Reengage: Christ
Pastor Rollan Fisher
Focus: We will reengage Jesus when we realize there is grace for every moment that we’ve failed him.
Our Best Intentions
Missing the Mark
Reengaging Jesus
Our Best Intentions
We can have the best intentions but not realize that our self-sufficiency can push us away from, rather than towards, Jesus.
Matthew 26:30-35
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ 32 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.
Peter was convinced that he had a true love for Jesus until he was tested.
God will allow pressures in our lives not to break us but to refine and redefine us, that our love for him might be proven genuine and true.
This past two years has been about showing us what is really in our hearts.
Trials are a magnet that will either repel you away from or draw you closer to Jesus.
When we are self-sufficient, it will repel us away from God because we’ve failed our own idols and ideas of who we are supposed to be.
The weight of the test and the discouragement of the trials can crush us.
However, when we are rooted in Christ, our trials can draw us near to God as we are dependent on his strength and direction to go on.
What comes out is important because it shows us if we really are the followers of Christ that we say that we are.
God and the world wait to see.
What did you find coming out of your heart during the trials of the past two years?
Did these trials draw you closer to or drive you further from God?
Missing the Mark
We need to come to a point where we admit our failures in life if we are to learn and heal from them.
Matthew 26:69-75
Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
Despite our claims, trial will always show us what is truly inside of us.
Though Peter claimed great devotion to the Lord, he would opt for self-preservation when challenged at the Lord’s trial.
This is common to all of humanity.
This didn’t change for Peter until Pentecost when he was filled with the Holy Spirit and changed into a different man.
You will either be filled with the Spirit of God or filled with self.
*Living only to protect yourself ultimately leads to emptiness, sadness and regret.
Undoubtedly, Peter remembered Jesus’ words when he said,
Matthew 16:24-26
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
Reengaging Jesus
We reengage Jesus when we realize his grace is more than enough for each one of our failings.
John 21:15-25
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true. Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
Our natural proclivity after failure is to return to that which is familiar, even if God made us for something more.
This is what Peter and his compatriots did by returning to fishing.
Jesus comes to meet us in our hour of discouragement.
He speaks to us for as many times as we have failed him to restore us and heal us, to leave no hole unpatched.
This is what he did for Peter asking him if he truly loved Jesus more than the fish that he knew and in which he was finding solace.
The first two times that Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, it is with the word “agape”.
To this, Peter responds in humility, in essence saying, “I only love you when it is convenient.”
The final time, Jesus meets Peter where he is and says, “if you love me in this manner, then this is where we’ll begin.
According to Jesus, reengaging Christ also means reengaging his Kingdom business.
Jesus' command is the same and he says love him by living for him.
An indelible part of living for Jesus is engaging those that he came to save - our family, neighbors, co-workers and friends - with the gospel.
It was the same at the beginning as at the end for Peter.
Matthew 4:18-22
While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Peter was to demonstrate his love for the Lord by feeding and taking care of those who Jesus came to save.
Ultimately he was to reflect the same grace that was demonstrated to him at the cross of Christ.
Are you really Christ’s?
The closer that you are to Jesus, the fewer rights that you are trying to maintain for yourself because you finally realize that it’s in losing your life for Jesus and the gospel that you find it.
*You can not claim to be serving Jesus as Lord and be the one who determines what you do with your time, your resources, your talents and your pursuits.
Peter would learn this.
Living your best life is less about getting to do everything everyone else is getting to do and more about what God has actually created you to do.
“Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”
-Poet CT Studd
It is then that you no longer have to make comparisons between yourself and others.
This is why Jesus told Peter not to worry about John’s story.
You have truly experienced God’s grace when you realize:
The forgiveness that was provided you at the cross as a result of Christ’s death
The new creation he’s made you because of Christ’s resurrection
The new direction God has called you because of Christ’s Lordship
Peter found that as he found this freedom in Christ, his natural rights might have seemed less (he would go where he did not want to go), but his nearness to God was all the more as he learned to glorify God by his own sacrifice.
Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher.
