Follow Me - Easter 2026, Pastor John Mozingo

Follow Me is a sermon series from Family Church that walks through the life of Peter, one of Jesus’ closest disciples. His bold steps, honest struggles, and growing faith show what it means to follow Jesus with a willing heart. Each episode highlights key moments from Peter’s journey and invites us to learn how Jesus shapes ordinary people into faithful followers. Join us as we discover how Peter’s story challenges and inspires us to follow Christ every day.

Thank you so much for listening to Family Church's Sermon of the Week! If you would like to learn more about Family Church, please visit our website myfamilychurch.com or follow us on Facebook or Instagram at @myfamilychurchVA.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Family Church's Sermon of the Week. We're so glad you're here. Each week, we share a message from God's word to encourage your heart, strengthen your faith, and help you grow in your womb. Jesus. We hope this blesses you and draws you closer to the public.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Alright. Thank you guys again so much for being here. Let me ask you a question. How many baseball fans do we have in the room? Baseball fans, let me hear it. Let me hear it. Kind of kind of half-hearted fans. It doesn't sound like you're really into it. But how many, how many of you kids are playing little league baseball right now? Anybody playing little league baseball? The better half of my childhood in the spring was spent playing little league baseball. And and I was terrible at it. The ball rarely goes to right field anyway. And so when you get up to bat, everybody's watching and everybody knows how bad you are. And so, man, every time I'd get up there and I'd I'd whiff, and you know, but and the coaches, all those years, the coaches would always say, Johnny Moe, they all called me Johnny Moe. Every one of them, Johnny Moe, keep your eye on the ball. And I didn't know what they meant by that. You know, I thought it was like a metaphor for doing your best or something. You know, I grew up, I went to church more than I ever went on the ball field. So every sports talk I ever heard was an analogy or metaphor for something spiritual. So when they're saying, keep your eye on the ball, I thought, you know, man, you know what, right here, I am keeping my eye on the ball, man, but I'm not hitting the ball. So the last year that I played, the last year that I played, about halfway through the season, I'm up at bat, and like always, I take a couple swings and whiff, got two strikes on me. And my coach, Mr. Clemens, he was my favorite coach, he he waves to the umpire and he walks out and he and he gets down on one knee and he looks at me in the eye and he goes, Johnny Moe, I want you to look at the ball, watch the ball from the second it leaves the pitcher's hand until the second it leaves, it hits your bat. And I'm like, Oh, keep your eye on the ball. I get it now. Now I get it. All those years I'd heard keep your eye on the ball. I didn't know what they meant. Now I know what it means. And this this is like too good to be true. Sounds like the end of a movie or something. I did exactly what he said, and I watched that pitch all the way from the pitcher's hand to my bat, and I hit the only home run of my career that day. You know? You know, it didn't make me a better batter after that. I still got up and struck out every time. But man, that day I kept my eye on the ball and I got a home run. I got it. After years of hearing, keep your eye on the ball, keep your eye on the ball. Finally, I got it. And let's be honest, I am probably not gonna say much today that you don't already know. You have heard the Easter story. And I and I even hate to call it a story because it is historical fact. And you've heard it over and over again. If you grew up going to church, you heard it all the time. If if you grew up and you just went to church at Christmas and Easter, you heard it, you heard it every year, Easter Sunday. You've seen the movies, you've watched the TV shows, you know how this ends. You know how it ends. But today, I want to challenge you when you walk out of here, you say, I know it and I get it. I've heard it my whole life, but today I get it. If you've never gotten it before, today needs to be the day that you get it. The apostle Peter. Peter traveled with Jesus for three years. He was the first disciple that Jesus chose. So he spent more time with Jesus than any of the other disciples. First one that he chose. And he traveled with Jesus for three years. He saw the miracles, he saw him raise people from the dead, he saw him walked on water. Peter walked on water with Jesus. But Peter didn't get it. Peter didn't get it. And multiple times throughout those three years, Jesus told him, This is what's going to happen. This is what's going to happen. Mark chapter 8, verse 31. It says that then Jesus began to tell them, the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of the religious law, and he would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. And Peter looked at him and said, I will never let that happen. I'm never going to let him hurt you. And Jesus looked at Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan. Then in Mark 9, verse 31 and 32, it says, The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later he will rise from the dead. And it says the disciples didn't understand what Jesus was saying. However, they were, and they were afraid to ask what he meant. Then again, Matthew chapter 20, Jesus tells them again with more detail. And then a fourth time at the Passover, Jesus said, For the Son of Man must die as the scriptures declared long ago. And every time Jesus talked about that, Peter had another answer. I'll never let this happen. I'll die for you. I'll fight for you. This isn't going to happen. Peter didn't get it. And then all at once, all the things that Jesus prophesied started coming true. All the things Jesus told him about the last few days of his life all started happening. Judas betrayed Jesus just like Jesus said he would. You know, when they when they came to arrest Jesus, when they came to arrest him, Peter drew his sword and he took a swipe at the servant of the chief priest. The servant ducked, and Peter cut his ear off. Jesus walked over and picked up the ear and put it up to the man's head and healed him, reattached his ear. And then he looked at Peter and he said, You don't get it. He said, Don't you understand that I have to take this cup of suffering? Don't you get it? This has to happen to Peter. It has to happen. And then Jesus was taken to the High Council. They mocked him. They falsely accused him. The High Council said, Let's take him to the chief priest. They took him to the chief priest. The chief priest said, Take him to Herod. Herod said, Take him to Pilate. None of them found any reason to convict him. And then somebody had a great idea. And they said, Let's let the angry mob decide what happens to Jesus. So they took him out and they stood him before the mob. And Pilate said, Is this your king? And the Jewish leaders of the day who would preach and say, Our only king is God. We serve no other God. We'll have no other gods before him. They shouted, spread out throughout that crowd, they shouted, We have no king but Caesar. And as they shouted that, the mob in mob fashion, the mob started repeating what was being said. And soon the mob was shouting, We have no king but Caesar. No king but Caesar. And then Pilate said, Okay, who do you want me to, who do you want me to release, Barabbas or Jesus? And the religious leader shouted, Give us Barabbas, and the whole mob shouted, Give us Barabbas. They said, What do you want me to do with Jesus? And they shouted, Crucify Him, crucify him, crucify him. That's exactly what they did. Meanwhile, Peter is hiding. You know, he was at the he was at the chief priest's house while a lot of this was going on. It said they started a fire, and Peter tried to try to stay, you know, stay there unnoticed within the crowd, and and probably had a you know his cloak over his head so people wouldn't see him, and he was warming himself by the fire like everyone else. And three times people walked up and said, Aren't aren't you one of his disciples? Every time Peter said, No, I don't know him. Denied him three times. When when Jesus was crucified, when he was put on the cross, Peter was not there. Peter wasn't there. John was there, but Peter was not there. And they crucified him. And all the prophecies from from hundreds of years before started playing out with astounding accuracy. Those prophecies played out. The prophecy said that that he would be put on trial, even though he was innocent. The prophet said that that uh he would be whipped and beaten. The prophet said that he would be nailed to a cross. The prophet said that the sky would darken while he was dying. For three hours the sky went dark. And the prophet said that he would rise again. And he did. But when Jesus was crucified, Peter was nowhere to be found. When they took him off the cross, Peter wasn't there. But look what happens in John chapter 20, verse 1. It says, early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled from the entrance. Now, that statement alone tells you that this is not a made-up story. Because in that day, a woman's place was not to be the eyewitness to anything. They were not allowed to testify in court. They were not considered to be citizens of Rome or citizens of Israel. So to say that a woman was your most credible eyewitness, nobody would write that back then unless it were true. So that tells me that this isn't, this isn't good fiction, believable fiction. This really happened because nobody would have written that back then if they wanted to write believable fiction. And it goes on, it says, She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciples, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, and we don't know where they put him. Had Peter really believed at that moment, he would have jumped and said, He did it. He did it. And it says, Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He stopped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings wrappings lying there while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings. Teenage boys, let me just point something out right here. First thing Jesus did when he got when he rose from the dead was make his bed.

unknown 11:29

Okay?

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Teenage boys, you want to be like Jesus, you want to grow up and be like Jesus? Start by making your bed in the morning. You do that, you've been obedient and responsible. Not a bad way to start the day. You want to be like Jesus, make your bed. Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in. And he saw and believed. For the first time, or excuse me, for until then, they still hadn't understood the scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead. Until that moment. That was the moment that Peter got it. That was the moment he got it. If the body had been stolen, things would have been very different. It would have looked like a crime scene. You know? And there would have been people there trying to trap his disciples as they came back to arrest them had the body been stolen, or had the Roman officials moved the body. And and thieves, you know, if the body had been stolen, thieves don't take the time to make the bed. You know, they wouldn't have folded that stuff up. All of that just says, this is real. All of it says this is real. Peter got it. It really happened. Jesus rose from the dead just like he said he would. All the conversations they had, all the scripture they read together at that moment made sense to Peter, and he got it. And today we're not celebrating just another religious holiday. This isn't just another day that we celebrate. We are celebrating the most important moment, the most important second that ever happened. And it was that second that the lungs of a man who had been dead for three days were suddenly filled with air again. And he sat up. He got off that bed, folded the grave clothes, and he walked out alive. That's what we're celebrating. That's what we're celebrating. And it really, it really happened. And Peter finally got it. Years later, Peter wrote two letters that are now in the New Testament, first and second Peter. He wrote those. And in those letters, you can see, man, Peter got it. You know, and you would think, you know, you write two letters that are going to get included in the scripture. You know, he's going to put a lot of stuff in there. He only talked about two things that happened while he was with Jesus, you know, all the all the miracles he saw. He walked on the water with Jesus. He saw all these things happen. He's, you know, the only two things he mentions are the transfiguration, where he got to see Jesus in his glorified form for just a moment. He got to see that. He mentions that in one verse. The rest of the two letters, every chapter, he mentions the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He got it. He got it. And here's three things that Peter understood, that we know he understood because he wrote it. We know that he understood that today I want you to walk out of here and say, now I get it. I understand. Now I get it. Okay? The first thing the resurrection really happened. It really happened. Jesus died, literally died, was dead for three days, and then came back to life. After that, he walked on the earth for 50 days. He had 500 eyewitnesses to it, to him walking after he was crucified, after he rose again. There are historical documents from the day that would confirm that it happened. It really happened. Here's what Peter said in 1 Peter 1:3. He said, All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. It really happened. Peter said, I was an eyewitness to it. I saw it. I walked with him. I talked with him. I listened to him teach. After he rose from the dead, I was an eyewitness to that. It really happened. The next thing, because of the crucifixion and the resurrection, Jesus paid the price for your sin. Romans 6 23 says, the wages of sin is death. What you earn for your sin, you earn spiritual death. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Listen to this verse. Peter wrote this in 1 Peter 1, 18 through 20. For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was paid with the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began. But now, in these last days, he has been revealed for your sake.

unknown 16:27

Okay?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

That tells me two things. It tells me that a ransom was paid for us, and it tells me that there is an empty life that can be lived. And a life apart from Jesus is an empty life. A ransom was paid for us. Jesus shed his blood on the cross so that we can have eternal life. Shed his blood on the cross so that we can have eternal life. Hebrews says, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. You can't have forgiveness of sin apart from Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. A ransom was paid for you because you are a captive to sin. If somebody's asking for a ransom, it's because you're being held captive. You're being held captive. Here's what John says. I tell you the truth. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. He's a slave to sin. You're held captive by sin and unbelief, and Jesus came to set the captives free. Look what he says in verse 36. So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. You are free indeed. Only by Jesus, though. And secondly, that tells me that a life without Jesus is an empty life. An empty life. My dad used to collect bottles. You know, it used to be cool, I think, back in the 70s, to go collect old bottles. This is one of them right here. This is an old White House vinegar bottle. You know, they still, the White House is still a brand of vinegar. This is from before the depression. My dad, he could, he would go find these dumps of, you know, people's trash piles and stuff and dig through, dig for these bottles. He could look at the markings on the bottle and pretty much tell you when it was made, where it was made, all those things. And so this was made before the depression, so it's probably about a hundred years old. And just I'm gonna drop it. I just know that's gonna happen. As I'm saying, I'm gonna drop it. But uh it's probably about a hundred years old. And my my bait the basement in our house growing up was just shelves everywhere with bottles on it. Old, beautiful bottles, all these different colors and things. And and at one time, that collection was worth thousands of dollars. Thousands of dollars. And so when my dad passed away, I got all the bottles. It was like six crates of bottles, and and I didn't know what to do with them. I kind of, you know, I didn't want to put all those bottles on display, but I knew they had some value. So for about 10 years, I moved them around my garage and you know, tried to find a place for them. After a while, I'm like, look, I don't want, I don't want the bottles. My siblings don't want the bottles. So I thought I'll just sell them and I'll split the money between my sister and my two brothers. And uh so I called, you know, somebody who deals in this kind of stuff, you know, antique dealers and bottled bottle people and and even junk dealers, and I got the same answer from everybody. They said, you know, 30 years ago, they would have been worth something. But everybody that collected those bottles 30, 40 years ago, they're all dying now. So now the market is flooding with bottles. There are bottles everywhere. You go into an antique store, there's gonna be one corner, it's all bottles. And he said, So basically, your dad's collection is worthless. You know, it's worthless. So the one thing that my dad worked for so put so much time and energy into, you know. I mean, I mean, he just loved finding these old things. He'd come home and go, come here, look at this, look at this. He'd be watching them off. Look at it. This is this means that, you know, he'd show us what all these bottles were, you know. It meant so much to him, but now it's worthless. My dad built the house that I grew up in. He built it by with his own hands. And uh in about 25 years ago, they sold the neighborhood to a or a developer went in and bought up the neighborhood and tore all the houses down. This is about all that's left. Here's one brick from the house, and here's the the numbers from our front front door. 4507 Legato Road, Fairfax, Virginia. If you go there now, it's nothing but condos. What my dad worked so hard to build in his lifetime is gone. Everything about this life is empty without Jesus because it's all temporary. All of it is temporary. Anything you're working for now, anything you're putting all your time and effort into now, one day is gonna be a pile of bricks or a memory on somebody's shelf, if even that. You know, the designer clothes that you're working so hard to buy and spend time, you know, and you just want to look your best or something, you know what? One day, somebody's gonna haul all that off to a goodwill, and some homeless guy is gonna stand on the side of the road wearing your Gucci's. You know, because everything this life has to offer is empty and meaningless apart from a relationship with Jesus. The next thing that Peter learned through the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus gives eternal life. He gives eternal life. Look what he says. 1 Peter 3:18. Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He died on the cross so that you can go to heaven. You can have a home in heaven with Jesus. And you know, if you know, we know the resurrection is a historical fact, and Jesus is who he said he is. He couldn't be who he said he was if he didn't, if he wasn't resurrected. He'd be a liar if he if he didn't rise from the dead, Jesus just would have been another crazy liar. But it happened. He rose from the dead. So if you can trust that, then you can trust what Jesus says about heaven. And here's what he said Don't let your hearts be troubled, trust in God and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my father's home. If this weren't, if this were not so, what I have told you. That I'm going to prepare a place for you? He said, I'm going because I want you to be there with me. Then a few verses later, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. There is no other way to heaven. He is not one of many paths. He is the path. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the only way. And here's the hard part. This is hard to talk about. I almost thought, man, should I say this? But it's hard to listen to if what he said about heaven is true, then what he said about hell is true also. And I know, you know, today, in this day, it's kind of the popular thing to think that hell is just an allegory or that, you know, hell is a just a nihilistic existence apart from God. You know, that would be wonderful if that's all hell was. But here's what Jesus said hell is. He says, Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. Then in that's Matthew 25, 41, then in verse 46, he says, and they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life. What he says about heaven is just as true as what he says about hell. And it's real. You know, and you might be thinking, man, that's that's kind of harsh for Easter Sunday. You know, we're going to an Easter egg hunt in a few minutes for crying out loud. I got that. I get that. But you know, the way I look at it is, especially, you know, some of you, this is the this is the closest thing to a conversation I'm gonna have with you all year. And if I know how to tell you this is how you have eternal life, this is how you avoid hell, if I know that and don't say it the one chance that I have, what kind of a jerk am I? You know? How horrible am I not to tell you that Jesus died on the cross so that you can spend eternity in heaven and so that you don't have to spend eternity in hell. That would be like being on a sinking ship and not telling you where the life, uh, the life um preservers are and the lifeboats. It is real. And I want you to walk out of here and get it. All of this is real. You know, the the Bible, the Bible will help you to live a better life, it'll help you to have peace, it'll help you to do all those things that maybe you're looking for. But it's about what Jesus did on the cross. From page one to the end of the book, it's all about Jesus and the fact that he died on the cross, was buried, and he rose again on the third day so that you can have eternal life. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes for just a second? If you are here today and you have never accepted Christ, you know, maybe, maybe you have have come to church, you know, multiple times over the year, maybe you're in church every week, maybe, you know, whatever. You know, but there are some of you that are here that that maybe you've heard this your whole life and you have wrestled with it and you've said, oh, it can't be true. Or, you know, it's I'm I'm not, you know, I'm not good enough to do all of that. Well, that's the point. You're never going to be good enough for any of it. That's why Jesus paid the price for your sin. So if you're here today and you've never accepted him, today's the day. Today's the day you walk out of here and say, I get it. And it's very simple. You know Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose again on the third day. He did that so that you can have eternal life. And it's just a matter of saying, God, I'm a sinner. I cannot save myself. I couldn't earn salvation, I couldn't deserve salvation. So today I trust in Jesus. I trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I trust in his shed blood for the forgiveness of my sin, and I choose to follow him. And you can talk to talk to God any way you want and make that commitment to him. If you struggle putting what's going on in your heart and mind into words, you can pray something like this and pray after me. It's not about repeating a prayer. You can go anywhere and repeat a prayer. This is about just putting into words what God is doing in your heart and mind right now and say, Dear God, thank you for sending Jesus. Thank you for his death, burial, and resurrection. Because on my own, I could never earn my way to heaven. I could never deserve a place in heaven. So thank you that Jesus went ahead of me and prepared a place. So today I choose to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for my salvation. I choose to uh forgiveness of my sin because of his shed blood, and today I choose to follow Jesus. And if you just prayed that, what just happened is that Christ fulfilled his promise to you in this moment. And the scripture tells us that that salvation is a covenant, a contract, and the the uh tenets of that contract are that in this moment, if you just accepted Christ, it says that you crossed from death into life. It says that your sins are cast as far as the east is from the west to be remembered no more. It says that you have eternal life, your name has been written in the Lamb's book of life. All of that happened the moment that you asked Jesus, ask Jesus to be your Savior. So I'm gonna pray with you right now. God, thank you so much for your love for us. Lord, thank you for the people in this room that this morning accepted Christ. For the first time, they prayed and said, I want to follow Jesus. I'm gonna trust in his death, burial, and resurrection and in his shed blood. So, God, I pray that you would just help them to understand. Lord, as the Holy Spirit takes up residence in them, help them to understand the truth of God's word, help them to understand uh uh your presence in their life, help them to understand how you you are you are uh surrounding them with people that will encourage them. God, just become very real to those people. Lord, I pray for anyone in here that has a need, Lord, anyone that is hurting, anyone that is uh dealing with relationship problems or health problems, finance problems, whatever that might be. God, I pray for those people today. I pray that they would find their peace and their uh solutions in Jesus first. Lord, knowing that you care about us, your word says, cast all your cares on Jesus because he cares about you so much. I pray that they would do that. And so, God, we are just grateful to be able to worship you on this Sunday commemorating a risen Savior. And we ask all of this in Jesus' name.

unknown 29:01

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Thanks for listening to Family Church's Sermon of the Week. We pray this message encouraged you and helps you grow in your faith. If it lets you share with a friend and follow us, you never miss a new episode. You can learn more about FamilyChurch at myfamilychurch.com. If you are in the school,