SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to Luke chapter 22.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 22 is where we're going to be this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to read this passage.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you some background and a little bit of a roadmap of where I'm going this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll dive a little bit more into this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 22.
SPEAKER_00: It's a long chapter.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to go to verse 61.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 22, looking at verse 61.
SPEAKER_00: Once you have found it and you're able and willing, would you stand with me in honor of reading God's word?
SPEAKER_00: We are going to read verses 61 and 62 from this passage, and we'll look at verses 54 to 62 as we go on.
SPEAKER_00: But Luke chapter 22, verse 61 and 62, this is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him before the rooster crows, today, you will deny me three times.
SPEAKER_00: And he went out and wept bitterly.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we come before you this morning, and God, we are so grateful for the opportunity to be here and to open up your word, to see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears, God, what your word has to say and what it means to us.
SPEAKER_00: And God, as we look this this morning at the story and life of Peter, this apostle that you have called to serve you and to be one of the main figures within the first few years of the church's existence.
SPEAKER_00: God, we see a man, God, that desired to honor and serve you as best he could, but sometimes he just couldn't help himself.
SPEAKER_00: He said silly things, he did silly things, and and Father, we have seen Peter at his highest of highs, and we've seen him at his lowest of lows.
SPEAKER_00: But God, in in the whole story of his life, what we see very clearly is your grace and your mercy in the life of Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And God, may that reminder this morning be a reminder for us that our lives are marked by your grace and your mercy as we navigate through them.
SPEAKER_00: God, from the moments where we have been obedient to the moments where God, we have fallen so far from what you have called us to.
SPEAKER_00: God, may we be reminded this morning through the life of Peter, of your love and your grace and your good gospel that that that saves sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Father, would you give us, as Alan prayed, ears to hear and eyes to see, as your word tells us in Psalm 119, would you open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things from your law?
SPEAKER_00: Father, would we this morning hear from you?
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you would give me the words to say, that it'd be your words and not mine.
SPEAKER_00: God, that you would speak to us this morning and we would meet here with you, God, that you would move in our hearts, that you would convict our hearts, God, that we would cry out to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of our shortcomings and our failures, God, would we would we run to you?
SPEAKER_00: Would we cling to you?
SPEAKER_00: Would we seek you?
SPEAKER_00: Be with us over the next few moments.
SPEAKER_00: May you receive all honor and glory, and we pray this all in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_00: We've been through this series now, going on our fourth week, and I hope over the last few weeks this is a theme that you have found.
SPEAKER_00: Ordinary people aren't perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob surely wasn't perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua still had his moments.
SPEAKER_00: Rahab, last week we saw, definitely was not a perfect person, we would say, but we would all, with all of those, say that God used those ordinary, imperfect people to accomplish his will here among us.
SPEAKER_00: Ordinary people aren't perfect and ordinary people mess up.
SPEAKER_00: Can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_00: You're a screw up and I'm a screw up.
SPEAKER_00: There we go, we got it out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know when we come to church, we'd like to put on this facade that our week has been great and I have made all the right decisions, and there has been nothing about my week that anybody could scrutinize.
SPEAKER_00: But everybody, if they would have been in your car as you sat in traffic, would have already had enough evidence against you to say that we could have done a little bit better this week.
SPEAKER_00: Ordinary people mess up.
SPEAKER_00: Ordinary people fail.
SPEAKER_00: You have screwed up before, you have failed before.
SPEAKER_00: There are moments in your life that you would go back and say that this is a moment that I have really messed up.
SPEAKER_00: This is a moment where I did something incredibly silly or incredibly foolish.
SPEAKER_00: I I lied in this way, I've done this in this way.
SPEAKER_00: There's moments where we go back and go, man, I just, I've really had a whole lot of growing up to do.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was 18, and and this isn't a moral failure.
SPEAKER_00: This is just a just this is how just dumb we are, dumb I am.
SPEAKER_00: I can be.
SPEAKER_00: I remember I was 18 and we had just got done cooking dinner out, and and I went around to make sure everything was off.
SPEAKER_00: And I go outside, I look at the grill, and the eye is still on on the side of the propane grill, and it has a pot that has grease in it.
SPEAKER_00: And I go to open the lid, and all of a sudden, when oxygen hit the heat of that grease, a fire burst out.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in that moment, what I did not do is think back to what I learned in second grade when the nice fireman came and took us outside and showed us how to put out a grease fire.
SPEAKER_00: In my mind, uh I said, there's fire, then you then you need water.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta fight, you know.
SPEAKER_00: See, okay, all right, okay.
SPEAKER_00: We've already said all of us mess up.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to hear your groans, I don't need to see your eye roll.
SPEAKER_00: The flames that burst forth from that pot as I threw the water on has already given me enough evidence to know that was a really dumb decision.
SPEAKER_00: But I can give you other dumb decisions in my life that I've done that aren't really about grease fires or anything like that, but but it's it's things that I've done out of disobedience or things that I've done at a moment of weakness and sin that also would make you just kind of, oh man.
SPEAKER_00: Because all of us have those moments where we've missed the mark, where we've done things that have completely shown our continued inability to trust anything within ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: All of us have had moments where we've done things we aren't proud of.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them might be moments of ignorance, some of them might be moments of weakness, of frustration, uh, uh, of doubt, uh, of temptation, uh, moments where we have uh even like we've seen with Peter, and we'll look at, maybe even denied that we are know the Lord, or we're trying to follow the Lord, or that we're followers of Jesus Christ, all of us will have those moments or have had those moments.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the question.
SPEAKER_00: At some point in your life, you will make a mistake, you will walk in disobedience, you will fall short.
SPEAKER_00: This is not one of those feel-good messages, by the way, if you haven't picked up on it.
SPEAKER_00: You will have those moments.
SPEAKER_00: The question is, what will you do when that moment comes?
SPEAKER_00: What will you do when that time happens?
SPEAKER_00: The main idea that I want you to get this morning, as we look at the life of Peter, and as we go through this, here's how I want you to see what we're looking at this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The main idea is that by God's grace, even when we fail, he can restore us and bring us back to a stronger obedience.
SPEAKER_00: When we fail, it is by the grace of God that God can meet us where we are in that failure.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks to us lovingly, yet still addresses the issue.
SPEAKER_00: And he calls us not to be better, not to be stronger, but he calls us to, by his grace, be restored by him in order that we can continue to walk with him and to be followers of him and to serve him by our obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And what we will find is that obedience will be strengthened through the Lord's restoration.
SPEAKER_00: That as the Lord takes those moments to teach us and to use us, that that from that the Lord leads us into continued obedience then to him.
SPEAKER_00: But what we find is that he will use that moment to strengthen us to walk in obedience, and that obedience that we walk in will become stronger.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how how we have to understand this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We have to first start with the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel of Jesus Christ is that Christ Jesus came to save sinners, and that means every single person that has ever been born, because when sin entered the world through Adam and it tarnished and corrupted everything within Adam and Eve, it has then been passed down through their descendants, and over those thousands of years, all of a sudden we've gotten to you and me.
SPEAKER_00: And so you and I are sinful people.
SPEAKER_00: Christ Jesus came to save sinners because sinners are unable and incapable of saving themselves.
SPEAKER_00: So God took on flesh in the form of Jesus, came and lived a life that you couldn't live, died the death that you deserve to purchase the salvation that you couldn't earn, but desperately needed.
SPEAKER_00: And upon salvation and receiving Christ Jesus into you, making him the Lord of your life and being filled with the Holy Spirit, you have been justified by God, meaning that he has counted you as righteous because his son is righteous, and it is by his blood that we receive that righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: So you are then justified by the sacrifice of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean that you are now perfect and life is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Now you enter this long, grueling, tiresome process called sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a really big word.
SPEAKER_00: And all that word means, you find in scripture, all that word means is to be made more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That is the work of the Holy Spirit in your life from the moment you receive Christ until you die, is to make you more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The irony is the more you come to know who Jesus is, and the more you grow in that knowledge of God, the more sinful you see yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you start getting a little bit closer to the image that you're wanting to be like while staring yourself in the mirror, you begin to see the vast contrast between the two.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a vast contrast between you and Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is why he came to purchase a salvation for you, because that's what you and I need.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that salvation, you and I no longer live for ourselves, but as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, but we live for him who for our sake died and was raised.
SPEAKER_00: So just because we are justified by the blood of Jesus does not mean that we continue to go out and live our lives however we want, riddled with sin, because that is that's not a appreciation for the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's abusing the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: God saved you not to keep you where you were, but he saved you to begin you on this journey to make you more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, from the day you came to know the Lord and salvation, to now you look a little bit more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If not, then something has become off.
SPEAKER_00: Something's not right.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is what God desires.
SPEAKER_00: All of this that we've that I've just said, all of this is done by the grace of God because while we seek to live obedient lives, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: We're still sinners.
SPEAKER_00: We still have a nature towards sin, and our desire is to walk in that.
SPEAKER_00: But for us who are in Christ Jesus, it has also been given to us through the Holy Spirit a desire to allow the Spirit to have control over us and to help us walk in obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Sinners will stumble and fall.
SPEAKER_00: But by the grace of God, we do not fall out of what his blood and atonement did on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture is filled with people just like you and I who have received that salvation, who have been forgiven of sin and are seeking to walk with the Lord, yet have moments of weakness and falling.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look at Peter this week and then we're gonna look at David next week to show us both of those examples.
SPEAKER_00: But what I want you to know in both of those examples is even when we fall short, by God's grace, he can restore us back to walking in obedience with him.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite people in scripture that I relate to the most, and you probably do as much as you would like to say, I think I'm Paul or I think I'm Timothy, is Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Peter means well.
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, Peter said, you know, we we look at Peter and we're like, man, I want to be like Peter, I want to be like Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And then halfway through the book of Matthew, halfway through the book of Mark, Luke, and John, we start going, I don't know if I want to be like Peter.
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't know if I want to be like that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's go to the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: So Peter is out fishing with his brothers and his dad because as a Hebrew boy, you went to elementary school and the synagogue, and from there you learn to memorize the Torah and and also uh Deuteronomy chapter 5, um, which tells you, you know, here, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_00: So you would memorize all of those things, and then from that, they would take the boys that were gifted in that, and they would take them and send them off to school to be rabbis.
SPEAKER_00: For the rest of them, they would send them home and say, Go do what your dad does, because this isn't really for you.
SPEAKER_00: And so Peter is is out fishing with his brothers and his dad's business, and all of a sudden Jesus from the shore calls out, asks them if they'd caught any fish.
SPEAKER_00: They've been fishing all night, hadn't caught anything.
SPEAKER_00: So he tells them to throw his boats from the other side or nets from the other side of the boat.
SPEAKER_00: They pull in fish.
SPEAKER_00: Peter immediately recognizes that that this is the Lord in front of him and Jesus, and he falls down on his face.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter, um, I'm sorry, he falls down on his face and he says, Depart from me, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a sinful man.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a sinner, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You depart from me.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to Simon Peter, Do not be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: From now on, you will be catching men, you will be fishers of men, you will serve me.
SPEAKER_00: And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
SPEAKER_00: As they're following him in John chapter 6, we see Jesus feeds the 5,000, does this great miracle, but afterwards the crowds are still seeking to see another provision from him.
SPEAKER_00: They want more food.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus says, Unless you drink of my blood and eat of my flesh, you you cannot come into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody gets weirded out by that.
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus is saying is, you have to come to me in order to get to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You have to receive me.
SPEAKER_00: And most of the crowd walks away after this moment, and it's just the 12 that's left.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus looks out to the 12 and said, What are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna leave two?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what Peter said?
SPEAKER_00: Great response of faith from Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says, Lord, where else would I go?
SPEAKER_00: You alone have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, Yeah, what Peter said, I want to be like Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then you continue to go on, and Peter gets to see a lot of cool things.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest thing I think Peter has seen outside of the resurrection of Jesus is the Lord transfigured on the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: He's there with uh John and James, and they're on the mountain, they see this transfigured, and they see Jesus in his glory, and then they see who?
SPEAKER_00: Elijah and Moses and Jesus, and they're just kind of having this conversation, and Peter just can't help himself.
SPEAKER_00: Feels like he's gotta say something.
SPEAKER_00: The last two times he said something gone pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: So Peter comes up and he goes to Jesus, he goes, Hey, Jesus, it's good that we're here.
SPEAKER_00: It's good that I'm here to see all of this.
SPEAKER_00: Do I need to make tense for all you guys?
SPEAKER_00: Like, like just and at that moment, this cloud starts forming over the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: And as as Peter's saying all this, this voice comes from the cloud, which is God the Father, and he says, This is my beloved son.
SPEAKER_00: Um, listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: It's God's way of saying, Hey Peter, stop talking.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: So then we go from there, and and as they travel on, then we see they go to Caesarea Philippi, right there at the temple where the they believed at in that day and age, where where the gates of hell was, right there at Caesarea Philippi, there was an idol there that would be worshipped, and the idol worship that they would do is they would sacrifice children, babies, to this God to appease that God.
SPEAKER_00: And so it was believed that that is where the gates of hell would be.
SPEAKER_00: And in this city, that we're, I mean, if we were to pick a city in our nation today, like Las Vegas or something like that, which is just known for debauchery and sin, in the middle of the crowd of all of that city, Jesus asked his disciples, Who do the people say that I am?
SPEAKER_00: Peter said, Well, some said you're Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Some said you're this, and then Peter, Jesus goes, Well, who do you say that I am?
SPEAKER_00: And what does Peter say?
SPEAKER_00: Great response.
SPEAKER_00: You are the Christ, Son of the Living God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus goes, Exactly, and upon that truth, I'm gonna build my church.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter's probably looking around, going, Pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: Seven verses.
SPEAKER_00: Seven verses is all it took for Peter to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: I did six, seven.
SPEAKER_00: Seven verses is all it took for Peter to screw this up because Jesus is telling him how it's gonna go down, that he's gonna be uh arrested and he's gonna be murdered, he's gonna be crucified, and Peter goes, Far be it from me, Lord, that any of that happened to you.
SPEAKER_00: And what does Jesus say to him?
SPEAKER_00: Get behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really just a very much a terrible day for Peter, highest of highs, lowest of lows.
SPEAKER_00: And it ended on the low.
SPEAKER_00: So then we continue to read and we go throughout, and then we get to the upper room.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is serving his disciples, he's washing their feet, and and Peter's like, Oh, Lord, don't wash my feet.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't have to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And if there's no washing, there's no forgive, there's no cleansing, there's no forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says something weird, like, well, then just wash my whole body.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, Peter, you're really screwing up what I'm trying to show here.
SPEAKER_00: And then they go around the table and they have supper, and then the Lord goes, One of you will betray me.
SPEAKER_00: And what does Peter say in that moment?
SPEAKER_00: Not me.
SPEAKER_00: I'd never do that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm with you till the end, even until prison and death.
SPEAKER_00: And what does Jesus tell him?
SPEAKER_00: Peter, before this night is over, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.
SPEAKER_00: Then we see Peter go into the garden.
SPEAKER_00: He can't stay awake.
SPEAKER_00: Always, always napping.
SPEAKER_00: Can't can't do what the Lord has asked them to do.
SPEAKER_00: He the the guards come to take Jesus away, including Malchus, and and and Peter takes a sword and goes to cut Malchus, and he's a terrible shot.
SPEAKER_00: He's a terrible aim.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if if any in any kind of battle you go aim for the ears, that's the weak spot.
SPEAKER_00: But but he but he cuts off the guard's ear.
SPEAKER_00: He can't even do that right.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is just the life of Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Ups and downs, ups and downs.
SPEAKER_00: You and I have those moments as well.
SPEAKER_00: Ups and downs.
SPEAKER_00: But neither one of those were the lowest of lows that Peter's ever been to.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the last words that his Lord said to him and the last time that he saw his face would be probably etched in his memory for the rest of his life.
SPEAKER_00: So let's go and look really quickly at verse 54 of chapter 22.
SPEAKER_00: This is Luke's account, and I'm going to refer back to others' account as we go through.
SPEAKER_00: Then they seized him, being Jesus, and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance.
SPEAKER_00: And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in John's account of this passage, in in chapter, I believe it's 21.
SPEAKER_00: Um no, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: 20.
SPEAKER_00: In John's account of this, it says that they They kindled a charcoal fire.
SPEAKER_00: That's going to be really key to figure out.
SPEAKER_00: So, so a charcoal fire is what being made here.
SPEAKER_00: It's cold during this time in Israel, especially as the sun goes down.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're around a fire, and a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light, looking looking closely at him, said, This man also was with him, but he denied it, saying, Woman, I do not know him.
SPEAKER_00: And a little later someone else saw him and said, You were also one of them, but Peter said, Man, I am not.
SPEAKER_00: And after an interval of about an hour, still another insisted, saying, Certainly this man was also with him, for he too is a Galilean.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter said, in I believe Matthew's uh account, it says that Peter said, Cursing, man, I do not know what you are talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 60, and immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter.
SPEAKER_00: The word looked there is the is the Greek word to be fixed his eyes on.
SPEAKER_00: Like he he focused, he he was attentively staring at Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord turned and looked at Peter Peter, and Peter remembered saying of the Lord how he had said to him, remember the saying of the Lord as he had said to him, Before the rooster crolls today, you shall deny me three times.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter is so overwhelmed by guilt that the Bible says that he went out and wept bitterly.
SPEAKER_00: In moments of conviction and moments of sin, when you and I come face to face with the decision that we have just made or the action that we have just done, hopefully there has been that moment where it has hit us between the eyes what we have actually done, that we have sinned against God, and it brings us to a place of just mourning.
SPEAKER_00: Peter goes into a bitter weeping, one that is with anguish, one that is that is just overwhelmed with emotion.
SPEAKER_00: And from this, I want to give you four quick points of application.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this restoration begins with contrition.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with contrition.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with a contrite heart, one that has is convicted over sin, one that recognizes that their sin has not only been against someone else, but ultimately their sin is against God.
SPEAKER_00: As David would say in Psalm 51, I have sinned against you, talking about the Lord, and you alone, and done what is evil in your sight.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the thing where you and I, when we've had our lowest moments of failure, Jesus isn't staring us in the face, going, Told you so.
SPEAKER_00: This look from Jesus wasn't one of condemnation, we can imagine that it was just a looking at Peter going, This is, I told you that this was what was going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't look God in the face, we recognize that it is God alone that we have sinned against, and it should lead us into a place of conviction.
SPEAKER_00: If sin does not lead you to a place of conviction, then the grace of God has not fully been so overwhelming to you that you recognize that it is your sin that has led Jesus to be brutally murdered on the cross to pay for your sin.
SPEAKER_00: If you can sin without contrition, there is no life change.
SPEAKER_00: But as followers of Jesus Christ, sin should lead us to massive conviction over that sin.
SPEAKER_00: It should lead us to mourn our sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus says when blessed are those who mourn.
SPEAKER_00: He's not talking about those who are just melancholy and sad.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about over sin.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who mourn their sin, for they shall be comforted.
SPEAKER_00: And the comfort of the child of God in mourning over sin is that we know that this doesn't change our status between us and the Lord, but it does know that we need more of the Lord to work in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we have to remember.
SPEAKER_00: We also have to remember this in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see Peter go, the latter part of this, but that conviction and shame are different, and their responses are different as well.
SPEAKER_00: Shame is the overwhelming feeling of regret from the standpoint of I can't believe I did that.
SPEAKER_00: Conviction is I have sinned against God.
SPEAKER_00: Shame puts it all on you in going, I know better, I should have, I shouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just so terrible.
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe I did that.
SPEAKER_00: Conviction is falling on your face before the Lord and going, Lord, forgive me for sinning against you.
SPEAKER_00: I have sinned against you and you alone.
SPEAKER_00: Shame focuses all focuses everything on you and how you feel and how you can't believe that's what you did.
SPEAKER_00: Conviction points you to the cross and goes, This is what Jesus died for, what you're actively pursuing, and should lead you to just a brokenness over your sin.
SPEAKER_00: The response of the person in shame is to run.
SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve in the garden, when they realized that they were naked and that they had sinned against God and their shame, what did they do?
SPEAKER_00: They ran.
SPEAKER_00: What else did they try to do?
SPEAKER_00: They tried to cover themselves up.
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard the phrase like two wrongs don't make a right, or um uh two rights don't cover up a wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes when we mess up against the Lord and we've done something that we shouldn't have, then our response is, well, then then I'm just I'm gonna go to church this Sunday and I'm just gonna not do these things, and and and then that'll help me kind of feel better about the decision that I've made.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: The the decision that you made that has led to that failure should be enough to thrust you before the Lord seeking forgiveness and and and seeking his mercy because you have sinned against him.
SPEAKER_00: Shame goes, man, I gotta fix this and I gotta do all these things.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Adam and Eve got stuff to cover themselves up.
SPEAKER_00: They they thought that they could cover up and everything would be okay, but we saw at the end of them in the garden before they were sent out, the Lord actually does the one that's covering.
SPEAKER_00: He actually does the covering for them.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are in Christ, he has actually covered you with the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There's no covering because there's nothing to hide from, because he knows.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord knew before he died on the cross your sin, he knew exactly what you would do.
SPEAKER_00: So then the moments of conviction, you wouldn't run away thinking he's gonna be ashamed or he's gonna be angry, but that you would run towards because you know in him is everything that you need forgiveness, grace, mercy, salvation, restoration, all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, in his shame, begins to make his way away from the Lord and go back.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 21, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: All the disciples in the room, and what does Peter say that he's gonna go do?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go fishing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, men in the room.
SPEAKER_00: This is not one of those stories where like, man, Peter just needed to clear his head, so he just needs to get out in the water.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Where did the Lord find Peter before he told him to follow him?
SPEAKER_00: Fishing.
SPEAKER_00: Peter's going back to what he did before because he goes, Great.
SPEAKER_00: I screwed it up, I shouldn't even be here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna go back fishing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go back to the life that I remember, the life that I knew before, because that's all I'm good for, that's all I know to do.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I've disqualified myself from continuing to follow after the Lord, so I'm gonna go back to fishing.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us in here would say, Man, I'm gonna go back to chasing women, I'm gonna go back to drinking, I'm gonna go back to chasing money, I'm gonna go back to chasing things.
SPEAKER_00: We start to fill ourselves with those things to find comfort, but because of the decision that we've made when the Lord really just wants us to run to him.
SPEAKER_00: But here is the good news of the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: In those moments and in his grace, he comes and finds you.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me really quick to John chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 21.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Peter and the rest of the disciples go.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is left.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says, I'm gonna go fishing.
SPEAKER_00: They said to him, Hey, we'll go with you, keep you company.
SPEAKER_00: They went out, got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Just like the men walking with him on the road to Emmaus in Luke's account, Jesus hid his identity from them.
SPEAKER_00: They would be maybe a hundred yards off.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus stood on the shore and he said, Children, Hebrew, this little boys, have you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any fish?
SPEAKER_00: They answered him, No.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said, Cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.
SPEAKER_00: So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish.
SPEAKER_00: That disciple, whom Jesus loved, therefore said to Peter, It is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And when Simon Peter heard it that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work and threw himself into the sea.
SPEAKER_00: Peter's just, I'm gonna swim back a hundred yards.
SPEAKER_00: Now, with with a couple guys rowing, a hundred yards this is that long away.
SPEAKER_00: They he could have just waited till they till they got in.
SPEAKER_00: But no, Peter recognizes that the Lord, the Lord has come to see them, and Peter just rushes back to him.
SPEAKER_00: The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, and for they were not far from the land, about a hundred yards off.
SPEAKER_00: When they got on the land, they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out and bread.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing that I want you to see in this story is this restoration is accomplished by grace.
SPEAKER_00: It's accomplished by grace.
SPEAKER_00: Conviction is brought about by the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: The restoration process, all of it is brought is accomplished by grace.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is accomplished by grace.
SPEAKER_00: And restoration to obedience is accomplished by grace.
SPEAKER_00: It is the grace of God that He meets you where you are in that moment and brings you back to Himself, but it is not without contrition or conviction, it isn't about it isn't without repentance, and it isn't without at least acknowledging what has taken place.
SPEAKER_00: A charcoal fire.
SPEAKER_00: When I went to the doctor, do you know what the doctor didn't do?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, This one's already jacked up.
SPEAKER_00: Let's focus on these other areas.
SPEAKER_00: Let's focus on this other knee, on this shoulder, on these arms, and make sure that those are okay first.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just get those stronger.
SPEAKER_00: This one's kind of too far gone.
SPEAKER_00: Let's focus on the rest of it.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: He went to the exact place that was broken and he said, This is what we gotta fix.
SPEAKER_00: Bringing Peter around this charcoal fire is bringing Peter back to those moments and go, okay, from this point is where we gotta do this work.
SPEAKER_00: Grace doesn't ignore, it exposes and mends.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't accept, it reveals and removes.
SPEAKER_00: The entire process of restoration is accomplished by grace.
SPEAKER_00: And grace confronts our sin, brings us to repentance, but gives us or brings us to conviction, but gives us hope within conviction that we are saved by grace, not by performance, so that even though we have slipped up and and we have sinned against God, that there is hope for us.
SPEAKER_00: Grace doesn't take our conviction and toss it to the side.
SPEAKER_00: No, God's grace meets us in our lowest moments and begins to work within us where his work is needed most.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus brings Peter, meets Peter on the shore.
SPEAKER_00: Peter comes to him, he gets a fire going, he asks, Hey, bring some fish and some bread.
SPEAKER_00: Let's have breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, large amount of fish, and he asked them to come and have breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: None of his disciples asked who he was, they knew he was the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me, or look at verse 15 really quick.
SPEAKER_00: When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?
SPEAKER_00: Now, scholars go back and forth with within the literary framework of this of what are these?
SPEAKER_00: Could it be the disciples?
SPEAKER_00: Because it was the disciples in the other room, like that Peter said, Even if all of these pass away, I will remain, I'll still be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Clearly, that's not true.
SPEAKER_00: But it could also mean the fish that he had brought onto shore that that they're eating over.
SPEAKER_00: Do you love me more than fishing?
SPEAKER_00: Going back to this old way of life?
SPEAKER_00: Do you do you love me more than than how life used to be?
SPEAKER_00: Either way, we look at it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't throwing back into Peter's face what he's done and going, You really messed up, Peter.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take a while for me to forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: He asked Peter a simple question Do you love me more than these?
SPEAKER_00: Do you love me more than than anyone else?
SPEAKER_00: Do you love me more than your your old life, your old self?
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing that the Lord asks us when He what when we do fall short.
SPEAKER_00: The question comes up: Do I love the Lord more than I love my sin?
SPEAKER_00: If that answer is yes, then then what the Lord is going to call me to is to continue to faithfully follow after him and walk in obedience.
SPEAKER_00: But if I don't love the Lord more than my own sin, what I'm acknowledging in that moment is that he is not greater than my desires.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to find somebody who's experienced the grace of God that has that has fully trusted in it to save, to look at the grace of God and go, I don't know, I really love this sin.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in here this morning and you're choosing to walk in sin over walking with Jesus, you you need to hear this very clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Jesus restores those who are his children.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not his children, then restoration doesn't come to you yet.
SPEAKER_00: There's only condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, even though we battle with sin, what Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8, verse 1 is that there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But the writer of Hebrews says if you continue to seek after your sin and abuse the salvation you receive, then condemnation is still headed your way.
SPEAKER_00: Repent and come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In him you receive grace, you receive mercy.
SPEAKER_00: By yourself you only receive what you are due, and what you are due is wrath against sin.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of restoration, point number three, the purpose of restoration is repentance.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of restoration, point three, is repentance.
SPEAKER_00: If there is no repentance, if there is no repentance, if there is no turning from your sin, what Peter has done is he's gone back to his old way.
SPEAKER_00: What the Lord is doing is leading him in repentance, and to repent means to turn and go the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus is calling him away from is this old life and going back to how we always used to do things and to continue to follow after him.
SPEAKER_00: If repentance doesn't lead to turning from sin, then we will still play this game with sin, thinking that it's not really as bad as the Lord says it is.
SPEAKER_00: But the restoration, the purpose of restoration is to lead us to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Do you love me more than these?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Peter says, Let me find myself.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, feed my lambs.
SPEAKER_00: He says to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Tend my sheep.
SPEAKER_00: He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: And Peter was grieved because he had said it a third time, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, Lord, you know everything.
SPEAKER_00: You know that I love you.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Feed my sheep.
SPEAKER_00: Do what I've called you to do, what I have been calling you to do and to serve me.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_00: The temptation when life gets hard, when you've fallen, is to go and say, I might as well just go back and do what I used to be doing.
SPEAKER_00: That's the temptation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the enemy wants you to do.
SPEAKER_00: The enemy wants you to get to that point where shame just piles on top and just goes, Well, if I'm not worthy, then what's the point of living this way anyway?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna go back to doing what I did before.
SPEAKER_00: But conviction fueled and accomplished by grace is to lead you to repentance, to go, no, I have already said I don't want to follow that way of life.
SPEAKER_00: I want to live this way, so I'm gonna turn and I'm gonna follow after Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus says, Do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Yes, Lord, I love you, then he says, Then do what I've called you to do.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this restoration that Jesus is doing with Peter specifically is the ministry that Peter will do.
SPEAKER_00: The influence that Peter will have in ministry over the first century church as he serves the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is restoring him to continue to walk in obedience, but even in obedience in what he's called him to do, which is to serve him as an apostle of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We notice how Peter doesn't go back fishing because the result of restoration and repentance is a stronger obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what Peter does.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth thing that I want you to see before we get there the result of restoration is stronger obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Stronger obedience.
SPEAKER_00: This Peter who would deny Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the moment that anything kind of scary came in his way, we see just two chapters later in Acts standing in front of the people in the crowd that had just yelled to crucify Jesus and stands before them boldly filled with the Holy Spirit and tells them that Jesus is the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Predicted all throughout the Old Testament and revealed to those who are there, Jesus is the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 4 in the book of Acts, we see Peter standing before the council who has threatened them that if they do not stop, they will take action.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter tells them whether we listen to you or listen to God, that is for you to tell.
SPEAKER_00: But for us, we cannot help but say what we have heard and seen.
SPEAKER_00: A few passages later, he's beaten.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 12, he's thrown in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Continues to preach this gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus will tell us here what will end up happening to Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, truly I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.
SPEAKER_00: This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: And after saying this, he said to him, Follow me.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone remember how Peter died?
SPEAKER_00: He was crucified, but he didn't want to be crucified like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So how is he crucified?
SPEAKER_00: Upside down.
SPEAKER_00: The one who his words before Jesus was arrested would say, I'll, I'll, I'll do that, I'll follow you anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And then when that moment comes, he he shudders back in fear.
SPEAKER_00: He's not met from the Lord with, Well, you really messed up on that one, Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Wait, Peter, way to go.
SPEAKER_00: No, the Lord restores him, he strengthens him for the work that he has for him.
SPEAKER_00: And how does that work ultimately end?
SPEAKER_00: Being crucified just like Jesus, but upside down so that no one would equate him to be comparable to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how the Lord chooses to use Peter.
SPEAKER_00: You don't think he can't take you from your situation that you're in and show grace?
SPEAKER_00: Lead you to repentance and restore you to a stronger obedience?
SPEAKER_00: Have you allowed the Lord to take your failure and let it bring you to a place through conviction and repentance that that you have a that he gives you through his spirit a stronger desire to serve him.
SPEAKER_00: John Bunyan was thrown in prison for about 12 years for multiple different things.
SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest things is that uh he preached without a license, and and within prison he wrestled with doubt, fear, discouragement, all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you and I wrestle with doubt, fear, and discouragement, and we find ourselves in prison, um, we probably would would would continue to go down the road of doubt, fear, discouragement, right?
SPEAKER_00: We aren't in prison and we still go through doubt, fear, and discouragement.
SPEAKER_00: And so we add prison on top of that.
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna make things a lot harder.
SPEAKER_00: In prison, John Bunyan did his greatest work.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone remember what he wrote?
SPEAKER_00: Pilgrim's Progress.
SPEAKER_00: The story of a follower of Jesus that that that from the moment they realize where they are, that's walking towards that celestial city and how painstaking it is and how frustrating it is.
SPEAKER_00: It's where God did his greatest work through John Bunyan.
SPEAKER_00: In one of the lowest moments of his life, and God continued to use John Bunyan from that moment.
SPEAKER_00: Do you run towards Jesus when you fall?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you run away?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, are you running towards the Lord knowing that you haven't been walking in disobedience?
SPEAKER_00: Are you running towards him, or do you just run away?
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I don't mean by running towards him.
SPEAKER_00: You being here isn't really running towards him.
SPEAKER_00: Because let's be honest, you come here for social reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Are you here because you want to hear from him?
SPEAKER_00: Are you here because you want him to speak into your life?
SPEAKER_00: You want him to do business with you, you want him to work in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Are you here because of that?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you just here because you you that's where this is where I go.
SPEAKER_00: This is where this person is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here so that this person can see.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here for the this person can see.
SPEAKER_00: Or are you here to allow the Lord to work?
SPEAKER_00: When you fall, when you fail, when you walk in disobedience, do you in that moment feel conviction that leads you to repentance, that leads you to restoration, all fueled and accomplished by grace?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you do you run?
SPEAKER_00: Because here is what I want you to get this morning from this passage.
SPEAKER_00: It's your it's just a closing thought.
SPEAKER_00: When you fail, move towards Christ and let him restore you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't run and try to fix it yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Don't run and think that you have lost any kind of favor with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But don't run and think that his grace is not sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: If you have been purchased by the cross of Jesus Christ, that propitiation, which the big word for propitiation, we see it in the book of Hebrews, is simply a sacrifice that satisfies.
SPEAKER_00: His sacrifice satisfies the wrath of God on your life as a child of God, which means I can, with full confidence, as the writer of Hebrews says in chapter four, approach the throne boldly because I have a high priest in that moment that is a help to me and gives grace to me.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes we run because we think when we run to the feet of Jesus, that he's gonna heckle us.
SPEAKER_00: That he's just gonna say, Well, really messed it up on this one.
SPEAKER_00: Well, can't believe that we're sitting here now.
SPEAKER_00: But the writer of Hebrews says that he's a help in time of need, he gives grace in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're in here this morning, and for the first time in the history of your life, you have come to realize that you are a sinner that sits under the condemnation of God with no covering of any sacrifice of Jesus, but it is just you and nobody else on a trajectory headed straight towards a life that is separated from the love of God in a place called hell because of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: This moment would you see that Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection on the cross to cover your sin is enough to cover your sin, past, present, and future.
SPEAKER_00: And would you let that grace overwhelm you to the point to where when you in this moment you would say, I don't want to chase after anything else, I don't want to be in my life to be marked by anything else, I want to turn from this sin and I want to follow after Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If you've never done that this morning, you have the opportunity to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're in here this morning and you're broken.
SPEAKER_00: I've been saying that you're you failed, you've fallen short, and in your mind it's just going, I know I've done it here, I've done it here, and you're a child of God that is tormented by it, the the spiritual warfare that is happening in your head, that you are not worthy, that you are a failure, that you are a terrible follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Would you in this moment let the grace of God remind you that the salvation you have received has covered you, past, present, and future?
SPEAKER_00: And would you run to the Lord and fall at his feet and go, God, I have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: Would you work in my life?
SPEAKER_00: Would you give me the strength to repent from my sin?
SPEAKER_00: And would you strengthen me to follow you more closely?
SPEAKER_00: Would you do that this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Let the Spirit remind you of all the spiritual blessings that you have in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And would you come to the feet of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Would you throw it onto him and confess it and let him and his grace restore you?
SPEAKER_00: Let him and his grace remind you of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Let him and his grace comfort you.
SPEAKER_00: And ask him and his grace to keep you.
SPEAKER_00: As David would say in Psalm 51, God, restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.
SPEAKER_00: As we respond to the word of the Lord this morning, would you would you allow the Lord to work in your heart and would you surrender to it?