Leap of Faith Week 3

I gave some of you time to find the book of John. So fourth book of the New Testament, here we go. Says afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way. Simon Peter and Thomas, Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee and the sons of Zebedee and two other disciples, they were all together. And Simon Peter told them and said, I'm going out to fish. And then they said, okay, we'll go with you. So they went out and they got into the boat. But that night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore. But the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. And he called out to them, friends, haven't you any fish? No, they answered. He said, throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. And when they did, they were unable to haul in the net because of the large number of fish. Now hit pause for a second. If you were here two weeks ago, I preached Luke chapter five, a similar situation. You go, is this the same story? No, this is a different, this is a different happening. This is years apart probably. So then verse seven, the disciples whom Jesus loved said to Peter, it's the Lord.

And as soon as Simon Peter heard this, he heard him say, it's the Lord. He wrapped his outer garment around him for he'd taken it off and he jumped into the water. He took a leap of faith into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat towing the net full of fish. And they were not far from shore, about 100 yards. And when they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it and some bread. Jesus said to them, bring some of your fish and you've just caught. So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and he dragged the net ashore as full of large fish, 153. But even with so many, the net was not torn. And Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast. And none of the disciples dared ask, who are you? They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish. And this was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. Third time now, they're seeing Jesus. When they had finished eating, Jesus says to Simon Peter, Simon's son of John, do you love me more than these? And he said, yes Lord, you know that I love you. And Jesus said, feed my lambs. And again, Jesus said to Simon, Simon's son of John, do you love me? And he answered, yes Lord, you know that I love you.

And Jesus said, take care of my sheep. A third time, he said to him, Simon's son of John, do you love me? And now Peter was hurt 'cause Jesus asked him a third time, do you love me? And he says, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. And Jesus said, well then feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you Peter that when you were younger, you dressed yourself, you weren't where you wanted, but when you're old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. And Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, follow me. I wanna pray a fresh word, a fresh anointing on this word. And this word today is gonna hopefully help us take from a leap of faith to a life of faith. Tied my message date, from leap of faith. Come on, to life of faith. We're in this thing for the long haul. Somebody say amen. All right, let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Speak to us today. We need you and we're ready for you. We say yes to you. In Jesus' name, amen, amen.

From leap of faith to life of faith. And I wanna start by means of confession. This week, I was on my way to work one of the days this week. This is week one of these weeks that I've been just been waking up early. I've been waking up before the alarm clock. Anybody have one of those weeks where you set the alarm every night? And you're like, I'm not gonna need this 'cause I'm just gonna be waking up before. I was just waking up early this week. And so I was kinda ready early some of the days this week. And so one of the days I was on my way in and I drove by a Chick-fil-A. And I don't know if it was the spirit speaking to me or the devil speaking to me, but I heard a voice and it was reminding me about a sandwich at Chick-fil-A that's new, that I have not tried yet. It's the chicken and waffles sandwich. Can I get an amen? Somebody, yeah, it was up. They've been talking about this two waffles in between this piece of chicken with a little bit of bacon on there and they give you some syrup. Come on, somebody, to put on it. And for some reason, started thinking about that. I said, man, I haven't tried that yet. I've heard about it.

I've seen ads for it. I've talked to people about it. I've said, hey, have you tried that yet? And I've had people say, oh, yes. It's even better with the spicy chicken. I'm like, "Mental note, got that spicy chicken." And as I was driving by, I was tempted to go in there and grab that. And I thought, "Man, I'll just go in there and maybe do some of my devotion in Chick-fil-A. I'll read my Bible and stuff." And I actually drove past Chick-fil-A, and I said, "No, I'm not going to." And then the street after I said, "Oh, yes, I will." So I pull in, and I go into the counter, and I ordered the Chick-fil-A, the chicken and Waffle sandwich with spicy chicken, and I got a Diet Coke, and I went and sat at a table, and I pulled out my iPad and I started reading my Bible while I was eating that chicken. And listen, somebody says, "Well, how was it?" People joke all the time that Chick-fil-A chicken is like anointed chicken because they're closed on Sundays and because the founder, Truett Cathy, was a God-fearing man. So people always joke and say, "Well, that's anointed chicken." And I don't know if it's anointed chicken, but I'll tell you this, when I was eating that chicken and Waffle sandwich, I felt the Lord. I'll tell you that. I don't know. I was reading the Bible at the same time, but I felt something else, man. It was awesome. I did like it. And I started thinking, "Man, what is it that pulled me in here like this? Why did I make this decision? Because I actually don't consume calories like that early in the morning. I usually keep the calorie count pretty low in the mornings, and so what is it that caused me to do that?

And as I processed it in my mind, I think I came up with kind of my why. That's why I felt so urgent about it. It's because right there on all the ads and right there in the store where it has the sign up that says the chicken and Waffle sandwich, right there over the top of every single time they talk about there's this little stamp, and it says this, for a limited time. For a limited time only. And I think in my subconscious, I was like, "If I don't hurry up and get up in there and try that, it's going to be gone forever. And it's going to be folklore, I'm just going to be left and listen to sit down and listen to other people talk about the time they had their Chick-fil-A chicken and Waffle sandwich, and I'll never get to try it." And so that limited time thing got me, that limited time thing has been getting to some of you with the McDonald's McRib for a bunch of decades. Like they just keep saying, "For a limited time, I've never had a McRib in my whole life, but I do every time they come back out, they're like, "Oh, for a limited time." And it creates this sense of scarcity. It creates this sense of urgency. Oh man, this is going to be here today and gone tomorrow. And as I was thinking about for a limited time, I started thinking about the way some of us do Christianity, the way some of us do our faith walk. We do our faith walk with Jesus for a limited time only. Like we want to get all serious about God, but it's going to be for a limited time. I want to get serious with it. I'm going to, man, I'm going to develop a devotion life this year, but it's just for a limited time. I want to get passionate about worship. I want to get, I'm going to start memorizing Scripture, but it's just for a limited time. God I am ready to get free from that secret sin that has been destroying my life and so we get free for a limited time. And I'm saying the true leap of faith, I mean, the ultimate leap of faith is when you leap

from limited time to this is who I am, from leap of faith to life of faith. And I feel like that's the point that Peter is at in his life, because he's had these moments, he's had these leaps of faith. And John chapter 20, when the whole scene is set up for Peter, honestly, and we'll see that in a moment, but he's had some high points and some low points. And we did read, we talked about a couple of weeks ago, man, he leaves everything to follow Jesus and so that's a high point. Then he has some low points along the journey and he walks on water, but then he starts to sing and it's a limited time as he's walking on that water. And he even has a moment with Jesus where he gives an answer and Jesus goes, man, I'm going to start calling you the rock and like a testimony like you, I'm going to build a church on people like you, Peter, you're a rock and Peter's like, yes. And I mean, minutes later, Jesus looking at the same Peter that he just named the rock and he said, get behind me Satan, it's like it was a limited time. And so Peter's in this moment now that he's denied Christ and he's not really maybe even sure what to do with that calling, because maybe he's kind of gone too far and not trying to. And now it's this moment of like, is he going to go from a few leaps of faith to a life of faith? And that's what I want us to look at, what, how can we be sure that we can live a life of faith? What's it going to take for us? And I think it's going to be, we're going to see some truth from this word. First thing that would jump out to me would be this, if we're going to live a life of faith, go from a few leaps to a life, it means this, never look at me, means you're going to have to learn how to rebound from failure. And this is going to be, I mean, God made it super strong in my heart. This is going to be for somebody in this-- that you need to rebound from failure. Peter knew exactly what it was like

to need to rebound from failure. 'Cause he had told Jesus, man, if everyone else leaves you, I'm not gonna leave you. And Jesus said, you're gonna deny me three times, and he did, and he failed. And now he's at this moment of like, what do I do with that failure? And as he's trying to decide what to do with that failure, in verse three, he says, I guess I'm gonna go out to fish? I'm gonna, it's my routine. I was doing leaps of faith. Now I'm just gonna return to the routine. I'm gonna go fish. And the other disciples are like, we'll go with you. And so they're together, and maybe they were just hungry, and maybe they were just fishing for this one moment to like get some fish. And they knew how to do that. Or maybe it was a return back to just the routine. And maybe it was, no more leaps of faith for me because I have, I've blown it. As I said, the entire setting of John chapter 21, it intentionally echoes Peter's darkest hour when he denied Jesus. Even so much like this, I don't know if you called it, but it says, when they get out of the boat and they come up and find Jesus, he's got some fish on a fire.

Do you remember me reading that? Okay, it's not just any fire. It says, it's specific in the Bible. It says, he's got fish on a charcoal fire. And the Greek word used to describe a charcoal fire is only used one other place in the entire New Testament. So two times, this particular kind of fire is mentioned. One time here in John chapter 21 that we just read that Jesus has the fire going, the only other time, guess what it was? It's John chapter 18 when Peter is around that same kind of fire denying Jesus. I never knew him. I don't know what you're talking about. I never knew him. And Jesus builds the exact same kind of fire now. And so as Peter's walking up on this fire, you know what, like imagine the sensory detail that's going on as he smells that charcoal fire. When's the last time I smelled a charcoal fire like this? Oh, it was when I stood around a fire like this and denied Jesus. Rather than avoiding Peter's trauma altogether, Jesus literally builds a fire. That's going to remind him of it. And we might go, man, that's Jesus, that's mean, man. Like, just bringing up his worst day right there. Why you got to build a fire that's just like that? I think I have found this to be the truth about God is when I am willing to reveal my mistakes,

God can heal my mistakes. When I'm really, when I'm trying to hide my stuff, if I'm trying to hide it, God can't heal it. But if I'm willing to reveal where I need his help, I have found that God is more than able and more than willing to come in and breathe some healing. And so, no, it doesn't do us any good to hide our pain or to hide our hurt or to hide our mistakes or to sit there and just ignore them. Oh, yeah, I mess up all that, I messed up this and I messed up that and I misspoke here and I made this failure here. It doesn't do us any good just to hide it and ignore it. No, we bring it and we reveal it to God. We say, God, I need your help here because God, and that's what God is showing here, Jesus is showing Peter that he is a God of a do-over. I don't know if there's any golfers in the house, but most all golfers know this term, especially when you first start playing golf, you really know this term. It's a term called a mulligan. I don't know if anybody's ever heard of a mulligan, some of you are great, that's the best part of your golf game is your mulligan game. Like, here's what a mulligan means, it's like somebody's getting ready to hit their shot and if they hit a really, really bad shot and maybe it's going off into the water,

they pull out of their pocket a new ball and place it down and they go, I'm gonna try that shot again. And sometimes guys will take seven, eight, 10, 15, 25 mulligans around and they'll come in and be like, I shot a 79 today. You're like, well, how many mulligans do you take? 79, 79 mulligans. And I'll play with something. I don't personally, like I did, I used to, but I don't play with mulligans. I don't use mulligans when I play. I just suffer. But sometimes I'm playing with people and I'll hit a bad shot and I appreciate that from somebody. They'll be like, hit another one. I'm like, no, and I'll be frustrated and have, try not to sin in my frustration. They'll be like, read another one, just come on, hit another one. I mean, I like that gesture and I like that thought and I like that willingness to kind of do over 'cause that's the spirit of Christ. Can I just remind somebody in this room that has made some mistakes? Jesus wants to offer you a do-over. Jesus wants to give you a second chance. Your failure, oh, somebody needs to hear this today. Your failure does not have to be final. Your failure can actually move you forward

if you'll let Jesus teach you what you need to learn through it. Yeah, it's not that your failure didn't matter. It's not that it's not a big deal. It's that he's already paid the heavy price for your failure. Yet some of you are letting your failure define you. There's men in this room, you won't step out and be a leader in your home spiritually because you have failed in your spiritual life and your family knows it. And so you just stay stuck in that failure. There's somebody because you said something the wrong way or you treated somebody the wrong way or you gave into a week air of your life and now you just think, man, that's all I am. And I just need to remind somebody, you are worth more to Jesus than your worst mistake. You're worth more to Jesus than your most recent mistake. Come on, you are still vital. You still matter to the kingdom of God. You've got to learn how to bounce back from failure. That's probably one of the heartbreaking parts of being a pastor's eye. I mean, I know people that are just kind of falling away from God because they couldn't bounce back from a moment of failure. Peter learns how to bounce back in this moment of failure and it starts him from a leap of faith into a life of faith. Rebound from failure, also you're going to have to be willing to shape, intentionally shape your fellowship.

Like it's going to be such an important part. You just can't emphasize enough how important the people around you are. Like who you do life with is going to make such an impact on how your life goes. It just, I just can't emphasize that enough. And I think as adults, we believe that about like younger people. And so as adults, like some of you are telling your 12-year-old and all the time, you better get yourself with the right friends because if you don't, they're going to take you down and send you the wrong direction. And we say that to 12-year-olds and we say that to 17-year-olds and then somehow we think magically that when we are like 21, that doesn't matter anymore or when we are 30 or when we are married, that doesn't matter anymore. Can I just remind somebody, you still have peers and those peers will still put some pressure on your life? It's for all of us. And so sometimes we are not intentional enough about who we are surrounding ourselves. And if we would be more intentional about shaping our fellowship, shaping who we're doing life with, you'll find that a life of faith gets way easier. Life of faith gets way more difficult if I got nobody around my life who's trying to live a life of faith. Now I want people around my life. I want people around me who are trying to live this thing out too. I want people around me who are trying to believe God for miracles.

I want people around me who are trying to be faithful to God, who are trying to grow in God, who are trying to be passionate for God because when I got them around me, it makes me want those same things. And so in verse 12, Jesus goes, "Hey, come and have breakfast with me." We go, well, that's probably just because they were hungry, right? It was breakfast time, right? It was a morning, it was more than that. When you see having a meal together, especially in this culture and when you receive it in the Bible, it usually means more than that. This is way more than food. This invitation to come sit at the table and have breakfast together, it was communicating relationship. It was, hey, we're gonna have a time together. We're gonna talk to one another. We're gonna grow together. It was a picture of, really, even the church that we need moments, intimacy with Jesus, and connection with one another. He said, "Come sit with me," but yet they were also sitting with one another. And that was really the source and the secret of the miraculous catch that they see happen here, where 153 large fish get caught in the morning when they hadn't caught anything again,

similar to Luke chapter five. But look at this, the secret to that is they're hearing the voice of God. They're connected to Jesus and they're working together. The kingdom of God is meant to be done together. Christianity is never meant to be a silo moment where I'm just by myself and I'm just locked in. I'm just gonna try to do this thing by myself. It's just when it's not created that way, that's not the way a relationship with God is intended to be lived out and fleshed out. No, our miracles, the same, but their miracle was tied to their connectivity to one another and to Jesus. All the miracles that we will see happen in our faith community will happen because we're connected to Jesus and because we're connected to one another, because we take care of one another, because we care for one another, because we're intentional about our relationships with one another, Let me give you one assignment today before you leave wherever location you're at. Today, challenge you. Jesus name, here we go. Meet somebody new before you leave today. I mean, I know some of you are like, no, I sit in my spot so I can sneak in and sneak out and don't have to talk to anybody. I know, but what if you just try to be intentional

about it and say, hey, today I'll try to meet somebody and connect with somebody. Maybe do coffee with somebody this week. What might happen is there might be this God-forging relationship that might be the very relationship that kind of sparks you on to a greater life of faith. That's how it works. I heard one pastor say it this way. They used to say, give us three months. If you're new around here, give us three months. What they were saying is this, give us three months and just do all this stuff. Just three months of inintensive. Come to the services, come to the prayer meetings, get in starting point, get in journey of faith, get into small group, do all this stuff for three months. And if you do it for three months and your life doesn't change, then, okay, I will give you the money back. It's doesn't cost you a thing, but you know what I'm saying? No, and the reason why we would say something like this 'cause we know what happens. Not only when God starts moving to your life 'cause you make him a priority, but when you get around other people that are making him a priority, come on, God just starts to multiply and amplify what he's doing in your life because of the people that you're around. The three times that he asked Peter, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me all three times?

He said, then feed my sheep, feed my lambs, take care of my sheep, what's he saying? Peter, moving forward, you're going to have to be connected to other people. Not just connected, but caring for other people. Can I say something I didn't say last service? Sometimes the church, we are guilty of seeing needs and seeing issues and we go, man, the church should take care of that. You can get quiet, that's fine. Sometimes we see people in need or receive people struggling or they have an issue with their family or with their home or with their job or with their resource, whatever, and so it's kind of a lot, often what we do is we go, oh man, I wonder if the church has anything to take care of that? And I would say, yes, the church has something to take care of that. And the thing that we call, the program is called you. All right, like, we can take care of one another. Come on, like, now, listen, we do have different programs and we do have different mobilizations and stuff like that, but I don't ever want us as Christians to rely on someone else's mobilization when God has called me to come on to care for one another and to care for some sheep around me. And I can only do that when I'm connected with one another. That's what leadership in the kingdom is being redefined here as. Not just a devotion, do you love me?

But also, like, the way I'm interacting with other people is showing that love. How did Jesus say it? By this, the world will know your my disciples if you have love one for another. It's not an option. We've got to be intentional about our fellowship. So do all this stuff. Give us three months. Watch how your life changes. And the last one, and I just want to spend a couple moments here, we've got to be able to intensify our follow, what it means to follow Jesus. That's part of what is happening here with Peter as well. Because the third time he asks him, "Hey, do you love me more than these?" Peter is hurt because Jesus asked him a third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, do you know I love you?" He said, "Feed my sheep." And then right after that, he says very true, I tell you. And Jesus starts to explain kind of why he's asking him three times. And we'll get there in just a second. Why did Jesus ask Peter three times? So there's a couple different kind of reasons that theologians might have. For one, he says, "Do you love me? Do you love me?" So I think one thing we can definitely take away from this

is that loving Jesus is the central theme of our relationship with God. Like you can have all the doctrine and all the programs and all the stuff, and if you don't love Jesus, like with all your heart, it's not gonna work. So that's one of the things. One of the things would be this, why do you ask him three times? How many times did Peter deny Jesus? Three times. So for every denial, Jesus is saying, do you love me? You're racing the first denial, do you love me? You're racing the second denial, do you love me? Racing the third. Why did Jesus ask him three times? Some of it is because of the emphasis that we see in Scripture when things are mentioned multiple times. So like in Isaiah chapter six, Would one holy do? Apparently not. He's more holy than one holy. He's more holy than three holies, but we get the idea that there is this three times mention that's kind of implying an infinity number of mentions. He's holy. And so there's this emphasis that comes with repetition. So he's asking him three times to emphasize how important this is that Peter, you've got to bounce back. Peter, you've got to be intentional about this. Do you love me? But let me bring out the one that maybe you've not heard, because in this culture, near Eastern custom and culture, when two people were coming into an agreement, a lot of times it maybe wouldn't be written on anything, because that wasn't available. So it would be verbal agreements that would be binding, and here's how a verbal agreement would be binding, is that we would get witnesses, and we would agree to this agreement verbally, and we would say it three times in front of witnesses,

and if we said it the third time, nobody could mistake it, and now that is solid. So it's this, it's like, "I'm going to buy your land from you for this amount of money." I agree. "I'm going to buy this land from you for this amount of money." I agree. "I'm going to buy this land from you for this amount of money." I agree to sell this land for that amount of money, and by the time we've said it three times in front of all the witnesses, everybody goes, "Done. Deal. It's sealed. We're done. Like, it's agreed." So part of when Jesus is saying to Peter three times, "Do you love me?" Although it hurt Peter a little bit, by the third time he says, "You know I love you. There are other witnesses to go. Peter's in. He's locked in. He's in this thing." And that, okay, watch that, then, is when Jesus goes, "Peter, when you were young, you dressed yourself, you went where you wanted to go." But when you're old, things are going to change. When you're old, there's going to be people that stretch your arms out, and they're going to dress you how they want to dress you, and they're going to take you where you don't want to go. I go, "What was Peter thinking?" I'll tell you what Peter was thinking. John tells us what Peter was thinking. He says, "Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death that Peter was going to glorify God then." He's saying, "Peter, they're going to stretch your arms out. You're going to die for this." And after he says that, "You're going to die for this." He says it again, "Follow me." And Peter, because he has decided to solidify, I'm not up and down anymore. I'm not in and out of this thing. I've made a verbal agreement among witnesses three times that I love you. And so even if it means I die, I'm still in. I'll follow you. I mean, think about what it takes for us to walk away way less than death. Oh, some of us give up on our faith just because somebody didn't talk to us right at church. Sometimes some of us give up on our faith just because the church doesn't use us in the position we want to be used. Sometimes we give up on our faith because somebody took our seat or our parking spotter. Sometimes we give up on our faith because they didn't sing the song I wanted them to sing. Sometimes we give up on our faith for all these other reasons. And so, man, we're going all the way to death. Peter, you're going to die for this. And will you follow me? Peter intensifies his follow year. He had said yes to a follow before. But man, that was a follow of excitement. That was a follow. Man, I'm just going to walk around and see Jesus do all this stuff. Now he's saying yes to a different follow. It was 1968, month of October is the 20th of October, 1968 in the

Mexico City Olympic Stadium. And it was the finishing of the marathon race. And about an hour earlier, the winner of that race had run across the finish line. He looked as fresh as he was when he started the race runner named Waldi. He was from Ethiopia. And he had finished an hour before. And a bunch of other runners now had finished the race. Almost everybody was completely done, finished that marathon, that Olympic marathon. People were filing out. The last few people were filing out of the stadium. And when they were filing out of the stadium, they look over and there's this commotion over here near one of the gates and there's lights and a siren and ambulance. And so here comes through the gate as everybody stops and starts to look to see what the commotion is. Here comes one last runner of the Olympic marathon. Stephen Aquari was in the race. And here he now comes limping the last runner again an hour after the first place finish, finish it across the finish line. And he's taking that last 400 meters around that lap to finish the marathon. And as people see him limping and barely able to make it across that track, they stand up and start cheering for him as if he's winning first place. And he ends up making it and completes the race. And he just turns and kind of starts to walk away without much fanfare. And the reporter comes and catches him and starts to do an interview with him. He says, "Hey, what happened?" He says, "Yeah, I fell earlier in the race." And that's why my leg is bandaged and bloodied. And they said, "Well, then why? Are you here right now? Like, why did you keep running?" And his answer just still like stirs me and kind of messes with me. He looked at that reporter and he said, "My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start a race. They sent me 5,000 miles to finish a race." And so that's what I did. I finished my race. Can I just remind somebody in this house, amen, that he who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it. Come on, Paul told Timothy, "I have fought the good fire. I have finished the race." We're going to go from having some moments of leap of faith. Listen, our relationship with God, this journey that we take in God, it's not a few sprints that we take along the way. It is a marathon. And we're going to finish this thing. We're going to do this thing. And I just want you to think about what it would be. What would be the thing that would take you out? That's where I want us to kind of take these closing moments of this service. What would it be that would take me out? Would it be my failure? And for some of you, you are teetering on that even right now?

Would it be my fellowship in all the voices and all the things? We just got so many voices piping in through media and social media, so many relationships. Would it be maybe that? For some of us, maybe it's just we just didn't decide when we went into this thing. That we were going to follow him with our whole heart.