 Well, good morning. After an introduction like that, I can hardly wait to hear myself, so let's just get started. Hey, I count it an honor and a blessing to have an opportunity to be with you. If somebody would have asked me, what do you do for a living? Matter of fact, why don't you just ask me that? We live with them. I hang out with people. I keep it real with them, and I ask them to keep it real with me, amen? Amen. Now, how many of you want me to be real? Raise your hands. OK? If I'm willing to be real, how many of you are going to be real? OK, look at the guy next to you, say neighbor. Are we going to find out? OK, so my wife says, I need to change the beginning of how I start this, but let me just put it straight. The guy seated next to you, that's your neighbor, and I'm going to have you talking to your neighbor throughout my talk. The Bible says in Ephesians 4, 25, cease then with lying and tell your neighbor the truth, because we're not separate units, but intimately united in Christ, amen? I think that's God's way of saying be real with each other. And then I'm going to have you raise your hand and confess some of the sin that's in your life. All right, let's get started. Look at your neighbor, say neighbor. Oh, don't act like you don't have sin in your life. James 5, 16 says, confess your sins once or another, then pray for each other that you can be healed. What does God not say? He doesn't say don't have sin, though John writes, I write these things to you that you don't sin, but if you do, you have an advocate with the Father. But James says, if you've got some stuff going on, you need to talk to somebody about that, pray about it, and then move on with your life, amen? Say neighbor. I can handle your laundry. Keep your underwear to yourself. Okay, so that's how we're going to roll here today. All right, the Bible says to know those that labor among you. So I'll share a little bit about myself, but I was sharing my pastor, I was sitting in the back during the first worship time that we had this morning. And I wondered to myself, do you really know what you got going on here? To see this many men show up, to see guys hanging out outside early, do you really know what you got going on? I get an opportunity to speak to a lot of men during the year. And I tell you, I've not seen it quite like this. Say neighbor. Let's not take this for granted. Say neighbor. Look me in the eye. Now look your neighbor right in the eye. Say neighbor. Say neighbor. Loving me is not optional. Okay, so, just a thought. All right, you probably get tired of me before this is all over with, but I'm going back. All right. Born and raised in New York City, grew up in a real dysfunctional family, anybody here ever grew up with some drama in your families? Okay. All right, so my mom was involved with organized crime. I don't really realize this organized crime until many years later. I began to investigate the mafia. I was like, dang, that's what mommy used to do. I was a victim of child abuse at her hands and realized it was child abuse until many years later. And I began to look at child abuse. I was like, dang, that's what mommy used to do. I saw a girl at a camp one time. She had said, T-shirt on, said, save your drama for your mama. Say neighbor. Bill's mama was his drama. Okay. And so I grew up a very angry young man. So it was me, mom, two cousins, A.B. and Betty. Betty was a wild girl. She was 15 years old when I was born. I heard she had a kid. I never saw that kid, but she lived a very promiscuous lifestyle. And I saw a lot of stuff that little boys shouldn't have seen. A.B., five years older than me, he was the brother I never had. Mom and dad never had any more kids. So I just considered him like my brother and still do to this day. However, like I said, I grew up angry. It hurt as a result of my mom's stuff. And one day I came home from school. I was 13 years old and some of her friends were at the house and they said, Bill, we got some bad news for you. Your mom passed away today. I remember taking my dog for a walk and I remember crying to this day. I don't know why I cried. I don't know if I was mad, glad or sad, but I kind of felt some of that drama was gonna stop. How many of you've ever had a day start out great before that day was over? All hell was breaking loose. Anybody ever have a day like that? How many of you ever tried to fix the day and it only got worse? Say neighbor. No matter how bad it is, it can always get worse. And so I come home, AB has now come home from school. He's 18 years old. He sees I've been crying and he goes, why are you crying? I said, well, I'm crying because mom is dead. And he says, well, so what? She's not your real mother. Your real mother is the girl you think is your cousin, Betty. Look at your neighbor say neighbor. Dang. Okay. So what do you do with that? What do you do with that at 13 years old? What do you do with that when you don't know who Jesus is? My life spiraled out of control from that day forward. Went to an all boys high school, 7,000 boys went to my high school, played football there. It was a real good athlete in school. Football season ends, I quit school, began running the streets, hanging out with a crew that's doing bank robberies and murder and all this kind of stuff. So I joined the military to keep them going to jail. I thought that was a real good option. Say neighbor. Neighbor. However. We were in Vietnam at that time. Okay. Wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the box, but by God's incredible grace, got me through the military. I didn't end up in Nam. I ended up over in Korea on the DMZ and it was kind of hairy and got out. And by this time I had gotten married to my first wife and we were married for 46 years and then she left me for another man. Look your neighbor say neighbor. And his name is Jesus. And she's with him now. I like doing that because people don't know what to do with that. And my current wife who we've been married now almost three years, I think she says, you need to find another way of saying that. Okay. But when on the police department they gave me a gun, a badge, I had a tremendous authority and the authority to take your life, to take your freedom, but I had no power in my life. And then one day I got real, December 26, 1980 at 2.45 in the afternoon. By this time I was a detective. I was on a SWAT team, had a real big Afro, Fumichu, Mustache, sideburns, all that to say neighbor. A lot has happened to that brother. I started getting that George Jefferson ear muff look. Some of you guys got that hair. No, no, no. Okay, so. And so I just shaved everything off. But December 26, 1980 at 2.45, I was watching TV and a man on television asked two questions. And he pointed at the screen and said, are you a sinner? I said, yep. You know Jesus? Nope. Call this number. I called the 800 number. A man explaining me the incredible love of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Christ, prayed with that man received Christ into my life, total deliverance from drugs and alcohol, filled with God's spirit. My wife comes home from shopping. I meet her at the door. Claudia, this is the new me. Jesus came into my life. I'm born again by the spirit of God. My name's written in the land's book of life. I'm a new creation in Christ. Look at your neighbor say neighbor. Never say stupid stuff to a black woman. And she went just like this. Yeah, right. And she thought God was gonna kill me, but rather than killing me, he saved her, saved my kids, saved my father at 83 years old and turned our entire house over. And I went back to work, a different police officer. And I went back to work and I didn't have to take that job personally anymore. And I understood why people did the things that they did because they didn't know who Jesus was. And so whoever had to lock up, I would tell them about Jesus. Hey, you know why you rob banks? You need Jesus in your life. You know why you beat your wife up? You need Jesus in your life. And I would see many of these men and women give their lives to the Lord. And so it's been an incredible, but crazy ride ever since then. Amen. So let me see how real you're gonna be. How many of you have found out life's a lot more difficult than you thought it would be? How many of you found out serving Jesus is a lot more difficult than you thought it would be? How many of you find yourself doing stupid stuff every once in a while? How many of you do stupid stuff? You know it's stupid and you do it anyway. No. Look at your name, say neighbor. What in the ham sandwiches that matter with you? No. And how many of us have one of these in our lives whether in Christ or out, something that you've done, your attitude about it is, oh my God, I hope no one ever finds out I did that. How many of us have one of those? Raise your hand straight up in the air. Say neighbor. And I won't be telling you about it either. And what that does, that puts us all on a level playing field. And I think a lot of times in the church we're so busy frontin' and actin' like we got it together. And a lot of us don't have it together. How many of us don't really have it together? But how many of us are good at actin' like you got it together? And you know in New York we call that frontin'. And let me tell you what frontin' looks like. I locked a young man up one day, I wasn't thinking, okay, we were in my office, I turned my back on him, I left my gun laying on the desk. When I turned around, he's got my gun, he's standing just like this. And I turned, I said, man, put that gun down. Put the gun down. Now that's how I look on the outside, but on the inside. I, and by God's incredible grace, he put the gun down and in the words of Mr. T, I beat that boy like a drum. Okay. In Jesus' name, because the Bible says whatever you do. Let's see. Okay. All right. So here we are at the Super Bowl Breakfast. And tomorrow, one of the largest sports events of the year will be played. The Super Bowl. You know, last week it was the All-Star Game. And the All-Star, you know, I listened to one guy, he was talking this week, he said, he loved being on the All-Star team because they're chosen by their peers. The Super Bowl, those guys are chosen by their coaches. And so I wanna equate it and relate it to Jesus. Let's take the day of the cross. That was like the Super Bowl in Christendom. In the kingdom of God, that was the Super Bowl. And Jesus had come to earth, God in the flesh. And the Bible says, great is the mystery of Godliness. God was manifesting the flesh. I believe it's kinda, he had a two-fold mission. I believe he came to show us what God was like and to show us what we ought to be like. And the Bible says when it came to the things of God that nobody ever spoke like he spoke, that his words had the ring of authority and power. He didn't speak like the religious leaders. Religious in this context, people who thought they knew what God was like and they didn't have a stinking clue. Look at your name, Saint neighbor. I can't stand people like that. And then he had the ability to change the lives of men and women. And when I read the scriptures, anybody who dared to be real with Jesus, their life was never the same. They would go home a different way. Ezekiel 46.9 says, when the people come into the Lord's house on the feast day to worship, let those who come through the North gate lead through the South gate. And those who come through the South gate let them lead through the North gate. Let no man lead through the way, through the gate rather, in which they came. I think that's God's way of saying when you come into my presence, when you come and you worship and you pray and you sing songs and we have fellowship together and we hear the word of God, we go home a different way. Look your neighbor right in the eye. Saint neighbor. Whatever you do. Don't go home the way you came. How many of us have some stuff we wish we didn't have? Anybody in the house? How many of you have ever made up your mind? I gotta get rid of this. How many of you tried to get rid of it? How many of you still got it? Look to your neighbor, say neighbor. Stop trying to do God's job. Because the Bible says he who began a good work in you will perform it. And the only thing that God really needs from us is our cooperation. And so I look at Jesus and I have a wild imagination. And maybe I allow it to go over. But I look at Jesus and he comes and he begins to get a team together. 12 guys. If we were in Canada, they would understand that. 12 man football. But he's getting this team together, okay? And he would be a player coach. And they would hang out with him and they would watch him navigate through life and they would hear things and see things that no one had ever seen before. They would watch him raise people from the dead. They would watch how he interacted with people. They would watch how he said things and then he would have those things explained to them. And they loved being with him. I would think, I think about this all the time. It would be awesome for me to have had the opportunity to be with Jesus for those three and a half years. I wonder what kind of an impact it would have had on my life. And now it's the day before the Super Bowl. And he's with his crew. He's with his team and they're in this room. And I love this. And so the translation that I'm gonna read from today is the Philips translation. I just love it because of the storytelling impact that it has for me. But here's Jesus and he looks at his team. He looks at these men who he is poured into. He has been with them and he's walked through thick and thin with them. And then, and he's got a couple of guys that kind of stand out. There's been a lot of talk about how this game's gonna go. That Ed Grankowski, whatever his name is, he's back. You know, Brady, he's there. You got Winces having the season of a lifetime. Philadelphia, and you know, there's a lot of smack talking going on about what somebody's gonna do and how this won't happen and who's gonna really win the game. And the teams do that and they get themselves all psyched up. So Jesus is talking to his team in the hopes maybe that that won't happen. And so he says these words in Luke 22, 31. Oh, Simon, Simon, do you not know that Satan has asked to have you to sift you as wheat? But I prayed for you. Wow. Here's the coach. He's talking to seemingly one of the main players on his team. Simon, Simon, Satan desires to have you to sift you as wheat. In other words, Peter, Satan wants to take you out. He wants to make shipwreck out of your life. But because the Bible is written in English, it doesn't really portray what it's saying in the Greek. Simon, Simon, Satan desires to have you. That word you is plural. So really what he's saying is he's focused in on Peter. Simon, he desires to have you all. And I believe that transcends down to you and I to take you out. But I prayed for you. Men, I want you to understand something that when Satan looks at you, he doesn't have a smile on his face. He can't stand you. You're God's creation. You're the sons of God. For those of you who have received Christ, for the Bible says here and now are we the sons of God. And it doesn't get a peer what we're gonna be like, but we know when he shows up, we're gonna be just like him because we'll see him as he really is. So he looks at you with contempt. He looks at you with disdain. And his desire is to take you out, to take me out, to take the pastors out. He can't stand us, but I prayed for you. That view is singular. The Bible says for he ever lives to make intercession for you. How many of you would love to have Jesus say a prayer for you? How many of you believe if Jesus prayed for you, woo, something gonna happen, anybody in the house? But what would he pray? What would he pray for you? I want you to think about one word, just one word in your own head. Oh, this is what I need. This is what I would love him to pray for. Look at your name, say neighbor. You pray good prayers. Jesus prays great prayers. He says to Peter, I pray for you that your faith doesn't fail. I pray that you don't lose focus. In other words, I pray that you don't forget, Peter, that it's not about you, but it's about me. And then he says, but when you're converted, strengthen the brethren. That word converted means to go in the opposite direction. So Jesus is kind of speaking prophetically to Peter right now. So in other words, Peter is walking with Jesus, but he's letting him know something's gonna happen, you're gonna get turned around, you're gonna go the wrong way. But when you get turned back around, I want you to help somebody. I want you to strengthen somebody. Look at your name, say neighbor. To strengthen somebody. You gotta have some strength. How many of you have ever gotten yourselves turned around? How many? Oh, just say, oh, this is not a trick question. How many of you have ever gotten yourselves turned around since you've, say neighbor? How come you ain't raised your hand the first time? How many of us have gotten turned around so many times? It seems as though we're in a revolving door. Anybody ever feel that way? How many people have ever felt that way? Okay. Peter don't get it though. Lord, I'm ready to die. I'm ready to go to prison. Jesus always keeps it real. As a matter of fact, how many of you have ever played organized sports? Anybody here play organized sports? Raise your hand. How many of you ever got a pep talk before a game? How many of you were fired up after the pep talk? How many of you went out there and that pep talk didn't mean nothing in that game? That game didn't turn out like you thought it was gonna turn out. And you know what Peter finds out right here? Look at your neighbor and say this with a thought and say, neighbor, talk comes cheap in the locker room. I'm ready to die. Pete, before this night is out, before the Rooster crow, you're the night three times that you even know me. Wow. And I think about Peter. I am so glad that God put Peter in the Bible. Look at your neighbor and say, neighbor, if Peter's in heaven, you got a real good chance to get into. Every time you see a cartoon, he's standing at the gate deciding who gonna get in. I would love to step to that brother. Why should we let you in, Bill? How you get in? I just hope it's a cartoon. That's all I'm saying. But the deal is this. But we all know the story. And sometimes things happen. Sometimes we get busted up. Sometimes we get turned around. Peter, he wasn't soft. He wasn't a coward. He meant his words. But he tried to do it. He forgot maybe with Jesus heading John 15 and five without me, you can do nothing. Maybe he thought he could do this in his own strength. Maybe he could pull up his own bootstraps. I got this. I got you, Jesus. And when they were out in the garden and you could continue reading this for yourself and Luke out in the garden and Peter falls asleep. And a lot of times we fall asleep. And what I love about Jesus, nothing jams them up. Really, the only thing that really jams up Jesus is religious people. He comes out, couldn't you, they were asleep. Couldn't you pray with me for an hour? And then he tells them what to pray and he tells you what to pray and he tells me what to pray. Pray that you don't enter into temptation. And then here comes the posse. Hundreds of men with swords and sticks and torches. I love this. I love, because Jesus wasn't a religious guy. He steps to the posse. Who you looking for? You looking for Jesus of Nazareth. In other words, he was just like them. He looked no different. He didn't have a halo over his head. He didn't have a sheep around his neck. No melodic music playing in the background. He just says, I am him. The moment he says, I am. Hundreds of men fall to the ground. I think about this. Woo, if I ever went to lock somebody up, who you looking for? Tommy Jackson. I am Tommy Jackson. And I fell down. Say neighbor. Take the rest of the night off. Then he allows him to get back up. And then Peter, strutters where he pulls out his sword, swings it at the high priest's head. My man does like the matrix. But not quite fast enough. And he cuts his ear off. And Jesus says, I speak the crypts and bloods. Latin kings in New York. Here's Jesus' answer to gang banging. Put the sword away for if you want to live by that sword, you'll die by the sword. Then he reaches over and heals my man's ear. Can you imagine? Blood up. I'm residing tonight and I'm out. And then everybody runs away. And here's what the Bible says about Peter. And Peter followed from a distance. I mean, you and I can't follow Jesus from a distance. You have to be close up on Jesus. Because the further you weigh, you move away from the light. The more darkness begins to creep back into your life. And he follows from a distance and they're taking Jesus from mock trial to mock trial. Then finally somebody says, hey, you're one of his disciples. I don't know that man. I don't know him a little bit later on. Hey, we saw you in the garden. You are one of his disciples. I don't know that man. Been a little bit later on, he's in the courtyard. And he's warming himself by a fire, a charcoal fire. Remember that, a charcoal fire in the cigar season. Yo, you talk like a Galilean because Peter's always talking. Even talking to the point on the Mount of Transfiguration, God had to stop him mid sentence to set some stuff down. You talk like a Galilean. You are his disciple. The Bible says this time he denied the Lord with cursing. Not cursing like we might do if we get angry enough. But in the Greek, he says, may I be damned by God if I know that man. And often the distance, and the Bible says in Jesus looked at him, I wonder what the look looked like. I am positive of what it didn't look like. Here's what I believe it looked like. I'll see you in three days. And they took Jesus away and the Bible says they began to abuse him. And Peter ran away and he wept bitterly. And that even on his outside, he looked like one thing, but there was something deeper going on on the inside. And then we all know the story of how Jesus ultimately was taken to a cross. Barry rises from the dead. And what's one of the first things he does? He sends a message, go tell my disciples in Peter. Wow, what kind of a God is this? I think that when Jesus shows up in the upper room where they've got the door locked and he comes walking through the door or through the wall, peace, be of good cheer, it's me. Now the Bible does not say this, but this is what I believe. Because you don't hear Peter saying anything, but he's there. I think Jesus might be like, he's not angry at him. He's not disappointed. You can't be indisciplined in something that you know is going to happen. I think he's glad that he's there. A week later, the same thing happens. I really do believe in the depths of my soul that Peter does not know what to do with himself. I think Peter doesn't know how to get over his failure and his shortcoming. And so the Bible says in the book of John in the 21st chapter, and I'll read this. Sorry about that. Later on, Jesus showed himself again to his disciples on the shore of Lake Tiberius and he did it this way. Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, Nathaniel from Cana of Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two other disciples were together and Peter said, I'm going fishing. And they said, we'll go with you. What's he doing? He's going back to do what he used to do. He's going back to do what came easy for him. Is there anything wrong with fishing? No, unless Jesus has called you to do something else. And the Bible says that they fished all night long and in Luke five, they had fished all night long. They ain't catch nothing. And you won't catch anything either unless you're doing what Jesus has called you to do, unless I'm doing what Jesus has called me to do. And so they're out there and they're fishing and Jesus shows up. They don't recognize Jesus about a hundred yards away and he yells out to them, Hey guys, did you catch anything? No, or no. You know what no means in the Greek? Look at your neighbor say neighbor. It means no, duh. Take your net and throw it on the right side of the boat. Which meant they were fishing where? Or, or the wrong side. Say neighbor. Where you've been fishing. What you've been catching. How many fishermen we got here? Anybody here that's a great, okay. I'm not the greatest fisherman in the world but let's just pretend the boat is, okay, maybe this wide. They're fishing on the left side. Take your net, throw it on the right side. Now I'm not the great, but here's the story. If I ain't catching no stinking fish right here, how many fish am I gonna catch right here? Say neighbor. However, if Jesus says do it, do it. They pulled the net up. The Bible says they caught 153 large fish. John leans over to Peter. That's Jesus. Peter's fishing naked. What's up with this brother? I know you gotta answer but I'm just going like hey. Say neighbor. If you go fishing naked, they will put you in a net. So he puts his clothes on and he dives overboard and he's swimming to shore while the other guys are trying to bring the fish in. Okay, so there they are and he's swimming. And I want to stop right here. You know, there was a time in my life where I was really doing well and then all of a sudden darkness began to creep back into my life. Compromise began to creep back into my life. I was failing as a husband. I was failing as a minister of the gospel. I was failing as a son of God and nobody knew about it. God was allowing me still to continue on preaching and people were giving their lives to the Lord but I knew the stuff that was going on inside of me. And then all of a sudden the reality what Jesus had said to Peter, Bill, Bill, Satan desires to have you to sift you as wheat. And I was going home one night driving on a bridge just north of New York City, 18 miles north of New York City the bridge is three miles long and this thought came into my head. Why don't you just kill yourself and get it over with? And that night, the adversary of my soul made suicide seem very, very a good thing to do. And just as quickly as I heard that voice as this 18 wheel that pulled up next to my car, I had a little honk at that time. I was gonna drive under the wheels of the 18 wheeler. You could do with this what you wanna do. I hear another voice. And the second voice says, this is how the devil deceives my children into committing suicide. And those words spoke volumes into my life and they said to me that God cared more about Bill than what Bill was going through. And I needed to get off that bridge and allow God to deal with what Bill was going through. And it was awesome. And I remember like a joy came into me. That night I was going northbound. A week and a half later, getting ready to go speak in Russia, I'm coming southbound. Almost directly opposite where I wanted to commit suicide on that bridge. I'm behind the 18 wheeler. All of a sudden as I'm driving, I see something flying through the air. I catch it out of the corner of my eye. I hear a voice so powerful that if you put a gun to my head right now, I couldn't tell you if that voice was audible or inward. And that voice simply said, turn your head. And I snapped my head to the right and iron bar came through the windshield of my car, embedded itself in the speedometer. The window exploded, glass went everywhere, went in my ear and my hair, I had hair at the time. It was awesome. I looked over and there was a white lady in the car next to me and I looked at her and she was like this. And I remember saying, why are you making faces? You ain't in the accident. And when it happened, an iron bar fell off that truck, hit the road, bang, right through the windshield. I caught the truck driver at the tow booth. Yo, this belongs to you, pal. Guy pulls his truck through the tow booth. We get to talking. He gets mad. He gets mad because I ain't mad. Latino brother, mad. How come I'm not mad? Because this is a Holy Spirit Kodak moment for me. This was God's way of saying to Bill Page, if I ever wanted to get rid of you, I could. Look at your neighbor say neighbor. God doesn't want to get rid of you. But there's some stuff in you that's got to go. How many of us got some stuff that's got to go? Be real. OK? So this truck driver is a backslider. I lay hands on him right there on the highway. He gives his life back to Jesus, gets into his 18-wheeler, and disappears into the sunrise. Meanwhile, back at the lake. Peter, he gets to the lake, gets to shore. Jesus got a fire going, fish cooking on the fire. You know what kind of fire it was? Charcoal fire. Wow. It's only mentioned twice in the Bible. How does he do this? He's the God of the universe. Let there be fire. Boom. Yes. Let there be fish cooking on the fire. Boom. And I always think about where to get them fish from. Maybe they were 157 fish out there in the lake. He only got 153 and the four that were outside the net were going like, eh, eh, eh, eh. Say neighbor. I think Bill's on drugs again. OK, so the Bible says Peter goes over. His strength, he brings that boat in by himself. He's been strengthened. And they have a great time on the beach. And they take a time. They take their time having a meal. We rushed through hours this morning, and that's OK. But they hung out. And then there comes a point where Jesus says to Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Take care of my sheep. They continue eating and hey, hey, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Take care of my little lambs. Then he says to Peter, do you love me more than all of these? And I always wonder, what does all of these mean? Does it mean all of these fish that we've caught where you could be making a living doing that? Do you love me more than all of the disciples? You know all things, Lord. You know I love you. And then he says to him, and he says to you and I, you must follow me. You got to follow me, Pete. And then Peter points at John. Well, what about that guy? You know what I love about Jesus? He just steps to stuff. What is it to you about that man? What if I decide to allow him to stay until I return? You must follow me. Wow. The guy that failed him, the guy that denied him with cursing, the guy that ran away when he needed him the most. You, and you, and you, and you, and you, and me, we must follow him. And Peter followed him. And sure, he had drama, and he had issues. He had to be confronted by Paul. Paul said I would stood him to his face, for he was to be blamed. You know what I thought about Peter? One of the reasons I really think that Satan would love to have taken him out, because he was real, because he was honest, because he was transparent, because he was vulnerable. He was always real. He was not always right, but he was always real. And I think there was something about that that Jesus appreciated. I mean, if you don't hear me say anything else today, the more real you are with the Lord, the more real you will see him get with you. He is awesome. When Peter gets an opportunity to write something in the Bible in First People, be sober. Be vigilant for your enemy. The devil walks about as a roaring lion and seeking whom he made a vow. Well, what do we do now? Resist him, Paul Peter, standing firm in your faith. He realized that it wasn't about him, but it was about Jesus staying focused in on Jesus. I had an opportunity to go speak to kids over in Italy. And my wife and I, we went down to Rome after it was over. And we were over near the Coliseum, and up near there, if you've ever been there, maybe, I don't know, maybe some of you've seen this, there's a jail cell. It's down in the ground. It's where they say Peter spent his last night on earth. When we got there that day, it was very crowded. And so he went to the hotel and told my wife, you stay here, I'm gonna get up real early in the morning. So I got up about six o'clock in the morning. And I went there, and there was nobody there, and I climbed down in the hall. And I just started, and I looked around, it's a little small and it's dank and damp, and I was like, wow. I don't know if it's a tourist thing, but it was good enough for me. And I sat there on the ground, and I thought about this. I thought about Peter. I thought about maybe what he thought about that last night before he was executed. I thought about him thinking back about the times that he was with Jesus, the things that Jesus had done for him, the mercy, the grace that Jesus had demonstrated for him. I wonder what it was like. And now it comes down to this. Jesus had foretold him that it would happen, that he'd be taken somewhere he did not want to go, and he'd be girded up in a way that he didn't want it. And now the reality of that had come to pass. Was it worth it to Peter? In that place, there's a podium very much like this. And just like this, it has a cross in front of it. And I looked across, but the cross is upside down. In the peace sign, the symbol of the peace sign, it's the symbol that's used in the occult. Do you know what it's called? It's called the Nero Cross. The cross of Jesus Christ turned upside down, both arms broken down towards hell. I don't know if it originated here, but church history says when they took Peter out to kill him, he said, you will never kill me in the way that you killed Jesus. I am not worthy to die that way. And they made him or he made them rather crucify him upside down. Here was a man that had maybe at the end of his life finally recognized the love of Jesus. You know what? I think about Peter. I could be wrong about this, but because of where he did ministry, you know what he woke up to every single day, probably for the rest of his life since he failed the Lord that night, off in the distance somewhere. And he remember. He remember something that God choose not to remember. Your sins and your lawless deeds, I will never remember them again. As far as the east is from the west, that's how far I will separate you from your sin. I will take your sin and I will cast it into the sea. You know why he says east to west, don't you? Because no matter how far east you go, you only go east. No matter how far west you go, you only go west. But if you go south, sooner or later, you come north. And if you go north, sooner or later, you come south. God doesn't remember any of that, but Peter does. And it gives him the opportunity to remember the incredible grace and the mercy and the love of God. You know what I think Peter found out? I think he found out what you and I would find out if we really took a good look. He found out, I found out, I don't love God as much as I thought I did, but God loves me more than I can ever begin to imagine. That same God loves you that way. Last thought, man, and I'm sure you've heard this here. In the economy of God, regardless of what you feel about you, you were worth dying for. Greater love has no man than this and he would lay down his life for his friends, Jesus said. And I call you, my friends, if you do what I tell you to do. The good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. In other words, Jesus said, before you get one of them, you're gonna have to give me. And that's exactly what they did so that you and I could have eternal life. That God lives inside of you. That God wants to make a difference in you that he might begin to make a difference in this world through you and in his mind, you're worth it. I know I'm crazy. I look at God sometimes and I just go, I don't get it. And I've asked God about this. I said, Lord, I don't understand your love. He said, you're right and you never will. That God is crazy about you men. If you and I were worth dying for, it's not Jesus Christ worth living for. Look at your neighbor say neighbor. Don't talk in the locker room. Shut your mouth and live life and life to the full. In Jesus' name, amen.