Matt Weber: First John in your Bible, if you don’t mind going there, I want to preach a message this morning about, is it real? Is it real? I’ve been super encouraged with a lot of the preaching that we’ve been hearing, and I’m excited for the journey the Lord has been leading us down, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to share just some things God’s done in my own personal life, and really helpful from 1 John here.

I think we’ll be encouraged by it. If you found 1 John chapter number 1, go down to verse number 3. We’ll read this, then we’ll pray.

and we’ll get into our message here this morning. 1 John 1, verse number 3. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray here together this morning. Father, again, thank you for the privilege you give us to gather together. Thank you for these young people. Thank you for these testimonies, especially from yesterday and today, from these young ladies who are choosing you

over the things of this world. We pray that there will be many young people here today that will be making those choices throughout this time together. Lord, bless our meeting together.

Help us as we come to you to open the word of life. And Lord, give us liberty from your word today. We trust you in Jesus’ name.

Amen. Now, I was a little discouraged. I opened up the pamphlet here the other day. I was looking to see how many pastors were here at the meeting, and I noticed doctor, doctor, evangelist, evangelist, and then there was this Pastor Weber,

and I’m like, oh, man, am I the only pastor? And then I saw the split session, and there was Pastor Rhonda Van Gelderen, and I thought, whew, I’m all right. Just kidding, kind of.

Anyway, is it real? Do you have a real relationship with Jesus Christ? Is it real?

We live in a world that is generating pseudo-everything. And our bios, our life, who we are, everything about us has become really fake. What you post on your social media account, all that stuff, I mean, how many of us spend more time posting on our social media account than humiliating times when God brings us down and shows us who we really are?

Who posts those moments? Who spends, you know, 10 to 15 minutes on a YouTube channel talking about, you know, the failures and the weaknesses of their own life? Who does those things?

And the reality is the majority of people don’t. I’m sure there’s some, but the majority of the people don’t. And that’s why I say those testimonies, those are monumental moments in our lives hear people come up and talk about sin issues in their lives and are willing to stand in front of their peer group and say these things, it’s exciting because it’s exposing and it’s bringing out a genuineness, a reality.

You know, I think in life there’s a need, especially today, for reality, young people. You need to get to a point where you are excited and looking forward to and cultivating something real. I think Pastor mentioned yesterday in his message in the evening service about taking off the mask. And it’s about time that Christians, especially in our conservative circles, take off

the mask. And young people, you have a great opportunity to do it. We’ve got a lot of things that can cover up who we really are. Our combed over hair, our fancy little outfits, our cool Bible versions, our apps, our social media accounts, our instruments, our sports, and we can hide behind all kinds of things and make everybody think that it’s real, that it’s

genuine, but you know, at the end of the day, there’s only one person that knows whether it’s real or not, and that’s you and the Lord. John’s writing here in 1 John here, and he’s writing about having fellowship with Jesus Christ, in the several verses before verse 3 there, he talks about this relationship, this fellowship, things about this relationship with God that was real. It wasn’t some cloud relationship. It wasn’t

some mysterious place. It was something that they’d seen, something they had touched, something that was exposed to them. It was real, genuine fellowship.

You could read the verses later. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m going to make reference to a lot of Bible verses. I may not give you the actual

references as we go. I’m assuming our context here, you understand what I’m talking about. So John’s talking about this real relationship.

And so again, I ask you, do you have it? Is it real to you? Do you have a real relationship? I have, the other day I was at church and

a sweet lady in our church came to church in the morning. I’m in the lobby talking to folks. and she said, you know, Pastor Weber, I just want you to know I made you a raspberry pie.

Ooh, I like raspberry pie. It was fresh raspberries right from the garden, handmade crust. I was like, where’d you put that raspberry pie?

She said, I put it on your table at the parsonage. I was like, thank you so much. And after church, shook hands, did the stuff you do, went back to the parsonage, Walked in the door and was like, oh, the raspberry pie.

Oh, I opened up the lid because it was in a container. Didn’t want it to get ruined. Opened up the lid and, oh.

You know what I’m talking about, right? Put the cover back on. That’s to not let all the goodness escape.

Set it aside because we had to eat lunch first. And I don’t know, why do we do that? Why do we eat lunch before we eat dessert?

Shouldn’t we eat dessert first? Why ruin dessert by eating lunch first? Anyway, so we had lunch.

And the kids were, you know, not doing well at eating lunch. So I just said, you know what? I’m going to start eating my pie.

And I said, honey, where’s that ice cream? Because you can’t eat raspberry pie without ice cream. I mean, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this the right way.

She’s like, well, we don’t have any. What do you mean we don’t have any? Well, it’s not in our fridge, it’s at the store fridge, but we don’t have any here at this fridge.

It’s like, that’s a good point. So I was like, well, what we’ll do is we’ll wait until later. Why don’t you go to the store this afternoon, we’ll get some, and we’ll have some pie before church tonight.

Okay, good idea. So I do what everybody should do on Sundays. I take my nap, and I wake up in the afternoon, and I’m ready to go.

Where’s that pie? Honey, where’s that ice cream? She’s like, oh, I went to the store, and I forgot the ice cream. oh gracious what are we going to do with you anyway boy if she were here I’d be in huge trouble we pack up the pie we put it in the fridge we’ll eat it tomorrow when we go back to our house

and we’ll eat it after dinner when I get home from work okay that sounds good we have a parsonage and then we have a different house, and we go back to the different house for other reasons. But anyway, so I came home from church that afternoon. I was super excited, looked in the freezer.

First thing I did, what did I see? Ice cream, perfect. We eat dinner.

Kids again, messing around, they’re not eating. I don’t know what’s wrong with you people, why you can’t just eat your dinner and get it done with, but it’s just the way it works. They’re over there messing around.

I’m like, I cannot wait, this is killing me. I’ve been waiting two days for this thing. I go in the refrigerator, I pull it out, I set it on the counter, I go to the fridge, I get out that vanilla ice cream, I take it off, I’m pulling bowls and plates and knives and spoons and all kinds of gadgets, this, that, and the other thing, and I’m lining it up on the counter

and I’m looking at the kids, I’m going, you guys should hurry up, because I’m going to have this thing gone by the time you guys are done. Pull off the lid a little bit. It doesn’t smell the same as it did yesterday.

That’s all right, ice cream, I’ll fix that. I don’t have to worry about anything. So I’m getting the ice cream lid off.

I’m doing all the stuff that I need to do. And sure enough, I pull off the lid. I get out the little pie scooper. And I want to get down a little bit closer to see why this,

it just doesn’t smell the same. And that’s when I saw it. And I stepped back.

And I said, honey, I can’t eat this pie. She said, why not? I said, because we have a real problem.

She’s like, what do you mean? I said, honey, I can’t believe this. There’s worms all over the raspberry pie.

She’s like, no, there’s not. She said, you’re not telling me the truth. I said, no, honey, I’m being honest with you.

Get over here. And she got over there, and sure enough, there were worms crawling all over my raspberry pie. Now, one day, some of you will understand my dilemma.

I couldn’t under… What do you do? I am ready to eat. I do not need the extra protein, though, because I do not want to eat this thing

and then have to take a cleanse afterwards. I couldn’t believe it. It was like I was living in a fantasy world.

Is this real? Is this really happening? I’ve been looking forward to this moment for a couple of days, and now it’s being dashed right in front of my eyes. The hardest part is this is one of the dear ladies in my church

who wanted to bless her pastor, and I just couldn’t eat it. I saw her a couple days later. Pastor, how was the pie?

Well, let me tell you about your pie. That was a real moment I had. And it was a bad one.

The hardest part was telling her. The second hardest part was when she made me a second pie. I waited two days, didn’t see anything, took a few bites.

It was amazing, I told her. It was wonderful. Do you have something real?

Is it real? Is it real? This was fresh fruit, man.

It was real. You could tell even the bugs loved it. It was wonderful.

It was wonderful. It was real. But let me ask you about that relationship, your relationship with Jesus Christ.

John says it’s real. And what we’re declaring unto you is something that’s real. He says, not just for us.

It’s real for anybody. It’s real for everybody. Listen, I love coming here because, you know, the reality is you guys aren’t a bunch of rebels, maybe one or two or three among you.

I mean, let’s be honest. You guys aren’t here because you’re in rebellion. You’re here because your youth pastor put you in the van and he told you you better get up there.

I mean, no, you’re up here because you want to be a part of something. You want to do something. But, you know, I just fear in these days because of the world you live in, because of the way you’re being influenced that, you know, what you think is real isn’t quite real according to the way that God wants it to be real.

and we got caught up, you know, in the world in which we live, we’re manipulated by things. Pastor and I were talking about, you know, the sicknesses and the things going on in this world. You can tell people who are really influenced by television and stuff because they begin to use the talking points of television.

We don’t have television at our house. We don’t do that because we’re more spiritual. We watch YouTube.

So, oh, man. how do I do this now? I’m in trouble.

But we begin to be influenced like we heard about yesterday. And we begin to use the same talking points. And we begin to use these things in our life.

And all of a sudden it begins to expose what’s really going on in our lives. So we want to talk about a real relationship with Jesus Christ. And the important part here that we understand is what it is not.

Do you have a relationship? because if you have something real, what it is not is it’s not about performing. It’s not about performing.

Jesus never, in the word of God, ever asks us to perform. He’s not a puppet master, you know, with these strings tied around our lives saying, do this, do that, do this. Jesus is looking for a willing heart.

If it was about performance, he would have forced you into salvation. He would have forced you into the kind of life that he wants you to live. He doesn’t want a performer.

He wants a willing heart. Paul talks about this in Philippians chapter number three. He says, you know, if anybody who’s going to talk about how much performance level they have, I the more.

I was circumcised the eighth day. I come from the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrew. If anybody’s going to talk about performance, listen, I’m the one who’s got the pedigree for it.

I can do the performance thing. I did it my whole life. You know, and I just wonder at times, young people, because because you want to serve the Lord, because you’ve got a heart for God, you begin to confuse reality with performance. You begin to think, man, if I can hit those notes or if I can play that instrument or if I can wear these clothes or if I can meet this standard

or if I can do these things and if I can win these souls, if I can pray for this hour, if I can read these Bible verses, then maybe God will do something with my life. And I can see it can get confusing sometimes because you want to do what’s right and you’re pliable and I appreciate that, but young people, God never asks you to perform. You know, performance is a religion.

Listen, you go to any of your Catholic relatives or friends or neighbors, you go to any of those denominational religions and ask them, how are you going to get to heaven? Well, if I do these things. if I live this life if I have these religious activities if I belong to this church if I wear this, if I do that then God will accept me and what do we tell them? it’s not about religion

it’s about a relationship and then we come to our churches and then we wear the same things spiritually we put on, no, no, it’s about a relationship but, you know, hey, I’ve got to wear these clothes to be right with God. I’ve got to do this, and I’ve got to do that. Now, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. There are some things that God asks us to do,

but it’s not about gaining his acceptance. So, young people, I’m encouraging you here today, be careful about this real relationship with Jesus Christ, because the enemy is very subtle at twisting things for you. It’s not about performance to gain his acceptance. listen I’ve talked to too many Catholic people who say that if I live a good life and I stand before Peter at the pearly gates and if my good works outweigh my bad works

and you go to any religion from Islam Hinduism all of it it’s all built on the same thing because it all comes from the pit of hell performance acceptance it’s terrible and it’s killing us. What it is about, it’s about a real relationship. If I were to ask you today, think about this for a minute, just pause for a moment. If I were to ask you today,

what does it mean to have a real relationship with Jesus Christ? What would you say? Think about it for a minute. You know, I ask this often in times in our independent, fundamental,

conservative circles. What does it mean to have a real relationship with Jesus Christ? You know what often I get is a blank stare.

Huh. What does that mean? Or I get the list of things.

You’ve got to wear these clothes. You’ve got to have this Bible version. You’ve got to go to this church.

You’ve got to this, that, and then go down the list. Listen, young people. One day you’ll understand this when you get married, but a real relationship is not built off the works that you do. listen if I were right with my wife because I cut the grass I’m in huge trouble today by the way because it’s been a couple of weeks since I cut the grass okay in fact she sent me a picture this

morning of a big buck standing in my backyard backyard right out my window eating the grass that I did not cut if my relationship with my spouse is built on my performance I am in huge trouble. And if your relationship with Jesus Christ is built on your performance, you know you’re in huge trouble too. So I’ve been on a personal journey here for many years now, trying to understand this real relationship with Jesus Christ.

And John talks about it right here in 1 John chapter number one. He’s saying this is about fellowship with Jesus Christ. This is a wonderful thing. And he says, when you get a hold of this fellowship, when you get a hold of this idea of a relationship,

it will bring unbelievable joy to your life. Verse 4. You can have it.

It’ll bring joy. You say, Pastor Weber, what’s the real relationship? I’m going to go down three of those things here, and we’re going to spend more time on one of them.

Context will help us with that. But three aspects that I’m going to give you. I’ve got about five of them, but I’m going to go over three of them right now.

The first one is unconditional love. There is no such thing as a real relationship that does not have the footing of unconditional love. If it’s not there, it’s over.

Okay? You’d say, Pastor Weber, where does it say in the Bible that Jesus Christ loves us unconditionally? John 3, 16.

For God so loved the world. That’s it. For God so loved the world.

You’d say, but that doesn’t mean it’s unconditional. Well, yeah, it does. Because he didn’t say, I love the good people. I love the conservative

Baptist. I only love these people. He loves everybody.

You’d say, you got a better text? Sure. How about Romans 5.8? For God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet

sinners, Christ died for us. In our worst condition, in the worst possible place you could have ever been in your life, as far from God as you are ever in your life, Jesus Christ loved you so much, he died for you. It wasn’t built on your performance. You couldn’t have performed well

enough to get him on that cross. He didn’t go to the cross because you know how to play a violin, or because you know how to play a trumpet, or because you know how to scream at a youth rally, or because of the clothes that you wear. He died on the cross because he loves you so much.

And he wants to have a real relationship for you. Yesterday I was wrestling with different things in my own life, and talking to my wife, working through some things that we’re working through. And the Lord, whenever I’m struggling with my wife, always brings me back to husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. And I’m always remembering that when Jesus says that

he loves the church, he loves the church unconditionally. So no matter how many things my wife may offend me knowingly or unknowingly do to me, my correct response spiritually enabled is unconditional love. And when I unconditionally love my wife, it opens me up to do anything for her to rescue her or our relationship out of something where God doesn’t want it to be.

Because when somebody is being unconditionally loved, they have the ability then to sacrifice. Do you know when you unconditionally love the Lord, you will sacrifice anything for him. There is nothing that you will withhold from him.

He loved you so much, he sacrificed himself. and I think and we’ll think about this young people we’re talking about a world in need we’re talking about your generation being Thee Generation of change we’re talking about desperate people out there looking for help, looking for hope in any way they can and they’re looking for a generation like you do you love Jesus unconditionally? do you have an unconditional love relationship with him?

Because according to 1 John, a little later in chapter 4, it says we love him because he first loved us. So there’s this reciprocal love where we’re embracing Jesus’ love, and therefore we’re able to respond in unconditional love, and therefore when Jesus says he’s willing to go to any lengths, he’s willing to do anything to love us, we’re willing then to respond to his love with unconditional love,

which means we love him so much we’re willing to do anything for him. I was reminded of people loving the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, right? Jesus says this commandment, these two, in fact, in chapter 22 of Matthew, he says, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

He says, for upon these two things hangs all the law and the prophets. These two things, loving God and loving your neighbor. I was reminded of that on this last Sunday. We had Brother Jeremy over, and he was showing a video of some of the things that are happening in the Middle East, and just seeing those men and women

being hanged for their faith. That’s what we do at our missions conference. We show all our kids people dying for Jesus.

Just kidding. It just happened to be in his video. But they love Jesus unconditionally, and they’re willing to die for him. and when you begin to love Jesus with all your heart and when you let him open up your heart he will change things it will change the way you view life it will cease to be about you and your dress and your music and all that stuff and it will be about him

it will change you young people another part of this relationship is trust again these are foundational things young people it’s not about your performance. It’s about unconditional love. You don’t have a relationship with somebody if love’s not there. And listen, if there’s no trust there,

what are you going to do? Listen, if you don’t ever trust God to walk you through these phases of life, who are you trusting in? Your friends?

Your social media following? Who are you trusting? Yourself? Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 is

trust in the Lord with all thine heart, not some of your heart, all of your heart. Do you know, if you only trusted in God, let’s say you’ve got your heart here, and you said, you know, Lord, I want to trust you with all my heart, but, you know, I just don’t know if I’m ready to give everything, so I’m just going to hold on to this part about my future, and I’m just

going to set it over here, because you just never know. I may want to make a decision later that may change things, and I don’t know if I’m just ready to make that kind of decision yet, so Lord, I’m just going to hold on to that, and you know when it comes to my future spouse, Lord, I know you can leave me, I mean, of course, the Bible says you can, but you know, I’m just

going to set this piece of my heart over here, and hang on to that until later, and we can talk about that later, and you know, I’ve got these other things that I’m just not quite ready to, but Lord, I’ve got this little piece. I’ll trust you with this part, and you’re not trusting God with all your heart. See, because young people, you’ve got to understand this. When you trust somebody,

you’re willing to give them anything. If I trusted you, I would give you my car keys. You don’t have my car keys.

If I trusted you, I would give you the keys to my house. you don’t have the keys to my house I don’t have the keys to my house if I trusted you I would let you take my kids away from me but I don’t trust you to touch my kids my wife doesn’t trust me with the kids the other day she’s like honey I’m going to the store we live out in the woods

going to the store is a drive okay sounds good the baby’s sleeping Mickey’s in bed the other two are doing school in the school room okay sounds good I’m doing something important can’t remember what it was but it was important sounds good honey Matthew did you just hear what I said of course I heard what you said. You’re going to the store. No, no, no.

I said I’m leaving kids here. Right. That’s fine.

Matthew, two of them are in bed. Two of them are in the school room. What am I going to come back to?

I don’t know. So she leaves and texts me. I left kids at the house.

Did you understand what I was saying? she doesn’t trust me for good reason I let them play with tools that’s why and two of them decided to sword fight with my flat saws so I was the one who had to take him to the hospital he didn’t lose all his finger just half of it, it was okay. Do you know in verse 10 it says, if we say that we have not sinned,

we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. If we trusted God, he could talk to us about anything, and we would be willing to give up everything. If we trusted God to talk to us about the sin and the things that mess up this relationship with God, we would be willing to give up anything.

We would be willing to say anything. If we say that we have not sinned, it’s because we don’t trust him. And we love ourselves more than we love him.

And you know what that does? Is it makes God a liar. is our God a liar God is not man that he should lie in hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began by that two immutable things in that which it is impossible for God to help me out lie text here that we’re reading from. And 1 John, it says in verse 5, this then is the message which we

heard of him and declaring to you that God is light and in him is no darkness, including lying. So when God’s talking to us, he’s not telling us a lie. He’s not saying things that are inappropriate or disguised in some ways to confuse us. He’s trying to develop within you a personal relationship

with him that you’re going to desperately need when you get out there. where’s your heart today young people are you willing to trust him it was fascinating to me when i first got saved it made sense to me if jesus has the power to wash away all my sins and take me to heaven then i i should be able to trust

him with any area of my life so i i told him i said lord since you have the power to wash away my sins and take me to heaven then i believe you have the power to take away my addictions i can trust you with those. I don’t have to struggle. I don’t have to fret.

I don’t have to worry. I can trust you with those things. And because I can trust you with those things, you can deal with them. And when I made

honesty. If you’re going to have a real relationship with Jesus Christ, if we’re going to see this thing really happen, if we’re going to be the Thee Generation, if we’re going to go out there like soldiers and good soldiers, I was reading through 2 Timothy today, and about good soldiers, about soldiers who are honest and have a real relationship with their commander, their chief in command,

if we’re going to have a real relationship, then we’re going to need to be honest about the things that are happening in our lives so that he can help us through those moments. Are you honest with Jesus today? Is it real?

Because this is what a real relationship is all about. It’s about being honest. The Bible here says if we confess our sins, verse 9, in confession is homiligel.

It’s saying the same thing. And we say the same thing that Jesus says about the things in our life that hinder us. And we say the same thing about our viewing issues that Jesus says.

We’re going to be honest. We’re going to say the same thing about wasting time on our video games and on our social media accounts. We’re going to say the same thing about what Jesus says about our life, that it’s not where he wants it to be. He wants us to be here, and we’re standing over here, and we’re professing to be the kind of Christian that God wants us to

be, and we’re displaying a false, a pseudo-Christianity when the reality is Jesus wants us over here, and we’re not honest. And Paul says in the book of Ephesians that we’re to put on the belt of truth and it’s not the Bible in that verse, Lagos, or even Rhema, it’s Aletheia and it’s the idea of truthfulness. That’s what holds this Christian life together, the pillar and ground of truthfulness. You know when people walk into our churches

and our youth groups and our meetings, they should walk into an atmosphere of honesty. People who are genuinely talking about the things that are happening. Listen, why are our prayer meetings so dead, young people?

It’s because we’re not actually talking about the things we need prayer for. We’re praying about our sister’s fish who died. It’s like, what?

Give me a break. Who cares about that stupid cat? I mean, okay, the hamster, all right. But seriously, folks, it’s come to a point where all we’re praying about

is people with cancer and COVID. And the reality is we’ve got needs in our own lives too. I’m not where I ought to be.

And I just want to be honest today. I’ll tell you, one of the prayer meetings we had up at the church plant in Shawano was wonderful. It was just amazing.

You want to know why? Because we had a new convert that came in that didn’t know you shouldn’t be honest in a prayer meeting. She sat down and she said, you know what, everybody?

I’m really struggling with cigarettes. Can you pray for me? Everybody’s like, ooh.

And I’m like, praise the Lord. Finally, we’re getting somewhere. People walk into our churches and they think, I can’t be like you people.

I don’t know how to do this. Like, don’t be like us. We’re faking it.

It’s not real. We’re not honest. We need to come into church and be honest. We’ve got to stop pretending that we can use cuss words in the car

and walk into church and proclaim God’s name as being holy. we can’t look at dirty stuff on the internet and then come come into god’s presence it doesn’t work that way friends we got to understand god’s looking for honesty today we need soldiers who aren’t uh being shameful behind the line who are walking honest before their god you can’t say you’re walking in the light and walking in darkness at the same time

we’ve got to be truthful if you want this Christian life to go the way it ought to go then young people, we’re just going to have to get honest and you’d say, Pastor Weber, I understand that I mean, that’s the context of all this here but you don’t understand what the enemy’s doing to me listen, I understand exactly what he’s doing he’s using fear to shackle you

if I talk about this, or if I’m honest about that or if I say this, then it’s never going to work Listen, some of us are facing a Goliath in our life. I can spiritualize it that way. Goliath walked out as a champion of the Philistines. Look at the army of Israel and those people,

they were knee-knocking all over the place. All those big warriors, right? Eliab, all of David’s brothers are out there.

And that’s what we do. We look at these issues in our life. We look at this enemy as though somehow he has a greater power than our God. We look at him and we think, oh, no, if I say this or if I do that,

Do you think God’s going to walk away from you? God’s trying to develop a real relationship with you. He comes along. All ye that labor and are heavy laden,

come unto me. I will give you rest. The enemy puts you under this burden.

He makes you fear. Fear is not from God. He hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of love, power, and of a sound mind.

Now it’s time to think clearly about this, young people. Do you want to have a real relationship with God? God’s not looking for your performance.

do you want to have something real? Then we need to resist the devil. We need to resist his fear.

We need to resist his pressure. I find it interesting in that interaction with David and Goliath, even his brothers were putting pressure on him to walk away. Sometimes even the peer pressure in our group, don’t get up, don’t say anything, don’t do this. You don’t want to look like a fool

in front of everybody. Well, we heard what being a fool is a couple nights ago. And we don’t want to be a fool.

We want to be a Christian who has a real relationship with Jesus Christ. Hey, listen, I echo the heart cry of Leonard Ravenhill. We don’t need a new definition of Christianity.

We need a new demonstration of Christianity. We need young people, this generation, to do something for God. And it’s going to have to take honesty.

You’re going to have to stand up and say, hey, I need him today. I need help. I’ve got this issue.

I’m not going to run anymore. I’m not going to hide. I’m not going to pretend. It’s not real, but I know I can have it

because the Bible says that I can. We’ve got to stop lying, young people. Because lying is only embracing the father of lies.

It’s not embracing the father of lights. Do you love him enough today? Will you let him love you enough today to talk to you about your sins? Will you trust him enough today to step out and be honest

with the things that he’s dealing with you about? Has he not proven himself to love you unconditionally and take care of you no matter what’s going on? can I give you a personal story I struggle sometimes I’d like to blame my past for a lot of the struggles I have and I’ve done that it’s a weakness I have but I have no reason to blame my past because I’ve got Jesus now

but there’s times when I get frustrated and I’ve got kids and for some odd reason I get frustrated with them because they’re not perfect. And I guess I think they should be. And so sometimes I raise my voice when I know I shouldn’t.

And then I go into my room and God sits on me. He says, those vulnerable, sweet little kids, what is wrong with you? So I get up from my chair, and I grab my kids, and I sit down on my knees, and I look them in the eyes.

I said, that was not God. That was daddy in the flesh. And I’m so sorry.

And you know the hardest part about that moment? I thought would be saying, I’m sorry. But the hardest part about that moment is when my kids turned. And I, for the first time in my life,

I’m experiencing unconditional love from somebody. when they wrap their arms around me. They say, Daddy, we love you so much. And I’m looking into their eyes, and I’m seeing, as it were, the eyes of Jesus,

as Peter did that night in his greatest failure. I’m seeing the eyes of love. Somebody I can trust. Somebody who I can be honest with,

and they won’t hurt me. How about you, young people? Is it real?

Let’s pray.