This summer, we have been going through and preaching through the Gospel According to John.
I hope that you have felt encouraged, that you've learned a thing or two along the way,
but mostly I hope that you're getting a good picture of who Jesus is.
John is trying to help us believe in Jesus. That's what I said at the very beginning of this series.
He's trying to help us believe in this guy named Jesus to see who he is, to see what he's like,
so that we know why we should follow him. So if you've missed any of those messages,
feel free you can download the podcast from any of your podcasts that you use.
And if you want to see the songs as well and sing along, then you can go to Facebook and YouTube,
to our pages on there and the entire service is there.
But now I think that we should open up our Bibles and jump right into the scriptures.
If you don't have a Bible, there's blue Bibles on the tables,
or you can download a Bible from any of the digital app stores.
I'm going to ask you to open the John chapter 18. It goes, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans.
So if you see any of those, you know you're in the right neighborhood.
And again, if you don't have a Bible, you can take one of those home if you want,
or there's some out in the lobby, feel free to take one home with you.
I'm actually going to read a bunch of passages. I'm going to start in Matthew 10, then John 13,
and then I'm going to meet you in John 18, verse 16, and then we'll end in John 21.
We have a tradition when reading the scriptures at this part of the service
of standing together as we are able just to give the scriptures our full attention.
And so if you would like to, you can join me now as I read the scriptures.
I'm going to start with Matthew 10, 32. It says this,
Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.
But whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
John 13, verse 37. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now?
I will lay down my life for you. Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me?
Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.
Now, John 18, 16, this is just after Jesus is arrested.
But Peter was standing outside of the gates. So the other disciple who was known to the high priest went out,
spoke to the woman who was guarding the gate and brought Peter in.
This is to the place that Jesus was on trial.
Verse 17, the woman said to Peter, you are not also one of this man's disciples, are you?
He said, I am not. Jump to verse 25. Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself.
They asked him, you are not also one of this disciples, one of his disciples, are you?
He denied it and said, I am not.
One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked him,
did I not see you in the garden with him? Again, Peter denied it.
And at that moment, the cock crowed. And then John 21, starting in verse 15, says this.
When they, and this is after Jesus's resurrection, when they had finished breakfast,
Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?
He said to him, yes Lord, you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my lambs.
Second time he said to Simon, son of John, do you love me?
He said to him, yes Lord, you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, tend to my sheep.
He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
Peter felt hurt because he said to him a third time, do you love me?
And he said to him, Lord, you know everything.
You know that I love you. Jesus said, feed my sheep. Let us pray.
God of every tribe, every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank you for the scriptures.
We thank you that they have persisted throughout the millennia, that we still have them to read
and to consider and to learn from. We pray that whatever you have for us to learn today,
I pray that it would stick, that it would become a part of the framework of our faith,
that our faith would become stronger as we've become more like your son Jesus. Amen? Amen.
Can I have a seat? Thanks, y'all.
I want to draw our attention to three things. The impulsive, the protective, and the restorative.
In a lot of ways, many of us, this is our story. We've lived out this same story arc many times.
The impulsive, the protective, the restorative. We met Jesus, made some spiritually impulsive promises,
denied Him in any number of ways to protect ourselves, and then we got to see that He
restores us with His love. Some of us, when we met Jesus, we said, I will do anything for you.
I'll read my Bible. I will pray every day. I will volunteer at church. I will serve my city. I will
tell people about you. I will be nice to that neighbor. Okay, I'll be nice to all my neighbors.
I'll end that negative relationship. I'll start this positive relationship. I'll
quit my job and work for you. I will move across the country for you. I'll move across the world
for you. I'll give you my time, my energy, my money, everything I have, everything I am.
It's yours. Nothing will ever change that. Some of us are there right now in that phase, in that part,
that part of the arc of this story is probably my favorite place to see people.
Because they're excited. They're ready. Now, I have no idea how old Peter actually was. The Bible
doesn't often say how old someone actually was. The best biblical conclusions that we have put him
somewhere in his twenties. And for me, that feels pretty close, because I remember when I was a
kid, and for me that feels pretty close, because I remember some of the big decisions that I made in
my twenties. My early twenties, right as I finished college, I moved to Tennessee for an internship.
Didn't think twice about leaving. Everyone that I knew, didn't know a single person where I was
moving. I just went. After I moved back to Illinois and got married, Cindy and I, we sold the home that
we purchased the previous year, so that we could move into the basement of the pastor that we love,
to work at the church that he worked at. So that I could be a volunteer worship arts pastor.
Even after we had our first kid, we picked up, we moved to Colorado for a job. Nope. For a year
of worship leader training. Then, Cindy pregnant with our second child, we moved to Georgia
to help plant a church in a tiny little town, 45 minutes outside of Atlanta, in a place again,
where we knew zero people. Just barely into my thirties, we left Georgia and moved back to
Colorado. Again, with a job? Nope. Just believing that it was going to work out. Just believing
that God was going to make things work. At 35, now with three kids and a fourth on the way,
we moved back here to Illinois to plant this church with no guarantees.
I can relate to Peter's impulsive spiritual promises.
I always thought of faith like gravity.
It was just there. I didn't know exactly how it worked. I just knew that it existed.
And I believed that there was nothing that I could do to turn it off.
I just knew that it worked. Like gravity, it was this invisible force that was grounding me.
It was holding me. It was drawing me even to God, empowering me to jump as high as I could,
as far as I could, with no concern whatsoever for the landing. I just knew that my feet would land
safely on the ground. Maybe you can relate with some of that. Maybe that's exactly how you feel
right now, and I love that for you.
Maybe that's how you used to feel, and you miss it.
Maybe you feel deep pain about not being there anymore.
Because life throws everything it can at us to affect our faith, doesn't it?
We lose a job. A family member dies. A close friend betrays us. We experience a major illness.
The most important relationship in your life ends. The weight of racism, sexism,
and violent systems just become too much.
Where we felt grounded, now we feel the earth shake under our feet.
Suddenly we go weightless. Our stomach turns. You know that feeling? When you're young,
you love that feeling. You know, my dad used to have, I wouldn't even want to waste a red car,
was it a two-door? And there was a back way to get to our house. You'd be on the Avenue of the
Cities, and right before you'd get to Wharton Field House, you'd turn left, and you'd see a
two-door back way to Wharton Field House. You'd turn right into this neighborhood, and there was
this hill that if you drove fast over the top of it, your stomach would go up. And sometimes we'd
do that, and sometimes he'd sit at the top, and then he would just like let the car get going as
fast as it would go, and we would go around this windy road. That feeling of like, as soon as it's
over, you're going to be fine when you're young. When you're old, you start going, I'm just going to
tap the brakes. I think I'm going to avoid that. And then when it, especially when it happens on
accident, and you didn't know it was going to happen, life happens to us, and suddenly we don't
know when or if our feet will hit the ground again. And if they do, we're not so sure that it will be
a safe landing this time. The impulsive promises of our young faith can start feeling foolish,
overly dramatic, and even dangerous. Peter, Peter, he always seems to be doing something that
required faith and kind of felt dangerous. Peter's the one that steps out of the boat to walk on
water. Peter's the one that pulls a sword to try to defend Jesus in the garden.
So it feels very in character for Peter when he proclaims, I will never deny you.
I will lay down my life for you, he says. But then when the moment came, what we know is that he
caved. He shifted from impulsive promises to protective repudiations. They say to him,
aren't you one of his disciples? Didn't I see you? He says, nope, I am not.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke actually have Peter saying more. He doesn't just say, I am not. He says,
man, I am not. Woman, I do not know him. Man, I do not know what you are talking about.
He doesn't just deny, he repudiates. Repudiates meaning to deny association with.
Repudiates meaning to deny association with.
He does what Matthew 10 says you cannot do. He denied Jesus before others.
Now for most of us, repudiation is probably too strong a word to describe what we feel,
or what we might actually do sometimes. It's probably less denial, outright, and more selective
association. But what do I mean by that? I am talking about the space where we used to announce
that we were Christians, but maybe now we step more lightly and quietly. Or that space where we
used to invite people to church, but maybe now we wait for them to ask first. Or the space where we
couldn't wait to tell someone about Jesus, about what we had experienced or learned about God that
day, and now maybe we hope it doesn't come up. Something about life affects our faith, impacts
how we share that faith. Maybe like Peter, we picked up a sword to defend Jesus, but then Jesus
told us to put that sword away, and we thought, without my sword, who am I?
This is what I do, Jesus. I act impulsively, and you just told me not to do that. I don't even know
what to do with myself now. How do I follow Jesus when he tells me to put away the one thing that
I'm good at? And then the next thing we know, while we're still trying to figure that out,
we're being asked, are you one of this man's disciples?
And we're not sure what to say. Now I'm not going to say that a Christian has to speak up in every
situation, right? James, the brother of Jesus, he said, he wrote, we should be slow to speak,
we should be quick to listen. St. Francis, Assisi is quoted as saying, preach the gospel at all times,
and when necessary, use words. We don't always need to be saying some things, but we need to be
quick to speak, to use words. We don't always need to be saying something. Listen to this scripture.
Honor Christ and let him be the Lord of your life. Always be ready to give an answer when someone
asks you about your hope. Give a kind and respectful answer and keep your conscience clear.
Guys know who said that?
I gave you two guesses and the first one didn't count.
Peter. Oh, that's a great guess. Peter said it.
Peter said that. Peter wrote that.
Years and years after his impulsive promises, after his protective repudiations and denials,
Peter was able to speak of the hope he had and encourage us to be ready to speak,
even if the world has been shaking all around us.
And he can say that because when he denied Jesus, Jesus did not deny him.
See, Peter's story didn't end with his denial, did it?
It continued because of the love of Jesus.
I think that this is something every one of us needs to hear about our stories, wherever you are in your story.
If Peter denied Jesus, and Jesus offered him loving restoration,
it is safe to say that Jesus will restore you too.
Amen?
Maybe I'm not even talking to someone in this room. Maybe I'm talking to someone that's watching online right now.
Maybe I'm talking to someone that's going to listen to this ten years after it was recorded.
But I hope that you hear that.
Jesus loves you enough to restore you, even if you have denied him.
You had some radical faith, you made some impulsive promises, and then you broke some commitments.
Maybe after you broke those commitments, maybe you even stumbled across Matthew 10, 33,
and now you've convinced yourself because you denied the Lord that you are forever denied.
But listen, Jesus will look at you.
Jesus will ask you, Peter, do you love me?
He will restore you with love.
He will restore you like nothing ever happened.
So what do we do with that, right?
How do we practice this or participate with this?
Well, quickly, I think that first you have to think about where you are in that story.
If you're in that first phase where you're making impulsive promises, chances are you probably don't even know it.
But I hope you enjoy it. I really do.
And honestly, I hope that you never leave that space.
Because it's exciting. Because it's beautiful.
Because it is probably where Jesus said that we should come to him with childlike faith.
It is the children that run towards the stairs not knowing there's any danger.
Believing that the guardian will protect.
And just because your promises look impulsive doesn't mean that they are wrong.
Listen, just because your promises to God look impulsive to someone else does not mean they are wrong.
Sometimes people see what you are going through through the eyes of their own disappointments.
Instead of the eyes of Jesus.
If you're in that middle phase, this protective association, you might know it, but maybe you don't.
So ask yourself, have I dialed it back? Have I dialed it back too much?
Did I realize that I was being a little impulsive and then I turned it all the way down?
Was I in spinal tap and my amp was all the way to 11 and now it's at 1?
Ask yourself, when was the last time that you talked about Jesus with someone that wasn't in this church?
When was the last time you talked about Jesus with someone that you didn't know already went to a church?
When was the last time you invited someone to a church? Not even just this one.
But like, hey, you should go back to that church you were part of.
Last week, Scott mentioned that someone texted him and said, hey, I'm praying for you.
When was the last time that someone popped into your head and you assumed that it was because God brought them to mind?
And you prayed for them and then texted them to let them know, hey, you just popped into my head and so I prayed for you.
Because maybe that person that popped into your head is in the middle of this phase.
Where they're feeling discouraged, where they have dialed it all the way down.
Because they're embarrassed by some of the impulsive promises that they made and you texting them that you are praying for them.
They popped into your head and you took the time.
Maybe that could help their feet touch down more safely.
Yeah?
And last, for everyone that has felt the gift of loving restoration, your job now is to restore others.
For everyone that has gone through the cycle, even if you've gone through it three times,
once you get to the place where you have looked into the eyes of Jesus and he has said, do you love me? And you say, yes.
You know that I love you.
His answer to Peter is the same answer to us, which is, okay, well now give that to someone else.
Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, care for my flock.
Turn out from yourself and give this love that I am giving to you to someone else.
Because it is not only for us.
What Jesus gave to Peter was not only for Peter.
What he gives us is not only for us.
It's for everyone.
Because no one should be left out.
It's for everyone.
Because no one should be left out.
It is for everyone.
No one should be left out.
Amen? Let's pray.
Jesus, we thank you for the work you did on the cross and we thank you that after your resurrection that you
restored those that had denied you.
You told them every one of you will scatter.
And then you welcomed them back in.
We pray that every single one of us would have the feeling today that we cannot get away from your love.
Because you will always restore us.
Amen.