Jesus Restores Peter | Frank Brancato

It certainly is wonderful to be here with all of you today and

we thank you for the presence of all that have come to be with

us. As Dave mentioned, we have

several of our number that are missing.

Several have come in, but we have quite a few that are either

traveling or sick and our prayers are with them.

But we have a good crowd because you're here and I have enjoyed

worshiping with you so far and I am honored to be your speaker.

We have visitors that are among us today.

We want to say you are honored guest and thank you for coming

and welcome. We're continuing our series on

the 40 days from the time that Jesus rose from the dead until

he was resurrected or ascended into heaven.

In Acts chapter one, we are continuing that series.

And last time I said that in this lesson at the very

beginning, I want to talk about what is the significance of the

40 days. In fact, we look in Bible

history and we find that the number 40 or 40 days or 40 years

actually had a little bit of significance.

So we want to notice what those things are, the significance of

40 days. First of all, in general, 40

days or years in the Bible signified a period of testing,

trial, purification, and preparation leading to a new

beginning, transformation, or a significant divine action.

I guess we could sum it up like this. 40 days in the Bible

actually marked a period of time of change.

That isn't a general sense. And I got to tell you I actually

had heard from one or read from one.

It was actually brought to my attention that 40 days marked a

period of change. And I thought, you know what, I

want to look into that. There's got to be more to it

than just a general change. So we want to talk about some of

those significant things. First of all, let's talk about

some examples in the Bible regarding 40 days.

And I got to say this too, this is not an exhaustive search.

There are others, but I just want to notice a few.

And the first one goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 6

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

regarding the flood. In Genesis chapter 6, the Bible

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

says the thoughts of man's heart were ever evil continually.

Now, just a little side note, as I've said many times over the

years, when people think that the world is worse than it's

ever been, no, it's not. Because in Genesis chapter 6

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

says the thoughts of man's heart were ever evil continually.

And I look at the world today, and even though there's some

negative stuff and even though there are some bad things in the

world, I get it. We're not there yet.

We're not at that point. There's a lot of wonderful

people and a lot of wonderful things that are in the world.

What happened in Genesis chapter 6?

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

God had enough and God said, I'm going to destroy the world by

wave of flood. He said, I'm going to make it

rain. It had never rained before.

Precipitation had come up from the ground.

And now God said, I'm going to make it rain.

So he says, Noah, what you're going to do is you're going to

build an ark. And it took over 100 years to

build this great big boat. And during that period of time,

a preacher by the name of Noah, a preacher of righteousness, the

Bible describes him preaches to those that were disobedient, and

God gave him 100 years to repent, and they never did.

So God made it rain for 40 days, 40 days and nights.

Regarding the flood symbolized a period of judgment and the

beginning of a new world. Here's another one.

How about Moses on Mount Sinai? Moses spent 40 days receiving

the 10 commandments, and after 40 days after the golden calf

incident, indicating A crucial period of divine instruction and

reconciliation, here's another one that we all know about.

How about Jonah and Nineveh? God told Jonah, go to the people

of Nineveh and you're going to preach to them a sermon of

repentance and met. And Jonah says, no, I'm not

doing that. Fast forward to the story.

We know the story, right? Great big fish swallows him.

He prays. And finally when he's in the

belly of this great fish, he says, I will do whatever you ask

me to do. And then God spoke to the great

fish. He spat him out on dry ground.

And as an old preacher said one time Jonah hit the beach ready

to preach. He preaches.

A5 Hebrew word sermon 8 words in English.

You know what it is yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

God gave Nineveh 40 days to repent.

It was a period of judgment leading to a potential

deliverance. And by the way, universal

repentance had and God spared the people.

What about this? What about when our Lord was

tempted? After his baptism, Jesus fasted

and was tempted for 40 days in the wilderness, preparing him

for his public ministry. Again, a time of change.

And finally, in our series, the post Resurrection 40 Days, Jesus

appeared to his disciples during the 40 days after his

resurrection and before his ascension.

And it was a time of confirming his victory and equipping them

for their mission. All right, just a couple

examples there. What about the theological

significance of 40 days? When I'm talking about

theological significance, I'm talking about what is the actual

importance or meaning behind the concept.

From a theological standpoint, these periods marked a

significant transition of change from one state or task to

another and a preparation for new life or purpose.

OK, so here's my point or my question.

If all of these things, and that's the theological

significance of it, is there divine action or is it by

coincidence? Was there divine action and what

was it? Yes, there was divine action and

here it is. 40 day periods are often associated with direct

divine action or a major divine event such that the giving of

the law or the confirmation of the resurrection, God's divine

action. But I got to make this point,

OK? Don't put too much significance

or too much weight on the significance of a number in the

Bible. Give you an example.

There's a lot of people that spend a lot of time on

numerology, OK? And it's the idea if you take

certain numbers and you put them together, you put it together

with mathematical equations and you come up with numerology.

And numerology is supposed to represent specific outcomes

based on those numbers. What I'm saying is, is please

get this, Sometimes a number is just a number and there's no

significance at all in the specific number except what

happened during that period of time.

Give you an example, but numerology and too much

significance about numbers. You might remember this.

I was thinking about this this morning, early this morning in

my office looking over my lesson and I thought about Tina and I

were having our anniversary. We are we are anniversaries in

May. So this last May was would have

been nine years since this happened, but I remember there

was a man, you might have heard his name, his name was Harold

Camping and he was from Southern California.

And what he did by way of numerology or what he did by way

of the significance of numbers, he actually put together various

numbers from the Scriptures and he came up with an actual day

that Jesus was going to come back.

You know, what was going to happen nine years ago, still not

back. What does the Bible say?

The Bible says nobody knows that time.

Jesus says no one knows but my father only.

But this was a man that decided, you know what, I've got the

mathematical equation. It's going to happen on that

day. People sold their possessions,

well meaning, wonderful people misled, and they sold their

possessions. They went to a mountaintop and

you know what happened at the end of the day?

They walked back down and the Lord still hadn't come back.

You know what the man said? I was right, but I just missed a

couple of numbers. So here's the new date with the

new numbers. You know what happened?

He didn't come back where we are today.

The man's dead and the Lord still hasn't come back.

My point is this, don't put too much significance on the number

itself and trying to map out when things are going to happen

in the Bible or in life based upon a number.

Sometimes a number is just a number including the number 40.

So what is significant about 40 then all that's significant is

is God made the choice to choose this period of time to

accomplish a specific purpose in Bible history.

With that being said, as we know Jesus made 10 post resurrection

appearances in our series. I'm going to be brief about

this. Luke 24 is where it all began.

Jesus on the early on that morning.

On the resurrection morning, those two disciples are on the

road to a mess. Jesus joins them on that road to

a mess. They go to their house 7 miles

later after Jesus preaches A sermon from the Old Testament

about himself. They don't know who it is.

They don't know that it's Jesus. The Bible actually says in the

King James, their eyes were holding that they did not know

him. So there was something

miraculous there where Jesus did not reveal it was him, but he

preached the word from the Old Testament and they understood

about the resurrection from the Scriptures.

They get to Emmaus. Jesus acts as though he's going

to keep on going by. They compelled him to come into

their home. They invited Jesus into their

home. He reveals himself in the

breaking of bread to them and now they know it's Jesus.

What happens? Jesus vanishes from their sight,

He disappears, they get up immediately and they go back to

Jerusalem, 7 miles, and they meet with 10 disciples.

Why? Why 10?

There were 12 apostles. Judas is now dead, He hanged

himself and Thomas was not present.

What happened next? One week later he meets again in

Jerusalem. Jesus does, he appears and now

Thomas is present. And finally, the last time in

our series, Jesus, is there an unspecified amount of time

between this occurrence and this occurrence here.

All of a sudden, Peter and six others were on a fishing boat

and Jesus is on the shore and he calls out to them.

You got any fish? They've been out there all night

and they caught nothing, right? Remember, remember that lesson?

The net was on the left side. Jesus says put it on the right

side and they and they catch 153 fish.

When Peter recognizes Jesus, he puts on his outer garment

because his T-shirt didn't have T-shirts but his undergarment.

He didn't feel like it was appropriate to go meet the Lord

with only his undergarment. So he throws on his over garment

and he dives into the water and he swims 100 yards to shore.

They have breakfast at the sea, same setting.

And now we come to our lesson today where Jesus is going to

restore Peter. Before we get into the rest, the

restoration of Peter, though, let's talk about his denial.

Peter was very bold. And if you look at all the

Gospel accounts, there's a lot of detail.

And we're not going to get into the detail.

I'm going to give you 4 general things, or three actually three

general things here in the denial of Peter, when Peter

denied Jesus. But just remember, Peter was

very bold and he told Jesus, I don't care who will deny you, I

will never deny you. And Jesus, said Peter, before

the rooster crows, you'll deny me three times.

We all know that Peter is following Jesus from afar.

The King James says, the new King James says he followed

Jesus from a great distance. By the way, let me just kind of

slip this in as a little aside. It's dangerous to follow Jesus

from a distance. Jesus wants us to follow him

close up and not from afar. And yet a lot of times people

follow Jesus kind of on their own terms and from a distance.

It didn't work well with Peter, but I got to say this about

Peter, though. Let's give him a little credit.

At least Peter was the one guy that had enough love for the

Lord and concern from the Lord to at least follow in the

direction of the Lord when everybody else forsook him and

fled. He's already been arrested in

the garden and now all of a sudden here's Peter from a

distance. Jesus said you'll deny me.

Notice what happened to Peter? First there was a servant girl.

And by the way, He was ready to come and fight when he took out

the sword and he cut off Malchus's ear, and that was in

the garden when they came to arrest him.

He's ready for that one. But what about this little

servant girl here? She says to him.

She says the word. She says you were with Jesus of

Galilee. In other words, you are one of

them. Notice the progression of his

denials. You know what he says first

thing, I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm going to tell you something. If you think and you're all

honest with yourself and we're all all honest with ourself and

I think we can see the progression and the human side

and how this really could happen.

Maybe not necessarily with regards to the Lord, but maybe

with regards to telling the truth, maybe with regards to

holding things back, maybe with regards to not being having the

courage and the conviction to do what's right.

Sometimes we fall into this category.

We can. It's just a human thing.

The first thing he says is I don't know what you're talking

about. I don't know what you're saying.

The second time the Bible says there was another girl and now

he's in the gateway. Before he was outside in the

courtyard, still following from afar.

Now he's in the gateway and here comes another girl.

And the girl says you were with Jesus of Nazareth.

This one said you're a Jesus of Galilee.

This one says you're a Jesus of Nazareth.

And what does he say this time? He says with an oath, I do not

know the man. Wow.

My father taught me so many times, be careful of the man

that you want to be. You just might be it.

And #2 you got to decide in advance what your decision is

going to be in advance if you want to make the right choice.

Because when you're confronted with something that's difficult

and you're not prepared, you may make the wrong choice.

First one, I don't know what you're saying.

Second one, with an oath, I don't know the man.

Third time, here's another. Matthew's account says, but when

you put all the Gospel accounts together, you know what we find?

There was another guy, and he's a relative of the guy Malchus,

that Peter cut off his ear. He's a relative.

And you know what that person says?

Your speech betrays you. You are one of his.

They got him dead to rights and notice with cursing and

swearing, he says. I do not know the man.

Then the rooster crowed, and then the Lord took turned and

looked at Peter. I don't know what that was like,

but I'm setting something up here.

I'm setting something up that's very important.

Let me ask you a question. Don't you think that Peter,

right now, Right then the rooster crowed.

The Lord looked at Peter. Let me ask you, do you think he

was overcome with grief? Do you think he was overcome

with tremendous regret? The Bible says that's exactly

what happened in Matthew 26 and 7 and 75.

Notice and Peter remembered, You know what I thought about.

And by the way, we're all human, we all make mistakes.

We all have things in our life that sometimes we make the wrong

choice. I get it.

But sometimes isn't it true that we can kind of get ourselves

derailed and get off into something and we're not thinking

about the Lord? We're doing something we know is

not right, but the last thing we're thinking about is the

Lord. We're thinking about the

pleasure of the sin that we're involved in.

We're thinking about the decision that we're making.

We're thinking about the joys of it.

Whatever it is, you plug it in. We're just thinking about

something else. Then something happens and we

remember and we remember, and it's like we got hit in the face

with a ton of bricks. You ever have that happen?

I have. What did he remember?

The word of Jesus, who had said to him before the rooster crows,

You will deny me three times. What happened as a result?

He went out and he wept bitterly.

Please get this. This was genuine sorrow.

You know, the word wept in the Bible is found in a number of

different places. Sometimes weeping is described

in one way, like an outward sign or a wailing, like those

professional mourners that came when Lazarus was raised from the

dead and Jesus was disgusted with their hypocrisy.

It was the outward wailing. Some cultures do that when they

mourn, they wail out loud. Or how about the word wept?

The shortest verse in the Bible. Beautiful, beautiful verse.

And you know what's beautiful about it?

Jesus knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead all along.

And yet when you saw Mary and Martha weeping and in pain,

that's the friend of Jesus that we have.

By the way, Jesus wept that word.

Wept different word. It means to shed silent tears.

That was heartfelt tears. What about this one?

He wept bitterly. You ever do that?

Have you ever ugly cried? We were talking about that the

other night. Ugly cry.

You know what that means? When your face is distorted,

you're so overwrought. Sometimes there's no sound at

all. Just your face is distorted and

you're just crying and you're just in such agony and pain.

That's kind of how I picture this phrase.

He wept bitterly. Here's the point.

It was genuine sorrow. There's a difference between

genuine sorrow and not so genuine sorrow.

Let me show you what I mean. The apostle Paul said this

Second Corinthians 7 verse 10 for godly sorrow produces

2 Corinthians 7:10

repentance leading to salvation. That's beautiful.

And then he says, by the way, that kind of godly sorrow that

produces repentance that leads to salvation, it's not to be

regretted. You will never regret that kind

of sorrow. Godly sorrow, hold that thought.

We'll get to how you actually do.

Godly sorrow, hold that thought. But let's lose this one.

But the sorrow of the world produces death.

What is the sorrow of the world? I'm going to give you 2

examples. Both are referring, by the way,

whether it's godly sorrow or the sorrow of the world is referring

to the same thing, sin. So two things.

What is the soul of the world #1 when you're not really sorry,

you're just sorry. You got caught.

There was no other way out. You got, you're dead.

The rights, you kind of regret it, but you're sorry you got

caught. That's number one.

But #2 maybe you haven't thought of this one.

Number two, you have great regret for what you've done.

You're not just sorry you got caught.

You have tremendous regret, but you do nothing about it and

there is no repentance. Perfect example.

Judas Iscariot. You know the story.

I'm not going into it. What happened to Judas Iscariot?

Tremendous regret. He took the money back.

He said I can't take the money. I betrayed it and said blood.

You know what they said? That's your problem.

You see to it. Notice what happened.

It led to what it produced, death.

He went out and hung himself physically.

It produced spiritual death, which means, by the way, the

Bible says about Judas. Then he went to his own place.

That is figurative language, meaning he got exactly what was

coming to him. Why?

He had the sorrow of the world. He had regret, but he never

repented. OK flip side, here's the good

thing. God be sorrow is when you have

sorrow over your sin, when you realize you have sinned against

God. How about David when he sinned

with Bathsheba? How about the whole story of

David's sin? Remember what David says, he

prays to God and he says, Father, he says against you and

you only have I sinned and done evil in this, in your sight.

What happened to David? He repented.

It was godly sorrow. It led to salvation.

See the difference? Knowing that, let's Fast forward

from the denial to the morning of the resurrection.

I love this passage. Remember when those precious

women just couldn't stay away? The Sabbath was now over and

they went back early that Sunday morning to the sepulchre.

And when they became first hand eyewitness testimony of the

resurrection of Jesus, there is no that was on purpose.

God did that. They had no axe to grind.

They had no agenda. Those precious women, here they

come. It wasn't the men.

The men chickened out. They all forsook them and fled.

They had no clue what was going on.

But the women went back. Beautiful, right?

Do you remember when the Angel spoke to the women?

Mark 16 and 7. But go tell his disciples and

Peter, you know, I've heard this interpreted like this when I was

a kid, somebody said, well, what Jesus was doing is he was saying

go tell my disciples. And then and Peter, meaning

Peter wasn't one of the disciples anymore because of

what Peter did, That is not what he's doing.

Peter had denied the Lord three times.

Peter had gone and wept bitterly.

If Peter was overcome with the sin that he committed, if there

was anybody in the world that needed encouragement, it was

Peter. If there was anyone that needed

divine assurance, it was Peter. And that assurance, I think, is

threefold. Number one, that Peter, you are

not forgotten #2 you're still part of God's plan and #3 and

most importantly, you are forgiven.

I'm going to tell you something, folks.

Sometimes our guilt can be incapacitating and sometimes we

are so guilty about things that we do and we can't turn loose of

it that it actually stymies us or keeps us from moving forward

in a positive direction. You know what the Angel of the

Lord said? He said exactly what Jesus

wanted him to say on behalf of Jesus.

You go tell his disciples. And Peter.

Peter was mentioned specific. OK, but remember please, there's

a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.

In Mark chapter 16 and verse 7 it shows that the Lord had

Mark 16 · chapter mention

forgiven Peter. OK, he forgave him, but in John

John 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 Jesus restored his relationship with him.

Please notice. Remember Peter declared even

though others would deny Jesus, I never would.

He was the first one to do it. Jesus forgave him, but when

Peter was restored, notice how the Lord did it in John chapter

John 21 · chapter mention

21 and verse 15. So when they had eaten

breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonah, do

you love me more than these? You love me more than these.

OK, By the way, what's these? Some scholars say that these

meant the other disciples, that Jesus is sitting there eating

the meal with them and they just got through eating all of a

sudden, hey Peter, do you love me more than these guys?

That's one interpretation. Second interpretation is that

Jesus was asking him, Peter, fisherman, big fisherman Peter

that just caught 153 fish, do you love me more than your

fishing business? That's another interpretation

about this. Lot of discussion about what

he's talking about regarding that and the reason for the

fishing business goes back to Matthew chapter 4, beginning in

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

verse 18. And Jesus walking by the Sea of

Galilee, saw two brothers. Simon called Peter, Andrew's

brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

Then he said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

What happened? They immediately left their Nets

and followed him. So the interpretation of this is

supported by the fact that they were fisherman, Peter was a

fisherman, they had just got through fishing all that, and he

wants to know, do you love me more than my fishing business?

And while that is included, I think there's a little bit more.

One scholar said it this way. We are sure from the structure

of the sentence, both in the English and in the Greek, that

the word these refers to the fishes and things of light

character. So in other words, Jesus was

asking Peter if he loved him more than he loved the things of

the flesh. That's pretty specific, isn't

it? I got to ask you, do you love

Jesus? Don't answer out loud, answer

inside, but by the demonstration of what you do in your life by

way of your choices. Let me just ask you one

question. Let me ask all of us this

question. Do you love the Lord more than

these, or is the Lord secondary? Is he third?

I remember a famous football coach, Bill Parcells.

He said, look, I understand that in people's lives there's three

things. Faith, family, football.

If you're a professional football player, he said, I

don't care what order that they're in, but football better

be one of the three. Here's what I'm saying.

I don't care what two and three are.

It doesn't matter. Actually.

Family needs to be #2 and then after that, I don't really care

what that is in your life, but #1 needs to be the Lord.

And that's demonstrated, and Jesus is going to prove it.

So in our passage, the question is asked, Peter, do you love me

more than the things of the flesh?

He said, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

So that was a verbal profession of his love.

Here's the big point here. Peter professed his love for the

Lord three times equal to the number of times he denied the

Lord. That's not by happenstance or

that's not by coincidence, but the Lord gave three ways to

demonstrate it. So in other words, it wasn't

enough for him to say, I love you, Lord, He says, Jesus says

this, OK, He said to him, prove it, feed my lambs, OK?

Some commentators say that there's really not a significant

difference between lambs and sheep, but in my study of it, I

think that there is a little bit of a distinction.

Lambs seems to emphasize spiritual youth or the tender

ones of the flock, as one scholar put it.

In other words, he said, do you love me more than the things of

this world? Do you love me more than the

things of the flesh, which include your business?

He said, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

He said, I'll tell you what you're going to do.

You're going to feed or teach my lamps, teach my little ones,

teach my new Christians, teach the spiritual youth or the

tender ones of the flock #2 He said to him a second time,

Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?

He said, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

He said, tend my sheep. So what's the word tend mean?

What's it mean to tend the sheep?

From a spiritual perspective, Kaufman says it means taking

care of and nurturing the spiritual body of Christ.

In other words, he says, do you love me?

Prove it, feed my lambs, do you love me?

Prove it, tend my sheep. And #3 #3 He said to him a third

time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?

And Peter was greed, because he said to him a third time, Do you

love me? And he said to him, Lord, you

know all things. You know that I love you.

And then Jesus says, feed my sheep.

I want to notice this phrase or this, these two words. 1/3 time.

We already talked about the significance 3 * 4 three times.

We get that Kauffman says it this way, though.

Grievous as this was for Peter, it wiped out all the guilt of

his denials, and the Savior's total forgiveness is implicit in

the threefold charge to care for the members of the Lord's

Kingdom. OK, now remember this, please.

When we sin, we don't sin against the list of rules.

We don't sin against the code. We sin against the Lord.

And when we sin, sin separates. It separates our relationship.

And the beauty of it is when it comes to sin and our

relationship with the Lord, it doesn't have to be permanent

when our relationship gets severed by way of sin.

Like David when he prayed against you and you only have I

sinned and done this evil in your sight.

His repentance made it made him be reconciled back to God in his

relationship. So when our relationship gets

severed with God because of sin, we need to be reconciled and

that requires repentance. Jesus wanted to assure him of

his full and complete forgiveness, but for that to

happen, Peter had to repent. Peter did repent.

So in summary, do you love me more than the things of the

flesh? He said yes, Lord, you know that

I love you. He says prove it, show me, teach

the youth of the flock. The spiritual youth asked a

second time, in general, do you love me?

He said, you know that I love you.

He said, show me, nurture the spiritual body of Christ, take

care of them. A third time in general, do you

love me? You know that I love you.

He says then teach the body, notice, teach the spiritual

youth, nurse the spiritual body, and teach the body of Christ.

He gave him three ways to demonstrate his love for him.

Three times Peter had denied the Master.

Three times the Master questioned his love.

Three times it gives him courage concerning his work.

The question was painful. Peter was grieved, but the grief

was wholesome, and Peter's subsequent life bore proof of

the discipline. His rashness was forever gone.

I love that. Now I'm going to tell you how

many times in our life now, let me just say it like this.

How many times in our life have we known someone that turned

their back on the Lord and stop following Jesus because life got

hard? I've known a lot of people

because life got difficult, so they decided to turn their back

on the only one that can help. I've seen that all my life.

Jesus had Peter confess his love for him.

Then he gave him a threefold responsibility, and then he said

this in the next verse. Please get this.

Most assuredly I say to you, when you were younger, you

girded yourself and walked where you wished.

In other words, there was a time when you were physically strong

and you know, no doubt Peter was strong and athletic.

Athletic prowess. By the way, remember when they

ran and sprinted back to the tomb?

Athletic guy, when you were younger, you did whatever you

wanted. And by the way, those of us that

are getting a little older, OK, I'm going to be 59 next month.

I am slower than I've ever been and they tell me all the ones

that have silver hair, it gets worse.

It's coming, I get it. But I remember when I was

younger, you do whatever you want, right?

With regards to Peter, what Jesus was saying is there was a

time when you were younger that you were willing to go and able

to go anywhere you wanted, even to the point of even defending

yourself. That's what your life was.

But there's coming a time when things are going to change.

Notice. But when you are old, you will

stretch out your hands. By the way, Greek writers and

early Christians all referred to that phrase stretching out your

hands as a form of crucifixion. That's what the verbiage

actually means. Now, I wasn't there, so I don't

know for sure, but I'm just going to say we all know what

tradition says. We all know that tradition holds

that during the reign of Nero that Peter was crucified, and

writings of ancients have written that he was crucified

headlong or head down or upside down.

Because he said I'm not worthy to be crucified like my Lord, so

crucify me upside down. Tradition tells us that.

Well, regardless of that or not, because that doesn't say in the

Scriptures. What we do know is this.

You will stretch out your hands. That's a form of crucifixion.

That's what that means. And another will gird you and

carry you where you do not wish. What's it mean?

This He spoke signifying what? Death.

He will glorify God. You're going to glorify God even

in your death. So when we think that maybe

we're going to have some hard stuff, Peter's told this is what

you're going to do. This is what you're going to

sacrifice. This is how you're going to

demonstrate your love for me. And by the way, when it's all

said and done, you're going to die of violent death for it, and

you're going to glorify God in that very fact.

Then he said this. The Lord said it doesn't matter,

follow me anyway. Follow me.

Anyway, let me ask you a question.

Do you love the Lord today, or do you just love the Lord when

things are going as you would like it to go?

Do you love the Lord even if he says no?

Do you love the Lord? When things in your life are not

the way that you have planned them out to be, and you are met

with catastrophe and you're met with hard times and you're met

with suffering, will you still love him?

You know what Jesus said? It doesn't matter all this

stuff, Peter, that's a command. Follow me.

I think the Lord's saying the same thing to us today too.

Even if you're persecuted, even if you suffer greatly, follow

me. It's kind of like the words that

were given to the persecuted church in Revelation 2 and verse

10. Smyrna, do not fear.

Jesus said any of the things that are about to suffer.

Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison,

that you may be tested and you will have tribulation 10 days.

But be faithful until death, and I will give you a crown of life.

And as you know, that phrase, be faithful until death means be

faithful even if it means your death.

That's what he was telling Peter.

Be faithful and follow me. It is going to mean your death,

but do it anyway. Oh, and I love it.

Peter wasn't perfect, but he never looked back.

This is often times called the second conversion of Peter.

And I'm going to tell you that's beautiful.

You know why? Because that shows me that it

doesn't matter what happens in your life.

You can turn it around. Anybody can turn it around.

He wasn't perfect, but he never stopped serving God.

And let me just say this to all of us and let this be an example

of encouragement for every one of us today, OK?

And I say this in in closing, it doesn't matter what you did in

the past. All that matters is what you do

now. That's it.

All that matters is what you do now.

And when you've been forgiven, you have a clean slate like it

never happened. So move forward.

And if God has forgiven you of something that you hold and you

still have guilt over, lay it down.

If the Lord's laid it down, you lay it down, and you move

forward and be better in the future than you've been in days

gone by. And if you've made some bad

choices, then use those choices to go talk to other people.

Use those examples from your life, and go help somebody else

be better, be better. All right, Finally, this is the

7th post resurrection appearance.

This was now over #8's coming in an unspecified amount of time

frame. Later it's going to happen back

in Galilee again, and Jesus will give the Great Commission.

That was the 8th post resurrection appearance.

Thank you so much for your kind listening today.

You've been a wonderful audience and I appreciate that so very

much. My hope and prayer is that

something was said that was edifying and encouraging to you

in some way. And I hope that we can leave and

courage realizing that, you know, sometimes in our life we

can really relate to Peter. Peter was a human being that

made a mistake. But when he was forgiven, the

Lord didn't hold it against him forever.

Again, he laid it aside. It was over.

I love that. Are you here today and you're

not a child of God? The steps to become a child of

God are very simple. We always extend an invitation

to someone that's not a Christian.

We never know the hearts and minds of those that are present.

The plan of salvation is simple. Romans 10/17 says you got to

hear the word of God. So then faith comes by hearing

and hearing by the word of God. Then we have a choice to make.

We got to believe with all your heart.

Hebrews 11 and 6. Without faith it's impossible to

please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and

that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Then what? Here's that word we talked about

today. You got to repent of your sins.

Make a change. I'm not going to follow the way

I'm going anymore. I'm going to turn to follow the

Lord. Truly these times of ignorance

God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.

Then we must be willing to make the great confession that Jesus

Christ is the Son of God. Acts 837 that Philip said, if

you believe with all your heart, you may.

And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the

Son of God. All of these steps point towards

salvation, but the point of salvation is by being baptized

for the remission of sins. Mark 1616.

He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does

not believe will be condemned. Finally, is it necessary?

First Peter 321 the like figure where the even baptism does also

now save us, not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but

the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection

of Jesus Christ. If you've never taken those

steps of obedience, we would love to assist you in that

today. Maybe there is someone that has

taken those steps, but there's something that's on your heart,

something that's in your life that is not what it should be.

Then repent of that. Confess that we'll pray with you

and for you and God will forgive and restore.

If you want to be the class, come forward while we stand and

while we sing.