Defining Moments is one of three films for My Hope with Billy Graham, a nationwide evangelism effort underway in the U.S. and Canada. Three different stories, one powerful message and transformation that could change your life and the lives of those you know.
♪♪♪
(Billy Graham)
Do you know how many minutes
there are in a day?
Fourteen hundred and forty.
Do you know how many hours
there are in a week?
A hundred and sixty-eight.
It’s interesting to me
that rich people cannot
buy more hours.
Scientists cannot invent
new minutes.
You cannot even save time
to spend it on another day.
You’ve got a little time today,
you say, “well, I’d like
to save it up for tomorrow.”
You can’t do it.
Do you number your days?
Do you realize how important
every single day is?
♪♪♪
(male announcer)
It all comes down
to this moment
for Super Bowl XLVII.
(David Tyree)
That day we were the underdogs.
It was a game many
thought was over
before we even played it.
(announcer)
Unless the Giants
can come back here,
the undefeated Patriots
are poised to make
Super Bowl history!
(David Tyree)
I knew I was open,
but I wouldn’t be open for long.
(announcer)
Direct snap to manning.
Back to throw–the rush.
(David Tyree)
As I look back,
it was easy to see me–
He’s gonna be hit!
He’s gonna be sacked!
No! No! He got out of it!
Unbelievable!
[crowd cheering]
[applause]
(Jim Munroe)
I remember the first moment
when I became completely
blown away and intrigued
with the idea
of being a magician.
That was the moment
that I knew
that I could actually
be good at this.
it is the most fun thing
in the world to me.
I tend to like questions
a lot more than answers,
and what a magic trick does
is it forces you
into a place of questioning,
and it pulls the rug of reality
out from underneath you
to where you’re literally left
in a place where you don’t know
what is happening.
(Lacey Sturm)
I remember when I was fourteen
and I recorded my first song.
My mom actually helped me
to record it.
She had some recording gear
and it is the most amazing
thing to hear yourself recorded.
♪♪♪
(Lacey Sturm)
I never thought
in my wildest dreams
that I would be a musician
for a living.
I didn’t even think
that was possible.
♪♪♪
[crowd cheering]
(Jim Munroe)
As a magician
you’re very skeptical
and you realize that
most of what’s going on
behind the scenes
is fake or false.
The idea of an all-powerful God
seems incredibly silly.
When I talked to people
that would go to church,
I can remember thinking that
they were just falling
for a simple magic trick.
It’s like the Wizard of Oz,
behind the curtain,
controlling everything.
I’d grown up understanding
how to make people believe
something was real
when it was really not.
I am a master of phoniness.
I am a charlatan by craft.
But I began to ask myself
a big God question.
I said, “God, if you are real,
“then I need you to bring me
back behind the curtain.
“I need you to show me
how it works.
“I need you to make this so real
to me that I cannot ignore it.”
♪♪♪
I will never forget the day
this man walks into my room
and he said,
“Mr. Munroe, I don’t know
how to tell you this
but you have cancer.”
I said, “What?!”
He looked at me and he said,
“Mr. Munroe, we cannot cure you
of your disease.”
My wife and I were…
We were in a bad place.
God, where are you?
I guess you aren’t that great.
I had been married
for 5 years.
I had just a 3-year-old girl
and a 2-year-old little boy.
And I needed more time
with my family.
I needed more time.
(announcer)
Third down and five.
Manning takes the snap.
Pressure from the outside.
He’s looking down field
but they are all over him!
And he fires it off!
What a catch by Tyree!
How in the world
did he do that?
I have no idea!
[crowd cheering]
♪♪♪
(David Tyree)
The New York Giants
drafted me in the sixth
round of the 2003 draft,
and it was everything
that I was looking for.
I had some tremendous
challenges through college,
getting the field,
getting the recognition
and now I felt like, you know,
this is finally it,
so, it was about that
glory for me as a rookie.
I just enjoyed
every moment of it.
♪♪♪
Most people would like to think
that money will solve
all your problems.
I found that the money
only multiplied the evils
that were in my life.
It just gave me access
to more of the things
that I craved the most.
You know, if I had women,
it just made me that much
more likable by women.
I loved alcohol
and now I was able to get
all the alcohol I wanted.
I loved, you know, now,
whereas maybe in time past
I didn’t have marijuana,
now I’m able to buy all
the marijuana that I wanted.
I was one person in public
and a totally different person
in private.
♪♪♪
My struggles with alcohol
were a lot more than
just having a good time
and getting wasted
and laughing it away.
I was totally just inebriated
to the point where I couldn’t
keep my composure.
There were times where
my blackouts led me to places
where I woke up
the next day naked in a bed
and not knowing what happened
the night before.
I smoked weed every single day
throughout my rookie year.
I began to not just
smoke the weed,
I began to sell the weed.
I’ll never forget those sirens
in my rearview mirror.
The sound, and how my heart
dropped in that very moment.
Being asked
to get out that car,
and them searching the car
and pulling out that
half-pound of marijuana.
It was a deflating moment
in my life.
For the first time,
as I was being pulled into
that Fort Lee jail cell,
I realized that I was broken.
I was broken
and there was no one to look at
other than myself.
(Billy Graham)
On the outside you look great,
but deep inside
you’re searching
for something
you haven’t yet found.
There must be something else
in life than this.
(Lacey Sturm)
When I was a little girl
we struggled financially,
my mom being a single mom
with two kids at 18.
Obviously it was
a difficult situation to be in.
When I was 10 years old,
my cousin,
who was 3,
he was like a little
brother to me,
he was beaten to death
by his step-father.
How could I trust in a God
that would allow something
like that to happen?
It just spiraled into depression
and I ended up hanging out
with people who had issues
like mine in their life,
and ended up getting
involved in drugs,
and just continued
to fuel that depression.
When I was 16,
I was a very outspoken atheist
and really searched
a lot of different religions
and just felt
so empty in everything,
whether it was
in drugs or sex,
or even just deep thinking
and philosophies.
It just seemed to all
leave me really empty.
And since there wasn’t
anything in life
that satisfied
the emptiness,
I just didn’t want to do
life anymore.
♪ There were times ♪
♪ I cried myself
to sleep at night ♪
I planned to commit suicide.
I just didn’t want
to wake up anymore.
I just was tired of waking up,
and I just thought,
“I can’t keep doing this.”
♪ Only to wake up ♪
♪ Wishing that I didn’t ♪
The day I planned
to commit suicide,
I came home from school early
and my grandma
wasn’t supposed to be home
and she just had
a way of knowing,
knowing when something
was wrong.
And she just looked
at me and said,
“Something’s wrong with you.
You’re going to church.”
That was the last place
in the world I wanted to be.
I hated Christians,
I hated church.
I was like, “There’s no way
I’m gonna go to church.”
And we got into
a crazy screaming match
and I just remember saying,
“If you’ll just
shut up, I’ll go!”
And when it’s over,
then I’ll commit suicide.
(Billy Graham)
Millions are crying,
“What can I do to be saved
from the pressures of life?”
The pressures are just so great.
We have great technology
to save time,
but we have less time than ever.
The tensions in the home,
problems at work,
health problems.
Making ends meet.
We want to scream at life.
We want to escape from life.
Adlai Stevenson once said,
“It’s not the days of your life
but the life in your days
that count.”
You have so much time,
but for what?
The things that are broken
in your heart and life
can be restored in Christ,
if you put your faith
and your confidence in him.
He died on the cross.
He rose from the dead for you.
He wants to give you guidance
in your life.
He wants to give you a peace,
and joy and assurance
that if you died
you’d go to heaven.
But first,
there must be a change.
You must turn around.
That’s called repentance
in the Bible.
Repent.
♪♪♪
(David Tyree)
When I was in that jail cell,
I really just knew I was at
the end of my own strength.
I realized I’m 24-years-old,
NFL Special Team’s
rookie of the year.
New York Giants
rookie of the year,
and I got everything that
anybody could potentially want,
but it didn’t lead to anything
apart from decay and death
and disappointment.
And I was broken.
I was broken,
and I realized that,
you know what?
There was no one to look at
other than myself,
and at that moment,
nothing else mattered.
I just knew I needed
something more.
I just cried out of
desperation and just said,
“God, all I know is
I need you.”
And that following weekend
after I got arrested,
I ended up in the back
of a church in a fetal position,
crying and weeping out to God.
I could no longer resist
God’s love.
As I received God’s forgiveness
I knew that I was new.
The person of Jesus Christ
was now a reality in my life.
It wasn’t just a myth.
It wasn’t just a figment
or this idea.
The forgiveness of sins is
what actually sets man free
and I was
immediately transformed.
I knew that I’d
experienced a love
that had changed
my life forever,
and I knew there
was never gonna be
any looking back for me.
Ha, ha, ha!
(Billy Graham)
Time is collapsing on us.
How much longer do we have?
The psalmist requested
that the Lord remember
how short my time is.
“my days are like a shadow
that declineth
“and I’m withered like grass,
“but thou, o Lord,
shall endure forever
and thy remembrance
unto all generations.”
Think of it–
God will endure forever,
but on this earth,
we’re like a shadow
that’s declining.
We’re all dying.
From the moment you were born,
you started dying.
How much longer do we have?
(Jim Munroe)
The cancer doctor looked
at me and he said,
“Mr. Munroe, we cannot
cure you of your disease.
“There is something, however,
that we would like to try.
“It’s called a bone
marrow transplant.
“The problem with your body
is that your white blood cells
“are making bad copies
of bad copies.
“Your body
is deceiving itself.
It’s playing a trick
on itself.”
He said,
“What we need to do
“is we need to completely
destroy your system,
“and what we’re hoping to do is
we’re hoping to find
“someone in the world
“whose DNA matches
yours close enough
“to grow a brand-new
immune system,
“a brand-new blood
system from scratch.
“We’re gonna substitute
someone else’s perfect blood
on your behalf
so that you can live again.”
(Billy Graham)
God said without
the shedding of blood
there’s no forgiveness.
There has to be
a substitute for you
who will take the judgment
that you deserve,
the death that you deserve,
and that substitute became
Jesus Christ.
(Jim Munroe)
I was thinking to myself,
“Man, my time is running out.
I am dying of cancer.”
It’s been hard to deal with.
Right now, Peyton
is 3-years-old
and Gavin is 2-years-old.
My two babies…
Should this
take my life early, I love you.
They began the most vicious
concoction of chemo,
the goal of which
was not just to destroy
the cancer in my body,
but was literally
to destroy me.
It was hell.
It was a slow death.
I really am scared.
I’m really trying
not to be fearful,
but I am fearful.
I’m trying to be strong
for my wife and for my family,
but I’m pretty scared.
We were waiting to hear
from the National
Bone Marrow Donor Program.
There’s 7 million people
currently registered
on the database.
And there was one perfect
match for me; just one.
It was a 19-year-old female.
They said, “Mr. Munroe,
your bone marrow transplant
“is scheduled for April 23rd.
You are gonna get
a brand-new birthday.”
They said, “You are gonna be
like a baby inside the womb
“all over again.
The nurses celebrate your new
birth in the hospital.”
I had heard that terminology
before, too,
somewhere at the churches
that I had attended.
Literally I was going
to be born anew.
And I’ll never forget,
on April 23rd
they brought this bag
of blood into my room
and everyone was hoping
in that moment
that my body would receive
that new life, that new blood.
I sit here today,
100% completely cancer free,
and when they look
at my blood today
they see a 19-year old female.
They see her.
They see XX chromosome.
I’m reminded
of a verse in Galatians 2
that says
“It’s no longer I who live
“but it’s someone else
who lives on the inside of me,
“and the life that I now live
I live by faith.”
[cheering]
Hi!
(Jim Munroe)
John 17:3, it says,
“This is eternal life,
knowing you (God)
“and Jesus Christ
whom you have sent.”
I’m fully convinced
of the claims of Jesus
as a skeptical person
and as an illusionist.
I know that the God
of the universe
has brought me
back behind the curtain,
just like I asked him to.
Cancer was how he did it
through my life,
and there’s a spiritual cancer
that’s eating us away
on the inside,
and we’re all longing,
we’re all begging
for someone to step in
and to save us
from that condition.
God looks at your heart,
and God sees that you have
a spiritual heart disease.
And that spiritual heart
disease is called sin.
And we’re all sinners.
That means we’ve broken
the laws of God.
We’ve disobeyed God.
We’ve rebelled against God,
and because we’ve rebelled
against him,
we’re going to have
to face a judgment.
Oh, yes, there’s coming
a judgment.
There’ll be someday when
you will stand before God
at the great judgment day
and you’ll have to give
an account of your life here
and you’ll have
to give an account
of what you did
with Jesus Christ
on this very night,
because there’s going
to be a judgment,
but God’s judgment
is also tempered
by his love and his mercy.
He’s willing
to forgive you tonight,
he’s willing to give you
a chance tonight.
No matter how much time
you’ve wasted in the past,
you can still have tomorrow.
♪♪♪
(Lacey Sturm)
I was sitting in the back
of the church,
slouched down in my chair
with my arms crossed
and the preacher
began to speak
and everything he said
was straight to my heart
like I was the only
person in the room,
and he stops in the middle of
what he’s saying and he says,
“There’s a suicidal spirit
in the room,
“and God wants you to know
that he loves you.”
All the hair stood up
on the back of my neck,
I was like, this is really
freaking me out.
I gotta get out of here.
I got up and went
towards the door
after he dismissed the church
and a man grabbed me
by the arm
and he was a white-headed
old man and he said,
“God wants me to speak to you
“and he wants you to know
that even though
“you’ve never known
an earthly father,
“that he will be
a better father to you
than any earthly father
could ever be.”
He said, “He’s seen you
when you cry yourself
to sleep at night.”
And when he said that,
it really shook me,
because I’ve cried myself
to sleep every night
since I was 10 years old.
If I didn’t cry,
I couldn’t sleep.
But he said, “He sees you
“when you cry yourself
to sleep at night,
“and he loves you so much
and he sent his son Jesus
“to die and bleed on a cross
to take all of the pain
“that you’re experiencing
on himself,
so you don’t have
to experience it.”
He said, “Do you want him
to take that from you?
because he died to take it.”
And I was like,
“Well, you can try it.”
He was like,
“Can I pray for you for that?”
And I was like,
“You can try it.
“I don’t really
believe in all this,
but I know something crazy
is happening right now.”
And so he put his hand
on my shoulder
and began to pray
and he said something like,
“God, I pray that you
would wrap your arms
“around your daughter
and let her know
how much you love her.”
♪ All my life
I searched for something ♪
♪ To satisfy the longing
in my heart ♪
♪ And every time I come away
emptier than before ♪
And in that moment,
something you just
can’t explain,
that you have to experience–
where I literally felt
like I was in front
of the God of universe.
And the thing that I noticed
first of all
was that this God who is
so holy and awesome
and I was so not that.
(Billy Graham)
Some of you think
that you’re too bad
to come to God,
have done too many things,
and gone too far.
God’s not waiting to judge you.
God’s not waiting
to condemn you.
God loves you.
He sent his Son to die
on the cross for you,
to shed his blood for you.
He wants to put his arms
around you and receive you,
and he will take you
and forgive you and love you,
and be your friend.
(Lacey Sturm)
This God was so holy
and awesome,
and if God had said, go away,
it would have been right,
it would have been
justice for me, I know it.
But the craziest thing was
that he’s drawing me in
and taking me into his arms
and saying, “I love you
just the way you are.
“I’m not shocked by
any of this,
“and if you’ll let me,
I’ll make you new.”
I’m just so thankful that God
sees us different than we are.
He doesn’t turn away,
that he still looks at us
with love.
♪ Without your love ♪
It’s amazing to think that
God is a father like that.
♪ Thank you for
never giving up on me ♪
♪ When I looked to
everything else but you ♪
♪ You bled, you died
to be with me ♪
♪ Why would you do
something like that ♪
♪ For someone like me? ♪♪
Jesus died in my place
and because of that
all I have to do is believe it
and say, “Yes, change me.
Yes, make me new.”
(Billy Graham)
In Romans the 6th chapter
it says,
“The wages of sin is death,
“but the gift of God
is eternal life
through Jesus Christ
our Lord.”
In 1 Peter it says,
“Who his own self bare our sins
in his own body on the tree
“that we being dead to sin
should live unto
righteousness.”
He became sin; think of it!
Jesus Christ, this pure,
this wonderful,
the greatest person
that ever lived,
the holiest person
that ever lived.
The Son of the living God
became sin.
He had never known sin,
and he became guilty
at that moment of adultery.
He became guilty of lying,
of idolatry.
He became guilty of
every ugly, dirty thing
you can think of
because it was your sins
poured out on him.
Through Christ, we can
have the most fundamental
relationship in life restored.
You say, “Well, Billy, what
in the world do I have to do?”
First, you must repent
of your sins.
The Apostle Peter said,
“Repent ye, therefore,
and be converted
that your sins be
blotted out.”
What does repentance mean?
Repentance means that you
come to God and say,
God, I’m sorry I have sinned.
And we’re all guilty.
Every one of us.
Everyone that’s ever
been born is guilty.
Have you repented?
Are you sure of it?
It means that you not only say,
“God, I’m sorry.”
It means that you ask him to
help you to turn from your sins,
to change your way of living.
To get rid of those old habits
you shouldn’t have.
And then you must come
by faith.
“Without faith it’s impossible
to please him.”
The word “faith” means
that you totally trust.
The scripture says
in Romans 4,
“To him that worketh not
“but believeth on him
that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted
for righteousness.”
I have to have righteousness
to get into heaven.
And I don’t have any.
Billy Graham is a sinner.
I don’t have any
righteousness of my own.
I come in the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then the Bible says,
“For by grace are ye saved
through faith,
not of works
lest anyone should boast.”
If you can work
your way to heaven,
you’d get up to heaven
and boast to everybody,
look what I did.
I was such a good person,
I got here on my own.
You get there totally
because of Christ.
The fact that time is short
calls for us
to do something about it now
because the scripture says
in 2 Corinthians 6:2,
“Now is the accepted time.”
Not tomorrow, today.
Today, if you
will hear his voice,
harden not your heart.
You can harden your heart.
You hear a message like this
and it can be very dangerous
because
you’ll harden your heart
and the next time
you hear the Gospel,
your heart will be harder
and harder and harder.
Come to Christ now.
If there’s even a whisper
in your heart
that you need to come,
you come and say, “Lord,
you have all of me tonight.
“I want to be sure that
I’m ready to meet you.”
Come now.
If you’d like to receive Christ,
you can pray a prayer
like I did.
Or like I did.
Like I did.
Dear God, I’m a sinner.
I’m sorry for my sins.
I want to turn from my sins.
I believe Jesus Christ
is your son.
I believe he died for my sin
and that you raised him to life.
I want to trust him
as my savior
and follow him as Lord
from this day forward.
Jesus, I put my trust in you.
I surrender
my life to you.
And I surrender
my life to you.
I surrender
my life to you.
Please come into my life
and fill me
with your Holy Spirit.
And I pray this
in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.