We All Need Something Real Series

When my oldest three kids were young we lived in a pretty shabby seminary student housing at Midwestern. We eventually moved up to the richer side of the seminary but when we first got there price was the primary concern. It was a dark panel two bedroom so we had the kids all packed into one bedroom. Shiloh was only months old and so he was in his crib but Josh and Katie were 4 and 5 years old. At bedtime I would usually not read to them but would either dramatize stories from the Bible or make up stories of my own. When I made up stories the ones I most often told them were the stories of two famous kids. It wasn’t the Hardy Boys or anything like that. The stories I told them were about two heroes who were just known as ‘The Preacher’s Kids’.

I told them stories of things happening like bullies at the Mall or crooks doing wrong things. Everything seemed lost BUT then the preacher’s kids showed up and made the wrong things right.

I remember one night when Josh and Katie could barely hear me because Shiloh was throwing a fit in his crib. He was standing there looking at us crying. We stopped and prayed that he would calm down and before we opened our eyes we heard a thud. We looked over and saw him laid out sound asleep.

The preacher’s kids had supernatural powers and that just reinforced it.

Stories can make us feel very good about ourselves or they can make us believe that things are like we want them to be.

Hollywood has become famous for presenting culture as they want it to be. There is an obvious movement to socially engineer the society we live in to accept certain politically correct scenarios as the norm and to project them to us through entertainment venues and education until society at large finally catches up and believes the same way. The concern as to whether something is actually a truth is no longer the concern but the aim is to get society to accept whatever they decide is best so that can become the reality that will exist in the future.

The problem is that, like counterfeit money that may buy gas and groceries, at some point there will be a day when truth hits the bank. People may live a lifetime in their fantasy’s but there will come a day when reality will eternally matter.

Even people in Hollywood will sometimes see the fake in all these efforts.

At some point many begin to yearn for something real beyond the fantasy.

Harrison Ford - one of the most successful actors in the history of Hollywood told an interviewer: "you only want what you ain't got". What don't you have? ‘Peace’ was his response.

Elvis Presley was a very lonely man! One of the last things the "King of Rock & roll " ever wrote was a note that he crumpled up & through away. An aid saw him crumple it up & retrieved it. The note reported in USA today said,

"I feel so alone sometimes . The night is quiet for me . I'd love to be able to sleep . I am glad that everyone is gone now . I'll probably not rest . I have no need for all this . Help me Lord !

Actor Nicholas Cage - "I wonder if there is a hole in the soul of my generation. We've inherited the American Dream, but where do we take it?’

There is an epidemic in America of the fallout the comes from living without finding something that is real and dependable.

Teenagers in the last generation have grown up in a haze. Imagine living in a world where nobody will tell you what the truth is? Your truth is whatever you want it to be.

I WANT IT TO BE ‘THE TRUTH’ – Solid…real…dependable…eternal….truth that will last beyond this life.

600,000 teenagers - attempt suicide every year - 6,000 succeed. Reason most often given by teens who attempted suicide is that they feel lonely, isolated & think nobody understands them

2 teen age girls in Chicago / cheerleaders & honor students / laid on tracks / Reason? Note left said, ‘no one understands us’

JOHN begins his first epistle by telling about something/SOMEONE Who was and is very very REAL. His name is Jesus and John knew Jesus very well.

1:1-2 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life- and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us-