Ear Fear

Let's pray. Father, we have ears. All it takes is an act

of unkindness to cut it off so someone can't hear you. Yet, Jesus

heals the ears. We have ear fear in our lives. Show us the

way in Jesus' name. Amen. The title of this sermon came a Monday

when we were on a youth fishing trip and the Gimpie boys had a lot

to do with the title. Thank you for interacting with me. He came

to my head and you kind of said, it's okay to go with it,

I think, But yeah, that's what it's the title of the sermon

today. It's on Luke twenty two forty six. And following after the Angel

strengthened Jesus, Remember the Angel came down. Christ had been hit by the

sniper's bullet right there in the garden of Yosemite. He had taken the sins

of the world upon himself. The commander of the Host of the Lord was

falling in the field. The medic Gabriel showed up and strengthened him. We

talked about that last week. So after the mighty Angel strengthened Jesus in the

garden Jesus pulled himself up from the blood drenched ground as he staggered to his

disciples, not praying, sleeping, and as he came to them in Luke

twenty two forty six, he had monished them immediately to rise up and to

pray so that they would not enter into temptation. Is that good advice?

We should rise up early and pray, come to church and pray that we

will not enter into temptation. Jesus has just experienced in this chapter the full

weight of the sins of the world, and now he was carrying that weight

inside his heart and mind, sustained by the supernatural power of the strongest angel

left in heaven, so he could get to the cross without collapsing and dying

on the spot. Was put on the ventilator, so to speak, kept

alive by extraordinary means, so we could go through it and finish the atonement.

Don't tell me angels don't care about us. They care about us.

They cared about Jesus. His disciples were asleep in the midst of the fight.

When the captain of the Lord's army went down in the fight, they

were not praying for him that night while he was praying for the whole world

to be saved. The lesson is, we need to pray for each other,

don't we. Jesus needed their prayers. We need each other's prayers.

Yet they went to sleep, leaving him alone in the tangle of his fears

to fight the devil in the night, all by himself. Jesus, that's

not a very good church member of disciple, is it. That's what they

were doing. Jesus prayed out loud as he screamed to God for help.

That's what the Bible records. He screamed in the night. Still didn't wake

them up. Babies screamed when they can't find their mommy, or in Mark

fourteen thirty six, the humanity of Christ, the humanity of Christ merged with

the divinity of Christ, as Sister White calls it, screamed Abbah Abbah,

which in the Aramaic is daddy, Daddy. I can't handle this, It's

too much for me. In the garden of Isseimite, Jesus was screaming out

to God, his father in prayer, to save the world and the universe

too, to save us from sin, to save them from sinning. He

was struggling for life. In the night of his godly fear, the entire

constitution of the universe was at stake in the heart and mind of Jesus,

who was the guarantee of the everlasting Covenant. Hebrews five seven to ten says

this. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications

with loud christ and tears to him who was able to save him from death.

And he was heard for his godly fear. And although he was a

son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and being made perfect,

he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated

by God a high priest after the order of Melchazadakh, the king Priest of

Righteousness. He didn't get there just because he wanted to. He earned the

right by suffering to become our high priest. Friends, we cannot grow in

character unless we are willing to suffer for the character we need. Do you

hear me? You can't grow unless you can embrace the idea that God can

use suffering for your good in your life. It's an eternal truth that we

learn to obey God when we learn to endure suffering at God's hand. Now

said, well, why does this happened to me? It's so easy to

whine in the church and to complain because of your unique road of suffering.

Do you realize that God Almighty has allowed you to suffer for his glory and

his name's sake, so that Christ will be formed in you, and you

will be in the semblance of the one who became a high priest after the

order of Melchzedek because of his suffering. The Christian who will not accept suffering

for Jesus will not accept the cross and will eventually cease to be a Christian.

The greatest form of suffering that can be felt is loneliness. I can

say that's true from my experience. Some of you concur that's the toughest.

Mother Teresa once said, I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely,

feeling in love, just having no one. That is the worst disease

that any human being can ever experience. To be alone and forsaken is to

truly suffer. There is something about prayer that works for good in our lives

to solve this tangled loneliness problem that afflicts us when life itself seems impossible because

of suffering. Prayer is the divine ointment that brings God to us and others

to us. In suffering, it can dissolve loneliness. Jesus Christ screamed in

the Night of his fear based on the Bible, because Jesus was alone in

the night with the sins of the whole world was hammering him down to the

ground in a pool of blood. As clots of blood fell from his head

to the earth, and he began to die in the garden of Gysemine that

was the altar. No Roman spear drew a drop of blood. It was

forced from him by the sins of the world. The collective consciousness of the

human race from Adam to the end was in Jesus. Isaiah says. Paradoxically,

jesus loud screams didn't awaken his disciples to pray or to come to him

or to help him. No sooner did Jesus tell them to rise and pray

so they would not enter into temptation than a mob appeared at the moment of

admonition to start the long night of his torture and abuse. Was not an

easy road out of this world for him. It was the hour the power

of darkness, Jesus said, And darkness was on the march, and the

mob of priests, prelates and soldiers and anyone else who wanted to hit him

hard and abuse him and be a part of the satanic throng that took Jesus

down Louk twenty two forty seven. While he was still speaking, there came

a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the Twelve, was

leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him. But Jesus said

to him, Judas, would you betray the son of Man with a kiss?

Judas's name in Hebrew means praise when you say praise God. You were

saying Judas in the ancient Hebrew Aramaic language, Judas was a betrayer. A

betrayer will praise you to your face while they stab you in the back to

get their way. That's what Judas was. Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss

on his face. In the Song of Solomon, haven't you read the Song

of Solomon a little bit? I have couples who are nearing marriage read this

book and I walk them through it. It's a profound book. On rolls

and kindness more than just romantic love and the song of Solomon one verse two,

the sublime theme of love is introduced by a plea for a kiss,

ah, that you would kiss me with your mouth. It gets a little

gushy, and then it calls it love. Something about kissing and love that

meant to go together here and one Peter five fourteen. Peter had monished early

Christians to greet one another with a kiss of love. Now we don't do

that in the Covid days, and our culture is a little stiffer. But

at least you can shake someone's hand, right, you're supposed to love them.

But a kiss in body of the idea of love. The only time

in the Bible where God commands people to kiss Jesus as the divine Son of

God, is found in Psalms two eleven and twelve. I'll put it on

the screen. It says, previously in Psalms two to seven, the Lord

has sworn. Now it says, it says, to thou art my son

today. It's the enthronement of the Messiah in the resurrection that is predicted in

Psalms too. In verse eleven, it says, serve the Lord with fear,

and rejoice with trembling. And how do you serve Yahweh with fear Jehovah

with fear? Well? Verse twelve, kiss the Sun. Some translations will

say kiss his feet, but the Hebrew word is bar mitzvah a son of

the commandment, literally, kiss the son lest he be angry. And you

perish in the way when this wrath is kindled. But a little blessed are

those who put their trust in him. How man, you want to put

your trust in the sun, Kiss the son? He praise God, you

have Jesus. To kiss the Son means to put your faith and trust in

Jesus, to submit to his authority in your life. Judas deliberately betrayed Jesus

with a kiss. The disciples who were quick to fall asleep or suddenly move

with energy to compensate for their failures by exerting their competency and abilities to prove

themselves and anyone who was looking that they were loyal disciples. After all,

they'd failed by not praying, they'd failed by not encouraging Jesus. But now

they marshal to the cause. Isn't that how we do it too? You

know? We find ourselves lapsing in life and suddenly we pop into I'm gonna

be all right, I'm a good Christian. We can also try to make

amends by proving ourselves true and brave. When we're caught by the fact of

our personal failures, and we have all had them. We're all it's a

fact. Every one of us has let the Lord down each other. The

disciples were no different than us, and how they responded to failure. Look

at verse forty nine, Luke twenty two, and when those who were about

him saw what would follow, they said, Lord, shall we strike with

the sword? That's it. You come to church and someone's whacking at Jesus

and they said, let's kill him. How many go to church like that?

You know? They felt it was time to fight back and do something

than dramatic to save the Lord. The last time I checked. The Lord

doesn't need us to save him. Am I right on that? He doesn't

need us to save him. The Lord doesn't need us to rescue him.

The Lord doesn't need us to prevent him from failing to inter being so the

Lord can succeed. There are times in our lives and we think that we

are Christian heroes, who can save the work, who can save the church,

and even the Lord praise the Lord that I'm here for the sake of

the Church. Well, that's not how it works. And in those times

when we are overcompensating for our failures, we cry out like they did when

the mob shows up, Lord, shall we strike with the sword. It's

hard to have Jesus as your lord when you're in the business of rescuing Jesus

from his enemies and telling him what to do. Who's the lord? When

you have an arrangement like that going on, you become your own lord.

Luke is kind to not mention who the disciple was that use the sword to

defend Jesus. Look twenty two fifty the text with me and one of them

struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. I

mean they were serious about this. This is witnessing for the disciples. We're

gonna witness with our swords, right, and after all the other disciples had

died. Probably around the year ninety a d. The Book of Revelation was

written, maybe a little earlier, actually, I take that back. It

was earlier that the book started to be written no excuse me. The Gospel

of John was probably written around the year ninety AD, and we know that

because of the John Rylands Poprus p f Two, which dated about one hundred

AD and or possibly ninety AD based on orthography. It could have been written

by John's own hand. It's a piece of John eighteen and has two little

segments to it. When we have a piece of the Gospel John that goes

all the way back to John, that's an amazing discovery in modern archaeology and

paprus findings and textual studies. And so we know from the Gospel of John

John eighteen ten that Peter is the one who cut off his ear. Now

why did it take so long for that to get out? None of the

disciples evidently want to do much embarrassing of Peter. But here we have it,

and John records that this poor man's name was Malchus. In Matthew sixteen

sixteen, Peter had confessed that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the

Living God. And right after that he stepped in the way and tried to

forbid Jesus from going to Jerusalem to die. It's an amazing thing. Matthew

sixteen, Peter saying, look, you're not gonna die. I'm the hero

disciple. I'm gonna step in the way. I'm gonna prevent this from happening.

And Jesus turned to Peter and faced him down as he sternly rebuked him.

In verse twenty three, Jesus said, you thank you the Lord,

but I am the Lord. But he turned and said to Peter get behind

me, Satan, you're a hindrance to me, for you are not on

the side of God but of men. And then Jesus told his disciples,

if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up

his cross and follow me. Now let me just pause here. I'm not

absolutely certain of the other two gospels naming Peter or not right now, so

I may have to check that out. But it is amazing that John names

him, and John also includes Peter at the end of his gospel. Now

those with Christ is saying verse twenty four. Then Jesus told his disciples,

if any man would come after me, let him do what what did he

say? Exault himself, talk about himself, glorify himself, deny himself,

and take up who's cross his own? Cross and follow him. Jesus has

a cross. We have our own. If you don't want to carry your

cross, don't talk about being disciple of Jesus. That was a bad day

for Peter when the Lord Jesus called it Peter Satan. He just confessed thou

art the Christ, the son of the Living God, and then Jesus calls

him satan. In the same chapter, Jesus had a cross to carry,

and Peter wanted Jesus to avoid him by saving the Savior. And here again

Luke twenty two. Peter's doing his level best. He's not not named in

Luke twenty two, but he's doing his level best to save the Savior.

A very bad idea with a misdirected kind of zeal Look twenty two fifty one.

But Jesus said no more of this, and he touched his ear and

healed him. Jesus could have killed the high priest servant, he could have

vaporized him, but instead Jesus reached out to touch him and to heal him.

Jesus is not in the killing business. Jesus is in the healing business.

Jesus doesn't call us to be his disciples to kill in his name.

There's many ways we can kill. You can kill by unkindness, you can

kill by insisting on your own way. You can kill by trying to destroy

someone. Jesus calls us to be his disciples, to heal in his name.

Jesus doesn't call on believers to inflict pain, to cut off people's ears

so they can't hear the Lord in their life. Jesus calls his disciples to

heal those bleeding, hurting ears, so wounded men and women can hear Jesus

speak to them with words of hope and kindness and love and be saved.

That's what Jesus does. As Christians, we're not the ones who save.

We aren't because Jesus is the one who saves. When we've done our job,

people will know Jesus and we won't be in the center of things.

Jesus heals in Jesus saves. As Christians, we're not in the hurting business.

I remember when I first became a Seventh day aven as Christian. It's

also so painful to tell you this. I was writing songs, and I

remember I wrote a song about the cross, and someone just came into the

room and laughed at it, you know how that hurts. I grew up

in Gaelax, Virginia, and one of the dear teachers that was a teacher

in that school, that little church school that I attended. She came just

after me, but she taught my brother and sister and it was a little

haven for our family. We didn't really have much connections with the church other

than kindness. She's here today and I want to just say thank you.

We're so grateful for you for the love, the love you brought into so

many people's lives. It's amazing how the Lord networks things when you're opening the

Word of God. Thank you for busitesing to us today from Hallan, Michigan.

Right. I pastored at Hall in Michigan as a youth pastor in Michigan

Conference. So it's a wonderful thing you're here. As Christians, we're not

in the hurting business because people are hurt already, right, and they don't

need you and me to make them feel more hurt in their lives. Hurt

is an epidemic in this world, and God blesses those who try to take

the pain away so the hur can go away. But we have a heart

hard time listening all of us do. Hurt is an epidemic in this world.

And God blesses those who tried to take the pain away so her can

go away. Those are the believers, the disciples he works with in life.

Johnny Cash took the lyrics from Nine Inch Nails and I've shared this before.

It was a rock group, but he made it into a him an

amazing transformation of the lyrics. Really, he sang the song Hurt just before

he died, produced a music video of it, and when you watch the

music video, and you can watch on YouTube, it's clear he's calling for

Jesus in his life. He was hurting his life because of all his loss

and sense. Most people don't know that Johnny Cash became a Christian because of

the book The Desire of Ages by Ellan White. He came into his life

at a very vital time and he read that book and he came to know

Jesus to a large extent because of this most precious book, The Desire of

Ages. And the title of the song is called Hurt, And I'm going

to read the lyrics I hurt myself today, And when he sings I Hurt

myself Today, he says it as if he's in agony to see if I

still feel. That's how he does it. I focus sung the pain,

the only thing that's real. He sings it like that with a piano.

The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting. Try to kill it

all away, but I remember everything. What have I become? My sweetest

friend? And then June Carter Cash appears on the screen. Everyone I know

goes away. In the end, she had died, and you can have

it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down, I

will make you hurt. I wear the crown of thorns upon my lyre's chair,

full of broken thoughts I cannot repair. And he had struggled with drug

addiction. He had struggled with a host of problems, a failed marriage.

June Carter Cash was for him a blessed in his life, and he would

often say so. He outlived the one who loved him and dragged him out

of the hole beneath the stains of time, the feelings disappear, you are

someone else. I'm still right here. What have I become my sweetest friend?

Of course, they flashed the picture of June Cash on the music video.

Everyone I know goes away in the end, and you can have it

all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will

make you hurt. It's amazing. Shortly after Johnny Cash died his mansion burned

to the ground. It's dirt, and then it ends by saying, if

I could start again a million miles away, I would keep myself. I

would find a way. Friends, when you are hurting and when you are

alone is when you lose yourself. When you're not alone, some how God

can mend the hurt, you can find yourself. The man who came to

Jesus to rest him was attacked by the disciple of Jesus, who should have

cared about him. The disciple, who should have cared a lot about him

about saving the lost, could only think of how to destroy him and cut

off his ear. Instead, the man who was taught to be a fisher

of men, of lost men by Jesus, took his knife out in his

hand. He filate the ear of the man who was the fish who needed

Jesus. Love instead of hurt, kindness, instead of violence. This is

what I can't stand it when any cause uses violence to advance the cause.

We don't have to throw bricks through windows to make a point. We have

a right to march and civilly express ourselves as Christians in this good land,

but we don't have a right to hurt anybody make a point. Jesus doesn't

change his diviy and care just because he's attacked by men with knives, clubs,

and stones and sticks. Jesus reached out and healed the man right there

on the spot because he loved him. He loved him. Jesus said,

love your enemies, do good to those who abuse you. Jesus healed the

man without the ear because Jesus loved the man. When you can't hear God

because of the pain and the fear in your life, then you have come

to feel God. Then you have come to feel God's touch. See if

you can't, if you can't hear God, you can steal feel God.

And God can touch you in the kindness and life of another. And when

Jesus reaches out to touch you in this way, friends, that's love and

you can be healed. Eventually you may hear Jesus touch can heal you so

you can hear God again. I don't know what the physical touch of Jesus

felt like when you like to have Jesus just touch you, take your hands

and just touch your face. You know, it feels good to touch yourself.

And my wife touches me. It feels real good. But you know,

when I'm touched with kindness and a hug and I have this Asperger's things,

I have a hard time being hugged, but it does feel good.

There's something about a touch. I don't know what the physical touch of Jesus

felt like, but it must have been sweetest honey to the man whose ear

had just fallen off. Christ's hand was bloodied already because Christ had lost great

drops of blood in the garden. He had wiped it from his brow.

And Christ when he reached out with his bloody hand to touch the man whose

ear was bloody, his blood merged with the man's blood. And I'm telling

you, wherever the blood of Christ is applied, there's healing. There is

a new beginning. A person can hear, a person can be saved.

His name is Malchus in the Aramaica means king. Why did John name him

by name? That is a strong indicator that this man became a believer.

John is trying to tell that second generation. You may have heard of Malchus.

He was, may have been in one of your churches. Kindness reaps

fruit in time. He was the servant of the high Priest. But that

night he met the real king, the true high Priest, who had the

power and authority of God Almighty in him to take us pain away, to

heal his ear so he could hear the good news the Gospel and be saved.

Don't be surprised, friend, if God reaches out to you by the

life of someone else who has suffered, and that person touches you, and

don't be surprised if that touch of love heals your ear and takes away the

hurt. And don't be surprised if God uses you to touch someone else that

way. Jesus said in the Book of Revelation. You know what he said

to the seven churches, him who has an ear, what let him hear?

Maybe Jesus was thinking of Malchus, whose ear he healed by putting it

back on his head Luke twenty two fifty two fifty four. Jesus said to

the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come out against

him. Here's the church against Jesus. Have you come out as against a

robber with swords and clubs. When I was with you day after day in

the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your

hour and the power of darkness. And then they seized him and led him

away, bringing him into the high priest house. Peter followed at a distance.

And that's the key line in the story. It doesn't take long for

the person who would defend Christ, who had saved the Savior, to follow

at a distance and ultimately deny him. That's the way it works. This

is why we got to be careful not to be trying to save the Savior,

and we have to be careful not to follow Jesus at a distance.

We need to hang in there close. That's wrong. That's what's wrong in

our lives when we tried to do the same. Peter followed at a distance

at first. I ask you the question this morning, are you following Jesus

at a distance in your life because you're trying to do the work of Jesus

when you aren't Jesus. Is that possible? They call that righteousness by works,

righteousness by showing off rather than righteousness by the Savior's merits in our life.

Are you trying to save Jesus when Jesus doesn't need you to save Jesus?

Are you all bent out of shape because you feel like you have to

defend the truth that Jesus doesn't need you to defend. Do you know what

Jesus wants from you? You hear me. Jesus wants from you what Peter

didn't do that night. Jesus wants you to follow him closely, not at

a distance, but just behind where you can touch him. You can hang

on to him where he is all the way. The joy, the comfort,

the confidence, the stability of your life. I found in my life

when I fail is when I'm following Jesus at a distance Luke twenty two fifty

five. And when they had kindled in the middle of the courtyard and set

down together, Peter sat among them. Then a maid, seeing him as

he set and the light, and gazing at him, said, this man

also was with him. This is a young girl, pointing Peter out.

Here's suddenly the man who would kill for the sake of Christ, the man

who confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the Living God,

the man who would take up his sword for Christ, who would boast that

he would not leave Christ through everyone else would right here because of fear,

embarrassment, and shame. In the cold of night, the confident disciple denied.

He even knew Jesus. Peter denied him verse fifty seven. But in

fact, as we know from one gospel, he denied him with curses.

He swore at him verse fifty seven, but he denied it, saying,

woman, I do not know him. When a person denies Jesus, it

is possible to correct the problem. I ask you, confessing Jesus, if

you've denied Jesus, how do you fix the problem? Right there? Confess

him, make amends by claiming him. We're saved by what we say in

a way faith finds his expression. Peter could have done that and right there

reverses denial on the spot, but he didn't do it. It's a principle

that self proclaimed spiritual warriors have a hard time admitting that they are wrong when

they're fighting for God. That's why we have to be careful not to be

fighting for God. We need to be living for God, and the Lord

will fight the battle Peter was a spiritual warrior in the wrong mode that night.

I don't like this talk. I'm a spiritual warrior. Well, that

makes you look good, but it doesn't make God look very good, does

it. You See, Peter was the defender of the faith when the faith

didn't need him to defend it. He was the savior of the Savior when

he needed a savior to save himself. He was the man of the moment

act when he should have waited for God's leading in his life. Peter wasn't

following Jesus very closely. And when you don't follow Jesus close it's easy to

keep on denying Jesus because of your fear when the tide turns on you and

you fail. Twenty two fifty eight and a little later someone else saw him

and said you are one of them. Peter said, man, I'm not

here. Peter, who denied he knew the Lord, now denies any connection

to the people of the Lord. I've seen it. And people are fighting

for some righteous crouse that they think is right, and they're so sure the

Church has to hear them to be okay. And if they don't hear them,

then somehow the whole church will fall apart, and all that. It

doesn't take him long before they start having trouble with the church, and they

tend to leave the church. So, Peter here is archetypical of our problems.

When you are fighting to save the Savior, and when you take up

the sword to prove it, don't be surprised if you eventually deny your connection

to his people. Also, I have seen people leave the church, as

I said, because they stopped falling close behind Jesus, and because they're trying

to save the Savior. They're trying to correct the church to trying to fight

and clean it up. And the church needs cleaning instead of sitting at Jesus'

feet and being salt in the earth. So denial number one, you can

write this down. Peter denied he what he knew Jesus. Denial number two.

What is it? Peter denied his connection to Jesus' people. Denial number

three. Here it is Peter eventually denied his own identity. Look at verse

fifty nine with me. Look twenty fifty nine. After an interval of about

an hour, still in another insisted, saying, certainly this man also was

with him, for he is a Galilea, and that's who Peter was,

that's his identity verse sixty. But Peter said, man, I do not

know what you're saying. It was obvious that he was a Galilean. He

even denied that, and immediately while he was still speaking, Luke records the

cock crow the rooster started going something like that. I grew up in Appalachian

I know how they sound. I used to feed chickens and have to go

into the coop when I was a kid. I have some lung damage from

that to this day that shows up on X rays. I don't like chicken

coops, and I don't like roosters crowing. They crow to intimidate, and

if you ever been a rooster, they'll claw at you and fight as they

do their thing. They're aggressive, alpha type animals. Peter was just like

that rooster crowing in the night, and he didn't even know he was that

way. Jesus knew it. Jesus saw him, Jesus could read him,

He knew the future. Jesus loved Peter, and just at that moment when

it all came crashing down on Peter's head, Jesus turned to Peter and looked

him straight in the eye with the same kind of love that had healed the

ear of the hurting man that Peter had wounded the night, and Peter saw

the eyes of Jesus. Boy, if those eyes had been anything but love,

there'd have been two trees with two nooses, not just Judas hanging from

a tree, Peter hanging beside him. Peter was the other man without the

ear that night. That's the truth. He was the other man without the

ear that night. He was the man who wasn't listening to God, he

wasn't listening to Jesus. He was the man who was hell bent on having

his own way by trying to save the Savior instead of falling the Savior.

And Jesus was trying to save Peter from hell and bring him to Heaven.

Caught in the trap of Satan. In his moment of self understanding and failure,

Peter realized that he was lost, that he denied the Lord, that

he forsaken his people, that he denied his own identity, that he didn't

even know who he was anymore, and he was hurt because he had hurt

Jesus. When a manor of woman comes to realize that they have hurt Jesus

and it wounds them because of that fact. That is the golden moment when

Jesus heals the ears that they can hear, That's when it happens. That

is the very moment the Holy Spirit breaks through to save the heart from fear

so the ear can hear. My father went through a journey like that.

He came into the Aventist church and at the Sligo Church and to come apart

Maryland. I didn't know it until years after i'd left Sligo that he had

come into the church under Bill Lovelace and my dad had been a white coat.

And my dad, you know, had wanted in those early years to

give his life to Christ, but he didn't know the gospel, so he

just joined the church. He later got into a Perfectionist movement. And I

didn't know any of this till after I met him at the age of fifteen,

miraculously, when God led me to fletch Her Academy to find him just

before he died. But my dad had been so full of himself it resulted

in him leaving us, leaving my mother. My mother's mental health collapsed because

of his self love and I know that because I've read the letters between my

dad and mom that I saw shortly after my mother died. My aunt Mary

Anne gave me those letters. I have them to this day, a window

into my dad before he came to Christ, and I'm glad I saw it

later, but it makes it all the more beautiful. What happened to my

dad when he came to Jesus. His health collapsed, He got cancer,

his liver was disintegrated because of alcoholism, and in his forties, his early

forties, he reached out to God as a broken man and staid, if

it's a God up there, save me. He began to pray for me,

began to and I was in Gaylax, Virginia, where you were teaching

at that time, and he prayed for me and the children, that God

would find his kids and bring them to him. Before he died. He

was terminally ill, so he arranged it by supernatural circumstances, that God would

place him in that hospital and Fletcher in North Carolina. When I arrived,

after they accepted me, it was hard for them to accept me because where

I'd come from, but they did. And I came into that room where

Pastor Don Vallmer, Joseph Battistone, and one other pastor Pretchacharter or something like

that was anointing my dad. It was the first time I'd been around ministers

in a long while, and I knew at that moment that God exists,

that God is real, and that he loved me. I knew no theology,

I knew no prophecy, but I knew God was in that room.

I can't explain it to this day. My dad led me to Christ,

but I had a lot to do, and I still do. I need

to grow in Christ like all of us do. But my dad had allowed

his suffering to teach him how to humble himself. And when he did that,

his heart became his witness. So that he told me he said,

he said, there's no greater privilege given me in my life. Suffer for

Christ. I suffer from my own sins, but I can also suffer for

Christ in a way to understand what he went through. He shared that with

me before he died. I knew him two months and he died. And

I think my dad was a lot like Peter. When a man or woman

comes to realize that they have hurt Jesus and my dad did that. He

stopped trying to prove things. He wanted to be perfect enough to be accepted

in the time of trouble, and he realized that Jesus is his perfection.

And in that sense, when he realized what he'd done to Jesus is when

he reached out to my mother, he made it right with her. He

did it in the presence of his new wife, and he glued our family

together through love and forgiveness. So if you ever go to an Oxen Tanko

family reunion, you're going to see people who love each other. It doesn't

matter what they did. It matters the fact that we're family. And don't

start talking about my brothers and sisters they're mistakes or not, or my new

mother. I don't care. I love my family. You with me,

and the Church ought to be that way. This is the very moment,

this is the very moment the Holy Spirit breaks through to save the heart from

fear. Peter gets it in pain Look twenty two sixty one, and the

Lord turned and looked at Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord.

You see when you have fallen, when you have let the Lord down,

it's at that very moment. The word of God matters. Jesuss I've

loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I've drawn you with chords of tender

kindness. You remember the word of the Lord and how he had said before

the cock crow, today you will deny me three times and he went out

and wept bitterly. Peter could have gone away and hung himself like Judas did,

but he didn't. That night Peter was born again, and he talks

about that in his first epistle, being born again through the Word of the

Gospel. In tears and confession, Peter became a new man. Peter faced

down his fear and his failure with the light that is God's love shining in

the eyes of Jesus. Jesus look of love in that one moment of pain

never left Peter's brain for the rest of his life. It was the hour

of the power of darkness all around that night, and right there in the

catastrophe of Peter's sin and failure, the light of Jesus loving eyes, his

forgiving eyes, his hurt eyes, looked into Peter's eyes and forgave him changed

his life. Jesus had wept in the night of his fear in the garden

of a Simon Peter, who had slept through the night of Christ's suffering in

prayer. We're told, in the spirit of Prophecy, went to that quiet

place that Jesus has struggled to find God, to bleed out for God and

man. And he shed his tears and grief on the same ground to get

his life right, to open his closed ears, to dress the fears that

led him to deny Jesus in the first place. At the end of his

life, Peter shared these words in his last epistle, just before he was

crucified. I'm gonna put on the screen, and it makes a lot of

sense now, tewod Peter three twelve to eighteen. For the eyes of the

Lord upon the righteous. His ears are open to their prayer. But the

face of the Lord is against those that do evil. Now, who is

there to harm you? If you are zealous for what is right? But

even if you do suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have

no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your heart's reverence Christ

as Lord, always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you

to for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and

reverence, and keep your conscience clear, so that when you are abused,

those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For

it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God's will,

than for doing wrong. For Christ also died for sins. How many

of you have committed sins? Raise your hand if you're in that camp,

For Christ also died for all of us. We're all sinners for all.

He says, sins once for all the righteous, for the unrighteous. So

who's the righteous one? Is it us or Jesus? Jesus who's the unrighteous?

It's us? That's good to remember that. It is that he see

he's the savior. We're not the savior. That he might bring us to

God. Being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.

May God make us all alive in the spirit in Jesus name. They're

heavenly. Father. It's so easy to not go home and be with Jesus.

Christ is our home. Really, Father, you have said, Thou

Lord has been our dwelling place in all generations. Father, May we not

follow far behind but follow just behind Jesus and thus prove that we're disciples by

following him. Number Two, Lord, may we listen to Jesus. It's

hard for us all because we're unrighteous. Lord, May we stop trying to

save the Savior or the Church and just let Jesus do it and let him

save us. And Father, may you give us what Peter calls that precious

calm that is ours because we've come to the rock that's not us but Jesus.

And so, Father, bless your people as they leave, bless them

with Jesus. And Father, if anybody's not here today because they're falling away

from Jesus, help us not to make it hard for them to come home.

In Jesus' name, Amen,