>> I'm Hayley Braun, and I saw the great cloud of witnesses.
It was a few years ago,
and we were contending for resurrection
for someone that was near and dear to our hearts.
Already, that maybe sounds kind of wild,
but Jesus said to heal the sick, to raise the dead,
to cast out demons and cleanse the lepers.
And if Jesus said it and he gave us the Holy Spirit,
then we have to do it. We have to say yes.
And so I said yes.
It wasn't like I was all rah rah, like, I can do this.
No, I was simply being obedient. You know, actually,
before I ever prayed for resurrection for someone,
I was kind of afraid. I was, I was nervous.
I felt like, what's it going to be like to be praying
for someone that isn't here anymore?
Like any kind of normal person maybe would feel.
But the minute I walked into the situation,
Heaven was there, Heaven was in the room.
It was more alive in that room that it was at my house
where there was little bodies of children running around
everywhere because God meets us in faith.
And as we were praying
and contending for life to come back,
you see, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy,
and the thief had stolen from the people of God.
But Jesus came to bring life and life in abundance.
And that's what we were there to see.
And as we started praying and contending,
something wild happened to me, I got caught up in heaven
and I began to see the sights of heaven.
And it was beautiful.
It was so full of peace, so full of joy.
And right there in the midst of our contending on earth,
Heaven was contending with us. In the Word of God
it says that this great cloud of witnesses, that they cheer us on
because their reward is not complete
but through us saying yes to what God has called us to.
And I began to experience the roar of this cloud,
of these people, of these saints that had gone before us.
And they weren't roaring in anxiety or fear.
They were roaring in victory.
They were lifting up shouts of praise and adoration
to the king of kings, the one who is life itself.
And so this is what I was experiencing.
I was standing there honestly astonished,
standing in this place in the glory realm of God,
and there were all the people
that had fought battles on the earth before,
standing in the presence of God
and fighting to see the reward of Jesus
come into the fullness of what
He had called us to, to, to contend for.
You know, I used to think death had a sting.
I used to be afraid of going after impossible circumstances.
But when I experienced life in heaven,
when I experienced this great cloud of witnesses
pursuing the fullness of the reward of Jesus,
I began to realize there is no losing here,
there is no defeat, there is no loss.
We experience loss on Earth. We experience loss here.
We experience people passing away,
people, people not remaining,
and there is deep grief with that,
and God doesn't push that aside.
In fact, he says he comforts those who mourn.
The Holy Spirit himself is called the Comforter.
But as I experienced heaven, I began to realize,
Yes, I grieve on this side,
but actually there's a celebration
going somewhere else.
I know some of you have probably lost people that you love.
You lost people that you, you care about,
you fought battles
and maybe you haven't seen the outcome you are hoping for.
But heaven is roaring,
Heaven is contending, heaven is believing,
and heaven is cheering you on
to run the race that was marked out before you.
This is where the Scripture comes from.
It's Hebrews 12. It says, So fix your eyes on Jesus,
who is the author and perfector of your faith, faith,
and let yourself run with perseverance
towards the upward call of heaven.
This is what we've been called to,
to run with boldness and courage,
knowing that we are not alone.
In the same experience of believing
and contending for resurrection, I remember when we realized
that the time was probably complete.
That we had prayed and we had contained
and we hadn't seen the victory on this side,
though I'd had such a wild,
supernatural encounter with heaven.
And as we were packing up our things
and about to leave that night,
we had closed all the doors and the windows,
and a gust of wind began to blow through the house.
This place where we'd been contending for life
where death was very present, the life of God
was blowing through the room.
I honestly thought this was it, this was the moment.
And we stood and we waited 20 more minutes.
And we continued to pray and believe.
And we felt like, okay, we've done what we came to do.
And as we were walking out of the front door,
I remember one of my friends
had already walked out the front door,
the laptop that was closed on the counter started to sing.
It was Steff Gretzinger singing
I see Heaven invading this Place.
And it stopped. We started to check the laptop
trying to figure out what's going on.
But Heaven was in the room.
And then as we started leaving again,
the laptop again started singing.
I see angels praising your holy name, and I sing praises.
I give you honor, worthy Jesus. Jesus was receiving his reward
through an act of faith, that day.
Jesus was reminding us that Heaven is closer than you think.
Heaven is right here in your midst.
And when you open up the gate of faith,
when you choose to step into impossible circumstances,
I will meet you there.
And though there's mystery sometimes in the outcome,
I want to tell you that your moments of faith,
your moments where you open the doors of faith of your heart,
heaven comes close and you are not alone.
God is with you. The angels surround you.
But there is a cloud of witnesses
that are cheering you on
so that they can too enter the reward
that Jesus paid for by his suffering,
and that is that we would walk into the victory.
I've prayed for impossible circumstances
many times since then.
I've, I've prayed for healing of incurable diseases.
I've prayed for resurrection for other people.
And you know what? The sting of death,
though, there is loss on this side, it is gone.
In first Thessalonians 4:13,
it says that we are not those that grieve without hope.
You know what our hope is?
Our hope is anchored in Jesus Christ,
the victor, he has overcome,
and heaven roars in celebration of your Yes.
Heaven roars in celebration of your faith.
And when the son of man comes back, what is he looking for?
He's looking for faith. So I want to pray for you today.
I want to pray that you would encounter heaven,
that you would encounter the, the cloud of witnesses
that is roaring for you.
That is, that is cheering you on to enter into your reward.
And I want to pray that you encounter the spirit of God
that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him
in heavenly places that you would know
the victory of the Kingdom of God.
And so, Holy Spirit, we thank you for beautiful encounters.
Lord, we thank you that we don't cling to the encounter,
but we cling to the one who gives the encounter.
We cling to you. You are our hope.
And God, I thank you that nothing
that we invested in faith here on Earth goes to waste.
Not one drop of faith invested here will go to waste,
that everything that we say yes to in Jesus,
it's yes and amen in you, Jesus. And so God,
I pray for radical and bold faith
for those that are watching today,
that you would grip their hearts
with the heavenly reality that we are alive in Christ,
that there is no death for those who are in Christ Jesus.
But simply we transition from one measure of glory
to another measure of glory.
And God, I pray for a bold faith
to pull that glory down into this realm.
God, we want to see the sick healed.
We want to see the dead raised.
We want to see the Kingdom of God manifest on this earth.
And it's not by might, nor by power,
but by your spirit.
It's not by our left hand or our right hand,
but it is by your spirit.
And so, Holy Spirit, would you come,
would you fill us with power, would you fill us with boldness,
that we might walk courageously into the call of God.