Hey, my name is Josh Martin. I'm one of the pastors here at Resonate. I am so glad you guys are here.
Even though last night didn't go so well, I still want to say go Cougs. Is that okay to say?
Yeah, man, like, man, I don't want to talk about it. Okay.
My loyalty remains though. I also want to say what's up to the U of I on video.
It is always go vandals as well. And then recently, newly, like right now, new,
we want to say go Wildcats and what's up to Central Washington University in Ellensburg.
Crazy stuff happened last week in Ellensburg. And I'm so excited that God is doing amazing things there.
And He's doing stuff here. And it's as if He's up to something.
It's as if God wants to change the world or something, right? Crazy.
Well, hey, I'm glad you're here. We're in a sermon series called Never the Same.
And last week we looked at an interaction Jesus had with a woman caught in adultery.
And we said very simply to get caught and to get Christ and to get no condemnation in that moment
is a moment you never forget. You're never the same after that.
So that woman and that story, man, the day and the dirt with Jesus affected everything for her.
And she walked away changed. She walked away never the same.
At least that's what we hope in the story. Now, if we're not careful today,
we see the sermon series Never the Same. We go, hey, man, last week we kind of told the story.
You meet Jesus. You change. Game over. What's the next sermon series?
What else are we going to learn? Because you and I grew up around fairy tales.
And fairy tales says what happened to that woman? She lived happily ever after, right?
You never saw Snow White fight with the prince, right?
You never saw these people get back from their honeymoon and have an issue, right?
Shrek kind of does it. But in general, it's like, yeah, it's like we go away
and have happily ever after. And I'm nervous for us because of that.
So I'm nervous for us because of fairy tales. And I'm almost nervous in the sermon,
not only from fairy tales, but because of Facebook.
Now, I'm not the Facebook hater guy, but I will say this.
If we're not careful, we think, man, okay, happily ever after is what I'm going to get.
And secondarily, man, we're not very good with stuff that takes a while.
You know what I mean by that? We don't like anything that's long.
We like instant messaging, instant gramming, snap, chatting, 140 characters.
And then I'm bored, right? Everyone in the room is super busy, but not that busy,
but multitasking, but thinking about what's going on and got a lot going on in the head.
You are busy and bored and you don't keep commitments well.
I don't keep commitments well. We struggle with this.
And if we're not careful, we take fairy tales and Facebook into our relationship with Christ.
And that is completely at odds with the way God intends to move us and immature us
so we cannot take that mentality into what we're talking about today.
Because what we said last week is God converts us, right?
He makes us a Christian, but that is not God's endgame for us.
Conversion is not the end. God's endgame for you is Christ's likeness.
That takes a while. You don't Instagram Christ's likeness immediately, right?
You don't go conversion. Now I'm a Christian. Now I'm like Christ.
There's a process in the middle there called cultivation.
It is a slow process.
And the illustration I want to use is it's not a microwave.
It's a crockpot. You guys familiar with crockpots?
It's like crockpot season right now.
My wife has some recipes. We were looking it up.
And I found last night online a 24 hour pulled pork crockpot recipe.
Sounds incredible, right? I brought a photo.
Are you kidding me?
24 hours in the crockpot. Like you just go and smell it like every six.
I don't know. But this turns into this, right?
This is the sandwich that you receive. Everybody's hungry now. Why?
Because crockpots work magic. I don't know what they do in there.
People in there stirring it when we're not looking. I don't know.
But magical things happen in the crockpot.
I also found something online, and this is much more you and I,
and this is why I think this sermon is going to be hard for us,
is because this is what we prefer.
The tangy barbecue pork hot pocket.
I think some of you in the room are like,
I didn't know hot pocket had a tangy barbecue pork.
I'm going to hit up the Walmart after this and go looking.
If you are more interested in the hot pocket than you are in the crockpot,
you need to pull out some notes because I have something for you today.
This is very, very different. This isn't microwave.
This is crockpot Christianity is what we're talking about today.
And when you walked in, you got a titsy roll pop.
Some of you remember these. If you're old enough, some of you aren't.
There used to be a commercial with the question,
how many licks does it take to get to the middle of a titsy roll pop?
And the kid can't do it, right?
He keeps biting it so the owl is like, hey man, let me do it.
And the owl takes the titsy roll pop and he goes one, two,
and then he bites it and he hands it back to the kid and goes, it's two.
It takes two licks to get to the bottom of the titsy roll pop.
Well, everyone knows that's not true, but the principle remains,
you don't have the endurance to get there.
That's what it's talking about.
So they trick you into buying one of these to try,
but every single one of you in here is like,
man, I made it to like six or seven before I started chewing on this thing.
Right? Some of you in the room right now have already bitten into your titsy roll pop.
And so if that's for you, also break out your notes because we need to talk.
Because listen, from conversion, from microwave to crock pot,
from conversion to Christ's likeness is a process called cultivation.
From conversion to Christ's likeness is this process,
this lifelong process of cultivation.
Because listen, God changed you.
Yes.
God is changing you.
Yes.
God will change you.
Yes.
God saved you.
Done.
God is saving you.
Absolutely true.
God will save you.
Yes.
So last week we talked about saving grace.
This woman was saved by Christ.
This week we're going to talk about sustaining grace.
The ability to get into the crock pot of Christianity and go for a while.
The ability to endure when all temptation says don't endure, take the shortcut.
So what we're going to do today is look at the life of Peter.
So if you have a Bible, I want you to grab it.
You're going to turn to John chapter 21.
You're going to keep your Bible open for a while because before we get to John 21,
I have to tell you the story of Peter.
Because this word cultivate means to prepare us, to develop us,
to move us around so that we might be used to nurture us.
And no one in the Bible is more cultivated than Peter.
He was cultivated.
He was changed.
He went from this to that.
He went from conversion to Christ's likeness.
In that process we get to read about in the Gospels very, very clearly.
We see the ups.
We see the downs.
We see the whole process as it plays out.
So if you were going to write a book about Peter,
you're going to write a best-selling novel about Peter, it would be called This.
It would be called You Don't Get to Skip a Step.
One man's journey from denier to defender, from faithless to faithful,
from powerless to powerful, from fisherman to fisher of men,
from walking on water to drowning in water to walking on water, again,
from Satan to acting like the Savior, from being Simon to becoming Peter,
you don't get to skip a step.
That's like your whole cover right there.
It's like, who's going to graphically design that title, Josh?
I don't know.
But Peter is this fisherman.
But he becomes the leader of the disciples.
He's unschooled.
He's uneducated.
He's passionate.
He's outspoken.
He's aggressive.
He's quick to speak.
He's always first.
But there was no one that was more friends with Jesus than Peter.
So Peter is likely Jesus' best friend.
They grew up around the same time.
They're about the same age.
And so what I'm about to tell you is be careful becoming Jesus' friend
because he's going to take you somewhere.
So we're going to look at the story of Jesus' best friend
and how he takes him somewhere.
The story starts for that video, picks up.
Jesus comes out on the shore.
Isn't that cool?
He's like holding a rock.
He's like, rock, rock.
I'm like, who wrote that?
That was good, little insider.
So he sets down the rock and he says, hey, have you caught anything?
I need you to put that away in your memory.
That little joke of, hey, have you caught anything?
Like Jesus didn't know he hadn't caught anything, right?
So, hey, have you caught anything?
And Peter goes, no, man, there's nothing out here.
And Jesus says, well, why don't you take it?
Why don't we go fishing again?
And Peter, he's not Peter yet.
His name is Simon at this point in the story.
He looks at Jesus.
And in my head, I think he goes, hey, bro, aren't you a carpenter?
Like, why are you telling me how to fish?
Like, don't you like make stuff with rocks and wood?
I know how to fish.
And I'm actually cleaning my net.
So I'm done for the day.
But if you say, we'll go back out there.
So he goes back out there and he throws the net down.
You saw it.
And he pulls in a massive catch of fish.
And in that moment, Jesus says, your name is Peter now.
You're not Simon anymore.
The word Simon means water, slippery.
It kind of means shady.
And this word, Peter means rock.
It means petros, the stone, the foundation,
the concrete, the powerful one, the one that's unbreakable.
And this other thing is fluid, moves around.
Who knows?
You're not Simon anymore.
You're Peter now.
And we don't fish fish anymore.
We fish people now.
So right where we start, Peter is met right where he is.
He's not met in the temple.
He's not met in the church.
He's met right where he is on a boat.
And Jesus meets him where he is and tells him the truth about who he is.
Hey, man, I know you're Simon.
I'm not going to lie to you.
That's true of you.
Kind of shady.
You'd watch your mouth some, like cussing like a sailor.
That's a real thing.
Simon, chill out.
So you're going to be Peter now, and we're going to go somewhere with this story.
So God meets him right where he is.
God tells him the truth about who he is.
And this is the part that I need us to catch.
God sees Peter with the end in mind.
In other words, God looks at you in all your imperfections and all your Simon-ness
and sees you how he intends you.
We can't even get our head around that.
But God sees you right now as he intends you later.
And that's the story of Peter.
And that's where it begins.
And then from there, you have these three defining moments in Peter's life
that I'm going to fly through so that we can get to John chapter 21.
But the first one is when Peter walks on water with Jesus.
So Jesus tells the men, hey, disciples, get in the boat, go on the other side.
Jesus prays for a while.
Huge storm comes.
Jesus walks through the storm on the water.
Listen, I know it's like a story, but think about that for a second.
Brother walking on water through the storm.
And the scripture says he intended to walk right by the disciples.
He's not even...
He's like gonna throw up the sign and keep...
I don't know.
But it says he's gonna walk right by him and Peter cries out to him.
It says, is that you, Lord?
If it's you, call me out on the water with you.
Man, what a high moment for Peter.
Like, I think that's Jesus.
If he calls me out, I'm going for it.
Jesus says, yes, it's me.
Come out.
And Peter gets out of the boat like steps onto the water and it's not water anymore.
It's like the word of Christ has spoken.
It becomes solid and Peter starts walking out to him.
And after a few steps, the wind in the waves, they confuse Peter and he takes his eyes off
Christ and he starts to sink.
Now what's interesting in the story is he's close enough to Jesus that when he follows
Jesus grabs him and picks him up.
Take notes.
And so often we want to throw Peter under the bus and go, yeah, Peter, oh man, he walked
two steps and then he almost drowned.
It's like, what if that story was called the 11 disciples who straight up stayed in the
boat?
What if that story was called two people in human history have walked on water and one
of them is Peter?
Right?
It's like, wow, what a high.
What a high for Peter.
He walked out there and Jesus pulled him back up, gets him back on the water and he says,
man, Peter, why did you doubt?
He had little faith.
And this word little, it doesn't mean small.
It doesn't mean wrong quantity.
The word little means duration.
Peter, your duration of faith wasn't long enough.
You went microwave on me.
I was hoping Crockpot.
You totally could have made it, man.
The duration of your faith was too small.
Oh, Peter, you're almost there.
But I got you.
Get up.
Let's get in the boat.
And they make that happen.
That's the story of him walking on water.
The next story is when Jesus is rebuked by Peter, hilarious, and Jesus rebukes Peter back.
So this is the story.
Jesus comes to his disciples and he says, hey, who does everyone say that I am?
And they say, man, some say you're John the Baptist, some say you're Elijah.
And then he asks, who do you say that I am?
Plural to the disciples.
And Peter stands up first.
Leader, best friend.
Peter says, I believe, not we, I believe you're the Christ.
You're the son of the living God.
And Jesus looks at Peter and he says, blessed are you, Peter, for God revealed that to you.
And upon you, Peter, upon the rock of your confession, upon your life and my life,
and who I am as a savior and who you are as a leader upon this rock, I will build my church.
Oh man, what a high, right?
Jesus just looked at Peter and said upon you, I will build my church.
Powerful moment.
Incredible.
High.
I wish I was lying to you.
Four verses later in the Bible.
Peter's like feeling good about it.
He's like, I don't know if you guys heard that, but Jesus is building a church on me.
I'm not sure where the church is.
Sounds awesome.
It's going to be on me, right?
You guys are listening or not.
That's what's going on.
And then four verses later, Jesus says, I'm going to be handed over to men and I'm going to be killed.
And that's the way my kingdom is going to come into this world.
And Peter, a little bit proud, stands up in front of Jesus and says, that will never be so and rebukes Jesus.
And Jesus looks at back at him and says, then you get behind me, Satan.
Because that's not what we're doing.
Whoa, I will build my church on you.
Get behind me, Satan.
That's four verse, I don't know how long that was, but that's four verses in the Bible.
Peter's feeling good about himself, calls out Jesus.
Never do that, by the way.
Just never call out Jesus, right?
In your notes.
And Jesus goes, no, man, you get behind me.
If you're going to act like Satan, I'm going to call you out.
You don't get to rebuke me about what I'm doing.
My mission is going to the cross for the sins of the world.
And if you say you're not interested in that, then you can get behind me, Satan, because I'm on a mission.
So what a high, high, what a low, low.
And then lastly, you have the denial of Peter denying Jesus and Jesus reinstating Peter in John chapter 21.
So they're in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus is up there praying.
Peter's there and he tells Jesus, man, I will die with you.
I will do whatever it takes to be with you.
I'm into the end and Jesus looks at him and goes, man, you're going to deny me three times.
And Peter says, it will never happen.
So Jesus is praying.
Peter falls asleep.
He comes and wakes him up.
Peter, dude, pray with me.
Come on, man.
And he goes back and prays and Peter falls asleep again.
And finally, Judas brings in the betrayers and they're going to capture Jesus.
And Peter and all of his courage pulls out a sword and chops a guy's ear off and stands between the crowd and Jesus.
And says, you're not going to get to Jesus.
Chops a guy's ear off.
The courage.
Like, I will die for you.
I don't know how the story plays out, but somehow Jesus, like, finds the ear in the dark and puts it back on the guy's head.
Like, puts it on his head, moves his hand, and then the ear is now staying there.
He had to do stitches.
It was like, and the ear is back.
And he tells Peter, man, put away the sword.
I told you about this.
I'm going forward.
I don't know how you arrest a man that just puts your ear back on, but they arrest him and they take him in.
So the story goes, they take Jesus and he's obviously falsely tried, wrongly accused, great evil being done against Jesus.
But it's always God's plan to send Christ to the cross and Peter's kind of hiding out, seeing what's going on.
And he realizes, man, Jesus is going to die for this.
And then he's no longer courageous.
He's a huge coward.
And again, I wish I was lying to you.
There is a junior high girl at a fire pit that looks at Peter and says, weren't you one of his disciples?
And he curses, cusses at a junior high girl and says, no, I wasn't with him.
I don't even know him.
Get away from me.
So from chopping a guy's ear off to not being able to stand up to a junior high girl.
That's high.
Low.
High.
That's the story.
Peter denies Jesus three times.
The rooster crows and scripture says Peter weeps bitterly.
Like he goes away and he's grieved in his spirit and he weeps bitterly.
And the story picks up in John chapter 21.
Peter's back fishing.
Where did this story start?
Fishing.
Jesus shows up.
You caught anything?
Well, cast on the other side.
Massive catch of fish.
Your name's Peter now.
You're going to follow me.
You're not going to catch fish.
You're going to catch men.
So the very thing Jesus called Peter out of, Peter went back into because he thinks he's a failure.
Somebody needs to hear that this morning.
The very thing God called you out of, you went back to because you failed.
Maybe I'm the only one who's ever done that.
But you were called out of something.
And because you failed, because you messed up, you go, I'll just go back to it.
God actually didn't have a plan for me.
Turns out he was lying.
Jesus isn't a liar, but he probably lied about me.
So Peter goes back to fishing and the story picks up in John chapter 21.
So if you're there with me, I don't always think the Bible's funny, but I think this is super funny.
What happens here?
I don't try to read the Bible like it's funny, but I think this is Jesus pranking the disciples.
I think Jesus raises from the dead and pranks the disciples.
I'm kidding.
Okay.
I'll read it to you.
So after Jesus revealed again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberius, and he revealed himself in this way,
Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin Nathaniel, Canaan, and Galilee, sons of David, and the brothers of the disciples were together.
So everybody's together.
Simon Peter said to them, we're going to go fishing.
So everybody's together.
Peter's like, let's go back fishing.
I don't know what's up with Jesus.
They killed him.
I don't know.
I'm just going to go back fishing, because that's what I was doing before.
This whole thing might be off.
So let's go back fishing.
And so he's an influencer, so everybody goes with him.
And just as David was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, been there before, yet the disciples did not know it was him.
And Jesus said, with a smirk on his face, Josh adds, hey, did you guys catch anything?
And they go, no, we haven't caught anything.
And with a smirk on his face, with great joy in his disciples, Jesus looks at him and says, hey, well, then cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some.
And the triggers have to be going.
Is there a guy out there that just asked if we caught anything?
I remember that.
Did he say throw your net on the right side of the boat?
I've heard that before.
So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish.
And the disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, so this is John saying to Peter, it is the Lord.
It's Jesus.
He got us again.
It's Jesus.
He told us the fish tree.
He got us again.
That's where the story started.
And now we're back again.
And this is crazy.
It is the Lord.
And when Simon Peter heard it was the Lord, he put on clothes.
Funny to me.
He put on his outer garment because he was stripped down.
So he's like only wearing underwear or something.
So he puts on his clothes and he throws himself into the sea.
I don't know if he's like, man, that's Jesus.
We walked on water once.
We're going to do this again.
Here we go.
Put on my clothes.
I'm going to run.
I don't know why you put clothes on before you jump in the sea.
Maybe he thought he was going to just sprint there or whatever.
But the other disciples came in dragging the net full of fish behind him.
They were not far off the land.
About 100 yards off.
So Peter sees the one he's denied.
He sees the same miracle that this whole thing started with.
And he jumps into the water.
He cannot even wait to get to Jesus.
And then you have Jesus here.
And he had charcoal and he had a fire in place.
And the fish were laid on it and bread.
And Jesus said, bring some of the fish that you just caught.
So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore full of large fish.
153.
Somebody counted.
153.
And although there were so many, the net was not torn.
And Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast.
Now there's an elephant in the room.
Right?
Simon Peter denied Jesus three times.
And now they're back.
Jesus has risen from the dead to cook breakfast for the guy that denied him.
It's just in the story.
So they knew, they didn't want to talk about it really.
But in verse 15, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter.
Listen to the word he uses.
He says, Simon.
Oh, I thought you called me Peter.
He says, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?
He's not talking about disciples.
He's talking about fishing.
Do you love me more than this job?
Why are you back here?
I called you out of this, bro.
Do you love me more than these?
He said, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
He said to him, well, then feed my lambs.
We're not fishing anymore, Peter.
Second time, he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
And then he said to him, tend to my sheep.
And he said to him a third time.
Now how many times did Peter deny?
Three times.
Simon, do you love me?
Yes.
Denial one covered.
Simon, do you love me?
Yes.
Denial two covered.
Last time he says, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
And Peter was grieved.
That's the same phrase that happened after the denial.
He's grieved in his spirit.
Peter is grieved because he said to him a third time, do you love me?
And Peter said to him, yes, Lord, you know everything.
And you know that I love you.
And then Jesus said to him, well, then feed my sheep, Peter.
You're a shepherd now.
You're not a fisherman now.
You don't fish anymore.
You fish men now.
And then verse 18, truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young,
you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted.
But when you're old, you will stretch out your hands,
and another will dress you and carry you where you don't want to go.
And this he said to show the kind of death that he was to glorify God.
And after saying this, he said to him again, I would add, follow me.
Where did the story start?
Cast your net down.
Pick it up.
Your name's Peter.
Follow me.
You're not Simon anymore.
Follow me.
So where does the story end?
You've got this picture again.
Follow me.
We're not doing fish anymore.
Listen, Peter, I know you failed, but the mission remains.
I know you failed.
I was there.
I know you denied.
You have not lost your position in the mission.
So I'm back here, raised from the dead, telling you again, follow me.
Follow me.
Quit acting like Simon.
You're Peter now.
Simon fishes.
Peter fishes men.
Peter is a shepherd.
These are very different.
So this is this cultivation process that Jesus doesn't give up on Peter.
Because I know he's converted, but he's trying to make him like Christ.
So this cultivation process is this lifelong process.
Lifelong process of continually being called out and called on.
Continually being called out and called on.
Walking on water.
Hey, come out here.
Called out.
You sink.
But get up.
I'm going to call on you.
What about the rebuke?
Jesus rebukes Peter.
Totally calls him out.
So that what?
So he could call on him.
Next thing, the denial.
Totally calls him out.
So that what?
He can call on him.
So our lives, if we're not careful, they look like this roller coaster.
And we think we're not progressing.
We're not moving anywhere.
We see this like up and down and up and down and up and down.
So I brought a graph.
Look at this.
Up and down and up and down and up and down.
If you take the middle line there, you go, man, I'm not getting anywhere.
I need us to reject that and receive God's view of this process, which has a slight upward
leaning that, yeah, we're going up and we're going down and we're going up and we're going
down.
But this is not a roller coaster.
This is an escalator.
Do you see what this looks like?
This looks like steps.
Does it not?
This looks like God is taking us somewhere.
Does it not?
It's not just up and down, up and down, oh, poor me, oh, poor me.
No, God has the end in mind when he called you at the beginning.
He converted you so that he might cultivate you to make you like Christ.
God desires to do this in you.
Do you want to allow him to do that in you?
50 days after this, do you love me?
Yes, I love you.
Feed my sheep.
50 days after that, Peter stands up at Pentecost.
Pentecost is the gigantic party thrown between the harvesting of wheat and the harvesting
of barley.
It is modern-day Mardi Gras.
And Peter stands up at Mardi Gras and preaches a sermon, the first distinctly Christian sermon
in human history, the first sermon about a crucified Christ and a resurrected Christ.
He stands up and preaches a sermon, and this is profound.
This is the inauguration.
The very first time the Holy Spirit of God is going to collide with the world and indwell
sinners.
The inauguration of the Holy Spirit's reign in the world is a sermon preached by Peter.
Are you kidding me?
Unqualified, unschooled fisherman stands up at Mardi Gras and starts preaching, and the
Holy Spirit blows that place up, and 3,000 people get saved, 3,000 men, so like 5,000
people probably become Christians, because why?
Because Jesus told them, upon you I'm going to build my church, upon your confession of
me, not you, Peter, but the way you lead, the way you talk about me, there's a process
that is happening, and Peter is going to get to Pentecost.
Jesus called Peter as a fisherman, knowing he was going to get to Pentecost, but he knew
that in order to get him to some place, he had to allow him to become someone.
If God's going to take you to some place, this leadership, this future, all that Peter
was headed towards, he couldn't get somewhere without Jesus making him into someone.
The whole point of this process is that God absolutely has a plan for your life, and it
is absolutely pointed to somewhere, but that is not the primary point.
The point is, when I get you to somewhere, I want you to have become someone before you
get there, so in other words, some of you in this room have more gifting than you have
character.
You tracking with that?
You can get up and lead, you can get up and be followed, you can get up and speak, you
can get up and do some stuff, you have a ton of gifting, but no character.
You have the gifting of Peter, but the character of Simon, and Jesus goes, I'm not okay with
that.
I want to get you somewhere, I want you to have the character to back it up.
If you're going to be on stage, I want to test you in the shadows before you get the
spotlight.
This is this process of cultivation.
This fisherman changed the world.
Why did he change the world?
How did he change the world?
I think it's so simple.
I think he never bailed, never.
Like in the story, you see all these inconsistencies, the only consistency in Peter's story is
that he was always by Jesus.
That's it.
Inconsistent, inconsistent, inconsistent, almost as if to say, God's okay with your inconsistencies
as long as you're consistently by God when you're inconsistent.
You tracking with that?
God is okay.
If you will walk near to him, if you will not bail on him, if you will allow him to cultivate
you into someone while he takes you to some place, then there is no end to what God can
do in you.
If you will agree to the crock pot and reject the microwave, God has a chance to do something.
But so often this cultivation process is short circuited, it's killed, it's slowed down,
and so I wrote three things that kill the cultivation process.
The number one thing that I think kills the cultivation process is comparison.
The fear of man.
God wants to do something.
God wants to take you somewhere.
God wants to make you into someone, but so often the fear of man overwhelms you because
you're so filled with comparison.
Do you realize that God's story for you has nothing to do with God's story for other people?
Really?
God's story for you is uniquely for you.
God has something for you that has nothing to do with other people.
In the rest of John 21, after this whole Feed My Sheep, Do You Love Me incident, Peter and
John getting this little thing and Jesus looks at Jesus and says, what about John?
What's John going to do?
What's John's story?
Jesus looks at Peter and goes, that has nothing to do with you.
And he's almost sarcastic.
He's like, I could let John live forever and never die and that would have nothing to do
with you, Peter.
Almost sarcasm going, what I have for you is for you.
I don't have it for someone else.
And this is awful for us, this comparison game.
I was so bad in college, like I went to a Christian college and my freshman year, I got
kicked out of the ministry leadership team I was on because of my issues with my leader.
And by the way, my leader was a 55-year-old, incredibly godly man that I constantly cut
undercut and constantly thought I was better than him.
How in the world did I think that?
I don't know, but as 18-year-old, he invited me off the team.
Great move, good leader, right?
Because I was more poisoned than I was, helpful.
He invited me off the team.
And as a 27-year-old, after our church had been going for a while, they invited me back
to preach at our college.
And I went into his office and he just had this huge like laughter smile on his face.
He's like, remember when I kicked you out, I'm like, I'm so sorry for that.
I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
I've been, I've been leading some stuff now and it's super hard to lead.
I'm so sorry I treated you that way.
And he just laughed and he's like, yeah, you've been beat up now.
You understand what it's like.
But so often, man, we're over-confident.
Some of you go to class thinking you could teach better than your teacher.
Don't you?
Like, oh, I wish my communication teacher would let me teach, man.
I could totally do this better.
Some of you go to village thinking you could lead better than your village leader.
Do you not?
Like, do you feel like, hey, let me lead.
Some of you have such over-confidence and some of you go the other way.
It's just under-confidence.
You get invited into leadership because people see something in you that God's really doing
and you're walking in cultivation and someone calls that out of you and you get undervalued
and you feel this sense of under-confidence and you go, no, I could never do that because
of comparison.
So God wants to cultivate and you're not allowing him to do because you have no confidence
and you're not walking in what God would have for you.
God has something for you and it has nothing to do with anyone else.
So would you allow him to cultivate that in you without comparing yourself to others?
The second thing is perfection.
This is the fear of failure.
You don't believe and I struggle to believe that God is writing a future for me despite
my failures.
We struggle with that.
This is the beauty of Peter's story that he never bailed.
You and I fail one time when we bail and we go back fishing and we never want to hear
from the Lord again.
God is writing a future in you despite your failures.
We don't think that God celebrates our process.
We don't think that God's okay with us learning slowly.
We've got to believe that.
How many of you in the room are around, have a niece, a nephew, a cousin, whatever this
like one or two years old, like a baby?
How many, anybody?
Okay.
You've been around them.
Have you ever seen the parents of that baby?
I have an 11-month-old.
You've never been in my house and see me do this, but like be reading the newspaper,
not on an iPad, but like a real old school newspaper, like reading the newspaper and
their 13-month-old tries to take a step, right?
First step.
And they see that baby take a step and then the baby falls down and they look over from
their newspaper and go, hmm, really?
One step.
That's all you got.
Can't believe you're my kid.
Have you ever seen that?
No.
What do you see?
Like a mom holding the baby and like barely letting the baby go and if the baby stands
for like less than an instant moment, they video it, put it online until the whole family.
They celebrate the process.
Last night, my daughter was in the bathtub and she took a rubber ducky and put it in
a pink cup and smiled at us and we videoed it and sent it to everybody.
A rubber ducky in a pink cup.
She'd never put anything in anything before.
And so that was it.
When I went to the console, she goes, I got a duck, I got a cup, I'm going to put it
in the duck, put the duck in the cup and we lost our minds.
We're cheering, we're stoked, we're sending the video to the grandparents.
We're like, she's the smartest kid in the world.
Look, she puts the thing in there.
You've never seen, you've never seen parents not celebrate, even as you get older, right?
You're 15 years old and you're trying to learn how to drive a standard or a stick shift or
whatever you call it and you're totally ruining your dad's transmission.
But he's not that mad.
He's just excited that you're learning and you're in the process and you're moving forward.
Then why do we think God treats us in the other way?
Some of you in the room have been walking with Christ for a year.
You just need to put the rubber ducky in the pink cup and let God celebrate you.
That's what you need to do.
You need to take a step, fall down, cry a little and God's like, yes, you took a step.
Get up.
You'll take two next time.
The Bible video it and show Jesus, hey, Jesus, look at this, like, you know, that is what
God is doing for us.
When Peter got out of the boat and took a few steps towards Jesus, the Bible does not say
Jesus went over and held him underwater and said, oh my gosh, really two steps, Peter,
that's all you got.
It doesn't say that.
It says he immediately pulled him out and he looks at him and he goes, man, your faith
didn't have enough duration.
Why'd you doubt, Peter?
Like, why'd you doubt?
You were totally there.
You could have made it.
I was right here with you.
You totally could have made it.
Get up.
I'll walk back with you.
We'll figure this out.
Why do we think perfection is what God is after?
Listen, you are not your sin.
You are not your sin.
You are not your failures.
You cannot be perfect and that's really good news because Jesus was perfect.
So will you buy into the process?
Will you be where you are and will you celebrate where you are?
Will you realize that this is all a part of the process?
The last thing that kills cultivation is shortcuts.
In other words, the fear of never.
I think in relationships, some of you in the room are like, man, I am single and I'm never
going to be with somebody.
And so if any guy even looks at me kind of, I will date him.
I will marry him.
I will be with him right now because I'm never, ever, ever going to get out of this and you
don't allow the Lord to cultivate you in that time.
I graduated from a Christian college without a girlfriend.
That is hard to do because everybody is trying to get together.
So part of me is like, wow, that's cool.
Also, wow, is something wrong with me?
Like, why are these girls not trying to, whatever.
So that is not easy.
But in that, listen, in that season, I look back on those journals, lots of journaling
back then.
I look back on those journals and go, man, God was preparing me for something.
God was cultivating me for something.
God was getting me ready for my wife.
God was doing some stuff for me.
I needed to not take a shortcut in that time.
I've told you a story a bunch, but it took my wife and I three years to get pregnant.
900 days of praying for that.
God was cultivating something in us so that now when our daughter takes a rubber ducky
and puts it in a pink cup, we lose our mind because it took 900 days to get there.
God was cultivating something.
He knew where he was taking us and he didn't let us take a shortcut.
Why are you so quick to get out of that?
Why don't you just be where you are?
Why aren't you just learning where you are, why aren't you going, man, I'm waiting?
Some of you can't even wait to have sex until you get married because you think you're never
going to get married.
You can never do this.
And now you're walking in sin because you're afraid because you think that God's not for
you.
You think that God doesn't have a story for you.
You don't think God's cultivating you.
You don't think God's moving you forward and you will take any shortcut imaginable to get
there.
And your career, you take shortcuts, you let your character go out the window because
you think you need to move on, you need this advancement, you need this internship, you
need this future because you need this amount of money to live this kind of life.
And you take shortcuts day after day after day and you don't sit where you are and walk
in God's character and walk in God's goodness, you quickly go to becoming Simon.
Well, God asked you to be Peter.
You know he did.
But you take shortcuts because you're afraid and you don't allow the Lord to cultivate
you in that.
Some of you in ministry, you know that God's called you to some stuff, but you have this
under ability, this underachiever feeling and you're taking the shortcut, you're taking
the way out.
You're like, I don't know if he's really calling me to that.
And so you have this under confidence, what we just talked about.
Some of you others are like, man, I've been walking with the Lord for like 13 days.
I feel like I should be a preacher.
You're like, bro, you need to calm down.
You need a rubber ducky and a pink cup and you need to be there for a little bit.
Like, just enjoy the process.
Man, when guys come up to me and they're quick to hand over their resume, that makes me so
nervous.
Like, man, what, bro, we just met.
I don't need to know your back history and how many people you led for and whatever.
But you know the guy I love that goes, Hey, is there any place I can serve in the church?
Is there anywhere that I could be in the shadows just serving that I could just show up and
not be seen by anybody because I'm in a process of being cultivated.
So I don't want the stage spotlight yet.
I want the shadows right now.
Is there anywhere I can serve?
I go, yes, I will hang out with you every single day with that mentality because you
seem like the kind of person that wants to be cultivated, that wants to move forward.
So listen to me, God has a plan for you, but that plan is a process.
That plan is a process and in the process, God reveals his purpose.
God has a plan for you, guaranteed.
No doubt about it.
He has a plan for you.
That plan is a process.
You don't get there overnight.
Don't you dare go hot pocket on me.
This is not what we're talking about.
You do not get there overnight.
And in that process, God will reveal his purpose and cultivate you to become like Christ so
that the world can see more people acting like Christ.
So you don't get where you're going without going through some stuff.
Peter preached Pentecost with a ton of boldness because he'd been called out.
He'd been called on.
He'd been rebuked.
He'd been brought back in.
He'd been a denier.
He'd been a defender.
He chopped a guy's ear off.
That's awesome.
He'd done a bunch of stuff.
And so he stands at Pentecost and he preaches the sermon.
He inaugurates the Holy Spirit as a man who had become someone who could stand in that
place as being cultivated.
Peter also wrote a couple of books to the New Testament.
I'm going to read to you one little phrase out of here as we close in it.
It says this in 1 Peter chapter 2.
It says, So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Peter says, That's who we used to be, man.
We're not that anymore.
We're never the same.
Get that out of here.
Get all that stuff away and like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk, that by it,
you may grow up into salvation.
You may grow up into this if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
So Peter looks at you and he goes, Hey, do you crave change?
Do you crave your calling?
Because my daughter, when she's hungry, the whole neighborhood knows she's hungry.
And Peter goes, Yeah, like that.
Like a newborn baby that cries out to be nourished, that cries out to be cultivated, that demands
change.
Like Peter in the water, he's like, Jesus, is that you all cry out to you?
Do you and I crave cultivation?
Do we crave our calling?
Are we okay with hot pocket?
Are we okay with just chewing on the tootsie pot?
Are we okay with that?
Are we going to reject that today and say, No, man, I'm in for the long haul.
Do you know that God has something for you when you're 60?
Like I know you can't even imagine that.
But God has something for you there.
There's this cultivation process that he is leading you to.
He's inviting you into long obedience.
He's inviting you into that process.
But are you willing to commit to long obedience or are you going to bail?
We've been around the church long enough to see people leave college and they totally
bail.
They cave to these temptations.
They quit being cultivated.
Are you willing to buy into long obedience?
Are you willing to fall in love with the process?
Are you willing to love the process?
Because God's will for your life is not primarily where you end up.
Not primarily if you live on the West side or if you live over here.
It's not primarily where it's not even primarily what you do in your job.
God's will is not primarily that stuff.
His will is primarily who you become so that when you get to where you're going and you
do what you're doing, you're who you're supposed to be.
So as people who live never the same, we realize that God's will for our life is to make us
like Jesus.
When you get that, when we get that, we will never be the same.
Peter says, grow up into your salvation.
Grow up into it.
Enjoy the process of growing up.
Walk in this for the long haul.
And then one day you look back and you say, praise God, I'm not who I used to be.
But praise God, he's not done with me yet.
Praise God, I'm not who I used to be.
Remember when I used to dress like that and sound like that and do that and eat hot pockets
all the time?
Like praise God.
Ramen noodles are no longer a part of my diet.
Praise God, I'm not who I used to be.
Man, praise God, but he's not done with me yet.
There's a lot more to do in me.
Praise God for that.
This story in John chapter 21, it actually ends like Jesus prophesied.
He tells Peter, man, there's going to come a day when people are going to lead you away
and people are going to dress you and they're going to take you and they're going to spread
out your hands.
And he's basically talking about Peter's eventual death.
The church history, church historian Tertullian says that Peter and his wife, this is as the
story records, they keep preaching the gospel all the way to the end and they are killed
for their faith.
And when they go to be killed, the way they're going to be killed is a crucifixion.
And so Peter goes there and they take off his clothes, just as Jesus says.
And when they put out his hands to nail him to the cross, Peter asked that they would
take his cross and they would flip it upside down because he wouldn't be worthy of dying
like Jesus.
Are you serious?
Like that's the story.
The Peter goes, if you're going to crucify me like Jesus, I find that to be high praise
but would you flip mine upside down because I'm not worthy to be like him.
Wow, the cultivation that God had accomplished in Peter's life.
Do you know the gospel of Mark is basically like Peter speaking and Mark writing it down?
Do you know the story of Mark and the walking on water?
That Peter doesn't tell Mark to say that he got out of the boat and walked on water.
Do you know that?
In the story of Mark, the waves come, Jesus walks out and Mark just says, Jesus gets in
the boat and calms the storm.
Every other gospel says, yeah, but also Peter got out and walked on water.
Peter tells Mark, if you're going to write about Jesus, leave me out of it.
This isn't a story.
Peter had a chance to be like, dude, I took seven steps.
I actually took 12 steps.
John only says I took three, but I took 13.
He could have done that and said, he goes, hey, Mark, man, if you're going to tell him,
don't leave me in there.
Take me out of the story.
That's a story about Jesus.
That's not a story about me.
Do you also know that in the book of Mark, the words about Peter are harshest in the
book of Mark?
Peter goes, if we're going to talk about me, go ahead and tell them how awful I was, how
much I denied, how much is going on.
It is a mark of spiritual maturity to lessen yourself so that Christ might become greater,
to get yourself out of the way.
So this is Peter in long obedience walking with Christ.
Peter was called the rock before he was acting like the rock.
So some of you in this room, man, God is calling you to something, but you have got to make
the decision to walk in long obedience.
You've got to make the decision this morning, tomorrow morning for the rest of your life
to reject the quick microwave Christianity and do this crock pot, slow, long lasting,
long obedience process so that one day you look back and say, not only was I changed,
but I kept changing and my whole life was never the same.
It wasn't just this moment that was never the same.
It was my whole life that was never the same.
So could we this morning fall in love with the process?
And lastly, could we yearn and cry out and call out so that God might cultivate us more
like a newborn baby cries out for milk?
Would we cry out to God saying, change me, grow me, nourish me, affect me, move me to
where you want me because on my own, I'm not any good.
Would we allow that to happen?
Could we reject comparison this morning?
Could we reject shortcuts this morning?
Could we reject perfection this morning and go, God, what do you have for me and what
do you want for me and how can I long for that more?
So I want to pray that for us and then the band's going to come up and we're going to
take communion and continue in worship.
So if you guys would just bow your head, I'm going to pray for us as we move into that.
Lord, I pray that this morning we would feel and experience your nearness.
God, I pray that we would reject the temptation to do things fast.
God, I pray that we would believe that you have something for the long haul for us.
And God, if we're in the room this morning and we're comparing ourselves with others
and we are fearful of perfection and we're fearful and we're taking shortcuts, God,
I pray that all that stuff is removed.
And Lord, as we move into a time of communion, God, I pray that we recognize that Christ
paid it all so that we might have life, God, that His body was broken and His blood was
spilled so that we might have life.
So Lord, this morning affect us, change us, God, get us to buy into the long haul.
God, pull out of us the comparison.
God, pull out of us the perfection.
Pull out of us all these fears.
Please use this name.
