Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Redeemer Community Church is located in the historic Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, AL. Our church family exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
For more information on who we are, what we believe, or how to join us, please visit our website at rccbirmingham.org.
Alright. Now I invite you to turn to first Peter chapter one, John chapter one, and Luke chapter five. If you would rather not have to keep your finger in all of those places, you can just look at your worship guide for all those texts are there. And this morning, we are beginning a new series on first Peter, Peter's first letter. This study is actually going to take us all the way through the summer, but we are going to be spending the next thirteen weeks just on verse one.
Joel Brooks:So we'll pick up the pace, but the next thirteen weeks just on verse one, really just the first half of verse one, pretty much just the first word of verse one. And so what I'd like for us to do, we'll at least read half of that verse. So if you would read with me the first half of verse one of first Peter. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. This is the word of the Lord.
Cole Ragsdale:Let's pray.
Joel Brooks:Father, thank you for Peter. Thank you for calling him and his sin, calling him out of it, making him a bold follower of you. Lord, in giving him a life of eternal glory, and I pray that you would do the same in our midst. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, may your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So the reason we are only looking at the, really, the the first word of first Peter, we are looking at the life of Peter before getting into all of his letter is because once you actually know Peter and you've examined his life, then the themes of his life, find just popping up all in first Peter. First Peter makes so much more sense. And so, really need to understand who he is.
Joel Brooks:But even more than just an ability to understand first Peter, the reason we are taking thirteen whole weeks to look at his life because his life gives us a unique lens in which we can understand what it looks like to follow Jesus, what it looks like to follow him from an initial call, to follow him faithfully to the very end. In Matthew and and Mark, in those gospels, the very first words that Jesus ever says to Peter is this, come follow me. Then we read in the gospel of John that the resurrected Jesus, his last words to Peter were this, you follow me. It's it's the bookends of Peter's experience with Jesus. He was told to follow him.
Joel Brooks:So it seems to me that if you want to know what it looks like to follow Jesus, then looking at Peter's life is a good place to start. Really, follow me is the summation of the entire Christian life. Peter would be asked to follow Jesus' example, to follow his commandments, to follow him to the cross, to follow the spirit's leading, and ultimately, to follow Jesus into everlasting glory. Now, Peter, as we know, anybody's familiar with Peter, has opened up their New Testament. You you are fully aware that Peter did not do this perfectly.
Joel Brooks:Peter had many flaws, And, this is actually why we love him, isn't it? He's the most relatable of all the disciples out there. Who would you rather invite over, let's say, to a New Year's Eve party? The apostle Paul or Peter? I mean, if you if you walk into a room and and you saw, you know, James on one side of the room and Peter on the other, who do you hope to be cornered by and have a conversation with?
Joel Brooks:It's it's Peter, because because Peter's like us. He's he's relatable, flaws and all. No other disciple had as great a success or a failure as Peter. No one was as courageous or cowardly as Peter. No one was as greatly praised or as severely rebuked as Peter.
Joel Brooks:I mean, in one moment, Peter, he's the first to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and and Jesus says, blessed are you, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. He goes from the highest praise to just seconds later, Jesus rebukes Peter and calls him Satan and tells him to get behind me, from the highest praise to the greatest rebuke. In the gospels, Peter is always listed first among the disciples, every list. He seemed to be the leader of the disciples. And he certainly is the one who seems to speak for them.
Joel Brooks:He's always asking questions, and what he's really doing is asking the questions that all of the other disciples were afraid to ask. And so throughout the gospels, he'll ask questions about, how many times, Lord, am I supposed to forgive? Or, what is the reward for all of us here who actually are following you? Why did that fig tree wither? Lord, should we pay taxes?
Joel Brooks:Lord, when when will all these things be? When will your kingdom come? He's always asking questions. When he's not asking questions, he's often speaking without thinking. He was that kind of, you know, shoot first, aim later kind of guy, always putting his foot in his mouth.
Joel Brooks:I mean, after Jesus transfigures himself before Peter, Peter just starts I mean, he starts doing crazy talks, should I build tents here? Do you want me to get some sticks, some fabric? And we read, for Peter did not know what he was saying, yet that never stopped him from saying it. Do you know what his original name Simon? Do you know what the name Simon actually means in Hebrew?
Joel Brooks:One who listens. Jesus is like, that won't work. And we're we're we're gonna we're not to rename you. And so he renamed him Peter, which means rock or rocky, Petros. And Peter will become a rock.
Joel Brooks:Peter wrote his first letter during the time of Christianity's most intense persecution it's ever experienced. It was during Nero's reign. You know, after the the great fires in sixty four AD, Nero blamed the Christians for it. That gave him the excuse he needed to round up the Christians and start torturing them. He he would get Christians, and he would literally sew them up in the skins of pigs, and he would toss them to the lions.
Joel Brooks:Or he would cover them in pitch and tar, and he would light them up and hang them as torches for his dinner parties. I mean, it was an unbelievable time of persecution. And yet, Peter was faithful to the end. And much of his letter is about the suffering that Christians endure. How did he get there?
Joel Brooks:How did Peter get to become such a rock, such a faithful witness? Well, let's begin this journey, and let's see how. Let's let's see how it all began, and let's read about his very first encounter he had with Jesus back in John chapter one. John one beginning in verse 35. The next day again, John, this is John the Baptist, was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, behold, the lamb of God.
Joel Brooks:The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, what are you seeking? And they said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.
Joel Brooks:One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ. He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which means Peter.
Joel Brooks:Although Peter and Jesus, they they grew up just 30 miles from one another, We have no record of them ever meeting before this moment. Peter and his brother Andrew, they they lived and worked in a little town called Bethsaida by the Sea Of Galilee, and apparently, they had left their their business behind, taken a few days off at least to go up the Jordan River and to hear John the Baptist preach. It's not hard to imagine Peter being drawn to a personality like John the Baptist. John was fearless, eccentric, loud, bold, fiery. And besides all of those things, Peter would have been drawn to Peter's message, a message about a coming Messiah to come and to make everything right.
Joel Brooks:Andrew, his brother, was even called a disciple of John's, and Peter very well might have been a disciple of John's too. Now, in this story, for whatever reason, Peter is not with Andrew the day that John the Baptist points at Jesus and says, this is the one. Behold, the lamb of God. He wasn't there, but but Andrew, the moment he heard John the Baptist say, this is the one, he left following John the Baptist, and he immediately started following Jesus, and he followed Jesus all the way to a house, and he spent the afternoon, the evening with him. We don't have any record of what they talked about.
Joel Brooks:I'm imagining it was kind like the road to Emmaus. Andrew's heart was probably burning within him. Whatever they talked about, it left Andrew completely convinced. No doubt, this was the Messiah. And so, rushes off to go find his brother because that's what you do when you meet Jesus.
Joel Brooks:You find those who you love, you and bring them to come in to meet Jesus. Now, when Peter meets Jesus, we have no idea what his first impressions were because Jesus didn't or Peter didn't speak. Certainly, Jesus looked nothing like John the Baptist, who he was so drawn to. For the first time, I you know, in Peter's life, he's not sharing what he's thinking. We just read that he looks at Jesus looks at him.
Joel Brooks:Jesus looks at him at him and says, you are Simon, the son of John. That's kinda like saying, oh, so you're Simon, the son of John. Andrew's told me about you. So there's a recognition there by Jesus. But then, what Jesus says next is just strange.
Joel Brooks:He says, you shall be called Cephas, which means Peter. Now, giving somebody a new name is a really bizarre thing to do when you first meet them. It's not something you do. Now, once you know someone, you become familiar with them, you see their personality, their character, you begin to have some affection towards one another, like, then you kind of give them the nickname. That's that's natural.
Joel Brooks:You know, I have three daughters. Their names are Caroline, Natalie, and Georgia. They're never called that in our house. We have Coco, Nat Nat, and Tiny. And and because, you know what?
Joel Brooks:We know each other. It's it's a term of affection. If you were to call them that, it'd be a little odd. I've never called my wife well, not never. I rarely call my wife Lauren at home.
Joel Brooks:She's wifey. You call her wifey, we've got problems. I mean, they're even here on staff, when I'm in the office, no one on staff calls me Joel. I'm called everything except for my name. I'm called Jeb, that's my initials, j e b, or I'm called Rev Jeb or Jebbie or Jebbie Jeb Jeb, the Jebster, you name it, or Brooksie or Eugene.
Joel Brooks:Actually, Lauren Starnes or Starnie Starnes, she's one, I think, who's come up with all of these names. But it's it's signs of affection and familiarity. That's why we give each other these names. But Jesus just met Simon. But don't make the mistake of thinking Jesus wasn't familiar with him.
Joel Brooks:We read that Jesus looked at Simon. This was an intentional probing look. And Jesus was looking deep into Simon and absolutely knew who he was, but he didn't give him a name based on who he was. The name he gives Simon is actually a prophecy. He is telling Simon who he will become.
Joel Brooks:So Simon, his given name, is gonna start to fade away, but he will start to become the new person of Peter from this moment forward. Peter, once again, it means rock or it means rocky. And, that's who Jesus will cause Simon to become. And, in this encounter here, we're gonna see several things we learn when we encounter Christ or what it means to follow him. And, we see the first one here is when we meet Jesus, he gives us a new identity.
Joel Brooks:You see, Jesus, he looks at us, and he knows every one of our flaws. You know, as as Dorothy was talking about the 2%, she tries to you can't hide that. Jesus looks, and he sees every one of our flaws and our sins. He knows us, but he doesn't give us a name based on what he sees in front of him, not a name who we are. He names us as who we will become.
Joel Brooks:He's gonna Simon's not a rock yet, but Simon will be. We read in Philippians one six that he who began a good work in us will complete it or will perfect it at the day of Jesus. In other words, everything that Jesus starts, he finishes. And so, gives you this new name. You're not that name yet, but he's gonna complete it.
Joel Brooks:You will become that. And, yes, it's going to take time because there's a lot of tearing down of your old person that has to happen first, which could be painful. And then, there's a lot of building up that has to happen. It will take time because of the glory of the magnitude of what He's doing. But he always finishes what he starts.
Joel Brooks:The moment you met Jesus, a construction project began. He started tearing down your old life and turning you into a new creature. You've been given a new name. Now, after this encounter, we don't really know what happens over the next few months. The gospel timelines, if you if you try to follow them, this it's kinda hard to put together a picture.
Joel Brooks:This is what, to my best of my understanding, I I think is happening. For the next nine months or so, Jesus goes off and he begins his mission. He starts traveling from town to town preaching. He starts doing some miracles. He starts casting out some demons.
Joel Brooks:But Peter and Andrew just went back home. They went back to their business, went back to fishing, and Peter does not go by his new name. He goes by Simon. So Peter's life didn't look that different after the first encounter, but all of this is going to change next in Luke five. Look at Luke five.
Joel Brooks:We'll read the first 11 verses. On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him, that's Jesus, to hear the word of God, he was standing by the Lake Of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake. But the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting to into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down, and he taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.
Joel Brooks:And Simon answered, master, we toiled all night and took nothing, But at your word, I will let down the nets. And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners and the other boats to come and to help them, and they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. In the months that had passed since since their first encounter, Jesus' first encounter with Peter, Jesus had become extremely popular As he traveled around and began to preach and do some miracles, he's the masses started following him. In Luke chapter four, we actually read he did one of his miracles before Peter.
Joel Brooks:He went to Peter's house. Peter's mother-in-law was sick. She had a fever, and Peter went and rebuked the fever, and the fever left her. And yet, there's still something holding Peter back in his faith. We're not sure.
Joel Brooks:Maybe Peter wasn't fully convinced that Jesus was the actual Messiah. Maybe Peter's fishing business was just booming so much, it was just kind of an inconvenient time to go around following Jesus. Or maybe he actually believed that Jesus was the Messiah. But how could a person like him actually have any part in whatever Jesus is doing? We actually don't know what Peter was thinking at this point.
Joel Brooks:We only know that Peter's life looked remarkably like it did before, until this day here. In Luke chapter five here, we we see Jesus trying to preach on the shores of the Lake Of Gennesaret, which is also known as the Sea Of Galilee. But there were so many people pressing in on him. He he he couldn't really speak, and so he looks and he sees Peter cleaning his nets by his boat, and so he just goes over, and he just gets into the boat of Peter without asking Peter's permission, and just says, hey, push off for a little bit. And so, Jesus, he preaches from the boat.
Joel Brooks:Now, Peter, of course, would have had to listen. He he couldn't escape. He would have had to listen to all of Jesus' sermon because Jesus made sure he was in the boat. Jesus knows what he's doing. When Peter or when Jesus was done, he tells Peter, I know you've just finished cleaning all your nets, but now I want you to push out even further.
Joel Brooks:Go out into the middle of the lake, go out into the deep, and throw your nets in there. In verse five, Peter finally speaks for the first time. He responds to Jesus. He says, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing. But at your word, I will let down the nets.
Joel Brooks:I don't know if I'm sure this happened to you if you were a little kid. It happened to me all the time. I would lose something or couldn't find it, and perhaps it was like one of my favorite shirts, which at the time was my Batman pajamas. And I would when I couldn't find it, I'd go to my mom, and I was like, Mom, I've looked everywhere. Where is my shirt?
Joel Brooks:And she would say, Well, I washed it, I folded it, and I put it in your dresser. It's on the top top drawer right there. And I'm like, drawer. Mom, I've checked there like 20,000,000 times. She's like, well, check again.
Joel Brooks:And at that moment, I had to make a decision. Did my mom know what she was talking about or not? Like, was my mom my authority or not? Mean, I had to I grant it. She was often right about things.
Joel Brooks:She's kinda had the sixth sense about finding things, but but I was utterly convinced she was wrong because I had searched there. Peter's going through the same thing. Was Jesus' authority or not? Does the son of a carpenter know about fishing? So Peter, he's he's wrestling with this.
Joel Brooks:You can always see like, he can hear like, but, hey, master, I toiled all night, and I caught nothing. Well, what is Peter to do? Well, he obeys. He recognizes that Jesus does have some authority. Maybe that's because Jesus healed his mother-in-law, but or or at least his mother-in-law got better when Jesus walked in.
Joel Brooks:He calls Jesus master. That's a title of respect and some authority. How much authority? Peter has no idea yet. But here, Peter is being taught the second lesson of what it looks like to follow Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Second lesson is this. First, he knows we get a new identity. The second is Jesus is to be obeyed even when it's inconvenient, even when you're tired, even when you don't understand what he is doing, even when you think he's wrong and your way is better. Faith in the Christian life, faith comes before understanding. Listen.
Joel Brooks:Here's here's the hard truth that that is true of every one of us. Even in the areas of our life where we have blown it, we have made decisions and it has not turned out well for us. We we've gone against God's word in something, and it's it's bombed. Even when that has happened, deep down within us, there's something that says, yeah, it didn't work out this time, but I was right. There's something that still believes we were right.
Joel Brooks:Maybe next time, it'll it'll it'll be better. But that's really what sin is. Sin is is when God tells us to do something, we hear him, but we're like, I actually think my way is better. So, we could hear what God has to say about maybe the dangers of pursuing money, or how having sex outside of marriage is against God's design, or about how we should love our enemies, we should forgive those who have wronged us, we hear those things. God's been crystal clear about those things, and yet times we disobey simply because we think our way is better.
Joel Brooks:And when we do so, one of the things this is teaching us is you miss out on his blessings. Boy, do you miss out. Thankfully, Peter's heart, it it might not have been in it, but he obeyed. And his whole world was changed. I mean, Peter's been fishing that lake his entire life, but he has never had a catch like this.
Joel Brooks:The fishing boats that they used, they were 25 to 30 feet long. They they were larger boats, and yet, we read they brought in so many fish, both boats began to sink. That's thousands of pounds of fish. And, while everybody else, they're going crazy, it's all hands on deck, not Peter. Peter hits the deck.
Joel Brooks:He falls down before Jesus, and he says, leave. Leave me. I'm a sinful man. It's been six months six months since I last mentioned Lord of the Rings. I think I'm allowed.
Joel Brooks:And even if only three of you get this, it's still worth it. There's a scene in which Gandalf, he goes in to confront King Theoden, and he walks down the king's hall. And everybody thinks of him as Gandalf the Grey. And at one point, he throws off his his robe, and he reveals himself as Gandalf the White. And, the moment that glory shines, evil is exposed.
Joel Brooks:In that moment, evil can't take the light. And, it's what you're seeing here. I mean, Peter, it's he's realizing that he's stuck in the boat, not with a mere man, but but with someone far more glory and authority. He's stuck in the boat with the Lord. Notice, he moves from calling Jesus master to calling him Lord in an instant.
Joel Brooks:And, when the Lord reveals himself here, he feels exposed. That's all Peter could think about is his sinfulness. Here's why he's exposed. He feels all this sinfulness. And, it's interesting because Jesus never had to mention one word about his sin.
Joel Brooks:Never had to tell Peter, you need to repent of these things. And and come on people, that's low hanging fruit for Jesus, to look at Peter's life and tell him all the way he's he needs to change. But Jesus never does that. He didn't need to. Peter was aware of his sins because if this man in the boat, if he could look into the depths of the waters, and he could see the fish, and he could command them to be caught, certainly, this man before him could look straight into the darkness of his heart and see every hidden sin.
Joel Brooks:And, Peter realizes he is caught just like the fish. He is sinking just like the boat. Anyone who has met Jesus understands what Peter is going through. Now, if Jesus is just a fishing buddy to you, just someone you know who's along for the ride to encourage you and maybe pass you a cold one when you need it, you don't get it if that's your version of Jesus. But if you actually have met Jesus and he has revealed himself to you, your sins become intolerable Because all of those sins you've kept hidden in the dark all this time, it's like they have flashing lights on them.
Joel Brooks:You're fully exposed. You have this Isaiah six type experience. Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips. But here's the thing, Jesus wasn't there to judge Peter. And Jesus is gonna deal with Peter's sins later, but not right here.
Joel Brooks:Right now, Jesus is there to recruit him. Warts and all, sins and all, he's there to recruit him. He's he tells Peter, don't be afraid. From now on, you'll be catching men. Or in the other gospels, it says that you will become a fisher of men.
Joel Brooks:So, I want you to picture the scene now. You've you've got pandemonium happening everywhere, everybody's adrenaline is just just coursing through them, people are yelling, fish are flopping all around, water is spilling in the boat, and Jesus just looks at Peter. He says, you think this is something? You haven't seen anything yet. Join in with with what I am doing in this world.
Joel Brooks:Be a part of my mission. This is nothing compared to the change I'm gonna bring to this world. I mean, Jesus wants this deeply flawed, sinful man to be a part of his redemption of this world. And that's the next lesson we learn about what it means to follow Jesus. To follow Jesus is to join His mission.
Joel Brooks:You cannot follow Jesus and not be a part of His mission because He calls you to His mission. Over the last couple of months, I have shared this with you. I've been meeting with a bunch of you over at our our new property at the Trinity site, just praying with you, praying for our church, praying what the Lord wants to do, and and perhaps, I've I've I've prayed this out loud with a few of you because I've had this thought. I've loved these times. I've loved hearing your heart, seeing what God's doing in this world.
Joel Brooks:As you you've prayed for this church, you've prayed for your lost friends, your family. I've I've loved being a part of this. And one of the things that has hit me, and I've prayed this is like, God, I would be so freaking bored if I didn't get to be a part of what you're doing in this world, If you didn't call me to be a part of this mission? I mean, how boring would life be? I mean, what what would I do?
Joel Brooks:I mean, I guess I would just kinda go on cruise control and, like, you know, go to distraction after distraction after distraction. I would try to infuse meaning into things that don't have any meaning in themselves. I would would try to infuse meaning into a game, to make a game more than a game. I wouldn't try to infuse meaning into a vacation, to make a vacation more than a vacation. I would try to infuse meaning into a marriage and make it more than a marriage, but those those things can't hold that weight.
Joel Brooks:Jesus is saying, come join in what I am doing in this world. I promise you, you will never be bored. Never be bored. It's an amazing life that we've all been invited into. How do we do this, though?
Joel Brooks:How do we become these fissures of men? Well, we've already seen it in the stories we've just read. We've seen it modeled in two different places. First, we saw it in Andrew. Andrew met Jesus, and what did he want to do?
Joel Brooks:Immediately go and tell those who he loved about him. That's being a fisher of men. You meet Jesus, and who do you love? Who are your family? Who are friends?
Joel Brooks:Go tell them about Jesus. Bring them to Jesus. Bring them here to church. That's why you bring your lost friends to church because you hope that through the proclamation of the word, through prayer, through worship, they will encounter the living Jesus. That's the first way.
Joel Brooks:We don't save them. Jesus saves them. We bring them. Second, as best as we can, we simply declare the word of God to others. We declare the gospel.
Joel Brooks:And then, through the power of Jesus, he will cause people to swarm to hear it. That's what we see here. This is actually a a living parable, if you will, about how Jesus is gonna change the world. He's gonna make a command. He's gonna tell us what to do, and the masses are gonna come in, the multitudes.
Joel Brooks:In verse five, we read that when Peter threw out the net, says that the net enclosed a large number of fish. That word large number, it's one word in Greek. It's polis, usually translated multitude. You're going to see that word a whole lot in the weeks ahead, multitude. It's used over 12 times in the book of Acts.
Joel Brooks:It's used when Peter gets up and he preaches, and a polis, a multitude comes to faith. People swarm to the gospel, and they are saved. Once again, Peter can't cause that to happen. That is Jesus' work, but Jesus asked Peter to put in the work. Get out there and work, and I will bring people in.
Joel Brooks:Let's look at the end of verse 11 here. Look at verse 11. We'll end here. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. That's incredible.
Joel Brooks:Here, we learn the final lesson, at least in this story of what it looks like to follow Jesus. And in a word, that word is surrender. Surrender. We surrender everything we have to Jesus. Jesus just caused Peter to pull in the catch of a lifetime, And then Peter walked away from it.
Joel Brooks:I think it's Jesus brought in. That that is more wealth than Peter's ever known, just poured in. And then Peter, without hesitation, walks away from it. Because what has more value? The fish or the one who commands the fish?
Joel Brooks:Peter's giving up nothing by following Jesus. And this is our call to surrender to him, but this is joyful surrender. We surrender our time. We surrender our finances. We surrender our relationships.
Joel Brooks:We surrender our creature comforts, our dreams. We surrender all those things, and we lay it at the feet of Jesus, and we joyfully do so because we get to have Jesus. And, we get to be a part of what he's doing in this world. I mean, did Peter really have a choice anyway? Do you really have it in light of what you just experienced?
Joel Brooks:Do you have a choice? It says Peter, you know, I'm just going to wait for something else to come along. I'm wait for something better. There is nothing better. What else would he do?
Joel Brooks:And the question is, what else will you do? Because Jesus is calling all of us to follow him. Peter has no idea where Jesus is taking him. He just follows. He has no idea what's in store for him.
Joel Brooks:It's very similar to the call of Abraham, the call of Peter. We don't know where the Lord's leading us. Peter had no idea that thirty years from this moment, he would be hanging upside down on a cross, being executed because he's followed Jesus. But, we know from his letters absolutely no regret, that Jesus was a treasure that was more than worth it, and Jesus is preparing for him eternal glory. Will you follow Jesus?
Joel Brooks:He gives you a new name, and He will cause you to become that person. You'll become a new creature. He's gonna bring you in on His mission. You'll be a fisher of men. It's the greatest calling in all the world.
Joel Brooks:And then you get to lay down everything you have at His feet and follow Him because He is giving you the greatest treasure of all, Himself. That's what it looks like to follow Jesus when you follow Him. Pray with me. Jesus, I pray that you would stir deep in our hearts an affection and a desire to follow you with everything we have. Lord, I know that there's some here who've heard this message, and they really resonate with Peter.
Joel Brooks:They're it's like they're in the boat, and and they are Peter, and they hear you calling him. But I know there are other people here that feel more like those on the shore. They can look and they can see that there's a bunch of people around this Jesus figure getting all excited. When they come back to land, there's people leaving things behind and and following this man named Jesus, but they they really don't know what it's all about. Lord, if there's anybody here like this who who are here and they're just curious about that, make them more curious.
Joel Brooks:Lord, would the calling on their life be irresistible? Lord, may the calling on all of our lives be irresistible because you are worth it. I'm gonna pray this in the sweet and the strong name of Jesus. Amen.