The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 28: Follow Me

Episode Date: October 17, 2021

When Jesus says “follow me,” He isn’t offering a second chance at life. He is offering a NEW life…HIS life. Visit coe22.com/john to download the journal, find series resources and more.

Amen and amen and amen. Church, if you got your Bibles and I hope you do, grab them. We're going to be in John chapter 21, the final chapter. For 28 weeks, we have been studying the gospel of John a firsthand eyewitness account of the life, the ministry, the death, the resurrection of Jesus, written by his best friend. This is a really, really big deal. And so now what John is going to do is John's going to wrap the whole thing up. And there's a whole lot of implications for people like you and me.

Chapter 21 verse 1 says this and after this. And the this that he's talking about is what we talked about last week. The this that he's talking about is that Jesus has been resurrected from the grave. And that Thomas is like, I don't know, I don't know, I got to see it for myself. You see, Thomas missed church and he don't want to miss church. Because if you miss church, you might miss an encounter with Jesus. And so he didn't show up one week. And then Peter and James and John and everybody else is like, seriously, Jesus is alive.

Thomas is like, I don't know, man. And so then Jesus appears a second time, shows up to Thomas and proves himself to Thomas. That's the this that's happening here, which is really good news. That means if you've got a whole bunch of doubts, you've got a whole bunch of questions, you've got a whole bunch of I don't know about that, then you can make a really, really good disciple. This is the this that just has happened. And then John says back in chapter 20, he says that he has written these things so that we may believe. that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,

and that by believing you may have life in His name. So fundamentally, the question I want to ask you today is this, do you believe? Do you believe? Because what we're going to see in John chapter 21 is what happens in the life of someone who believes. What we see in John 21 is how, when you believe in Jesus Christ as the Lord,

the son of God, then you receive life, and it changes everything about everything about everything about you. And so after this, after Jesus proved himself to his disciples, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberius. We know this as the Sea of Galilee. And he revealed himself in this way. Verse two, Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, that's Dowding Thomas, Nathaniel of Cana and Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, that's James and John,

and two other of his disciples. We're together. Now, this is very important. These are the kind of verses that typically we just run by. You can't run by stuff like this, okay? First and foremost, I want you to notice the detail of who's here. And the reason the detail is written is because John is not writing a fairy tale. This is a firsthand eyewitness account, and it's written like history, not a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

There were some people. He specifies who was there, and he's a person. older when he's jotting this down, and two of them he can't remember. And he was like, so there was Peter, and there was James, there was John, and there was what's his face, and the other guy we'd never talk about, okay? Because he can't be wrong. He's inspired by the spirit, so he's not just going to guess and put in two names he doesn't know, and those two other guys. And then here's another thing. If you'll remember all the way back to saturated, remember saturated, do you remember what I preached on? You know, this is what preachers fantasize about, right? That people

would remember what they say. I know what's a fantasy. But remember in John chapter 17, the high priestly prayer, this is the thing that Jesus prayed about, that we, that all the followers of Jesus would be one, that we would be, we would be one as he is with the Father and the Father is with Him. And as you look at this list of disciples, Jesus has already been dead, crucified, buried, resurrected. He has not yet given them the great commission so they don't even know exactly what they're supposed to do with the rest of their lives. But if you'll notice, these men who are very different, and if I had time, I would go through it. Some of them are blue-collar fishermen like Peter James and John. Some of them are royalty, like Nathaniel. They had

very different political views. You've got Simon the zealot. He talked about politics all the time. He had his mate Jerusalem Great Again hat all the time on them. And then he also had Matthew, the tax collector. He was collecting taxes for Rome. They would have hated each other. And yet, though they had nothing in common because Jesus is their Lord, they are still spending time together. This is what Jesus was praying about in John chapter 17. A part of the way that the way made its way to the very ends of the earth was the fulfillment of Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17, that the original disciples of Jesus were different ethnically, they were different politically, they were different socioeconomically, and yet Jesus brought them together to change the world.

They're hanging out together. Verse three. And Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. And they said to him, we'll go with you. Now this is a really big deal. Okay. By the way, who loves to fish? If you love to fish at all of our locations, raise your hand.

Praise God. Praise God. Jesus did a lot of ministry while fishing, so never be embarrassed. How many of you have a boat? If you've got a boat at all of our locations, raise your hand. If you got a boat, raise your hand on high. Keep it up, keep it up, okay? Our campus pastors are seeing who do they need to spend some ministry time with in the future.

All right, praise God for that. So Peter says, I'm going fishing. Now, here's what you have to pay attention to. First of all, where is he fishing? Sea of Galilee. Where's the last time they encounter Jesus in the holy city of Jerusalem in the upper room where they're locked away, hiding? You see, when Peter says that he's going fishing, it's not just a hobby.

it's not just like hey man you know the the rabbi has been resurrected but i don't know it's saturday in the fisher bite and i think i'll go do that no no no no i think what's going on here and what all of us can have a tendency to do is when circumstances don't go the way that we thought they were going to go even though jesus has appeared and peter knows that the tomb is empty he still doesn't know what he's supposed to do with his life yet he hasn't been given the great commission yet and they don't know what to do and we can have a tendency when we are confused or when things aren't going the way we thought they would go to return to our own lifestyle.

And so that's what he does. When he met Jesus, he was a professional fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, and now he's saying, hey, I'm not sure how I'm going to make a living, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my life, I think I'm going to go do that thing that I'm most comfortable with, which was the thing that I used to do.

Christians, let me warn you about something. There are some of you, and you're here today or maybe watching online, and some something happened in your world that threw you off and your instinct was to return to the person that you used to be. And what we're going to see here is Jesus does not wait patiently in Jerusalem for Peter to get his act together and return to the Holy City, but Jesus is going to continuously pursue his rebellious children and go after them.

Listen, praise God for those of you that are watching online and praise God for those of you that have connected with the Church of 1122 all over the world or for some reason. it's the best option for you right now, but there are some people that, because of some changing circumstances, whether it was due to COVID or whatever, and you haven't been connected to the body of Christ anymore, and you are beginning to do the things that you used to do, and I just want to remind you, you don't have to do the things you used to do, you're not the person that you used to be. And so Peter is returning to his old lifestyle and pay attention, he was the leader of disciples, and as goes to the leader, so goes the whole crew.

A bunch of people are like, yeah, we'll come with you. And they went out and they got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing, which is a bummer, because he's a professional fisherman. And just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. And Jesus said to them, children, now, this is a clue, this is a textual clue that Jesus is about to jack with them.

Because there are words for like, fellas or men or brothers. That's not what he calls them. He calls them children. It's a little bit insulting. And I think he's doing this on purpose. Hey, kids, do you have any fish? Now, Jesus knows all things. Does he know how many fish they caught?

The answer? Yes. Fellas. Don't you hate it when you go fishing and you didn't catch anything. And then you get home. and you probably had some things you were supposed to do at the house for your wife, but you didn't do them because instead of loving your wife like Christ's life at the church, you were kind of acting like Jesus and you went fishing, but that's a different sermon.

And then she asked you, what, did you catch anything? I know you had an awesome time with your awesome friends doing awesome things, but did you catch anything? And you know, in your heart, you're like, woman, you know I didn't catch anything. Because you know if I'd have called something, it'd have been on my Instagram, looking all big, hold of fish out there, make it look awesome. You know, I would have posted it everywhere. This is what you say on the inside because, you know, it's the best thing to just keep that on the inside.

She already knows, man, she already knows. Jesus already knows, and he's just rubbing it in him. Did you catch any fish? And they answer, no. And he said to them, I love this part, cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you'll find so. All right, I don't know if you ever been fishing

in the sea of Galilee or seen it happen. We're going to find out another detail. They're about 100 yards off. A hundred yards off the shore in the Sea of Galilee, I'm sure when they hear this stranger from the shore go, hey man, have you tried the right side of the boat? These are professional fishermen. They have to look and go, I don't know if this guy understands, but under the boat, there's not like sides of the boat. You understand?

There's not like all the fish are going to hang out on the right side versus the left side. And they're not throwing rod and reels. They're not like throwing to that sweet lily pad trying to get Big Billy Bass to bite the lure. They're just casting nets and it all goes under the water. It all looks the same. So he says, throw them over on the right side of the bow. And so they do. And so they cast it.

If you'll remember all the way back to the very first time Jesus shows up on the scene publicly. I don't know if you remember this. It was a long time ago. And they're at a wedding in Cana. And Mary, Mary knows that Jesus is a big deal. because when you give birth to a son, via the Holy Spirit, you realize there's something special about this one. But up to this point, he hasn't done any miracles at all,

and they run out of wine. You remember this? They run out of wine, and Mary realizes that they're out of wine, and she goes to Jesus, and she says, son, they've run out of wine. And he says, woman, what does this have to do with me? And, man, I told you, don't ever quote that verse ever in your life. But that's what he says, woman, what does this have to do with me? And so she looks at the servants, and she says this.

She looks at the servant, and she gives, in my opinion, the greatest advice that you can receive on the planet. She looks at the servants and she says, do whatever he tells you to do. That's it. That's it. By the way, that's a pretty good definition of discipleship. What is discipleship? Do whatever he tells you to do. And so the servants, then, they begin to receive orders from Jesus.

And you remember all the things Jesus said to do. Spoiler alert, he's going to turn water into wine. So he says, there's like four or five tasks. that they need to do. Go get the water jars that people have been washing their hands in, fill them up with water, then you've got to go find a ladle,

and then scoop some of the dirty hand-washed water out of the ladle and take it to the person running the banquet. And there you see a bunch of little steps of obedience, and little do these servants know that on the other side of all these minor steps of obedience hangs a miracle that 2,000 years from then we're still talking about.

And you've got to think at one point when they scoop out the wine and they bring it to the master of ceremonies, they've got to think, well, this is awkward, this could go really poorly for me. Listen, if you do whatever he says, for sure there are going to be times where he asked you to do something that is very, very uncomfortable. And I would go so far to say is, if you haven't stepped out in faith to do something uncomfortable to you, then you're not doing everything he's told you to do. He's talking to professional fishermen. And in their minds, they've already figured out why their way is better than the guy's way on the shore. By the way, if you're just keeping count, their way leads to zero fish so far.

But yet, whether it was dumb luck or by faith, they do what he tells them to do. They cast the net on the other side. Let me ask you this. What is he telling you to do? Maybe he's telling you to do something that in your mind you've already figured out why it won't work. To pick up the phone, call that person to reconcile the relationship,

to finally cancel the debt that somebody else owes you and really forgive them. To share your faith with the person that you've invited to church a hundred million times and you think, well, I've caught nothing so this can't work if I try it. And then Jesus says, hey, why don't you just cast the net on the right side? And so they do. And so they cast it. And they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish. and the disciple whom Jesus loved, which is John in the book of John, this is Jesus' best friend, at least according John. And the disciple, whom Jesus loved, therefore said to Peter, it is the Lord. Now, stop right there.

One of the best ways to study the Bible is always use the Bible as commentary unto itself. What Jesus is setting up here, we're going to see at breakfast here in just a minute. But Jesus is resetting up a scene that Peter has experienced before. It's actually a convergence of like three scenes in Peter's life, and they all converge right here in this moment. If you go back to Luke chapter 5, Peter has been fishing all night, he's caught nothing. Jesus says, try the other side. He catches a haul of fish. He realizes that Jesus is who he says he is, but in Luke chapter 5, when Peter realizes who Jesus is, he says, get away from me because I am an unclean man.

now what happens after Peter has followed Jesus, after Peter has seen Jesus crucified on the cross and say it is finished, after Peter has experienced the empty tomb, now when he senses that it's Jesus, he does not say get away from me, but he throws on his cloak and he dives into the sea. And he works really, really hard to go be with Jesus. There's two very important things here. One is that I think Peter finally understands the gospel. So let me ask you this. When you sin and Peter is fresh off a pretty significant sin,

it's what most of 21 is about. The last time he spent significant time with him, he's seen Jesus appear twice so far, but before that, remember, he promised that he would never deny him, he would never forsake him, he'd lay down his life for him, and then he denies that he even knows who Jesus is three times. and then Jesus stares at him and he weeps bitterly. And yet now when Jesus shows up, what does he do?

He does not run away from him, but he knows that the gospel compels us to run to him. When you sin, do you run and hide from God or do you run to him? I'm telling you, religion will tell you, you better run, you better hide because you're afraid and ashamed and make fig leaves for yourself. The good news of the gospel lets us know that we have been invited when we sin to run to him. Also, in the first century, it was undignified for a grown man to be in a hurry. And Peter, at this point, it's like, I don't care. I don't care what it looks like to you, but there's Jesus and I am going to hustle to go be with him. Maybe you remember this from Luke chapter 15,

when the father is looking for his lost son, and when his lost son comes over the horizon and he sees him, remember the Bible says that he runs to him, it was undignified for a grown man to run to anybody because it was like, it was humiliating. It meant that you did not have your affairs in order, that you would wait until they came to you. But when Peter sees Jesus, he throws on his cloak and he dives into the water, then the other disciples came to the boat, came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land about a hundred yards off. again another detail because this is history. Now, just an aside, real quick, this is a leadership lesson, okay? I know we got some staff listening, but if you're leading anything, you are in

ministry. One of the things I want you to see here is this. Ministry is not something you do to people, it's something you do with people. And sometimes we can have a great idea and we can have a great vision and we can leave the work behind because I'm going to go be with Jesus. And meanwhile, we leave all the people that we've been called to lead behind to do all the hard work. You see, this is what Peter does. He takes off in the water and all the disciples are left to haul in the fish. Verse 9, and when they got out on the land, they saw a charcoal fire. A charcoal fire. There's only two times in the New Testament that a charcoal fire is mentioned. And here's why this is rare. When Peter is warming himself right before he denies Jesus, it says that he's warming himself by a charcoal fire.

that would have been out of place for him to be warming myself by a charcoal fire. If you were going to build a fire to warm yourself, you would just get some old dead logs and build you a log fire, not like a briquette fire. Charcoal fires is what you would use typically to cook with, but it was rare. And so what Jesus is doing here, again, is he's resetting the scene. When they got out on the land, they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread. and Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish that you have just caught. And so Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them.

Now, do you know why the Bible says there's 153 fish? This is why seminaries get created, because people look at this, and, man, you should see the articles that I have read about what the significance of 153 is. I read one article written by a guy in Jerusalem, and he said that if you ascribe, a numerical value to every letter, like, you know, A is one and B is two and C is three, and then you take the name of God and add up the value, it comes up to 153. I think that's great. I don't think it's true at all. I think somebody just made that up, but, you know, whatever.

One thing I heard is that in the first century, they believed in the Sea of Galilee that there were 153 species of fish. And so maybe they caught one of all the species, you know, everything. from like a muddy catfish to a holy mackerel and everybody in between, and therefore we're a movement for all people to discover a deep in a relationship of Jesus Christ. That'll preach too. I also think it's fake, but whatever, okay? Let me tell you why the Bible would have that there were 153 fish.

Because they caught 153 fish. That's it, man. Have you ever been fishing and not catch fish and not count them when you catch them? That's what you do. You don't just be like, we caught some, many. No, no, no, no, no. You go, one, two, three, four, five. That's what they did.

This is what actually happened. and 53 fish. And although there were so many, the net was not torn, and Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast. All right, you've all heard of the last supper, but have you heard of the last breakfast?

This is it, all right? Says now none of the disciples dared to ask him, who are you? They knew it was the Lord, and Jesus came, and he took the bread, and he gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time

that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. Something that John wants us to know is that Jesus' resurrection was an actual physical, bodily resurrection. spirits don't eat fish ghosts don't eat fish nowhere do we see that Jesus is trying to bite onto the fish and it's all falling on the ground and they're like

hey man your trout's landing on the ground he's like well you know I'm just a spirit no and I've never been resurrected apparently makes you hungry because he gets up that morning and he needs something to eat and like a good country boy would he has little fish and grits for breakfast it doesn't say grits it says bread but that's what he's doing so he's not

a ghost this is not anyone's imagination they're not making this up. This is an actual event. And the reality, the implication for us is this, if the tomb is empty, what are you going to do about it? Because it demands a response. And when they had finished breakfast,

Jesus said to Simon Peter Simon, Son of John, do you love me more than these? And I think Peter's probably like, more than these, what? More than these fish? Do I love you more than fish? More than these disciples? Like, do I love you?

If I compare myself to all these guys, do I love you more than these? But he's just going to answer the question. I don't think he understands what's happening yet. He says, Simon, do you love me more than these? And Peter says to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said, feed my lambs. I think Peter's like, okay, you've got my attention. And so he says to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

And he says, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. and he says to him, tend my sheep. Is it all right? And he says to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And now Peter understands what's going on. Peter was grieved because he said to him a third time, do you love me?

And Peter's like, oh, I see what we're doing here, Jesus. Yeah, we're by a charcoal fire. And the last time I was by a charcoal fire, three different times I was asked if I knew you, if I followed you if I was one of yours. And it was coming right off of a time where we broke bread together. And I promised I would never leave you,

I would never forsake you. And you've told me before the rooster crows in the morning, you'll deny me three times. And I was like, you're out of your mind. Not me. I got this. By the way, three of the most dangerous words you'll ever say in your life is this,

I got this. And then I went out and I followed you and I had great intentions. I had great intentions. I was going to break you out of this whole situation. And when I got to Caiaphas's house, somebody said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I recognize you. Aren't you one of his?

I was, no way. And then a second time, while I was warming my hands by a charcoal fire, this servant girl said, aren't you what, I recognize your accent. You're a Galilean. Don't you follow him? And by the way, a servant girl wouldn't even have, she wouldn't even have the clout for her confession to stand up.

up in a court of law. And he goes, no, no, no, no. And then a third time he was asked, and the Bible says that he cursed and said no. So I see what you're doing here, Jesus. I denied you three times and you're asking me, do I love you? Do I love you? And he said, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Church, here's what I need you to see, man. Is the grace of Jesus Christ poured out at the cross, is infinite. It's infinite. greater than all of our sin. I have people come to me all the time and say, can God forgive me? Even me? You don't know what I've done. To which I want to lovingly say to you, who do you think you are? I'm just telling you, sin is a big deal. I'm not saying sin is not a big deal.

Sin is such a big deal that the perfect son of God, Jesus, the Christ, had to give his life on the cross to be the ransom to pay for our sin. So sin is a really, it's really, it's what we're way bigger of a deal than we think. It's not just a mistake. It's not, it's not just a hiccup. It's not a stumble. It is sin. Every sin is a slap in the face of the almighty sovereign king of the universe and every sin deserves to be punished by death. And it was the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. And yet simultaneously, no matter how grand your sin is, it pales in comparison to the blood of Jesus Christ poured out for the forgiveness of that sin. So who do you think you are to think that you could out sin the grace of God? And hear me now, hear me, that is not license to sin. It's freedom

from it. When you know that you've been forgiven by the gospel of Jesus Christ, it does not inspire you to keep sinning. It frees you from the bounds and bonds of that kind of sin in your life. This is what Jesus offers to Peter, and this is what Jesus offers to you. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? He says, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk where you wanted. But when you were old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go. And then in parentheses, John, who writes this as an older man, who knows what's going to happen to Peter. He says, this was the, this was, say, to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God. Now notice what Jesus does not say. Jesus does not say, if you'll follow me, I'll make everything better in your life.

That's not what he says. Now, that message gets peddled on Christian TV all the time. It's known as the prosperity gospel, and it is a lie from the pit of hell. The primary argument against the prosperity gospel is what we know as the scriptures. All of the followers, all the disciples of Jesus, the apostles of Jesus,

they died as martyrs. And so Jesus, what he's ultimately saying to Peter, he's not saying, if you follow me, then I'll give you cash and prizes. Because the reality is, if you follow Jesus in order to get cash and prizes, or if you follow Jesus in order to improve your marriage or in order to get the promotion,

or in order to, like, get your kids back, then ultimately what happens is the cash and prizes are your God, and Jesus says that means to your end, which is the worship of yourself. And Jesus will not. not be a means to your idolatry. He will not play that game. He is saying to Peter that, listen, man, you follow me, not because I promised to make your life better, but because I am better than life. And what he is saying is that it would be better for you, Peter, to live a shorter life, die a gruesome,

brutal death, and yet do that as a follower of me than it would be for you to gain all that this world has to offer and yet forfeit your soul. and the death that Peter experienced, we know, through church history, is that he was on his way to the cross. And think about this. He was on his way to his execution. And all he had to do, all he had to do is repeat one thing that he's already done in his life. Say, yeah, you're right. I don't know him. And they let him go. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. And so they say to him, if you do not deny, Jesus as to Christ were going to kill you, that's fine. And on the way to the cross, he says, I am not worthy to die in the manner in which my Lord died.

So they said, that's fine. And so they crucified him, but they did it upside down. And Jesus, knowing that would be his manner of death, he says to him, it would be better for you to die upside down on the cross with me than it would be to live a long life without me. One of the tough but great privileges of being a pastor. is sometimes we get to walk with men and women in the final moments of their life. And you know what they never talk about?

They never talk about their worldly success. When I am with people in the final moments of their life, they talk about two relationships. They talk about their relationship with the Lord, and they talk about their relationships with the people that are most important to them, which, by the way, is the greatest commandment. That's what Jesus said it's all about. Love God and love people.

And about eight years ago, I got to meet this guy named Bob. Bob's a dude, man. He's accomplished everything you can hope to accomplish in this world. Super successful, beautiful family. He had it all. Built companies, sold companies, hunted and fish all over the place. I'm talking about he is the picture of success. And he grew up in a religious system that basically taught him,

God is good, you're bad, try harder to see you next week. And he tried and he tried and he tried and he tried and he tried. tried. And he was a good man. He tried really, really hard, but he had this gnawing sense that I don't think I'm right with God. And he did all the religious activity. And he signed up from one of our men's hunting encounters. And I got to know him. And I got to start walking with him. And we would talk about the gospel. And he had the hardest time getting his mind around the gospel because everything in his life that he had received, he had earned. And he thought that was the same truth about his relationship with God. and he just had this disconnect for the longest time,

and then he got diagnosed with cancer. And it terrified him. And at first, the treatments were going awesome, and then it took a turn for the worst. And somehow, in that diagnosis, and through that walk, he came to the place where he surrendered his life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. In a few days before he passed away,

his daughter asked me to come visit him in the hospital. And so I go to the hospital, and I sit across from this man, and he looked terrible, man. He probably lost 50 pounds. And he was one of those pre-that. He was one of those, like, older outdoorsman's guys that looked like he could be an extra and brave heart.

You know what I mean? Like, he was just square-jawed and tough. He'd probably lost 50 pounds. He was frail. He was freezing cold. He had on a little pajama pants and a little Afghan and a little hat for his bald head. And his face was sunken in.

And his breath was labored. And he looked at me and he said these words. He said something to the effect of, I would rather have cancer and cancer. Jesus than to have a long life without him. And a couple of days later, he went to be with the Lord. He would rather have, if cancer is what it took to bring him to Jesus, he's saying in light of eternity, that that's better. This is what Jesus is saying to Peter. And then he says, after saying this, he says to him, follow me. Two of the most beautiful words in all.

of the scripture to the guy that keeps screwing up over and over and over and over. Jesus says these words. After Peter has denied that he even knows who Jesus is and he says, do you love me? Do you love me? Peter says, you know all things. You know that I love you. And then he says, all right, man, this is not going to end well on this earth for you, but it would be better for you to be a disciple of mine and be with me forever than to have all this world has to offer and forfeit your soul. And then he says, follow me. And I think Peter looks around and goes, oh, I get it. We're on the sea. We're on the of Galilee. We're here at the shore. I fished all night. I caught nothing. And then you told me to throw my nets on the other sides and I haul in the fish. Peter's recollection is three, three and a half

years previous to this on the same shore after a similar night. We want to take a wild guess as to what the first words Jesus ever spoke to Peter were. In Mark chapter 1, verses 16 and 17, the Bible says this, passing alongside the Sea of Galilee. He saw Simon and Andrew. the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen, and Jesus said to them, follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. You see, there's a deep theological term here that we learn from like first graders. It's called the do-over. Do you remember the do-over? I remember it well, because in Dillon, we had a kickball yard, all right? We had, the way our backyard set up, we had a fence that made a perfect, like, home-run fence, and we put in bases.

and we had all these kids from the neighborhood would come to our yard but the way the field was positioned right field was a little jacked up because our neighbors didn't really they had what we called the thicket it was just like thorns and fissils and all that kind of stuff from genesis chapter three it was there but it wasn't like out of bounds it was just a bummer if you kicked it there and so we just one of the plays was called the do-over so if you booted off the right side of your foot and it bent over and into the thicket you would just yell do over and then everybody would return to their place in the game as if that thing didn't happen What would happen?

Adults, wouldn't you love the do-over? Imagine, imagine. You kind of met, you get, you know, you get audited, the IRS is we're going to need to audit you and be like, hold on, and you get back out your tax form and right, do-over and just be like, hey, let's try that again. Or you're riding down the road and the blue lights come. Do you know why I pulled you over? I'm like, I'm going to take a do-over, carry on. That would be glorious, would it not? And so, I think a part of what Jesus is doing is Jesus is bringing Peter back to that very,

first time that he ever surrendered and began to follow in the footsteps of Jesus the Christ. Now, maybe you've heard this. Maybe you've heard that this phrase that God is the God of second chances. And it looks like here that Peter's getting a second chance. And I know what you mean by that. And what you mean is fine. But here's the reality. We don't need a do-over. We don't need a second chance. Do you know what would happen if you got a do-over? Do you know what happened if you got a second at life, you would screw up again. Because you know what the problem is? The problem is not that you didn't have enough chances.

The problem is you. I've told you this before. My daughter's in the sixth grade. If I were to give her an AP calculus exam and say, here you go, darling, give that a run. How do you think she would do? Not good. Two reasons.

She's a Martin, and she's in the sixth grade. And if she failed it miserably, and then I said, listen, in my mercy and my grace, I'm going to give you a second chance. Then guess what would happen? She would just fail again. We don't need a second chance. What we need is a substitute.

We need somebody to take the test on our behalf and give us their grade. You shouldn't do that in regular school. You'll get to do that in eternity school, though. I hope you realize. And when you hear that, you may be thinking, well, yeah, that's good for Peter. But Peter was like the Pope. Peter was a big deal. Peter walked and talked with Jesus.

But I don't know if God would give that to me. I don't know if he would offer that grace to me. I don't know if you know how bad I've screwed up, to which I would say, you need to read your Bible. Do you understand what a jacked-up disciple Peter is? And listen, somebody wrote in a few months ago and asked why I hate Peter. You're hearing it wrong. I love him so much because he's me. I don't hate him.

I praise God for him because if he can be a follower of Jesus, so can't. and I because he screwed up everything. I mean, his highs were high. It was awesome. He walked on water. Did you know that? Peter walked on water. We always talking about Jesus walking on water, but Peter also walked on water. They're in the boat. They're crossing the Sea of Galilee. It's the middle of the night,

the third watch, and the disciples look out and they see what they think is a ghost, but it's Jesus. And they cry out, it's a ghost. And then Jesus says, no, no, no, no, boys, calm down. It's me, it's me. And then Peter says, because he's a follower of Jesus, and if you were a follower of a rab, not only did you learn what they know, but you believe that you could do what they do and become who they are.

And so he says, by faith, if it's really you, ask me to come on out on the water. And Jesus says, come on, big boy, and then Peter steps out of the boat. Think about it. The Bible does not say how many steps he took. And I think they were like, Rick Flair, Google Rick Flair. He was an evangelist back in the 90s. And he just is like, woo, and then he screws up the miracle. He takes his eyes off Jesus.

He's filled with fear. focuses on his condition, and he begins to sink and cries out, Lord, save me. And Jesus says, oh, you of little faith. He screws it up. Peter was a part of the small group that got invited up on the mountain of transfiguration. That Jesus goes to the disciples, is like, boys, you stay here. Actually, Peter, James John, get in the truck. We're going up here. We can't trust you to be alone. They get up on top of the mountain of transfiguration, and Jesus reveals his glory. The Bible says that his face shone like lightning, so unlike the son and Moses and Elijah show up on the scene. This is the personification of Romans chapter 3 that the law and the prophets would testify to the Messiah.

The Bible is alive and in person there on the mountain of transfiguration. And guess what? Peter's like, you know what? There's Jesus, there's Moses, there's Elijah. I should probably say words now. And he steps in and goes, it is good that we are here. And God, the Father, basically says, shut up. shut up that a cloud descends on that mountain and god's like hey man this is my son listen to him

and peter falls down thinking he's going to die he screws up the mountain of transfiguration just a few weeks ago we talked about uh the last supper and jesus knowing that all authority in heaven and earth had been given unto him he showed his disciples the full extent of his love and he gets up and he dresses himself as a servant and he's doing this beautiful thing the almighty son of is scrubbing the feet of his disciples, and then he gets to Peter, and Peter's like, you're going to wash my feet? You ain't going to wash my feet.

And Jesus says, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part with me. And then he goes, well, then wash my whole body. And Jesus is like, stop, man, why you make everything weird? You make everything weird. What are you doing? I don't have to wash your whole body.

I just got to wash off your feet. He almost screws up the very last supper. Well, remember in the Garden of Gassimini? Jesus says, come with me, boys, and just please pray. And he goes back three times because they keep falling asleep. Come on, wake up.

Can you not just stay awake for an hour and pray? And then the guards show up, and what does Peter do? Not only is he not a good prayer, he's not a good swordsman. He whips out his sword, and he chops off a dude's ear. Nobody goes for the ear. He was trying to kill the guy, and he can't even do that right. And he chops off the guy's ear, and Jesus picks up the ear and looks at Peter, and the way I understand it, I think Jesus is like,

are you even being serious right now? and then he puts the ear back on that dude's head and Peter screwed that up everything that he's a part of over and over and over at the feeding of the 5,000 Peter almost quits his job as a disciple and then maybe the biggest one of all

is Jesus takes the boys to Cessaria Philippa which was like Sin City back in the day he takes them up on this high mountain he shows them this sin city and then he asks the disciples who do people say that I am And they're basically like, you know, you're a good moral teacher. And he goes, who do you say that I am?

And Peter says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus is like, winter, winter, chicken dinner, bro. That is you. That did not come from you. That was revealed to you by my father in heaven. Changes his name. Your new name will be Petra, Rocky. And upon this rock, I will build my church.

Upon the public profession of what just came out of your mouth, Peter. I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. That's winning. in the same chapter, the Bible says that Jesus then lays out the gospel. All right, boys, the way we're going to build this church here says it's going to happen. I'm going to be arrested, handed over, tried, crucified, dead buried, third day, resurrected. And the Bible says that Peter rebukes Jesus. Think about this.

He said, Jesus Christ, get over here. Pulled him aside. What are you talking about? And basically what he's saying is not on my watch. And then Jesus, come on. Even if you're new to church, you've heard this one. And Jesus looks at Peter and says, get behind me. Satan.

You know how much? Counseling and therapy you're going to need when the almighty son of God calls you the devil? Peter, on the same page, goes from Pope to the devil in one page on the Bible. He is the consummate screw up. And yet, and yet what Jesus does is right here, right here. He's saying, amen. Your sin could never outweigh. my calling on your life.

That when I died on the cross, Peter, it counted for you. It counted for you then. It counts for you now. And it will count for you. And here's what I love about the way the gospel of John ends. And Peter still has a long way to go. I mean, think about this sweet moment. Couldn't Peter hear these words?

Follow me. And he goes, for real, Lord, I thought I'd messed it up. Three times I deny you, but three times you give me a chance to claim you as Lord. and you bring me back to the very seashore where I very first met you, and you give me that calling that you gave me way back when I first started. He could have just oozed gratitude, but instead he oozed his insecurity. After hearing, follow me. Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them,

the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper, that's John. And he says, Lord, John said, Lord, who is going to betray you? and when Peter saw him, he said to him, Lord, what about this man? Do you see what's going on here? After Jesus gets this beautiful picture of grace, instead of Peter just receiving that and his identity be rooted in Jesus, he's like, yeah, but what about that guy? He immediately screws up again and begins to compare himself to John. Lord, what about this man? And Jesus said to him, if it's my will that he remained until I come, what is it to you?

You follow me. So he gets a do-over and he screws it up during the conversation about the do-over and he gets another one right there. That's the grace of God. He says, you follow me. And so the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but if it is my will that he remained until I come, what is it to you? Verse 24, this is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things. John is saying, I am a first-hand eyewitness of these things.

things and who has written these things and we know that his testimony is true. And then he goes on to say, now there are also many other things that Jesus did and were every one of them to be written, as opposed that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. You see, here's the point. When Jesus says to Peter and when Jesus says to you and me, follow me, he isn't offering a second chance at life. He's all. He's always. He's always. offering a new life. He's offering his life. Because what you see is if you follow Jesus, if you believe that when he died on the cross, that counted for me, then everything changes. Because if you continue to follow the life of Peter, the guy that could not even admit that he

knew who Jesus was to a servant girl. Shortly after this encounter, it's the day of Pentecost. and the spirit falls upon the disciples. And because it's Pentecost, there's all kind of people from all over the place. And they've all shown up to the Holy City, to Jerusalem, and a huge crowd gathers. And Peter, remember who's going to talk first, who's going to talk most? He sees a crowd, and he's like, oh, I should probably say stuff. And yet this time he steps up. And the very thing that always got him in trouble, his mouth, was the very thing that God used and redeemed.

And he preached the very first Christian sermon. And when he's warming himself by the charcoal fire, all he can think is, oh, I need to play this thing safe and secure. And he was really concerned about what everybody else thought about him. And on the day of Pentecost, he stands up and he says, God gave us the author of life, Jesus, and you crucified him. The least seeker sensitive sermon in all of church history. And men and women were cut to the heart after that sermon. And that day, 3,000 people surrendered their life for the Lordship of Christ and got baptized. And then, a few days later, the boys are going up to the temple, and there's a guy begging for money.

And he knows what he's doing because they were going up to the temple during the time of prayer, and you know the way people's minds work are, if I do a good work, then maybe my prayer will get answered. And he asked the disciples, hey, can you give me some money? And they look right at him, and they say, silver and gold, have I known? none, but what I have, I give unto you. What they mean is this, hey man, I'm in ministry. I I ain't got no money, but let me tell you about Jesus. In the name of Jesus, arise and walk, and he lifts out his hands, and he grabs him by faith, and he picks him up, and then he gets arrested for it, and now he's in front of the Sanhedron, the people that got Jesus crucified,

the people that with one word that Peter could be also crucified. And they say, hey, listen, man, you can heal people, that's fine. Everybody loves a good healing, but you got to quit. with this Jesus stuff and he says, amen, you choose whatever you think you need to do. But as for us, we can't stop speaking of what we have seen and heard what happened to him. I could tell you what happened to him. He had breakfast with the resurrected Jesus and he was filled with the spirit that when Jesus said, follow me, he said, okay, I don't need a second chance at life. I need a new life. What happened to Peter is this simple.

He admitted it. I can't do this on my own. God, I don't got this. I need help. He admitted it. I'm not just the mistakeer that needs to try harder. I'm a sinner and I need a savior. And Jesus, you are the Christ, the Savior.

And he believed, he believed that when Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected from the grave, that that counted for him. And he confessed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. And that belief in Jesus changed everything. for the rest of his life. So my question for you is this, do you believe? Because in this

very moment, I mean in this very moment, this time and this space and this place, the crazy thing is that Jesus of Nazareth, the second person of the Trinity, the son of God, the resurrected Savior, is looking at each and every one of you

and he is giving you this invitation. Follow me. Follow me. And you say, but you don't know what I've done. Oh, he's going, I know, I know, but maybe you haven't heard of what I've done. And what he did was die on the cross in our place, that all of us are invited. Well, what do I do? Same thing Peter did.

You admit it. I'm a sinner. I need a savior. I believe that when Jesus died on the cross, that counted for me. And right now, I confess, I am no longer the Lord of my life, but you are. And that's how you become a follower of Jesus. and then everything changes forever. And he does not promise that tomorrow gets better circumstantially,

but I can promise you to you this. Everything gets better because he sends the Holy Spirit, the helper, to live in you as a deposit until he takes you home with him forever and ever and ever, amen. So do you believe? Have you ever put your faith in Jesus? Have you ever become a follower of Jesus? I want to give you that opportunity right now.

Would you bow your heads? Would you close your eyes? and if you would say you know what that's me for the very first time i admit it i'm a sinner in need of a savior i believe when jesus died on the cross somehow that counted for me then in this moment you just confess him as your lord you surrender your life to the lordship of jesus christ and if you're doing that in that moment i would ask that you lift your hand hi you would say father here i am i surrender my life to christ i believe when christ died on the cross somehow that counted for me our good and gracious heavenly father god we thank you that you will

we're good. Everything you do towards us is good. And Lord, we thank you that you are so gracious that when we run away from you, when we return to our old lifestyle, when we deny you by our words or by our actions, you chase us down and you pursue us and you don't chastise us, you grace us with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And God, I thank you and I praise you that there is no one, no man, no woman, no student that are too far gone from you. that we could run as hard as we can away from you, but if we would turn around, you were right there face to face with us,

to redeem us, to rescue us, to save us. And God, I thank you, and I praise you. We give you the glory for the men, the women, the students, and even this moment that you were saving. And we pray this, in the good, strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and all God's people said, Amen. Church, would you please stand to your feet as we respond

to the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ? one of the things that we invite us to do is to pray is to pray and what some of us need to do especially some of us have been walking with jesus for a minute some of us need to have a little breakfast with jesus because we're letting our past define us some of us have some things some unconfessed things in our life and so we have a tendency to to fake it and to run to our old lifestyles and our old habits because we think there's comfort there and jesus has chased you down to this minute and says come on bring that to me.

He's going to ask you three times, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? And when you confess those things to him, he's going to remind you that he loves you, that he loves you. And so we're going to pray. We're going to bring our tides and offerings, our first and our best,

as an act of worship, because he first loved us by giving us his best in Jesus Christ, and we're going to sing. We're going to declare all together, like one big prayer all over the city and online, all over the world. We're going to sing out of us. loud and make much of him because he is worth it and that's what worship is. So let's bring,

let's sing, let's pray. Let's respond.