John 21:1-14 Why Do We Keep Looking For Life In Dead Places

Peter had already seen the resurrected Jesus and still defaulted to the old script: “I’m going fishing.” We get it. When shame sticks, when hope feels abstract, when rent is due and relationships are messy, we reach for whatever used to numb the ache. This message from John 21 meets that moment head-on and asks a question that refuses to stay theoretical: why run back to old things when the Creator of the universe is waiting for you?

We talk about what we’re really chasing when we chase everything else. The Bible calls it shalom, not just “calm,” but wholeness, resolution, and a life put back together. We trace how empty nets show up today through overwork, money, approval, sex, substances, scrolling, or the next big win that never lasts. Then we turn to the shoreline where Jesus speaks, guides, provides, and repeats the same grace Peter first experienced in Luke 5, proving that failure doesn’t cancel calling.

The scene ends with something disarmingly personal: breakfast. Jesus builds a fire, shares bread and fish, and invites imperfect friends close. That table becomes a picture of the gospel, Jesus conquering sin and death, knocking at the door, and offering real friendship with God without forcing his way in. If you’ve been running, stuck, or tired of pretending, press play and come sit by the fire with us. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review with one line: where are you fishing for peace right now?

Transcript

Welcome And Scripture Reading

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the City Life Church podcast. We hope it encourages you. If you'd like to learn more about City Life or our mission, connect with us online at CityLifeSandiego.org. And while podcasts and Sunday mornings are helpful, they are no substitute for deeper personal relationships in the church.

Who City Life Church Is

Why We Run Backward

Shalom And The Empty Net

Trust The Voice On Shore

Breakfast, Intimacy, And The Gospel

SPEAKER_01 0:33

I am one of the pastors here with City Life Church. And I love seeing you all today. It's a beautiful day. The first service was already really wonderful, and I'm just glad to be here with you guys. Today we're going to be in John 21. That is John 21. If you don't know where that is in your Bible, there's nothing wrong with looking in the table of contents. If you don't have a really nice Bible, we would love to give you one. You can put your name on it. We have study Bibles, and then we have Bibles available in three languages, actually four languages, on both sides of the room. Tenemos Biblias bilingues disponibles al costada del salon. So our first text today is not the first time that the students that we call disciples, the students of Jesus saw him after his death. Actually, this is the third time that they see him. But somehow, after meeting the resurrected Jesus, he was dead, now he was alive, it still failed to change things for some of them. Like some of you have heard this story again and again, but it's not changed your life either. You still have to eat, you still have things to do, and my prayer for you today is that you'll see yourself today in Peter, okay? Who just needed to hear one more time. I know that that's been some of us. One more time that Jesus was alive, that Jesus forgave him, and that Jesus wanted to use him. Um so I hope you're with me in John 21. Does anyone uh have a Bible today that they're they're reading? All right. I just love to see these bound Bibles. I know many of you are just turning on your phones to look at your Bibles and other things. I got no problem with that, except I just love books. So uh we're in John 21. I would love to read God's word to you. You with me? Let's go. After this, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way Simon, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel from Cana of Galilee, Zebedee's sons, and two others of his disciples were together. Man, I'm going fishing, Simon said to them. We're coming with you, they told him. They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. When daybreak came, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Verse 5, Friends, Jesus called out to them, You don't have any fish, do you? No, they answered. Cast the nets on the right side of the boat, he told them, and you'll have fish. The disciple, the one Jesus loved, said to Peter, It is the Lord. When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tied his outer clothing around him, for he had taken it off, and he plunged into the sea. Now you gotta imagine yourself there. Hey, don't worry, Pete, we know this is important. We'll bring the boat in. Oh, he oh, you're we got the you're jumping in. Oh, there he goes. All right, we'll get we'll get this. Okay, go ahead. Oh, there he is. All right, see you, Peter. Peter was so excited he had to just jump. Verse 8. Since they were not far from land, about a hundred yards away, the other disciples came to the boat, came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish. When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there with fish lying on it and bread. Bring some of the fish you just caught, Jesus told them. So Simon Peter climbed up and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them. Even though there were many, the net was not torn. Come and have breakfast, Jesus told them. None of his disciples dared to ask him, Who are you? Because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread, and gave it to them. He did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. This is God's word. Would you pray with me, Church? Father, I cannot fathom the anxiety we would have if we were left to fend for ourselves on what often feels like a cold, dark, and different planet. If it were not for your son's victory, we would have to come to terms with the hatred, the anger, and the oppression that seem to surround us daily. God, we would have no place to take it, no hope that things could change, no knowledge that anyone above cares. But a few thousand years ago, your son got up. After tackling all of our sin and death, after being whipped and beaten by the people, he came to rescue. Stabbed, impaled, after being spat upon, having his beard torn out, after they mockingly twisted thorns into his head, after all that, he got up. Lord, I know that there are people in this room you have been chasing down. Please show us all today how your love is real. Show it to us through your word and how good your compassion is, that it reaches the sorriest spots of our broken souls. God of grace, do your thing. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing to you. We pray this all in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen. So uh some of you on Easter, we tend to like introduce ourselves just a little bit because sometimes people will visit us on Easter. Uh just to tell you who we are as a church. We are a church that doesn't mind some sense of interruption, whether it be children or whether it be someone who comes off the street. It happens sometimes in here. People will come in a little bit of drunk, um, and we just welcome them until uh they have outstayed their welcome. It's when they start to shout over me. But this is who we are, and we want to be welcoming to everyone wherever they're at. Um, so that's who we are. Uh we also have a vision statement. City Life Church is a diverse family of God, united by Jesus, led by scripture, led by scripture, and empowered by the Holy Spirit to care for the spiritual and tangible needs of the lost and hurting in the underserved community of Mount Hope and beyond. So some of you are here from Mount Hope, some of you are here from beyond. We know that our God loves both of those places. Now we have been changed by Jesus. It doesn't mean we have it figured out though. Um we're always fighting in here, we're always apologizing in here, we are constantly getting it wrong in here, but we are finding Jesus in the middle of all of it. He's growing us and he's changing us to be more like him. And when we run away from Jesus and we go our own way, he pursues us with love. And sometimes, a lot of times, he uses these people as his hands and feet to pursue us. So today I'm gonna be looking at this text and I'm gonna be giving you two heavy questions for when Jesus chases us. Two heavy questions for when Jesus chases us. And also one of the things you'll note, oh, there we go, cool, thank you. Um, the first question is this why run back to old things when the creator of the universe is waiting for you? Why run back to old things when the creator of the universe is waiting for you? See, the angels asked a similar question of some of the followers of Jesus when they were at his tomb, specifically the women. The angel said, Why are you looking for the living among the dead? But guys, I tend to think that we look for life amongst dead things a lot. This is what we do. We look for hope and we look for promise in things that are not alive. Dead things often take from us, but our God is not dead. And he encourages us and he does great things through us and he does great things for us. It's not always easy, as you'll see with Peter. Peter was doing the same thing in verse 3. He said, You can hear it, right? There's a sigh in that text, right? Like there's a I'm going fishing. That's what he said, right? Like, can you hear your own voice in this? Tell me you don't you don't feel this. Like, it's different for all of us. You might say, Man, I'm just gonna go doom scroll right now. I'm gonna go hit the block. I'm gonna hit up my old girlfriend. I'm gonna go work for just a few more hours. And his friends were like, Yeah, we're with you. We're coming with you. They went out and they got into the boat, and that night they didn't catch anything, did they? Sometimes I think Jesus chose Peter, though, for how real he was. Not because Peter was this great dude. Um, if you were here for our study that we did in Peter, you would know. Peter was messed up, and I and I actually like to think that that's why he chose Peter. Jesus had yet to restore Peter, and he would. And so Peter just thought at this point, I'm just out with God. Like, the thing is though, as long as you have breath in your lungs, you are not out with God. He is still pursuing you, still chasing you. Sometimes I think Jesus chose Peter for this moment. Peter screwed up all the time, and God chose him to lead the first iteration of his church. You could have chosen a lot better people than that. But it's so comforting to know because there's so much of us in Peter, isn't there? This ridiculous dude who was used by Jesus in the biggest ways. Even though he tried to find happiness in the wrong things, God pursued him. Peter was trying to fix something, though. He was trying to create something, he was trying to fill the giant God-sized hole in his heart, but he was doing it without God. He was doing it in his own strength. But only Jesus offers true shalom. Now, shalom, this is a Hebrew word. It means peace, soundness, welfare. It's not the absence of war, it is resolution. It is more like a complete peace. Now, in the in the first service, I came over here and I tried this on the piano and it worked out-ish. We're gonna do it again. We'll see how it goes this time. But I'm a musician, um, and when I think about shalom, like music comes to mind because there's this idea of resolution, okay? Now, uh oh, we're on strings today. We'll see what happens. So if you hear shalom, this is what I hear. I hear the beginning. In the beginning, we had a perfect relationship with God, and I I think it kind of sounded more like resolved. Peace giving. I know we like 13th chords in here too, but this is resolved. But then here's what happened: there was this peace, and then sin entered the world. Everything was broken. There was death, there was oppression, there was hatred. Even good things were twisted, beautiful things were twisted. Something about the world felt off. And so uh we got this thing, it's called like a diminished fourth, which is what we'll show you here. Um how does that feel? For some of us, that makes like makes me feel nervous. Or maybe an augmented sixth. It's very clashy, right? This is an absence of shalom. It's an absence of shalom. You can't make shalom. You can't make peace. You can try to contribute to it, but God makes peace. He made it through the cross. He offers shalom to families, to our jobs, uh, to our friendships, and when we belong to him, we can be a part of shalom, his hands and feet. Now, some of you are doing things your own way and you're hoping it will get you where you want to be. Like I get this. If you just work just a little bit harder, maybe if you make just a couple more compromises, maybe if you just keep using substances for just a couple more weeks. Like maybe next month you're gonna get clean, and I get you, but you are fishing for happiness in the wrong place, and all you're gonna get. Now, uh funny story, if you take music history, you'll learn that that was called the devil's tone, actually. It's called a tritone, and uh it was actually thought to be the devil's tone, and people didn't allow it in churches. Um, but we're using it uh for a good reason. Um, friends, when you fish in the wrong places, you will find an absence of shalom. When you go after success, after sports, substances, sex, they cannot satisfy you the way Jesus can. The things that promise you better life are only empty promises, friends. They're empty promises. Um it's it's why when they interview a coach, right after winning the championship game, it used to be he would say, I'm going to Disneyland. You know what he says now? I'm going back to my office and I'm I'm preparing for the next game, for the next season, for the next year. He doesn't even get to enjoy the moment because it's fleeting, it's not satisfying, it's fishing with an empty net. It's why when you have people on their fifth wife, they think, Maybe this, maybe this will fix the hole in my heart. It's why Jeff Bezos is worth$259 billion. And all he can think about, all he can think about is how he can eliminate more jobs with AI so he can just get a couple more billion dollars. That sounds like this to me. It's a bad chord. Friends, if you make it to the top, if you think um you if you get the thing that you want that bad, the thing that you're dreaming about right now, I promise you, it will not fix brokenness. It won't give you joy, it won't give you shalom. Only Jesus can do that. When Jesus punched sin in the mouth, he gave hope to the final, he gave hope the final word. And so I say, stop looking for darkness, uh, stop looking for life in dark places. Did you know I cannot talk while I'm playing piano, apparently? Stop looking for life in dark places, look for shalom. Stop looking for imitation, shalom. See, Jesus stands before you and he offers you true peace. He offers you true hope. How do I know this? Because the Bible tells me so. Let me tell you a couple places. In Isaiah 55, 2, why do you spend silver on what is not food and your wages on what does not satisfy? Listen careful carefully to me and eat what is good, and you will enjoy the choicest of foods. John 15, 5, the one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me, he says. Ecclesiastes 5 10, the one who loves silver is never satisfied with silver. And whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with income. This too is futile. See, friends, Peter ran back to fishing because he was looking for something, anything else to give him that shalom. Anything, maybe something might satisfy his hunger and his extreme guilt, his shame. Maybe going back to his old ways would satisfy or quench his thirst, but it wasn't. In Jeremiah 2, God says, My people have committed a double evil. They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water. But in John 6, Jesus said, I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. But but we're drinking salt water, we're fishing with empty nets. It's not gonna work. Here's the thing with Peter, like us, he had failed, uh he had failed Jesus. He had failed to create Shalom, he had abandoned his God, but God didn't abandon him. Even after Peter ditched his teacher, Jesus followed him to the water's edge. Isn't this so beautiful to you? Jesus is pursuing you, friends, in the room, inviting you deeper into relationship. Maybe you want to dip your toe into faith, keep your options open, but Jesus didn't chase you down so you could treat him like a side chick. He offers you something way better than that. He offers you life, he offers you shalom. He loves you too much to let you eat plastic food when there's real food on the table. Stop chasing that stuff. So if God is running after you, how are you going to respond? And this is our second question. Jesus is chasing you down. Will you trust his voice when he calls you to the shore? Jesus is chasing you down. Will you trust his voice when he calls you to the shore? Verse 5, friends, Jesus called to them, You don't have any fish, do you? Remember, God doesn't ask a question that he doesn't already know. No, they answered, Cast the nets at the right side of the boat, he told them, and you'll find some. So they did. And they were unable to haul it in because of the large number of fish. Now, there is nothing in our text that actually describes this as a miracle. There's nothing that says it explicitly, okay? This was actually a fairly typical thing that happened down on that sea. H. V. Morton once said, It happens very often that the man with the hand net must rely on the advice of someone on the shore, who tells him to cast either to the left or to the right, because in the clear water he can often see a shoal of fish invisible to the man in the water. Jesus was acting as a guide to his fishermen friends, just as people do today. Now, if only for the fact that the man who pointed out the fish on the other side of the boat actually, though, had recently died, that's the miracle to me. Like maybe this was a miracle, but what I do know is the man pointing it out, that was a miracle that he lived, that he that he looked, that he could see out of eyes that had closed, that should be forever. But there are so many things happening here, and if you will permit me to nerd out just a little bit on this text, I would love to. Number one, this is the way Jesus found Peter. Originally. In Luke 5, as the crowd pressed in on Jesus to hear the word, he stood by the lake. He saw two boats on the edge of the lake. The fishermen had left them and were washing uh were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats which belonged to Simon Peter and asked him to put out a little from the land. Then he sat down and was teaching the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Hey man, put out your in deep water and let your nets for catch. Master, Simon replied, Man, we worked all day long, and we caught nothing. Um, but if you say so, I'll let down the nets. When they did this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets began to tear, so they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, Go away from me, because I'm a sinful man, Lord. For he and all those with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so were James and John, Zebedee's sons, who were Simon's partners. Don't be afraid, Jesus told Simon. From now on you'll be catching people. Then they brought the boats to the land, left everything, and followed him. See, when Peter met Jesus originally, it was at the shore. And he knew he was unworthy, and here we are back. Get away from me, holy man. And once again in our text today, Peter knew he was unworthy, right? And both times Jesus was like, I see you, Peter. I see you, man. Let's ride. Like, how how encouraging is that in that moment, knowing you have abandoned him? Peter didn't know what to do anymore. He was just trying to figure it out. His life changed so much that when he met Jesus, he followed him for years. Jesus was preparing him to lead his church. Peter saw the blind, the crippled, the mute healed by Jesus. He saw Jesus cast out demons. He saw Jesus raise people from the dead. And even crazier, Peter saw Jesus resurrected after his death. That's wild. He saw all that. Sure, Jesus gave his life for you, friends, but that's not gonna help pay my rent, though. I'm going fishing. Sure, Jesus established the church, but those people are bananas crazy. They are, and I don't want to deal with them. Some of those people are huge hypocrites. Those people take their faith too far. I'm not interested. But Jesus didn't pass through death and fire just so you could go back to your old way of life. He sees you fishing online for happiness is not working. He sees you looking at the help wanted ads, just hoping that maybe this next job is what will satisfy you. You might be dreaming of another man or woman on the side. Maybe you are looking for happiness in food or maybe an influence. It is an empty pursuit. And yet Jesus still comes alongside us, offers us a better way. He offers us shalom. He offers us true peace. He offers to help us and pull us out, even when we've made bad decisions. I'm not even going to say if we've made bad decisions, I say when we made bad decisions. But I tell you, stop looking in the grave for something. Don't look for life in dark places. Don't look for life in the grave where the worm feasts on careless victims. No, run to Jesus now, and even your taste of sin will slowly grow into a hunger for holiness. But why was Peter fishing anyway? Peter had been Jesus' number one right-hand man. Jesus gave him the name Peter, which means, does anyone remember? Rock, the rock which I will build my church upon. And still at this point, when Jesus was arrested, though, Peter took off. He bounced, he abandoned Jesus. And when people accused him of being a student, a disciple of Jesus, he denied it. Again and again, he denied it. And at one point, a young servant girl comes up to him and she's like, Hey man, you have the same hillbilly accent as Jesus. You must be from Galilee. And he's like, I swear, I don't, and he curses. Like, he's like so embarrassed of Jesus that he curses him. Can you believe that? Can you believe Peter treated Jesus like that? I can. Because I got a lot more of Peter in me than I got Jesus in me. I'm just saying, naturally, I my bent is to. Be more like Peter than Jesus. So here's the thing. I can imagine the other times Jesus had visited everyone after his death. There's two that precede this. Can you imagine where Peter was in the room? Jesus is talking, he's like, mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, man. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he is so ashamed. He is hiding from Jesus. He he doesn't want even Jesus to make eye contact. Have you ever done that? You didn't turn in your homework at school when you were a kid, and the teacher's like, How did everybody do? And you're like, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, that's what Peter was doing. He was ashamed. You think that he was restored yet? No. Jesus came, he showed them his the nails and his the scars and his hands inside, and still Peter was like, Hmm, well, you know, I kind of bet on the wrong horse here, so I'm just gonna like, I'm just gonna take this. I'm gonna take my beating, and I'm gonna stay out. I know that I have lost the blessing of Jesus. It's it's over, it's done. I denied him, I cursed him. So he's looking at his feet, and he knows that when I when I ghosted Jesus, he canceled me. When Jesus needed friends most, Peter was gone. But Jesus, unlike us, he doesn't hold grudges, does he? So many of us don't know how to let go of our hurts, of our pains. So many of us let anger, hurt, and bitterness destroy us from the inside. But that's not the way Jesus is. Now it doesn't just destroy our relationships, does it? It destroys us. We hold on to it and it poisons us. But not Jesus. Jesus wasn't mad. He had come to the shore for friends, people he loved. He came to Peter's place of work and he offered him peace, shalom, forgiveness, restoration, reconciliation. And even though Peter had left his calling and he went back to the same old stuff he was doing before Jesus, God in the flesh, Jesus chased that man down. Chased him down, found him in his failure and his loss. Dude used to be a fisherman, couldn't even catch a fish, and Jesus blessed him. That's how our God works. You want some fish? Here you go. You want some bread? Sure. But Peter, I've got something way better for you. You'll eat those fish and get hungry again. But Jesus is the bread of life. Some people in the room have been doing their own thing, and Jesus has been chasing you down. He's not chasing you like in a scary movie. He's not like Michael Myers or Jason or something like that, but he's chasing you in a way that a loving parent would chase you. And some of you are grandparents and he's chasing you down. Like a loving dad who wants to make sure his kid is safe. The way I will fight anyone who wants to hurt my kids, the way a loving parent will starve so their child can eat. He might even bless you by his common grace that when you pursue the things that you think are more important, he still might bless you. For Peter, that meant, hey, here's some fish, man. Take it. Now in verse 7, the disciple, the one Jesus loves, said to Peter, which we gotta stop. John wrote this about himself. Give me a break, John. Okay, sorry. He said, It is the Lord. And you know in that moment, Peter had one of those flashbacks in the movie where it like zooms in on your eyeball and it takes you back to like when you were fishing and then Jesus came to you. That's what I told you. Do you see it? You go, like zooms in, and all of a sudden you're there, and Jesus is meeting him for the first time again. He's remembering all those things that Jesus did, and his heart is just starting to gush, overflow with love for Jesus. He shook. Here's what happens. When Simon Peter heard it was the Lord, he tied his outer clothing around him, dove into the sea. Since they were not far from land, about a football field away, the other disciples brought the boat, dragging the net full of fish. Don't worry, we got it, Peter. When some of the fish you've just caught, uh bring some of the fish you've just caught, Jesus told them. So Simon Peter climbed up, hauled the net ashore full of large fish, 153 of them. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn. Come have breakfast, Jesus said. See, God provided again. Now I've read several scholars who believe the 153 have a meaning. Now here's what I want to say: be real careful with people who are like banking everything on numbers. Just be careful with that, because it can go like in a real weird place real fast. But this is what it is believed that there were 153 types of fish in that lake. And Jesus was showing, we would say, now, once again, I'm stepping away a little bit from the Bible here and say, we would say Jesus was showing go to all nations. Come back to the Bible. I can't prove it. But what we can see is that Jesus was even willing to provide his friends some sweet fish tacos when they were hungry. Even when they had betrayed him. When Peter ran away, Jesus went to him. Jesus provided for him, Jesus even fed him. For some of you, Jesus has been chasing you your whole dang life. But you have to respond. And I'm not talking, whatever, I guess I'm okay with Jesus. That's not a response to Jesus. No, no, you dive into icy cold water, give him your life, and you will experience true shalom. No pinky toe. Because when Jesus punched the devil in the mouth, he gave hope the final word. Run to Jesus now, watch your taste for sin slowly grow into a hunger for holiness. So there is Jesus, a man who was supposed to be dead, eating with his disciples, his padwans, his apprentices, his students. Now, early Christian scholar Jerome of Stridon, also known as Saint Jerome, he said that Jesus ate with his students so, quote, he might confirm the doubting apostles who did not dare approach him because they saw not a body but a spirit, unquote. See, I can he if if you can hear Jesus munching on fish in front of you, like he's probably not a ghost, right? But I feel that eating especially illustrates the closeness of God here. Like eating with someone is a critical part of Jewish culture. You know this? Like it was an expected act of, it was an act of hospitality. But even though Jesus was the visitor, he prepared the fire, he provided the fish, he brought the bread, and he invited them to eat with him. He was hosting them on their home turf. Like he's in like the break room and he's got a meal cook for you. This is an intimate act that Jesus did. Now, have you ever tried to eat like a bony fish over a fire? Like there's no way that was clean. Like somebody's gonna make like a choking noise at some point, oh, got a fish, uh, just like a little bit of a fish, you know, like uh bone in his mouth. Like it's not a clean act. It's oily, it's messy, it's dirty. It's intimate. God of the universe is like got food on his face. Like if I eat barbecue ribs with you, I must really like you. Because that's an intimate act for me. Because uh it's a little, it gets a little nasty, all right? But in that intimate moment, God showed he was there for his imperfect friends, and in the same way, he is there for us. And he loves us and he wants true relationship with us. Now here's the beautiful thing. In Revelation 3, we're talking now at the end of our Bible, Jesus revealed his desire to eat with his loved ones, but only if they let him. Look, he said, I stand at the door and I knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal together as friends. See, he doesn't force himself into our life. He waits outside the door. He stands at the edge of the shore, he invites us into relationship. And for some of you, he invites you now. And I question, will you respond now? We respond to the good news. This good news that we celebrate is a churchy word called the gospel. It is a beautiful word. It is good news that Jesus saw the chasm between us and God. He saw the break between us and God caused by our own sin, caused by our own brokenness. And rather than saying, well, you got yourself into this, why don't you get yourself out of it? Instead, he made a way for us to have true relationship. He made a way for us to have true friendship with God. He made a way for us to be adopted into the family of God. It said that we were enemies with God and we have been made family with God. Can you not find that so beautiful? Here is Peter, clearly an enemy at this point. And Jesus is like, hey man, come on, let's eat.

unknown 30:19

What?

SPEAKER_01 30:20

And for those of you who are in the room and you're like, Well, I've just failed God so many times. How many times will he forgive me? Yeah, he will. He's ready. Come back to him right now. He's at the shore waiting, calling for you. The beautiful thing is that we know it works because when Jesus rose again on the third day, he showed that he was bigger than sin and death. He showed that he had conquered the devil, conquered sin, conquered death. One person said that he defanged death. So good. That is the beauty of the gospel. But it doesn't just stop there. He gives us his spirit, his spirit who works in us, and we can be a part of the healing, the shalom of this world. He uses our hands and feet to heal the world. Doesn't end with coming to faith in Jesus. We get baptized and then we get trained up to care for others. We tell the world we belong to Jesus. We seek to follow him in every way. We seek justice, we seek compassion, he restores our relationships, he leads us to apologize when we don't have to. He transforms us into a totally new person. The old person dies, the new person through Jesus begins a new life. Not an easy life. It might look harder at first, but with Jesus, even our sorrow can be couched in joy. So City Life Church, when Jesus rose from the grave, he punched sin in the mouth. He punched the devil in the mouth. He broke the jaw of death. And he gave hope the final word. Many of us have been doing our own thing for far too long. Far too long. But I ask you to stop looking for life in dark places where the worm feasts on careless victims, and the smell of death overpowers. Run to Jesus now and watch your taste for sin slowly grow into a hunger for his holiness, a hunger for his righteousness. Let us pray.