Unfiltered Talk & Truth | Crossroads Students

- Everyone's life is built around something. Something shapes what you trust, how you make decisions, how you treat people, and who you are becoming. You may never name it, but whatever sits at the center eventually shapes everything around you. Jesus didn't come to remain at the edge of your life. He invites you to build your life around him. A life of adventure that's shaped by his truth. A life that molds you into who he's made you to be. A life that includes everyone, everywhere. A life that is ready to follow wherever he leads. These are just values we talk about. These are the values that make us who we are. (upbeat music) - Hey, what's up, I'm Jason Hobner. I'm the director of Crossroads students around here. And today, we're doing an entire series about what we value here around Crossroads. Maybe you're new around here. And like, what is this place? They play ridiculous games, they sing songs, and they have some weird guy on a screen who's a ginger, giving a teaching every single. Like, what do they actually value around here? And we're spending a week on every single thing that we value today. We're talking about our value of seeking and sharing truth. Yes, we want to Crossroads students, you as students,

your coaches, your staff members, your worship leaders, your volunteers. We value seeking, looking for truth and finding it. And sharing it with everyone around us. That's what we value around here. And we live in a world where it's constantly harder and harder to tell what the actual truth is. What's the real truth? I'll give you an example. We're gonna play a little game to get started every single one of our locations. I have three videos. Some of these might be real. Some of these might be AI. Here's what I want you to do. Every single one of your locations, I'm gonna play the video. And when you believe it's AI, when you're convinced, I know for a fact that this is AI, I want you to raise your hand wherever you're at. And bonus points for some of the first people that know, it's AI. All right, so this is video number one. We're gonna watch these together. This is video number one. Have a normal, yep, right here, dog. And they are ringing a doorbell, okay? So we're positive here. And let's see who opens the door and what happens.

And then whenever you're ready, you can raise your hand when you're convinced this is AI. Here we go, let's watch that. Oh, little granny. Oh my gosh, a flame thrower. The whole house is going down. All right, did you raise your hand? Yes or no? Yes or no? Okay, all right, great. So a lot of you convinced this is AI. Put your hands down, put your hands down. All right, next up, we have a, what looks to be a juvenile orangutan carrying a shoulder-mounted K-47 Russian-made RPG walking up to a door. Okay, okay, so normal thing that happens everywhere. Let's see, let's see what happens here. He walks up, rings the doorbell. Oh, cute old man opens the door. No, no, no, no, don't do it. No! Pause it, pause it. AI or not is, okay, hands were up. Okay, so maybe it was. All right, let me see it one more. See if you can tell if this one is fake or real. If it's the truth or if it's a lie, let's go to the next one here. Like we got a cute little gray cat.

I'm a dog person myself, but it looks like they're knocking on the door. All right, let's play it and see what happens. Oh, here comes an old man. Same old man, by the way, from the other video. And what, oh, it was a bobcat. It was a cat bob. It was, okay, who raised their hand on that one? Who thought, okay, guess what? All of these were, and you already guessed it, lies. You can put your hands down. They're all fake. They're all AI, but dude, we live in a world where that same program, that same AI program that made these stupid, ridiculous, hilarious videos is the same program that most people go to for the real answers in life. What they should do when they grow up. Who they should be. What does the Bible actually say? Does God really love us? What really happened in, we're going to the same place that made these videos for those answers. And that can't be true. Like if there's a God who loves us, wouldn't he give us truth? Wouldn't he tell us what's really going on? Wouldn't he give us a predictable place that we could go to find out what he really said? What he really means?

What really happened? And I believe that there is. There is a God that loves you. Who sent his son Jesus to die for you. And it's all in these 66 books of the Bible, which is truth. So when we say we seek and share the truth, what that means is we go to God's word to find out what's actually true. And we share it with everyone we could possibly tell. The world is hungry for truth right now. We're sick of being lied to. The trust in all of it is deteriorating. Man, I hope it doesn't deteriorate our trust in God and because His words never change. So we're going to go to this book and look for what it says about where we should find truth. We're going to start with 1 John. In 1 John 1 14, it introduces a character that they nicknamed the word. By the way, that character is Jesus. One of the names that Jesus has, He has many, many, many names. One of the names that Jesus has is the word. The word. And so we're going to go to it in the beginning was the word. So the word was in the beginning and the word was with God in the beginning and the word was God. So there's this character of the word who was with God in the beginning and the character of the word was God, with God and was God. It's the son of God. Jesus is talking about right here. Let's keep going. Because He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through Him and without Him, not anything was made that was made. So not only was the word with God in the beginning, but through the word, everything was created. Okay, great. Good to know. In Him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot ever come. Amazing. It sounds like Jesus' redemption. Hold on. It keeps going on. It keeps going down. And it says this. The word Jesus, who was with God in the beginning through creation, became flesh. That's when the word became a man Jesus 2,000 years ago. And listen to this. Listen to how the word who became flesh is described. He dwelt among us and we have seen His glory. Glory of the only Son from the Father. You see now it's pointing to Jesus. Full of, you're not going to believe this, grace, because He's going to die on the cross and forgive us for our sins. And truth. Truth. So, where do we look for truth in Jesus? In the work and in the life of Jesus is where we will find the truest truth of all time. We say this all the time around here. We believe that this is truth. It's more true. The Bible is truth.

It's more true than my thoughts, feelings, or emotions. This is God's words meant for you and for me. If you're wondering what God thinks, it's right here, you just have to read it. It goes on in 2 Timothy, and in 2 Timothy 14, 17, it says this, "You've been taught the holy scriptures from childhood, these holy scriptures, more specifically the ones in the beginning of the book, because this ends up being in the book. And they have given you wisdom to receive the salvation that comes in trust and in Christ Jesus." Yes, that means the whole book is pointing to Jesus and where should we go for truth? Jesus. It keeps going and it says all scripture, all of this book is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true, to make us realize what's wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what's right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people for every good work. If you're wondering what we value around here, we value the life and work of Jesus as described by this book. Why? Because this book brings us to the full life that Jesus has for us. Why? Because it's the only book that leads us into active relationship with Jesus. Jesus isn't about truth. He doesn't say truth. He is the truth. He's the only truth thing about us. And dude, I've got to tell you, sometimes I have false feelings, sometimes I have false thoughts. I'm a good liar. Like, a lot of my life isn't true. Many of you put on a mask when you showed up to church today. You started faking at the moment that you walked in.

Do you wish there was a place where we could lean in to what truly matters? The actual truth. So what does God's word say? To you? Does it really matter to you? Jesus lived 2,000 years ago. He's up in heaven right now. Does God's word, does the truth actually matter for us today? Well, let me ask you this question, I'll just walk you through some stuff. Because the world will tell you that you are a random set of atoms with no purpose in life, that you were an accident and you shouldn't be here. But God's word says, He says, you are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for you to do. God literally says, I knew you before you were in your mother's womb. I formed you there. I was planning on you. When the world tell you you're unplanned, Jesus say, no, no, no, I knew you were coming. Number 2, you might hear, you are not special. There's a fly. And hold on, keep rolling. (claps) Did you get it? Did you get it? - Yes. - Keep all that in, keep all that in. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Maybe you're not special. Maybe that's a feeling that's bubbled up inside of you. Maybe someone told you that to your face

that you're not special, that you're not unique, that you don't matter. What does God said? You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You're gonna believe your thoughts or emotions. You're gonna believe what Jesus says to you through his word. Maybe you're in here today and you believe the lie that nobody really sees you. You feel invisible. You're surrounded by people all the time. You already went back to school and you just feel like everybody else has friends and you do not. What does God say? You are precious, precious and honored in my sight. And I love you that he sees you, that he knows the number of hairs on your head. Maybe you're in here and you're like, I don't matter. There's seven billion people on the earth and all of them are better at stuff than me. How could I possibly matter? What does God's word said? He says, see what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. When the world tells you, you don't matter and you're not important, God says that is my daughter and that is my son and I love them. We can go on.

All that you can continue to rely on what the world says. You can continue to rely on what adults or students around you say, or I'm telling you, you can go to the source of truth through a personal relationship of Jesus. Need to experience the fullness of him. You need to go to the truth. It's not good enough for you to just show up on Sunday and listen to me read the Bible. That's not good enough. You need it for yourself. God doesn't want to just speak to you through me or through our communicators. He wants to speak to you personally through his living word. He wants to reveal truth specifically to you. It's not a relationship. If you have to go through 10 people before you get to that person, no, no, no, he wants a relationship with you. So maybe you've opened up this thing. You don't know how to read it. Maybe you've looked through this thing and you're like, I don't know where to start. There's 66 books. Jesus doesn't show up till halfway through but the whole book's about Jesus. Like, how do I wrestle with that? And so I want to give you a tool and it's a silly tool. You're going to laugh at me when I tell you the name of this tool, but it's a silly tool, but it's helpful for you.

I have used this tool for years. I have, and we'll show you pictures, journals and journals, entire books filled with pages where I have used this method. It's called the soap method. Yes, you heard that right. Soap method. We're going to soap together right now, actually. S-O-A-P. And not only have I used this, my daughter's used it. My son has used this. My wife has used this. Many, this is an easy way to start reading the Bible and getting something out of it to hear from God. All right, so step one is scripture. You find a verse in the Bible. You could read a whole chapter. That's a lot. I would just say one verse in the Bible. Easy place to start is the book of James. I love James so much. James says, "Anyone who lacks wisdom, let him ask of God and he will give it to everyone, liberally and without reproach." That's a great place to start, right? If any one of these verses, you can just start there. So number one, you write what God says, the scripture. Write the truth on the top. That's the S. The O is observation. What did you notice about this verse?

Who was God talking to? What is God saying? What does this say about God? What does this say about me? Like if this verse really mattered and God specifically wanted you to read it on the day that you read it, what would you observe about it? You just write down whatever you think in that space. The third one is a application. How do you apply this to your life? Like if you learn a new piece of truth, you should do something about it. That doing something about it could just be a mindset change. It could be an action that you wanna do. It could be a way to respond to God. Like what is that thing? How do you need to respond because of this new truth that you've just read? You write it down. And the last one is just a prayer. Just a conversation with God. Just saying, "Thank God, you spoke to me up top "of your truth, and I wanna speak to you "about what this verse has meant to me, "this truth that you revealed to me." You just write whatever personal prayer you have there. It would be crazy for us to not to try this today. And so here's what I wanna encourage you to do. You're about to go to C-Grips.

I'm just gonna jump on stage and dismiss you to this thing called C-Grips. You have an opportunity in the first part of C-Grips to do this alone. And then you'll have an opportunity to go back to your C-Grips and just share and then listen to what other people heard with the same verse that we were in. We're all gonna do this together. Why? Because you need truth in your life. And God's words are more important than any worship song that we've ever done. More important than any message we've ever heard on a video with memes and AI videos. Way more important. Like if you have one thing out of this, don't remember an AI video, remember God sees you and he knows you and wants a relationship with you. He is the truth and he has the answers for you. So let's do that now. [BLANK_AUDIO]