Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, New Life Gillette Church, we are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting? Yes.newlife gillette.com Here is this week's teaching.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Thanks, C.J. good morning, new life. How are you?
Great.
Yeah, C.J. just intro'd me. So let's get into the Bible, John 21 as you're turning there, if you want to, I'll have stuff up on the screen. But yeah, I'm from Sheridan, Wyoming originally. I'm from a place west of here,
[00:00:43] Speaker C: but I won't name the state because people throw things at me and stuff.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: But born and raised in California. My grandpa started. Oh we got, okay, we got a,
[00:00:54] Speaker C: got a couple people from California.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:56] Speaker C: In 1945, our family business started. So I'm the third generation. I've been around for 81 years building what we believe the world's finest firearms and ammo.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: But and now they're all stamped Sheridan, Wyoming on them. So we got the great state of Wyoming was great to us. About eight years ago we moved out here and been out there. We came out here to move our
[00:01:18] Speaker C: business and then as it had it, God wanted us to plant a church in Sheridan as well.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: So we have Sheridan Bible Church and
[00:01:23] Speaker C: meet down at the Wild Theater on Main Street. And so yeah, get a. Yeah. Able to hopefully to church and try
[00:01:31] Speaker B: to, I don't know, balance life and ministry like a lot of you are doing. And I'm excited to jump into John
[00:01:37] Speaker C: 21 with you this morning because you're not here to hear about me. And if you are, you came for the wrong reason. We're here to open God's Word, which is far more captivating than anything I can tell you today.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: How many of you are here on Easter A couple weeks ago, Right. You can't miss Easter. Come on.
[00:01:52] Speaker C: All y' all came Easter, right?
[00:01:55] Speaker B: You know, the whole idea of Easter is like Jesus rose from the dead. We know he was around for roughly 40 days and ascended. I'm going to go over a little story for you this morning.
[00:02:04] Speaker C: That's Jesus with his disciples after he ascended.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: I call it kind of the post movie credit scene.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: All the other gospels end with, you
[00:02:15] Speaker B: know, Jesus telling his disciples to go
[00:02:17] Speaker C: make more disciples and then he ascends. John is the only one of the four gospel writers that takes advantage of
[00:02:24] Speaker B: a last story of Jesus with his
[00:02:26] Speaker C: disciples on the Sea of Galilee, most importantly with Peter.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: And I've titled the message Jesus Restores everything you guys have been going through
[00:02:34] Speaker C: as a church, Jesus changes everything, which is true.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: But you see, at the end of John, chapter 20, John almost ends his story where he says Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his
[00:02:45] Speaker C: disciples, which are not written in this book.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: But these are written so you may
[00:02:49] Speaker C: believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
So by believing, you may have life in his name. And it's almost as if he ends it.
And then the credits roll and then John chapter 21 starts. It's early morning. The disciples are out on the water fishing once again. And Jesus comes beside them on the Sea of Galilee once again. Now here's the thing. Why did Jesus do this? Why did John record this passage?
This comes back to the Jesus restores everything. There's a moment here that John wants to capture of Jesus restoring his relationship with Peter.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Because the last time that we actually see Peter and Jesus really have this
[00:03:33] Speaker C: relationship is actually before Jesus dies. What do we find? Peter denies Jesus three times, right? He says, man, I don't know what you're talking about.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Immediately he was speaking.
[00:03:42] Speaker C: The rooster crowed.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: The Lord turned, looked at Peter. Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he'd said to him, before the
[00:03:49] Speaker C: rooster crows, today you'll deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Imagine for a moment if you're Peter
[00:03:55] Speaker C: and you're following Jesus, you're one of his disciples, you're one of his select
[00:03:59] Speaker B: few, and Jesus says you're going to deny him.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: You of course deny that. You're going to deny him, but then you deny him anyways.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Jesus has been arrested.
[00:04:07] Speaker C: He's in the courtyard. And imagine for a moment, your eyes glance over with the Son of God, knowing you just denied him three times.
Imagine the shame, the guilt, the regret that Peter had in that moment.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: And maybe some of you today come to church with regrets of your past,
[00:04:26] Speaker C: maybe feelings of shame and maybe feelings of guilt. And maybe John 21 is for you today as well as it is for Peter, because Jesus wasn't done with Peter. And that's what we're going to find out here this morning in this passage is that Jesus does restore everything.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: So we're going to go over Seven Powerful Truths from John, chapter 21.
[00:04:44] Speaker C: Here we go.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Number one. That kid's excited about it. You better get excited too. Number one. God's calling never expires.
[00:04:52] Speaker C: Let's start here.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: John 21, verse one. After this, Jesus revealed himself again to
[00:04:56] Speaker C: the disciples by the sea of Tiberias or Galilee. And he revealed himself in this way.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, son of Zebedee,
[00:05:05] Speaker C: the two others with the disciples were together.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Simon Peter said to him, I'm gonna go fishing.
[00:05:09] Speaker C: And they said to him, we will go with you.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: They went out, got into the boat,
[00:05:13] Speaker C: but that night they caught nothing. And just as day was breaking, Jesus
[00:05:17] Speaker B: stood on the shore.
[00:05:17] Speaker C: Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: The disciples had been reintroduced to Jesus post resurrected up to a couple times before. We have the doubting Thomas scene where they met and Thomas didn't believe it, but the disciples still Jesus is there. The disciples say, we're going to go out fishing.
Now what's ironic about it is this is almost the exact same spot where Jesus called his disciples. In Matthew chapter 4. Remember when they were walking by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers, Simon who's called Peter and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, what? Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And they left their nets and they followed Jesus.
Jesus called Peter. Three years before, Peter had done a
[00:06:02] Speaker C: whole bunch of things including deny Jesus. And what we have in today's passage
[00:06:06] Speaker B: is a reminder to us that Jesus
[00:06:08] Speaker C: call on our lives never expires.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: You see this is a map of the Sea of Galilee up in the far corner there. That area, Tabga, is probably where Jesus did this kind of calling of his disciples both the first time and later. This is a much younger, less gray hair Adam. 15 years ago I was standing right in this very spot.
And they believed this spot in Tabga, there at that northwest end of the Sea of Galilee is the spot where Jesus called his disciples in Matthew chapter four. But it's also most likely where Jesus and Simon Peter here in this passage in John chapter 21 had this kind
[00:06:44] Speaker C: of coming to Jesus moment, literally on
[00:06:47] Speaker B: the Sea of Galilee, the same exact
[00:06:49] Speaker C: spot where he called him years before.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: You see, here's the thing about Jesus
[00:06:55] Speaker C: calling on our lives.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: A lot of times we think, well, Jesus calls us to different things and he does. Like for me, I have this unique story because I was in my family business and I was being raised in it and I was gonna take it over and all I knew were guns, guns, guns. And that's what I was doing. And I started doing ministry and volunteer ministry and I actually went away to
[00:07:14] Speaker C: seminary, got my master's in theology and
[00:07:18] Speaker B: God called me into full time ministry
[00:07:19] Speaker C: for a bunch of years.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: And then I found myself coming back to the family business. And now I try to juggle all those things. And there's times in my life where I go, what has God called me? What's he called me to do? Who's he called me to be? And I realized, you know what? It doesn't matter where I show up to work.
It doesn't matter what I make with my hands.
It doesn't matter if I'm managing employees. It doesn't matter if I'm preaching a sermon. God's called me to be who God's called me to be.
[00:07:44] Speaker C: And my identity is not in my work.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: As much as I love what we do and we have this brand identity and all these things at Weatherby, for me, life is about who God's called
[00:07:53] Speaker C: me to be and what he's called me to do.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: That's why I drove over from Sheridan this morning. He's called me to preach his good news. C.J. gave me the opportunity. I'm not here to sell guns today. So sorry, there's no sales going on here. I didn't bring anything with me.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Probably should have. That would have been a good idea, right? But just kidding.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: I'm here today because God's called me
[00:08:12] Speaker C: to preach the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you see, I have a feeling God's probably called some of you.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: I'm not just talking about your initial
[00:08:20] Speaker C: call of salvation, but to your mission, what he's called you to do, who he's called you to be in your business, your homes, your communities, your schools.
And that calling. It's not like rotten milk, like it doesn't have a date on the side. It never expires. And what Jesus was trying to communicate to Peter this day on the shore of Galilee is, Peter, I called you to be a fisher of men. And your calling has not changed. It's the same regardless of what you've done. And I want you to remember that as we move on to point number two.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Two apart from him, we can't do anything.
[00:08:54] Speaker C: Amen to that.
Here's the start of verse five.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Jesus said to him, children, do you have any fish?
[00:09:01] Speaker C: They yell out to him, what do the disciples say?
[00:09:03] Speaker B: What's funny is it seems like all the time that we, the disciples, like, all they're supposed to know is fishing. And yet they're pretty bad at it. Cause you find all these scenarios where they're just not doing a good job at it. Any bad fishermen in the room, or am I the only one? How many of you, if Jesus calls out, hey, how many you caught on that Stream or that lake? None. Well, that's what the disciples were. So in this passage, they were as bad as me at fishing. They go, no. So Jesus said, well, cast your net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some.
[00:09:28] Speaker C: So they cast it.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: And now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish. When, when they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place
[00:09:36] Speaker C: with fish laid out on it.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: By the way, I skipped to verse nine.
[00:09:38] Speaker C: I'm going to come back to seven and eight.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish that you've just caught. So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore full of large fish.
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Note, he noted that they were large.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: This was probably 50 to 60 years after this instance when John wrote this. And yet he's much like us. He wanted to note that we all
[00:10:00] Speaker C: knew that the fish they caught were
[00:10:01] Speaker B: large, just like you when you're hunting or fishing. Then he even says, how many? 153 of them.
And although there were so many, the
[00:10:09] Speaker C: net was not torn.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Fifty years later, he remembers 153. How many of you guys in the
[00:10:15] Speaker C: room remember the size of the buck, the amount of fish, right?
[00:10:17] Speaker B: How many of you guys? And then you go around telling everybody else, too, right? So John and Peter are no different than a lot of you. And I see a lot of wives elbowing their husbands right now, for sure.
Here's what's so funny about the passage.
[00:10:29] Speaker C: The fisherman couldn't even catch fish without Jesus. Doesn't that remind you of you and me sometimes?
[00:10:36] Speaker B: And here's what's funny. Jesus was on the shore and he was grilling up fish. So guess who knew how to catch fish?
[00:10:41] Speaker C: Jesus.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: He was a rabbi, not a fisherman, but he somehow could get fish. Now, he also could probably do Jesus tricks right at the same time. So he might have cheated if you would, but he had fish on the shore.
And what's funny is he invites the disciples to be with him.
And then maybe to make them feel good or whatever, first he has fish that are already out there, and then they come. And maybe it's like you to a potluck. Like you show up to a potluck, any of you who are the bad potluck people, Everybody knows in a church community, like when you come, it's going to be like, I don't know, just cheap chips you grabbed off the shelf on your way in. Not making some casserole or stew all day or something. Well, the disciples come to this potluck with Jesus on the shoreline. Then here's. I think what's ironic is Jesus goes, I already have fish. Oh, but why don't you guys bring
[00:11:24] Speaker C: fish, the ones I just caught for you?
[00:11:27] Speaker B: So what the disciples brought was absolutely
[00:11:30] Speaker C: nothing to this moment with Jesus on the shoreline.
This theologian and author Travyn Wax says this of this passage. He says, God doesn't need our talents in order to do his work.
Yet in his grace, he invites us to bring our gifts as if they're ours to his altar and to work alongside of Him. This is the profound mystery and wonder of a loving God who invites us to take part in his work. He gives us the power, he gives us the fish, and all we give him is the glory.
John 15:15. A couple chapters before Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, it is he that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.
There's a reminder on the Sea of Galilee again with the disciples, to say, guys, if you're going to make it in this life, you got to remember, apart from me, you can't even catch a fish.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Number three.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Following Jesus often or always means getting out of the boat.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: So the scene kind of shifts to Peter in this.
[00:12:40] Speaker C: I'm going to jump back to verse seven. When they're out on the boat, right before they get to the shore, the disciple whom Jesus loved, therefore said to Peter, it is the Lord.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: When Simon Peter heard it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment,
[00:12:52] Speaker C: for he was stripped for work and
[00:12:53] Speaker B: threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.
This wasn't the first time that Peter
[00:13:03] Speaker C: jumped out of the boat to go to Jesus, was it?
[00:13:06] Speaker B: You remember when there was the storm and Jesus came walking on the water? Which disciple was it that jumped out of the boat? It was Peter. He begins walking on the water, he gets scared, he starts to sink. There was something about Peter in a boat, seeing Jesus that made him just want to jump overboard again and again and again.
And there are two Greek words in this passage I want to highlight here. I don't usually highlight a whole bunch of original language stuff, but they're intriguing to me. Balo means to throw or let go of a thing without caring where it falls.
They just said this of the nets, that they gallowed, that they bollo that they threw the nets overboard. And then it uses that same word to describe Peter that at that moment he hears Jesus voice, John alerts him, wait, it is the Lord. At that moment, Peter puts on his clothes and just throws himself overboard.
Like Peter only does again and again and again. But he knows when he sees Jesus, no matter what's happened, I need to
[00:13:56] Speaker C: be with this guy right now.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Let's take note of that real quick. The next interesting word is this word gumnos. It means naked most of the time. It's translated 11 out of 15 times. In the New Testament, this word is used.
[00:14:06] Speaker C: It actually means naked.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: It says, Peter was naked or stripped for work all night. Now I'd imagine hopefully he was in his undies or something. Otherwise that's just an awkward fishing experience for sure for him and all his disciples. But I wasn't there. But I know he was stripped or naked or mostly, probably down to not a lot.
When he sees Jesus and throws himself overboard. What's interesting is if you're out at the lake with your buddies and it's time to go wake surfing or something and you jump in the water, do you put on your clothes or do you take them off?
Usually take them off, don't you? You're not like, man, I'm gonna put on my Sunday best and jump into water. But Peter ironically puts on clothes.
[00:14:47] Speaker C: It almost reminds me of knowing the
[00:14:49] Speaker B: shame and guilt he must have had for the last time, that he really remembered connecting with Jesus when he saw him after he denied him.
[00:14:56] Speaker C: It reminds me of the Garden of Eden. What happens there?
[00:14:59] Speaker B: They blow it in the Garden of
[00:15:00] Speaker C: Eden, they sin and they saw. They were naked and ashamed. And what they do, they clothed themselves and they hid.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: There's something natural about us that as we stumble into sin in our lives, that makes us feel shame. So Peter puts on his clothes, but most of the time we actually do what they did in the Garden of Eden. When we find ourselves in sin, we tend to want to hide from God.
We actually don't like to be at church when we're just kind of messing up in life because somehow it makes us feel guilt and shame, right? We're like, oh, we're going to see so and so. They're going to ask us how we are. But they know I did this or they know I did that, or God knows I did this. And it's even natural, actually, for Peter.
Back in Luke chapter five, a very similar scenario happens where Jesus sees them. They're not catching fish. Surprise. The guys are not very good at catching fish. He tells them to put the nets in, they do. They catch the fish. And what happens down in verse eight at the bottom of that slide? Then when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus knees, saying, depart
[00:16:01] Speaker C: from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
Naturally, back at the very beginning, when Peter realized the holiness of God and the sin of himself, he. He wanted to actually go hide.
But in Peter's maturity over the years in the Sea of Galilee, even though he denied Jesus three times, he sees Jesus and he realizes, there's no better place that I'd rather be right now in my sin and shame and guilt than around that fire with Jesus.
And what a challenge for us.
The moments that we find ourselves stumbling again and again and again are the
[00:16:38] Speaker B: moments that sometimes the enemy comes in
[00:16:40] Speaker C: and tells us to run the other way. When in reality we need to go to Jesus feet and eat a good fish meal on the Sea of Galilee with him. Right When I, you know, and I,
[00:16:53] Speaker B: when I moved to Wyoming eight years
[00:16:55] Speaker C: ago, it was a get out of the boat experience for us a little bit that God was calling us to something that was a little bit scary.
We were leaving our family there for generations. Had to leave a whole bunch of old employees, build a new factory, leave the old one behind.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: We had like, we were moving. Our two teenage kids didn't want to
[00:17:11] Speaker C: move in the middle of high school.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: It was just one of those times. You ever been in one of those seasons?
[00:17:15] Speaker C: But you know God's calling you there, so you go.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: It was one of those get out
[00:17:19] Speaker C: of the boat moments.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: And what's crazy is a lot of
[00:17:23] Speaker C: times we don't either ever see the
[00:17:26] Speaker B: good results of getting out of the
[00:17:27] Speaker C: boat, or it's just a long time later that we do, right, that God
[00:17:32] Speaker B: has all these other things in store
[00:17:33] Speaker C: for us along the way. And I think you see that again and again with Peter.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Let's go to point number four. What's the next truth? Jesus wants to dine with us or be with us. Verse 12 of this passage. Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast now. None of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? They knew it was the Lord. So Jesus came, took the bread, gave it to him as so at the fish. This was now the third time that
[00:17:56] Speaker C: Jesus was revealed to the disciples. And after he was raised from the
[00:17:59] Speaker B: dead, they probably shared a lot of meals together. They'd had the last supper together. But in this moment on the side on the Sea of Galilee, here's what I find fascinating. The Son of God is there. He's resurrected. He only has a handful of days Left before he's going to go ascend and be with his Father. And what does he want to do
[00:18:14] Speaker C: but eat fish with the disciples along the shore?
Why did he want to do that?
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Again and again and again, we find Jesus dining and eating with sinners. In fact, early on in Scripture, we find, like in Mark, chapter two, I won't read it because of time right now, but we find the. That Jesus is eating with the tax collectors and sinners.
Jesus over and over again is doing that.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: Why?
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Because we spend time with, especially around a table, with people we love, don't we?
And Jesus, even in the midst of their sin and shame and guilt that they might have been feeling that day, especially Peter, Jesus says, hey, guys, why don't you come over here?
[00:18:50] Speaker C: Because I just want to be with you.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: You know, when we love people, we want to be with them and vice versa. When we don't love with people, we don't like to be with those people, do we?
You know, like, you probably have people like that in your life. You're like, I'll invite them over for dinner, maybe for the night or the weekend, but certainly not a week or longer. Anybody have people like that in your life? You're like, they can come in my home, but there's like a time limit. And then they're leaving.
But then there's other people. You're like, man, you come stay with us however long you want. Cause we just love to be with you. We'd love to break bread around a table and just be with you.
You guys know what I'm talking about, right? People you like to be with and people you don't. Here's what I find fascinating. Jesus again and again and again communicates in the truth of Scripture that he
[00:19:36] Speaker C: wants to be with us.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Here's what I find fascinating. Longer than a week, longer than a month, longer than a year. Because we find in the Book of Revelation that Jesus wants to invite us to the banquet table so we can be with him and eat with him forever.
Even tax collectors and sinners, even those that deny Jesus three times. And even though you fill in the blank that God demonstrated his love so much for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And this is a reminder on the shore of the Sea of Galilee that
[00:20:10] Speaker C: Jesus sometimes just wants to be with us.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Point number five.
There's a reminder here that nothing can separate us from the love of God,
[00:20:19] Speaker C: which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord. Verses 15 to 17.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Here's where it gets real with Peter Conversation.
[00:20:26] Speaker C: He probably didn't want to happen.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: He didn't want to have happen.
[00:20:29] Speaker C: Where Jesus confronts him head on with his sin, it is a part that
[00:20:34] Speaker B: hurts, but Jesus is trying to bring through him. Remember, he's trying to restore him. When you restore something, sometimes you got to break it down before you can build it up. We got any people that love to restore old things, antique things, car things? Anybody here? Come on, we have nobody. You're as creative as me. Okay, we got a few of them that you love. But what you got to do, sometimes you got to break it down. You got to get the rust off. You got to put your back into it. And in this passage, Jesus is leaning in, putting his back into it and has this conversation with Peter. It must have hurt so much because when they'd finished having breakfast, Jesus said to Simon, Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Now, we don't know what the these are. It could have been the fish. The disciples, more than the disciples, love them. We don't know. But he's saying, peter, do you love me? Peter's like, yes, I do.
And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know I love you. Well, then feed my lambs. He said to him a second time, simon, son of John, do you love me?
[00:21:23] Speaker C: Asked him twice.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: You know that second time he's like,
[00:21:26] Speaker C: okay, this is awkward.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: Let's go back fishing. He says this, you know that I'll love you. So he said to him, tend to my sheep.
He said to him the third time, simon, son of John, do you love me?
[00:21:36] Speaker C: Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me?
[00:21:39] Speaker B: And. And he said, lord, you know everything.
[00:21:42] Speaker C: You know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my sheep.
There's nothing that Peter could have done. And Jesus is trying to relay that to him, that Peter, I've still called you to go lead my people. I still have a mission for your life. There's a few interesting notes here. Number one, they were around a charcoal fire on the Sea of Galilee right there.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: Well, the last time a charcoal fire
[00:22:04] Speaker C: was referenced was in John 18:18.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: It says that Peter was warming himself
[00:22:09] Speaker C: around a charcoal fire when he denied Jesus.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: So I'll bet when he was there and smelling the fire, he's like, oh, this reminds me of the past.
[00:22:16] Speaker C: But he had to get through that to move on.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: Kind of second to that.
Is it coincidental that Jesus asked him three times, peter, do you love me? How many times did Peter deny him?
[00:22:28] Speaker C: Three times.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: And then it's also interesting here that
[00:22:32] Speaker C: Jesus uses Peter's old name, his humble name. He calls him Simon, son of John.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: And he hadn't done that since he
[00:22:38] Speaker C: called him to be his disciple three years earlier. Earlier he'd renamed him Peter.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: He's trying to take him back to
[00:22:43] Speaker C: the day of his calling and the day of his salvation, saying, peter, it doesn't matter what the last three years have held.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: You see, Peter, in his arrogance and pride, often would get in the way. And he would say, you know, he'd be the first to say, jesus, I'll come to you out on the water. Jesus, I'll lay down my life for you. He's the one who chops the ear off, the guy who comes to arrest Jesus.
Peter has these blunders. He says, lord, I'm willing to go with you both to prison and death. And yet Jesus restates him on the Sea of Galilee.
[00:23:12] Speaker C: And it's almost as if he's trying to communicate what Paul did to the Church of rome in chapter 8, verse 38, where he says, for I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: If you ever write that verse down, if you ever feel like you've done
[00:23:35] Speaker C: something that can separate you from God's
[00:23:36] Speaker B: love, that is a passage right there
[00:23:37] Speaker C: that's a reminder that we are secure in a relationship with him.
Point number six.
He also tells Peter, we're always on mission.
He says, peter, not only am I restoring you into a relationship, a right relationship, with me, but I'm also not done with you. I'm calling you to go feed my sheep, to feed my lambs.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Jesus is like, I've been doing it here the last three years with you. I'm about ready to ascend, to go to my Father to prepare a place for you and you disciples, guys who can barely even catch fish. I'm entrusting all of this with you to go. And he's reiterating that to Peter. And here's what I find fascinating.
Jesus does ascend to go be with his Father. The Holy Spirit descends in Acts, chapter two.
And one of my favorite passages in the New Testament is in Acts 2:14.
Because at this moment, the Holy Spirit comes down and the future of the entire church rests on Peter and the disciples. And there's mass confusion. Everybody actually thinks they're drunk, like they don't know what's going on in Acts, chapter two. And then we get to verse 14.
Who stands up?
I love this. Some translations say this, but Peter stood up.
In the midst of all this confusion, Peter stands up, addresses the crowd, preaches a sermon. And 3,000 people repent and are baptized that day. And it's the start of the church
[00:25:00] Speaker C: that's still going today in 2026 in Gillette, Wyoming, here at New Life.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Because Peter stood up.
What about if he'd have been at home wallowing in his shame and guilt? I'm the one who denied Jesus.
Like, what if he wouldn't have been used? Like, would we be here today? Well, yes, because God would have used some other incompetent person like you or me, just like he did Peter, right?
But he chooses to use Peter still to carry forth his mission.
And I'm here to tell you today that just because you've blown it doesn't
[00:25:31] Speaker C: mean God's done with you.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: I had somebody tell me real early on in ministry, if you're not dead,
[00:25:35] Speaker C: he's not done up till our dying breath. May we serve the Lord Jesus Christ with everything we have.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: Point number seven, last one.
[00:25:49] Speaker C: It doesn't matter what everyone else does.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: This is the end of the story here.
[00:25:54] Speaker C: It gets a little bit weird for a second. I'm going to kind of describe it, then we'll try to land this plane.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you. Verse 18. When you were young, you used to
[00:26:02] Speaker C: dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: But when you're old, you will stretch
[00:26:06] Speaker C: out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you don't want to go.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: He said this to show what kind
[00:26:11] Speaker C: of death he was, to glorify God. So just a note in there. Peter ends up getting crucified upside down is what history tells us, because he said he wasn't worthy of being crucified the way his Lord was. So Jesus was describing a bit of his death.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: So, but Jesus at the end says, but follow me.
Verse 20. Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them.
[00:26:32] Speaker C: That's John, the one who also had leaned back against him during supper and
[00:26:35] Speaker B: said, lord, who is it that is going to betray you? When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, lord, what about this man? And here's. Here's all I want to get away from this is Jesus is having a conversation with Peter and he's saying, okay, Peter, here, you're going to die. But Peter, you need to follow me. Peter, you need to feed my sheep. And Peter just Points at John.
And Jesus said to him, if it is my will, he remains until I come.
[00:26:59] Speaker C: What is that to you? But you. And I can almost see him pointing his finger.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Peter, you looking me in the eye.
[00:27:05] Speaker C: You follow me.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: One of the things Peter could have done is got his eyes off himself
[00:27:12] Speaker C: and just looked at everybody else and got distracted by everybody else around him and worried about what everyone else was doing.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: A lot of times that brings us to a pretty bad spot in our lives when we tend to compare. Social media does that for us now
[00:27:23] Speaker C: because we can get online.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: Every other family looks more together than mine. Every other business owner is probably making more money than me. Everybody else probably hitting their fitness goals better than me, cooked a better meal at night. Why? Because we just flip through our devices and see what everybody else is doing. But in the end of this passage, Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus for a moment like he always does. He looks over at John and somebody else starts to compare himself. And Jesus just says, peter, you follow me.
[00:27:50] Speaker C: And that's the closing challenge for today that God put on my heart for you, is to follow him no matter
[00:27:59] Speaker B: what it takes, no matter what everyone
[00:28:01] Speaker C: else around you is doing for you to follow him.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Because I do know this in the end.
First John, chapter five, John writes this.
[00:28:11] Speaker C: Later on in his letter, he says, this is the testimony God gave us.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Eternal life.
[00:28:15] Speaker C: Life is in his Son. Whoever has the son has the life. And whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
When all is said and done, nobody else matters. Right there, that's me and Jesus.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: See, because at the end of all of this, when all is said and done and when I breathe my last breath and I stand before my heavenly Father, I'm not going to go, well,
[00:28:40] Speaker C: you know what John did?
You know what so and so did?
I'm going to come to him much like the disciples did that day with nothing except for Jesus.
That's all that's going to matter at the very end.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Because at the end of it, much like the disciples, didn't bring anything that day other than what God gave them. When we come to stand before our
[00:29:02] Speaker C: Father one day in the presence of a holy God, there's only one way we can do that. And it's not because of anything we bring.
Not because of our own righteousness, not
[00:29:14] Speaker B: because of our own purity, our own ability to battle sin, not because of the things we did for social justice or humanitarian things, or volunteered or wrote large checks. Because at the end of the day, the thing that is going to Matter above everything else is in order for me, a sinner, to stand in the
[00:29:30] Speaker C: presence of a holy God, we have to have Jesus, the one who died and paid the price that we celebrated rose again two weeks ago. And that's all that's going to matter in the end. And if you hear anything from me today, that's it.
We come to him with nothing but filthy rags, and he comes to us with his righteousness and the blood of Jesus Christ.
That's the way the story ends. You follow me?
[00:30:01] Speaker B: I'm going to put a picture up on the screen. This is a Mercedes, and this Mercedes
[00:30:07] Speaker C: is a 1955 Mercedes Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhock Coupe.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: I'm not much of a car guy,
[00:30:13] Speaker C: and I don't know much about this, but this is a car that's been restored.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: We said at the beginning, title of this message is that Jesus restores everything just like he did Peter on the shore that day.
When you restore things, you take something old and maybe run down and maybe a little bit broken, and you breathe
[00:30:32] Speaker C: life back into it.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Well, the reason this car is significant is in 2022 it went up for auction, fully restored, and went for $142 million. The most money to ever be brought
[00:30:45] Speaker C: by a restored car, ever.
It's not mine, by the way, and
[00:30:50] Speaker B: if you do own it, come up to me afterwards.
[00:30:52] Speaker C: I'd like to talk to you about it, where that came from.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: You know, the reason I tell that story is this is a little bit of what Jesus did with Peter on
[00:31:01] Speaker C: the shore of Galley that day.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: He took an old broken down fisherman
[00:31:07] Speaker C: disciple that was wallowing in his shame and guilt, completely restored him and brought value back to Peter.
And the good news is it was
[00:31:23] Speaker B: worth to Jesus more than $142 million.
Because as much value as this car has, the person, whoever that was, that wrote that check for 142 million
[00:31:37] Speaker C: didn't die to get the car.
You may be thinking, I'd rather die than write a check for 142 million.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: But what Jesus does that day with Peter is he stands along the shore and he takes a broken down disciple, breathes life back into him, gives him
[00:31:54] Speaker C: mission and holds him up and says,
[00:31:57] Speaker B: peter,
[00:31:59] Speaker C: your value is priceless.
I died for you.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: The risen Jesus declared value to Peter. Say, Peter, I am here today because I believe in you so much.
[00:32:11] Speaker C: I died for you.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: I went to that cross in the midst of all of you abandoning me, in the midst of you denying me, in the midst of your buddy Judas betraying me for 30 pieces of silver. I.
I did all that because I love you, Peter.
[00:32:26] Speaker C: And you're worth it to me.
And I am going to use you in spite of you.
You, Peter, follow me.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: And then at the very end of
[00:32:39] Speaker C: that passage, at the end, John comes down to the end and says, guys,
[00:32:43] Speaker B: if I told you everything that this
[00:32:45] Speaker C: guy Jesus did, the words would not be contained in these pages. And may that be a challenge for us to go dig into His Word to constantly be reminded the truth of God's word. You, New Life, Church and Gillette, follow me.
God, thank you for today and your word.
Thank you for your truth.
Thank you for your call on our life.
Thank you for your forgiveness in spite of what we've done.
God, you are a good, good father man.
We love you, God. If there's anybody here today who's yet to say Jesus, I follow you, I pray. Today would be that day that they would recognize the love of their Heavenly Father.
Thank you, Father Jesus. Name all God's people said, Amen.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Thanks, guys.
