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Experience the life-changing messages from the Church of God’s annual Winterfest youth gathering. These are the sermons, moments, and voices that have shaped generations of young believers — now available anytime, anywhere.
I want to share with you for just a few minutes tonight from my heart. I'm a youth pastor. I've been a youth pastor for 16 years. So I love when I get to speak to students no matter where it is. And I just treat this like it's a youth service at my church. We're going to jump around a little bit in the scripture, but I want to start in the Old Testament in Genesis. We're going to go chapter 28. Let me set the scene up here for you. Jacob, Jacob is running when we find him in this passage. He's basically a fugitive. Jacob was a deceiver. He was a liar. And he was somebody who knew what strings he had to pull in order to get what he wanted, in order to get him ahead. And eventually it started to catch up with him. He was such a deceiver that he really even wasn't afraid to deceive his own family, his own father, his own brother. And when his lies started to catch up with him, he ran. So when we find him here in 28, he's basically a fugitive running for his life. And this is where everything kind of starts to turn for him. Because what you got to understand is Jacob had been told his whole life that he had a destiny, that he had a purpose, that God had a calling on his life, that he was going to do special things for the Lord. He had been told that his whole life. But I don't think he ever really fully believed it until this turn of events starts right here. Genesis chapter 28, verse 12 and 13. It's going to be on the screen. And he dreamed. He went to sleep. And he, Jacob, he dreamed. a stairway was set on the ground with its top reaching the sky and god's angels were going up and down it the lord was standing there beside him saying i am the lord the god of your father abraham and the god of isaac i will give you and your offspring the land on which you are laying i want to jump ahead to verse 16 when jacob awoke from his sleep he said surely surely the lord is in this place and I did not know it. I want you to catch something here. It's not a, it's not a contradiction for him to say that the Lord was in the place and recognize that the Lord was in the place and then say, I didn't know it. It's probably better for, for our modern English to say that he recognized that the Lord was in the place and he didn't do anything about it. Surely the Lord was in this place and I didn't do anything about it. I thought for most of my life that I never really had a right to share my testimony. And maybe you're like me, you never think that you have a right to share your testimony because my testimony was not really like dramatic or like crazy exciting in any way. I thought in order to have a good testimony, you had to have like face tattoos and have done hard time or whatever and show how God turned you around and brought you out from the worst of the worst possible situations. I didn't think that I had a great testimony to be able to share. I didn't think people would be interested in hearing about a kid who is a third generation Church of God preacher. who was born into a Christian home? Some of you are like that. You were born and it was like the next day you were at church helping vacuum the carpet and all of that stuff. Anytime the doors were open, you were there. I always used to joke that when I was a kid, if I didn't feel good, like, oh man, my stomach hurts, I can't go to church. My dad would be like, all right, we'll throw up and prove it. And if you couldn't throw up, see, you're not sick, let's go. But then if you did throw up, It was like, don't you feel better? Let's go. I was that kid who grew up in that home that you've heard talked about. Like, I wasn't allowed to watch the Smurfs. And my friends that watched the Smurfs and professional wrestling, I was like, well, your parents don't care about your soul. So I pray for you. Went to Lee University. Started in ministry. and I thought that I didn't really have an exciting testimony because nothing really crazy dramatic had ever happened. And I got to the point in my life where I had been in ministry about 13 years. And I want you to understand something. I never ever have claimed or will claimed to know everything there is to know about Jesus. I never have claimed or never will claim to be an expert. to be a theologian, to be a scholar, anything like that. But when it came to church, after growing up in it and after being a youth pastor for 13 years, I was at the point in my life three years ago where I honestly thought there's not much more that I can learn about church I don't already know. I know how a service is supposed to roll. I know how it's supposed to flow. know. I in my life, there's probably not that much more I can learn about church because I've experienced it all. And my wife wanted to go to the belonging company conference in Nashville, and I didn't want to go. But when you get married, you'll learn that compromise. She wanted to go and I didn't want to go, so we compromised and we went. I was all right with it I was like yeah they got some good music that'd be fun check it out never really been to Nashville y'all Nashville's crazy you've been to Nashville Nashville like I just told you about my upbringing and the Smurfs were like oh good and I'm going to Nashville and these people are riding a bus with pedals and getting drunk and I'm like this is Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus, be a fence. Get me out of here. But I went into that experience, and I'll be super honest with you. I had a terrible attitude. Terrible, terrible attitude. Thanks. Were you there? Did you see me? No, I was playing. I had a terrible attitude. I'm not going to learn anything. Nothing's going to change. And for some reason or another, God, in his infinite mercy, in his infinite wisdom, I sat in a service on a Saturday morning. Saturday morning. And the preacher, she spoke, and at the end of the message, she preached about God's presence. And at the end of the message, she said, I'll tell you what. I don't even want to give an altar call. Why don't we just get in the presence of God and let's just see what he wants to do? And I'm thinking, all right, this might be a couple of minutes. I'm already thinking about the lunch trucks outside. Where are we going to go get lunch? I got to plan all this out. And then they started singing and it was just a vocalist and the keyboard. And I'm thinking, this is weird. They don't have the full band up there. I'm telling you, my brain was going 90 miles an hour and I'm sitting at a point where I can see the production confidence monitor, and I can see in the top of the screen how much time over they are. And I'm watching it going,
Speaker 1
they are 30 minutes over time. What is happening? And there would be moments where it was just nothing. It was just a piano playing and nothing was happening. And I'm freaking out. I'm going, somebody's missing a cue. Somebody's supposed to say something. Somebody's supposed to be doing something right now. And it was in that moment that the Holy Spirit, almost as clear as I've ever heard him just stop and said, will you just sit in the empty space and let me fill it? Okay. And the craziest thing happened. The spirit of the Lord started to move. There was no band. There was no hype man. There was nothing. And people began to pray. And y'all, we were in that service for like three and a half hours. and there was nothing like that I, one moment, except for at the end, they brought this little boy up on stage because little did we know at the same time that that was happening in the main session in children's church, it was the exact same thing. Let's get in the presence of God and let's just see what he wants to do. And they bring this little boy up on stage and he was 99% deaf. And while they're worshiping God, these kids just reach over and lay their hands on him. And out of nowhere, boom, he starts to hear for the first time in his life. And they bring him up on stage and they start telling him like, hey, say, say, hold on a second. Hold on, don't get ahead of me. Hold on. Say mama. And he's like, mama. Say dada. And he's like, dada. But then what really got me was this. The volunteer that they had there with him, who was also hearing impaired, saw the kids praying for him and ran up to be like, I got to make sure he's okay and he doesn't feel overwhelmed. And as soon as she got up there, she got the mic and she said that she heard the voice of the Holy Spirit say, take your hearing aids out. And she took her hearing aids out and her hearing was restored in that moment. And as I sat there and wept, as I sat there and wept, my mind is racing. I'm going, there was no anointing oil. There was no youth camp fire tunnel that we made them walk through. There was no, let's just call for all the deaf people in the room to come up and we'll pray you. There was none of that. And in that moment, it was like the Holy Spirit just smacked me upside the head and said, you think that you know, but you don't. And if you will ever get outside of the box that you have built for me, You'll see me do things that you never thought were possible. It reminds me of this story in Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16, Jesus is chilling with his disciples, and he takes them on a little field trip to a place called Caesarea Philippi. And he stops for lunch, and they're hanging outside the gates of Caesarea Philippi. But what you got to understand is this. Caesarea Philippi is not a place where you would look to find Jesus. It's not a place where you would look to find somebody who was religious. My brother is a police officer back where I live. And when he first got on the police force, he would call me and be like, hey, you know that restaurant? Like, you know that cookout over there? Yeah, don't go there. And I'd be like, why? Why can't I go there? Don't ask me questions. Just don't eat there anymore, okay? Caesarea Philippi was a place where you would tell people, no, no, no, don't go there. And I don't have time to get into all of it with you, but the Word of God and history both tells us that it was a place of unusual, demonic, satanic, supernatural activity. They had a temple there that was built to Caesar Augustus where they worshiped Caesar Augustus. They had a temple there that was built to the God Pan where they worshiped the God Pan. They had a cave there. I'll be honest with you. There's certain things that they did there that I don't even feel comfortable telling you about because they are that sick and twisted and demented. Human sacrifice, child sacrifice, all of these things happened in that town. And this is the place where Jesus chooses to bring his disciples for a lunch trip and sit down outside. And what you see in Matthew is he sits down with them and he asks them this question. He says, who do people, who do people say that the son of man is? Hey, who do other people say that I am? When you hear other people talk about me, who do you, who do they say that I am? It's one of two questions that he asked them. And he starts with this question, I believe, in order to further the power of the next question. See, the next question he asked them is, who do you say that I am? But by asking them first, who do other people say that I am? I don't think that he was just interested in what's the gossip. I don't think that he was interested in what's the scuttlebutt. I don't think that he wanted to know how his reputation was. I think that he was genuinely asking them, just like he would genuinely ask us, who do other people say that I am? AKA, is everything that you know about me just based on what others have told you and what you've heard? Is everything that you've heard about me and everything that you know about me, and if somebody had to ask you, who is Jesus, would your answer be driven solely just based on what you've heard about him or what you've heard other people say about him? Is your relationship with Jesus defined only? You're only basing what you believe on what you have heard other people say, not what you have experienced for yourself. Let me break it down to you like this. When you go back in the Old Testament and you read the book of Joshua and the book of Judges, you will find that this is the pattern of how it happened. Joshua's generation saw the miracles happen. They saw the cloud by day and the fire by night. They ate the manna. They saw the waters parted. They saw the walls come a-tumbling down. They saw all of those things happen. His generation saw it. Joshua's children's generation heard the stories about the waters being parted and the walls come a-tumbling down. Joshua's grandchildren's generation worshipped other gods. Do you see how we got there? Let's go again very quickly for those that missed it. Joshua's generation saw it. Joshua's children's generation heard about it. And Joshua's grandchildren's generation worshiped other gods. I'm here to tell you tonight, youth pastors, the reason why we're losing this generation is not because we don't have a cool enough building. It's not because we don't have enough LED walls. It's not because we don't do enough pizza in game. It's because we are satisfied to tell them about how God moved and to tell them the stories that we've seen and we've heard about what God moved and we are not equipping them and positioning them and pushing them to a place where they can experience the move of God in their own life instead of just hearing about what happened before. Young people, I'm grateful for what God did for my grandparents and I'm grateful for what God did for my parents but those stories and the stories that you hear from platforms, they're great and they exist to build us up, but we can't live off of those things alone. I'm thankful that your youth pastor is on fire for Jesus, but his fire was not, or her fire, was not built to keep you warm all the time. Their fire was built to start the fire in your own life so that you can have your own experiences with Jesus and you can have your own encounters with God and you can know him for yourself. so he says who do other people say that i am and they go well some people say you're a prophet some people say you're john the baptist some people say you're elijah and then in my mind i just see jesus bend down look at them with the fire in his eyes and say okay yeah yeah yeah yeah who do you say that i am and if i had to ask you a question tonight young person that's the question that I believe Jesus is asking you and your generation and every student in this room. Not who does grandma and grandpa say that I am? Who does mom and dad say that I am? Who does pastor or youth pastor? Not who do they say that I'm asking you. Who do you say that I am? And then in that moment, from the most unexpected places, The foul-mouthed temper, Hulk-sized temper, fisherman, Simon Peter, speaks up and says, you are the Christ. You are the son of the living God. And Jesus turns around and says to him, you're blessed. Because it's not men that have told you that. You didn't hear that from a Sunday school teacher. You didn't see it on a reel. You didn't hear it on a podcast. My Father has revealed that to you. Let me tell you something tonight, young people. God is interested in revealing himself to you in a way that at the moment he reveals himself, everything about who you used to be changes. Everything about the way that you used to live changes. And the way that he wants to do that is to shake you. And he is desperately trying to get your attention to say to you, if you will let me outside of the little box that you have constructed for me to live in, I will do things that you cannot even ask, think, or imagine in your life. Not just because you know about me. I want you to know me. See, it's easy. It's easy in Isaiah chapter 9 to read and memorize. The Bible says that he is the wonderful counselor. The Bible says he's mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace. It's easy to read in Daniel chapter 3 that he was the fourth man in the fire. It's easy to read in Joshua chapter 5 about he was the captain of the army of the Lord. It's easy to read those things and to have the knowledge of him. But what I came to tell you tonight, it's not enough just to know about him. He wants you to know him. He doesn't just want you to have the knowledge. He wants you in your most desperate hour to take not just the words that you know from Isaiah chapter 9, but to allow him to be your wonderful counselor, to be your mighty God, to be your eternal father, to show you that he is the Prince of Peace. He wants to show up in your life. See, it's one thing to know that he was the fourth man in the fire for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but it's another thing to be in the fire yourself and look over and see, hey, you're not alone. I'm standing right here with you. It's one thing to read about the captain of the army of the Lord, but it's another thing to be in the middle of the fight and know that the captain of the army of the Lord is fighting the battle for you. He's not interested. He's not interested in what you've heard about him. He's not interested in what other people say about him to you. I believe in my heart of hearts that he is looking at you and your generation and saying, hey, I get all that. That's great. Who do you, who do you, who do you say that I am? it's the same spot where we find Jacob he has enough knowledge of God to know that God was there he has enough knowledge of who God is to recognize his presence in that place he has enough knowledge of God to know that he was there but he doesn't have enough of an intimate relationship with him to do anything about it. And somewhere along the line, we have believed the lie or we have convinced ourselves that it is enough for us to know who Jesus is. Somewhere along the line, we have believed the lie that it is enough for us just to know about him. But I came to tell you tonight that he's not interested in you just knowing about him. He wants you to know him on an intimate, personal, one-on-one level. And if we would ever take the time to get outside of our box, to get outside of the limitations that we put on him ourselves, to get outside of our own kingdoms and our own priorities and our own wants and our own quote-unquote needs, and we would push those things aside and we would allow him to actually be the Lord of our lives, That's when we would know him. See, Jacob wakes up. And he says, the Lord was here. But I didn't know it. And I didn't do anything about it. So the next time that he goes to sleep, the keys can come and play softly. The next time that he goes to sleep, in Genesis chapter 32, we read, where the Lord shows up again. Oh, see, but this time, this time Jacob, he's determined. He's determined. And he grabs onto him and wrestles with him all night long. I don't know what they were doing, the RKOs or whatever they were doing. They wrestled all night long. And he says to the Lord, I'm not leaving this place, and I'm not letting you go until you bless me. I'm not leaving. I'm not walking away. I'm not letting you go until you bless me. See, before, the Lord stood beside him and showed him that point where heaven meets earth. He showed him that point where the angels were coming down from heaven, and they were meeting on earth. And he stood beside him and he said, hey, I am the Lord. And not only am I your grandfather's God, and not only am I your father's God, I'm your God. And if you'll follow me, I will give you blessings that you can't even imagine, Jacob. Your descendants will outnumber the sand that you sleep on and the place where you lay. It will be yours and it will be your inheritance. It will belong to your people if you will just acknowledge me and know me. And that, young people, that's the first time in Jacob's life that he actually heard the promise for himself. All he had heard his whole life was, oh man, you got a purpose. Oh man, you got a plan. Probably to the point where he got sick of it. Or probably to the point where he thought, that ain't me. Oh, but see, there was something different about this because he had actually heard it for himself. And I believe if we read between the lines, the motivation we see is this. The next, he decided right then and there, the next time that God shows up, I'm not missing him. I'm not missing him. I'm not letting you go until you bless me because I'm not missing this again. He saw the ladder coming from heaven to earth and the angels going up and down the ladder to and fro. And then if you read on in the New Testament, you'll find in John chapter 1 that Jesus actually tells Nathaniel, his disciple, he says, hey, you know about Jacob's ladder. Let me tell you something. I am Jacob's ladder. I am the place where heaven meets earth. I am the place where I will connect you to the Father. He wants to be so much more for you. Listen to me. He wants to be so much more for you than just a fire insurance policy. He wants to be so much more for you than just a get out of hell free card. But see, we believe. We believe. We believe that we can pray the prayer at VBS or youth camp. And then we believe we can just take him and put him away. And then when we get into trouble, or when the sickness comes, or the divorce, or the breakup, or whatever overwhelms us, we can just take him out again and say, help me. That's not a savior. That's a genie. that's not a savior that's a spiritual Alexa that's how lazy we are we're to the point where we're like Alexa turn the lights off that's how lazy we are Jesus fix it and here's the cry in my heart I was called to be a youth pastor when I was 12 years old. And I spent the next 10 years looking ahead to what God was going to do. And if I could go back in time and change anything about my life or say anything to my younger self, first I'd be like, ease up on the hot pockets, okay? Because later it's gonna, just easy. They're nasty. They're frozen in the middle. Take it easy, all right? but the other thing that I would say to my middle school and high school self is this stop stop looking ahead at what you think God wants to do in your life when you arrive and start looking at what he wants to do in your life right now stop looking ahead because here's what's going to happen you middle schoolers are going to be like yeah I get with it when I'm in high school And you high schoolers, you're like, I'm going to get with it when I'm in college. And you college students are like, I'm going to get with it when I get married. And then eventually you're just going to keep going, I'm too young, I'm too young, I'm too young, I'm too young. And the enemy's going to tell you you're too young. And then something clicks and you get old and he starts telling you, you're too old. You miss it. See, don't bring any of that stuff before God. He is ready to do incredible things in your life right now. And the question I want to ask to each and every one of you is this. Who do you say that he is? Don't leave this place and go, man, God showed up. God showed up that weekend. But if I'm being honest, I didn't do anything about it. Do you feel that? that is the still, small, quiet, peaceful voice of the Holy Spirit and he is imploring with you not to rely on your own self not to think that you've got everything figured out because you know how everything is supposed to go don't be like me I was at this point I was at this point in my life where I I knew what everybody else said about him and I had a knowledge of who he was and I knew that I was going to heaven and I knew that all of those things were good. So much more that was available because he's not just interested in us knowing about who he is. Oh, he wants to know us. And I gotta be honest with you. Part of the reason that we struggle, I'm hurrying. Part of the reason that we struggle is we think that once Jesus comes into our life, everything is supposed to be great. We think that everything is supposed to be rainbows and lollipops and yellow brick road and sunshine and happy days. And I think one of the reasons we think that is because youth pastors, it's on us. Because it's not very appealing for us to stand up and be like on the front of the brochure. Hey, I can't tell you that the Christian life is perfect. You're going to have hard days. You're going to have bad days. You're not going to understand some stuff. God's going to speak stuff into you that don't make no sense. You're going to get mad at him. You're going to get frustrated with him. But you need to turn your life over to him. That's a terrible sales pitch. Terrible. When I read this holy book, I can't find anywhere that promises me that everything's going to go the way you want it to. That you're going to pass every test, that you're going to get every date, that you're going to have the most followers, that you're going to have the most kills on Fortnite. I can't tell you that you're going to become an influencer and you'll never have to work a day in your life. I can't tell you that you're going to be a YouTube sensation. I can't tell you any of those things. When I read this book, there's only two things that I see that are guaranteed. You ready? Here they are. One, persecution. That's not on the front of the church either. Come inside. You'll be persecuted. That's one of the only two guarantees I see in this book. One, persecution. Two, you'll never be alone. you'll never be alone every day is not going to be perfect i can't promise you that there's not going to be death i can't promise you that there's not going to be sickness i can't promise you that there's not going to be divorce i can't Of all of those things, you will be able to stand up and say, even though the bad stuff comes, you are the Christ. You are the son of the living God. And I have peace because you have spoken it into my life. Stand with me all over the room right now. Very quietly, very quickly. Here's the thing about Jacob. is that after he wrestled with God and after he said, I'm not letting you go until you bless me, the Lord said to him, what's your name? Jacob. No, not anymore. You're not Jacob anymore. Jacob means the deceiver. Now you're Israel, which means prince of God. When you submit yourself to him and when you're ready to know who he is, When you have that moment, you're not the person that you were before. No matter how many times the enemy wants to tell you that you're not qualified because of all of the things that you've done and all of the things that you've seen and all of the things that you've participated in, you're not that same person that you were before. And here's the crazy thing. The Lord reaches down and touches his hip. And his hip pops out of socket. And the Bible tells us in Genesis chapter 32 that Jacob limped away. so when you have that encounter with Jesus where you really know who he is he doesn't just change who you are you will never walk the same again and everywhere you go people see that limp and they go what's wrong with you why are you limping why do you walk different let me tell you about Jesus let me tell you about Jesus let me tell you what he's done for me I'm challenging you tonight as a youth pastor to students step outside of your box where you think as long as I know about him and as long as mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and youth pastor have a relationship with him I'm good I dare you to step into the place where you leave your expectations and all of those things behind and say, okay, Jesus, I want to know you for who you are. And when you get to that place in his presence, just like those two people I was telling you about, you don't even have to ask him for stuff. It's just, hey, while you're here, let me show you what I want to do. While you're here, let me show you. But it's hard because you got to be, I forget what time it is, forget what they're doing back at their seat. I want to give you everything. You'll never find peace and love and joy and satisfaction out there the way that you will with Jesus. I promise you that. Every head bowed
and every eye closed right now all across the room. Come on.
Every head bowed, every eye closed.
Speaker 1
I'm talking to every person in the room. I'm talking to every person in the room. Whether you're like me and you grew up in church, or whether this is the first time you've ever experienced anything like this, every single one of us, Jesus is waiting for us to be able to answer the question, who do we say that he is? This is the place. This is the place where heaven meets earth. This is the place where Jesus is calling you to a new level of relationship. This is the place where he's drawing you into intimacy with him. This is the place where he is calling you to know him. Do not walk out of this room and say, yeah, that was good, but I missed it. Yeah, I know God was there, but I missed it. Don't miss him. Every head bowed, every eye closed. you're in the room tonight and you would say Pastor Bo if I had to be honest that's me I may know a lot about him I may think I've got this whole thing figured out or maybe this is the first time I've ever hearing anything like this no matter what the circumstances are if you're in the room and you would say I just I don't want to know about him I want to know him I want to find out who he is I don't want to just hear the stories I don't want to just pass on the stories and the legend. I want to experience them. And I want Jesus to reveal himself to me in a way that he's never done before. If that's you, throw your hand up all over the room. Come on, throw your hand up all over the room. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, everywhere. Now, every head bowed, every eye closed, you got your hand up. I want you to get out of your seat and come to the front right now. Grab your youth leader, grab somebody, bring them with you, come to the front right now. And as soon as you get here, as soon as you get here, I don't want you to wait on anybody. Don't wait on them to start singing. Throw your hands up to heaven as soon as you get here. And let's pray together. Father, in Jesus' name. Oh, God, forgive us. God, forgive us. Forgive us for our pride. Forgive us for our pride. For thinking that we can just get by with the knowledge of who you are. Forgive us for our pride of just thinking that the stories about how great things you did for the past generations are enough to get us through. We're thankful for those things, Lord, but we want our own stories. We want to see miracles in Jesus' name. We want to see people restored in Jesus' name. We want to see people healed in Jesus' name. We want to see the world changed in Jesus' name. God, we don't want to be the generation that says, yeah, God was there, but we missed it. Yeah, God was in the room, but we didn't do anything about it. Let this be the night that all of it changes. Let this be the night that we step up and say, hey, I don't know how long it takes, but I am not letting you go until I know you. I'm not letting you go until you bless me. I'm not letting you go until you change me. Come on, young people. Throw your hands up to heaven and surrender.