SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_00: I'll apologize on the front end.
SPEAKER_00: I uh conveniently woke up with a sinus infection on Friday.
SPEAKER_00: Um I sound terrible and I feel kind of terrible.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's gonna be good.
SPEAKER_00: Um so let me pray for us real quick and then uh we'll dive in.
SPEAKER_00: God, um this morning we come uh and we remember that it is um your presence that makes church compelling.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it is not uh my ingenuity uh and a well-crafted talk.
SPEAKER_00: Um God, without your presence, um it's just words on a page.
SPEAKER_00: Um and it's just me standing up here and speaking.
SPEAKER_00: Um so, God, we ask that you would come and that you would um yeah, just lead us to see and savor more uh the greatness of Jesus and what it means to be saved by grace and to be free to live in that as we walk in relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So um as I was preparing for this week um in the passage I was looking at, um, I started thinking about relationships.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I this might be because my wife's a counselor, and so relationships are a hot topic in our house a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Um I have a lot to learn in relationships, I'm learning from being around a counselor a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Um But I started thinking about, I mean, take a second and think about all the different types of relationships in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I started thinking about family.
SPEAKER_00: But even within family, there's all these, it's like a subset of all these different types of relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: My relationship to my wife looks very different than a relationship to my mom or to my brother or to an aunt or an uncle, and then sort of thinking about different types of relationships with friends, and old friends and new friends, and acquaintances, and people that I wish weren't my friend, and that they probably wish I wasn't their friend.
SPEAKER_00: And sort of thinking about work, right, and colleagues and bosses and employees, and um just started kind of reflecting on all these different types of relationships in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And I was I was thinking about that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I remembered a couple years ago, I was speaking to a couple of older gentlemen, some mentors of mine, and I was asking them, you know, as you look back at the last 20, 30, 40 years of your life, um, what has made the biggest impact on you as a person?
SPEAKER_00: What has changed you or influenced you the most?
SPEAKER_00: Um and the common threat in all of their answers was relationships, was people they knew, people they'd come to know over the years.
SPEAKER_00: And we can all think about people that have stepped into our lives, whether for a short season or for decades, and think about the dramatic impact that they've had on us as a person, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the only person, probably, in here that's had that experience.
SPEAKER_00: I think we've all had those people, we've probably got people in our minds, you know, right now.
SPEAKER_00: But as I was thinking about, you know, the power uh that relationships have to impact and influence our lives.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's kind of like the old saying, every rose has its thorn.
SPEAKER_00: And that the same ability they have to make a powerful and profound influence on our lives is the same ability to lead us into more insecurity and doubt and anxiety than anything else in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Because anytime we step into a relationship with someone we look up to, someone we admire, right?
SPEAKER_00: This happens every time we get a new boss.
SPEAKER_00: This happens every time we go on a first date.
SPEAKER_00: This happens every time we step into a new relationship when we really want someone to like us.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: If you're anything like me, you're all you're just running through your head all the reasons they shouldn't be liking you, all the dumb things you're saying, every time you put your foot in your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And we sort of can almost begin to put up a veneer, you know, or a mask of how we want people to see us.
SPEAKER_00: We kind of put up a false front of ourselves, becoming a little bit afraid that if people saw the real us, if they saw all my mess that I wrestle with, they probably wouldn't want to be my friend.
SPEAKER_00: They probably wouldn't want to step into a deep, meaningful, intimate relationship with me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I think if you're anything like me, if you're not careful, this can kind of bleed into your relationship with God too.
SPEAKER_00: Um I can, because you know, I say things I shouldn't say, I do things I shouldn't do.
SPEAKER_00: And I can begin to kind of wonder, you know, and I know that God loves me, and but I I don't know if He would love me in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I can see just an insecurity well up inside of myself, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm almost afraid to talk to God.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be real with God about all that mess.
SPEAKER_00: And that insecurity can kind of lead us into this, I guess, cycle of trying to prove ourselves back to God, right?
SPEAKER_00: If if I just read my Bible enough, if my quiet time's long enough, if I pray enough, if I go to church enough, if I give enough, if I share with people enough, well, then I'm secure with God, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it becomes this never-ending cycle of always trying to prove ourselves back to God.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, uh, I want to take a look at Luke 5, and I want to take a look at how this is a story of when Jesus interacts with Peter and some of the first disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And what I want to look and see is what defines Jesus' relationship as he steps into relationship with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: What gives security to that relationship?
SPEAKER_00: And then from that, right, how do we understand and know what it means for us to be in a secure relationship with God?
SPEAKER_00: And so Luke 5, we'll look at verses 1 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: It says, one day, as Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennassaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, he saw at the water's edge two boats left there by the fishermen who were washing their nets.
SPEAKER_00: He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore.
SPEAKER_00: Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
SPEAKER_00: When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch.
SPEAKER_00: Simon answered, Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything, but because you say so, I'll let down the nets.
SPEAKER_00: When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.
SPEAKER_00: So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
SPEAKER_00: When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, Go away from me, Lord, I'm a sinful man.
SPEAKER_00: For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken.
SPEAKER_00: And so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus said to Simon, Don't be afraid, from now on you will catch men.
SPEAKER_00: So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything, and followed him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the first things I think we see that happens with Peter is he kind of has this initial encounter with Jesus, is that Peter comes to a recognition of his own helplessness, his inability to prove himself back to God.
SPEAKER_00: Now we see this in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: After Jesus has told them to toss their nets over the side and they have this great miraculous catch, right?
SPEAKER_00: This would, I mean, think this is a pretty big economic, financial windfall for Peter, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's probably a bigger catch than he's ever had in his life.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter's response is kind of odd.
SPEAKER_00: He's not jumping up and down, he's not, man, look at how God's providing for us, look at what Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's falling at Jesus' feet saying, get away from me, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a sinful man.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is he doing this?
SPEAKER_00: That's an odd response after you've had this miraculous provision from Jesus to fall at his feet saying, get away from me.
SPEAKER_00: Why does he do this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to read a quote.
SPEAKER_00: There's a British novelist and apologist named Francis Spufford, who came out with a book last fall called Unapologetic, and in it I ran across this quote.
SPEAKER_00: Spufford says, If you won't hear the bad news about yourself, you can't know yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You can condemn yourself to the maintenance of an exhausting illusion, a false front to yourself, which keeps out doubt, but with it hope, change, nourishment, breath, life.
SPEAKER_00: If you won't hear the bad news, you can't begin to hear the good news about yourself either, and you'll do harm.
SPEAKER_00: You'll be pumped up with the false confidence of virtue, and you'll think it gives you a license, but a large share of all the cruelties in the world will follow.
SPEAKER_00: For evil done knowingly is rather rare compared to the evil done by people who are quite sure that they themselves are good, and that evil is hatefully concentrated in some other person, some other person who makes your flesh creep because they have become exactly as unbearable, as creepy, as disgusting as you fear the mess would be beneath your own mask of virtue, if you ever dared to actually look at it.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think the point that Spufford is making is that we can be aware of the mess within ourselves, our brokenness, and what we do is we begin to put up this false mask and say, well, what I I'm not that bad.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the bad people, right?
SPEAKER_00: We begin to separate ourselves and distance ourselves from our own sin.
SPEAKER_00: But what I think we see from Peter right here, and the reason that he's falling at Jesus' feet, is because as Peter steps into the presence of God, that mask fades away.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can keep up a pretense and a kind of false self in front of other people, but when a finite, limited, sinful person steps into the present of presence of an infinite, holy God, all of a sudden those masks begin to fade.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter comes face to face with his own insufficiency before God.
SPEAKER_00: And so he falls before Jesus' feet saying, Lord, get away from me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't deserve to be in your presence.
SPEAKER_00: But the interesting thing is we see from Jesus' response that this experience is not meant to make Peter feel guilty or to induce fear or condemnation on Peter.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, it's actually meant to be liberating and a freeing reality.
SPEAKER_00: We see this, um, we come to our second point, and that's that our relationship with Jesus is not defined by us being perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, it's defined by Jesus offering us an opportunity to participate.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not about us being perfect, it's an opportunity for us to participate with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're like me, um, growing up, and probably over the course of the past couple years, I've heard this, you know, this story, Jesus calling of the first disciples.
SPEAKER_00: I've probably heard it preached three, four, or five different times.
SPEAKER_00: And every time it went something like this.
SPEAKER_00: They'd pick up right around verse four.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when he'd finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch.
SPEAKER_00: So Simon, you know, against all odds, he's been fishing all night and hasn't had any luck, but he says, Master, we've worked hard, haven't caught anything, but because you say so, I'll let down the nets.
SPEAKER_00: And they do so, and they have this big, miraculous catch of fish, and Jesus says, Come and follow me.
SPEAKER_00: And the sermon would go something like this.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about in your life, what area is Jesus calling you to step out on faith, right, and to toss your nets over, and you'll reap a great reward, a big catch of fish.
SPEAKER_00: If you just have just enough faith, if you'll take that first step of faith, if you'll take that first step of obedience, then look what Jesus will do for you to be like Peter.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with that is that's not actually how Peter responds.
SPEAKER_00: Peter's not actually concerned with that big catch of fish.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see, if you're anything like me, I would leave those sermons thinking, if I just had a little bit more faith, if I was just a little bit more obedient, if I just stepped out a little bit further, then like God would fix this relationship, or God would heal this hurt, or God would get me this job.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens when I would do that and it didn't happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, clearly the answer is I didn't have enough faith.
SPEAKER_00: Or I wasn't obedient enough, I didn't step out far enough.
SPEAKER_00: And so the cycle continues.
SPEAKER_00: And every time something's not going my way in life, the answer is, well, I just don't have enough faith.
SPEAKER_00: Or I'm just not obedient enough.
SPEAKER_00: And this becomes this endless cycle of trying to prove myself to Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if I just had a little bit more faith, then I'd be having that big catch in my life too.
SPEAKER_00: For I was just a little bit more obedient.
SPEAKER_00: And the the guilt and the condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: The other problem I see with it is that if we understand the context of Jesus and the people he's speaking to, the crowd would not have been sitting there thinking, oh, look at Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's impressive.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
SPEAKER_00: That willingness to step out on faith.
SPEAKER_00: No, they would have been impressed or surprised by Jesus, but not actually by the provision of the fish.
SPEAKER_00: So let me take a moment and brief um history of Judaism slash Jewish education system.
SPEAKER_00: So, unlike our culture, where you know religion is kind of a sidebar item in mainstream culture, um, rabbis, or preachers, if you will, were kind of at the center of life in the Jewish faith.
SPEAKER_00: Everything revolved around their faith, their religion.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, read the Old Testament, right?
SPEAKER_00: This whole book about how we live life with God.
SPEAKER_00: And the the rabbis were at the center of this.
SPEAKER_00: And so not only were they were they teachers, but they were also the center of the social structure, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: They were looked up to, they were leaders in their community.
SPEAKER_00: And so every young boy growing up is wanting to be like a rabbi, right?
SPEAKER_00: They want to be these revered people in their community that are looked up to and admired by everyone in the society.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is at about the age of five, scholars believe that both um Jewish boys and girls would go into elementary school, if you will, and from about ages of five to ten, they would be learning from the first five books of our Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_00: And believe that by about the age of ten, most children had actually memorized these first five books of the Bible, if you will, the Torah.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that.
SPEAKER_00: By the age of ten, you've memorized the first five books of our Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Then what would happen is most of the girls would go back and be with their families, and the boys would begin middle school, if you will, and they're beginning to learn the rest of what is our Old Testament, and they would also begin to learn a trade or an apprenticeship, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that might be a family business, or it might be with another person in your community, but you begin to develop a trade.
SPEAKER_00: And by about the age of 13, these boys are typically leaving school and going back and beginning a trade, beginning to work.
SPEAKER_00: But a very select, a very elite few, the smartest of the smartest, the brightest of the brightest, the most hardworking, would go and approach a rabbi.
SPEAKER_00: A rabbi that they looked up to, that they revered, that they admired, that they wanted to emulate and be like.
SPEAKER_00: And they would go and ask if they could be their disciple, if they could follow them.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, think like this is you're trying to apply to Harvard, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you're going and you're putting your best feds, you're trying to show all the reasons why you deserve to be there.
SPEAKER_00: These boys were going and showing all the reasons why they deserve to be able to follow this rabbi.
SPEAKER_00: And so the smartest of the smartest, right, the most talented, the most gifted, and would then go on and follow these men, these rabbis, and learn and eventually become a rabbi themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Now, with that context, knowing that, the thing that is so striking in this story is that you've got Jesus, this up-and-coming, very popular rabbi with the crowds following him.
SPEAKER_00: And he's coming to these fishermen.
SPEAKER_00: Now, think, they are fishermen because they weren't smart enough, talented enough, gifted enough to be a disciple of a rabbi.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is coming to them and saying, follow me.
SPEAKER_00: Now that is not what you did in Jewish culture.
SPEAKER_00: A rabbi did not go to a student saying, Why don't you come and follow me?
SPEAKER_00: You know, Harvard does not show up at your doorstep and ask you to come.
SPEAKER_00: You go and you try and knock down the door to get in and prove why you're worthy, why they should be accepting you.
SPEAKER_00: And the thing that would have struck this crowd so much was not the faith of Peter or his willingness to throw his nets over the side.
SPEAKER_00: What would have struck them was that Jesus was coming to a bunch of guys that didn't deserve or not worthy to be disciples?
SPEAKER_00: He's not asking them, show me all the reasons why I should come and accept you.
SPEAKER_00: He just comes and says, Follow me.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why can Jesus accept these disciples without them ever having proved their worthiness to follow him?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's because, you know, we read in verses like 2 Corinthians 5.21, where it says, For he who knew no sin, being Jesus, became sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible teaches that not only does our sin become placed on Jesus, but then his righteousness is also given to us.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's how we can stand before God in confidence.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not just that our guilt has been removed, but it's now that Jesus' righteousness has been placed onto us.
SPEAKER_00: And so, knowing this, it would make no sense for Jesus to come to those disciples.
SPEAKER_00: It would make no sense for Jesus to come to you or to me asking or demanding that we be perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, no, my work is sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: Your righteousness is secured not by you being worthy enough or working hard enough or proving yourself to me, it's by grace through faith that we receive the righteousness required to be a follower and be a disciple of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we see in Jesus' response, he says, Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: From now on you will catch men.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Peter, as his mask has been taken away as a sinful, broken man, stands in the presence of a holy and perfect and infinite God.
SPEAKER_00: He's drawn to despair, right?
SPEAKER_00: He knows how much he doesn't deserve to be here.
SPEAKER_00: But rather than being plagued by fear or guilt or doubt, Jesus says, Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't say, Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason you shouldn't be afraid is because I'm going to give you the list of all the stuff you need to do now to be accepted by me.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: From now on, you'll catch men.
unknown: And when
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus is showing is that he's not asking Peter to be perfect, but he's offering Peter an opportunity to participate with him, to walk with him, to be in relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, this is so much of what Bill was talking about last week, and how we participate with Christ in bringing redemption and reconciliation to a broken world.
SPEAKER_00: And for whatever reason, you know, God could change the world a lot of ways, but for whatever reason, he's chosen to use people to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And so he offers us this opportunity to participate and to walk with him in the work that he's here to do.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and the third thing we see is that this relationship is defined by intimacy rather than intimidation.
SPEAKER_00: Or to put it another way, it's defined by fellowship rather than fear.
SPEAKER_00: And to look at this, I actually want to turn to John 21.
SPEAKER_00: So you can turn there if not, I'm just gonna give a brief snapshot.
SPEAKER_00: But real quick, to give you a quick preview.
SPEAKER_00: So John 21, Peter and these disciples are gonna have an encounter with a resurrected Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So Luke 5, very beginning of relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: John 21, we're looking back, we're seeing it interaction with a resurrected Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But real quick, think about everything that has happened in Peter's life between these bookends.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to think in Luke 5, Peter's an unassuming fisherman, just out doing his job.
SPEAKER_00: He has this interaction with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And for the next three years, he's gonna be in the closest of relationships with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that we learn that Peter, along with James and John, are kind of in this inner circle of disciples that are the closest to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about everything that he sees during that time.
SPEAKER_00: He sees 5,000 people be fed with a couple pieces of bread and a few fish.
SPEAKER_00: He sees blind people see, deaf people hear, lame people walk, people raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty powerful experience of walking with God, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's about as powerful as it gets.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think everything he's experienced.
SPEAKER_00: And now think as we get to, we come to John 13, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're at the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus shares that someone at this table is going to betray me.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter and John kind of have this discourse, they're trying to figure out who it is.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter says this He says, I would lay down my life for you to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I would never desert you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I would never betray you.
SPEAKER_00: I'd lay down my life for you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus looks at him and says, Really?
SPEAKER_00: By the time the rooster crows, you'll have denied me three times.
SPEAKER_00: And in the hour when his friend needed him most, right, Peter's nowhere to be found.
SPEAKER_00: He denies ever having known Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then he watches as his friend Jesus is crucified on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: I'm put in a grave.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've hurt friends before, but I don't think I've ever experienced maybe that amount of probably guilt or shame.
SPEAKER_00: To think in the moment when Jesus needed him most, he never even knew him.
SPEAKER_00: And then to watch him die the kind of death that he died.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, can you imagine what Peter's feeling?
SPEAKER_00: And then we step into John 21.
SPEAKER_00: And we pick up, we've got Peter, along with some of the other disciples, are fishing.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4, we read, early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He called out to them, Friends, haven't you any fish?
SPEAKER_00: No, they answered.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Throw your net on the right side of the boat, and you'll find some.
SPEAKER_00: Does this sound very familiar to Luke 5?
SPEAKER_00: When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.
SPEAKER_00: Then the disciple whom Jesus loved, it's John, said to Peter, It's the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, It's the Lord, wrapped his outer garment around him, jumped into the water.
SPEAKER_00: The other disciples followed in, bringing in the fish.
SPEAKER_00: It says, When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals, there was fish on it, and some bread.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish you've caught.
SPEAKER_00: Simon Peter climbs aboard, drags them out ashore, and Jesus says to them, Come and have breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: Now none of the disciples dared ask him, Who are you?
SPEAKER_00: For they knew it was the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now think, with all the guilt, with all the shame, and with all the doubt that Peter's feeling about himself, all of a sudden he recognizes Jesus is on the shore.
SPEAKER_00: Overcome with emotion, he dives in, kind of typical Peter action, not really thinking, kind of overzealous, dives in, races to the shore.
SPEAKER_00: And can you anticipate what he would have been expecting Jesus to say?
SPEAKER_00: Man, Peter, what happened back there?
SPEAKER_00: That lay your life down for me part.
SPEAKER_00: What happened?
SPEAKER_00: Or Jesus, please just take me back.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I really didn't mean it.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see anything like this happen.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see Jesus making Peter feel guilty.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see Jesus condemning Peter.
SPEAKER_00: We don't tell him, well, that was your one chance and you blew it.
SPEAKER_00: Or, well, if you want to follow me, you're gonna have to get it together from here on out.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what we see at all.
SPEAKER_00: We see Jesus saying, come, have some breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't even bring up all of this.
SPEAKER_00: He invites Peter to come and have some breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I kind of like to think that when I mess up and when I'm feeling insecure, Jesus is just telling me to come and have some breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a big Waffle House fan, a couple nice waffles, sit down with a cup of coffee and have breakfast with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, the interesting thing is, in this relationship defined by intimacy, defined by fellowship, defined by nearness to Jesus, as I was looking and thinking about this, um, I realized that the uh the Greek word that we translate in our Bibles as intimacy or fellowship is a word called koinonia.
SPEAKER_00: And it communicates this idea of intimacy and fellowship, but it's also the word uh that our Bible uses to express the idea of communion.
SPEAKER_00: And so as I started thinking, okay, there's got to be like some cool sermon connection in all this, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um so I was thinking, I looked up, what does it mean to commune?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's kind of like one of those church words you hear a lot, but you're like, I don't actually, maybe I'm not sure even what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Um I looked it up, commune means this: to converse or talk together, usually with profound intensity or intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: Or, another definition would be to be in intimate communication or rapport with someone.
SPEAKER_00: And I started thinking about what does it mean to have a relationship with Jesus that is defined by this fellowship, by this communion, by this intense intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: To know that when we step into a relationship with Jesus, we're not stepping into it based on our merit.
SPEAKER_00: We're not stepping into it because we're good enough or smart enough or talented enough or gifted enough.
SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus is stepping into us.
SPEAKER_00: He's offering us an opportunity to experience intense intimacy as we participate with him in the work that he's come to the world to do, right?
SPEAKER_00: To bring redemption, reconciliation, and new life, to breathe new life into old, broken, messy people.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we take communion, right, that that's what we're celebrating.
SPEAKER_00: That we have a relationship with Jesus defined by an intense intimacy that has been secured by Him, not by any work or merit of our own, but by grace through faith, we freely receive it.
SPEAKER_00: And we come and celebrate that no matter how you feel about your relationship with God today, through Christ, you have an intimate, intensely intimate relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: God, um thank you so much that in the midst of all of my mess and my sin and my helplessness, that I am not hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: God, that um you have secured a way to know yourself and to experience intimacy, communion, fellowship, relationship with you that is not based on me having it all together, is not based on me getting all my stuff right before I can come to you.
SPEAKER_00: But God, like Peter, I can be intensely honest about how I come up short and how I can't fix it all.
SPEAKER_00: And that you step into that place and offer me fellowship and invite me to come and have breakfast and enjoy a relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: So, God, as we take communion this morning, um, pray that you just make that reality new and fresh to us, that we're able to experience that kind of relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: So we love you and we thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.