our perspective, we get to see that God is bigger than just what we saw in that moment. And sometimes God is saying, you're not gonna figure this out if you stay put. I just need you to get up from where you are, move to a different place so you can see a little bit more of what I'm trying to get you to see. Alright. [00:52:31] (29 seconds)  #ChangeYourPerspective

I've learned and I offer this to you from experience. So often, hear whether it's preachers or leaders share things as if it's easy. I don't share this as if it's easy. I shared it because I'm learning and trying to practice it. That the worst the best way to waste your energy and time is to sit around wondering why it happened. To sit around and say, god, why this happened to me? To keep on asking the lord the question why when he's already told you it ain't for you to know. Because we are given are given the assurance that God hears and answers our prayers, it makes us believe that God will give us whatever we want. But reality is because he hears and answers our prayers does not mean he changes his plans to reveal stuff to us that we can't handle. There's some things that God says it's not for you to know. [01:06:40] (68 seconds)  #SomeThingsNotForYou

And that's the question I believe my brothers and sisters that many persons wrestle with every day. What do I do next? I can't figure out a plan. Every other plan has failed. Every other option has gone wrong. Everything I've tried has not gotten me further, and I don't know what to do now. Yeah. And we can be honest. Many of us find that when we get to that place, we sink into a place of depression Mhmm. Where we don't wanna come out. We don't wanna deal with life. We don't wanna act like the realities are real, and many people slide so far to finding their own coping mechanisms. [00:39:45] (37 seconds)  #WhatDoINext

There's some things that God says it's not for you to know. And if we waste our time asking the why, we stay locked up in the rooms of our lives. Peter was called to be the rock on which the church was founded. He wasn't starting the church in that room. He wasn't preaching to 3,000 in that room. He was not spreading the gospel in that room. He was allowing the enemy to block him from being who God called him to be. But Peter said, I gotta get out of here. And even if I'm left with more questions, then that just means I've got more to talk to God about. And as he walked his journey, he experienced firsthand the empty tomb. So that when Jesus appeared to him, when Jesus gave him the commission story again, of what Judas did wrong, he not only had the story of how they nailed him to the cross and put him in the grave, but he also now had a firsthand story of what the empty tomb looked like. [01:07:42] (87 seconds)  #FirsthandTestimony

For some of you, there are some things you've been dealing with, some challenges you've been going through, some burdens you've been carrying, some rough places you've been navigating, and you need the Lord to fill that area of your life. Before I pray from this microphone, I want you to just ask him to do it for you. The blessing of prayer is that you don't need a ordination to pray. You don't need a collar or robe to pray. You don't need a title to pray. But anybody who opens up their mouth and talks to Jesus has the assurance that he's listening on the other side. [00:21:01] (51 seconds)  #EveryoneCanPray

We're confused on where we're going, people start comparing how bad they are to how bad somebody else is. Right. And instead of trying to get the right answer, they just say, well, at least I'm not as bad as them, so I must be right. But the reality is you both wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Preach. They all sitting in that room. They all denied Jesus. None of them hear this even went with the women. Yeah. Preach. Come on. They didn't even bother to help them roll the stone away. And Peter says, if I stay here, I'm gonna do something that might not be good, so I gotta get up and get some more data because maybe, just maybe, if I do something different, I will see God hear this in a different way. [00:51:46] (45 seconds)  #StopComparing

Some years ago, there was a popular insurance company that created a promotional campaign with a slogan that said these words, life comes at you fast. Nationwide insurance used this series of commercials to show regular people in regular situations that were encountering strange accidents. Persons standing on the street talking and watching something come flying out the air, crashing through their house, cars seemingly parked, and then things would fall on them. Their goal was to show you that though you can have everything together, though you can think you know what things will turn out to be, life can come at you fast, [00:31:49] (46 seconds)  #LifeComesAtYouFast

we gotta deal with. Yeah. And I hate to hurt somebody's feelings, especially so close to Easter, but the reality is you never know when too much is too much. Yeah. Right. Yeah. One of the hardest things that I I tell folk all the time, never say I can't handle anything else. Yeah. Preacher. Because the moment those words come out your mouth, something else gonna come and say, watch this. Yeah. Right. They hand them in so much, and now they get a word that Jesus' body gone. And the women say, he alive, but the bible says in verse 11, but they didn't believe the women because their words seemed like nonsense. Yeah. You know, when we look at that text, one way to exegute this text is saying they didn't trust the response of the women Yeah. Because they were women. [00:44:08] (52 seconds)  #NeverSayICant

It doesn't matter how holy you are, how sanctified you are, there'll come a day where you can't see the future. That's right. And you're left trying to put together the pieces of your life. I'll never forget during the pandemic, it seemed as though in in, of course, in in Baltimore, as my wife and I, we often share, the pandemic was different than it is down here in Atlanta. Mhmm. You know, up north, we actually stayed in the house. You know, down south, we y'all stayed in the house for thirty seconds then went back out. That's why it lasted so long, but that's another story. [00:40:38] (33 seconds)  #SayAmenToChange