What If God Is Still Working on You? | Unfiltered

Welcome to Fierce.

My name is Brandon.

I'm the worship pastor here, and I'm excited to share God's word with you today.

Yeah.

Hi.

Grain weevils.

What did he say?

Yeah, grain weevils.

I got grain weevils, guys.

I'm not calling you grain weevils, just so you know.

Uh let's start over.

I had grain weevils.

I I don't, they're not contagious.

I didn't.

There were grain weevils in my pantry last week.

If you're not familiar with it, I should probably start with that.

Grain weevils are um they look like little black sugar ants, but they're a little bit more narrow and a little bit longer, and they're attracted to grain foods.

So cereals, pastas, bread, or flour.

And if you can imagine the scenario, the Adkins were getting ready to make some cookie dough.

And in our family, we make we don't make cookies, we make cookie dough, and we put it in the fridge and we take it out and we chip away at a little bit at a time.

Anybody else do that?

Yep, because you're real Americans, that's how you do it.

But imagine our horror when we go to open the flour container and we look in in the normal landscape of like mountainous, you know, powdery white, fluffy flour has little specks of black crawling around inside of it, little grain weevils in there.

What do you do?

Well, what what you do is you throw out that flour and you get fresh flour, which is what we did.

But let's pretend for a second, for illustration purposes, that you have a cookie dough emergency.

The president's coming and he needs his cookie dough.

And you can't have any bugs.

When I want to eat cookie dough, I don't want to eat bugs, and vice versa.

So you can't have bugs of the president's cookie dough.

You've got to use that flour.

There's no time.

What do you do?

You get out your flour sifter, which is like a little cylinder thing with a handle.

You've probably seen one, scoop some flour into it, and sift, sift, sift, and out comes that good, clean, pure, you know, purified flour, and it separates out the bad stuff, the junk, the bugs.

You can throw those away.

You can serve those on the side if you like.

They're your bugs.

You can do what you like with them.

Follow me for more recipes.

So, sifting doesn't hurt the flour.

Um, sifting is the process of purifying, it's the process of separating the good from the bad, isn't it?

It's it's pulling out the junk so that all that remains is good and pure.

And sifting doesn't hurt the flower, but if you've ever been in a season of personal sifting, you could call it, or even spiritual sifting, you probably could attest.

It can be extremely painful, can't it?

Maybe you've gone through a season like that and you wouldn't even know to call it sifting.

Maybe you'd call it like it was a really trying time, or I was being tested, right?

Like life just came along and said, Hey, let's see what kind of stuff you're made of.

Let's test your metal, right?

Sometimes it feels like you're getting pulled apart, doesn't it?

Super, super painful.

But it can also be preparatory and productive, right?

Sometimes we'll say, like, what I see now that what I was going through then, it got me ready for what God had for me next.

So there's some sometimes even like a hope in a season of sifting like that.

We just kind of stumble into it with maybe retrospectively, you're like, I didn't see it at the time, but now I see it.

Let's think of it the opposite way.

Let's think of kind of the counterexample.

What happens if so, you know, grain weevils are gross, but they're not poisonous.

There's not actually no harm if you ate, it'd be disgusting, but you wouldn't die.

But with spiritual sifting, what's being sifted out is sin.

And sin is poisonous.

Sin is hazardous, isn't it?

Think of the counterexample.

Let's say the sin was left in, it wasn't sifted out.

You've seen this, you've seen the alcoholic abusive father and the damage that that was done to the family and to the friends.

Yeah, the sin was left in.

What about a very public, you know, church leader, Christian leader scandal, and and whole communities are shredded by the shrapnel of sin.

Yeah, what happened there was the sin was left in.

It wasn't sifted out.

And I want to I want to present a proposition to you today that what was sent to sift me is meant to make me.

Can we say that together?

What was sent to sift me, I'll say that what was sent to sift me is meant to make me.

Yeah, it's true.

We're gonna look at the life of Simon Peter, a specific window in his life, and he's a really cool study.

He's got a wild story arc if you think about where we meet Peter, he's doing this.

Like this is his whole life.

Cast out a net, haul in some fish.

Cast out a net.

This is my life.

I've done this my whole life.

There's no ambitions, there's no upward mobility, I have no prospects.

This is I'll die doing this, either of old age or drowning in a storm.

That's the guy we meet, and then a few years later, he preaches at Pentecost, and 3,000 souls get added to the kingdom of heaven like that.

Like, what in the world?

How does what is that story arc like?

We see at Pentecost his he's not hauling fish anymore into a boat, he's hauling souls into heaven.

How does that happen?

Right?

Another window you could you could focus at Peter's denial of Jesus.

We're gonna look at that today, too.

Peter denies even knowing Jesus, he's walked with Jesus for his entire ministry, and Peter out loud denies out of cowardice, like I don't want to get persecuted too, I don't want to die, I don't want any skin in the game, I'm gonna hide, I'm gonna deny Jesus.

That guy, that that kind of cowardly moment, that same guy is used to write two whole books of the Bible that for centuries have encouraged and strengthened the church through times of extreme persecution.

How does that happen?

What is that story arc like?

So that's what we're gonna look at right now.

Um, we're gonna start in Luke 22, verse 31.

Luke 22:31

So this is at the Last Supper.

Jesus is talking to his boys, he's talking to his disciples, and he forecasts the sifting.

What was sent to sift me is meant to make me.

We're gonna see how the sifting is used to do that transformation and to make Peter into what God had designed for him.

Jesus says, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.

Satan has to ask permission.

Just want to make that side caveat.

But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail.

So when you have repented and turn to me again, strengthen your brothers.

Peter said, Lord, I'm ready to go to prison and even die with you.

I get Peter.

I like Peter.

I would stick my foot in my mouth just like that.

The zeal, isn't there just such enthusiasm?

I'll even die for you.

No, Jesus, I'll die for you.

And Jesus is just thinking, It's a good thing I'm praying for you.

Right?

But Jesus said to him, Peter, let me tell you something.

Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.

What was sent to sift me is meant to make me.

There's some sifting coming, apparently.

Jesus just forecasted, Peter, brace yourself.

Here comes some sifting.

Let's see what it's gonna make.

So to do that, we're gonna jump now a little bit back in time to that calling moment where I said Peter is just doing this, right?

He's just casting out his net, hauling in fish.

This is the moment where we meet Peter, where Jesus meets Peter.

Matthew 4 says, Now, as Jesus was 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.

Jesus says, Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men.

Peter, Peter, listen up.

Follow me.

I got a job for you to do.

Peter, you're just doing this.

You want a different job?

Follow me.

That's your job.

My job is I make you a fisher of men.

Jesus says, you follow, I make.

Jesus says, you follow.

It's not your job, Peter, to figure out how to be what you're supposed to be, to self-actualize, to like solve all the riddles in your future.

You just follow me.

I'll take care of making you into a fisher of men.

Amen.

Anybody hearing that?

Everybody say, let's say, I don't make me, Jesus makes me.

Come on.

And then verse 20 says, immediately they left their nets, but that immediately is a little bit misleading.

It's true, they left their nets immediately.

The transition from a fisherman to something else happened immediately, but the transformation happened gradually.

So he left immediately, but we see with Peter, it's such a cool story because you see yourself in the story so often through Peter.

He's the one who's like most often speaking up for the other disciples, like, yeah, Jesus, we don't get it.

What was that parable about?

Who's the farmer?

Why are you always talking about bread?

Right?

He's the one who often is like open mouth, insert foot.

Right?

With Peter, you see, sometimes it's two steps forward and one step backward.

Sometimes it's one step forward and two steps backward.

Anybody ever feel like your walk with the Lord is like that?

Like you take one step forward and two steps backward.

The making process is a gradual process.

Somebody say, be patient with the process.

What was sent to sift me is meant to make me.

So now we're gonna zoom out of that moment of the calling of Peter, and we're gonna jump a little forward in time to the actual denial moment.

So uh this is after the Last Supper, shortly after the Last Supper, at the Last Supper, Judas betrays Jesus.

Jesus gets arrested, um, and he gets kind of hauled into jail and he's being processed.

And Peter's just kind of following as like a hopefully an anonymous member of the crowd.

Like he's not trying to be noticed because that would implicate him as one of the criminals, just knowing Jesus would be considered a crime at that point.

So um he's hiding in the crowd, already where we're gonna pick up.

He's already been twice identified and denied knowing Jesus.

So this is the third one, and this one really kind of captures, kind of segues right into some of what it feels like to be sifted, kind of that dark night of the soul.

So here we go.

Verse 73 says, A little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter, Surely you too are one of them, for even the way you talk gives you away.

Then he began to curse and swear, I do not know the man.

And immediately a rooster crowed.

And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said.

And he went out and wept bitterly.

Have you wept bitterly?

Have you bottomed out spiritually?

Like have you hit the rock bottom?

You're in good company with Peter right now.

Peter is being disassembled.

This guy's like falling apart.

He just shouted that he cursed and called down curses within earshot of Jesus.

I do not know the man.

And he runs outside and weeps bitterly.

Guys, sifting is a hard temptation in life.

It's a hard moment.

It's a hard, dark night of the soul, isn't it?

Can I tell you about a period of sifting in my life?

I was trying to think of one.

And it this is definitely not the most severe.

I don't have time to tell you all the all the things, you know, the kind of bloody costs of following Jesus sometimes, things that it's cost my family or me personally, pains, friendships, lost, hard, hard stuff.

I'm sure we could swap stories and you could tell me some really, really hard stories too.

Um, so this is not the most painful, probably, but it was one of the most disorienting, one of my earliest moments of sifting and my walk with the Lord.

And it was one of the most transformative, too.

It was my freshman year of college, and um I, you know, you have to back up a little bit to my my senior year of high school.

My my family life was wonderful all growing up, but my senior year, there was some real hard stuff going on at home.

Um, let's say just I'll just summarize to say the lights were turned off a lot.

It was like a physically dark space a lot of the time, and it's kind of a good metaphor for how it felt spiritually to be home.

Just felt nothing like super traumatizing, but just like kind of a dark, cold place.

But but the youth group that I was going to, I was like just coming online for the Lord, and I would go to youth group and I'd be like, like I'd I'd just come online, come alive, and get poured into, and like everything was new with the Lord was exciting, and I was so well supported and so well loved.

And just a quick side plug if you've ever considered serving in Fierce, uh Fierce's youth ministry or uh the children's ministry, guys, these people made such a huge impact on my life, and they weren't professionals, they weren't Bible scholars, they just they had a Tuesday night to show up or a Sunday morning to show up and just be like near me.

And I can't tell you the difference that it made in my life, my senior year or high school.

So I belonged at youth group, and then I got plucked out of that when I graduated and dropped off, literally dropped off in a dorm, um, and knew nobody.

I went to Clark College in Dubuque, Iowa, which I've never heard of either.

Um, and I didn't know anybody, and it was super, super lonely, honestly.

The sifting trial could be summarized as really just a loneliness trial, but it was so much deeper than that.

Like everybody near me was going one direction.

They were going in the dorm, they were going after girls and drinking and partying and stuff, and I wanted to follow Jesus, and I was really tempted to like, do I just put that faith on the shelf as like the thing I did when I was a kid?

Or do I progress with the Lord?

But I don't I want to, but I don't know how to.

My roommate didn't like me and I didn't like him, and it's like an eight by ten dorm room, like we're just stuck, you know, together.

So it was a it was a loneliness, doesn't really capture what it felt like.

It it was a like a spiritual displacement, like I didn't belong anywhere for like a year and a half, two years.

Kind of that whole senior year into freshman year of high school, just a sense of spiritual orphanhood.

So I'm gonna pause that that part of the story right there.

That was that's the introduction to that part of my sifting story.

But let's, like I said, what was sent to sift me is meant to make me.

It did form me into something different, but I want to leave you in suspense for a second.

Let's jump back over to Peter's story, and then I'll finish the rest of that story in a minute.

What was sent to sift me is meant to make me.

We're gonna jump back in with Peter.

So this is after now Jesus has been crucified, he's risen from the dead, he's made multiple appearances to the disciples.

But in the text, if you read as you read it, there's still this kind of like awkwardness between, I think Peter's feeling kind of an awkwardness and a distance from Jesus still, because he's still kind of carrying the survivor's guilt of the last thing that Jesus heard me say before he was crucified was calling down curses and screaming, I don't know the man.

So here we go.

John 21, one.

After these things, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples.

He revealed himself in this way, in a very unusual way, as we're gonna see.

And I just want to like side note caveat.

If you're going through a sifting season, keep your eyes peeled, because Jesus will reveal himself to you in unusual ways.

So here it goes.

Uh verse 3 says, Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing.

They said to him, We will also come with you.

What is happening there, right?

Isn't that like we met Peter?

Jesus called him away from the fishing nets to follow, to follow Jesus.

Now he's going back to the fishing nets.

I think what's happening here is Peter's thinking, I'm going back to what I am good at.

I'm I'm apparently not good at the following Jesus thing.

Oh, Jesus is awesome.

I've seen him, he's resurrected from the dead.

My faith in Jesus as the Messiah is intact, it is not shaken.

I'm just not the right guy.

I don't belong doing that.

I'm gonna go back to what I do know, which is fishing.

I resonate with Peter here too.

I hate doing stuff that I'm not good at.

I hate it.

Does anybody else hate doing stuff that you you know you're not good at?

Can I tell you one thing that I'm not good at?

It's not the most recent discovery of what I'm bad at, but it's one of the more dramatic discoveries.

I am dramatically bad at softball.

Really bad.

So for a minute and a half, it was pretty bad.

Who's that?

Is that Kevin?

Yeah, what's up, Kevin?

Um, Kevin knows.

So a couple years ago, we had a softball team for a short period, and I won't say that I single-handedly brought that season to a close, but I played my part.

Our first game, I showed up and we're in the dugout, and I think it was Kevin, it was the team captain, and he's deploying the cast members, and he said, All right, Brandon, you're gonna be in left field.

And I'm like, Okay, cool.

Wait, is that house left or stage left?

And he just kind of hung his head and pointed.

And to be honest, I still I'm still not certain.

So and my second game and my final game, in one play, I tore both of my hamstrings.

Both of them.

You only have two hamstrings.

I tore all my hamstrings in one play, and it wasn't even like a game-winning moment.

It wasn't like the end of the movie, and I slide into home plate in slow motion, and I'm injured, ah, but victorious.

It was early in the game, and I was just trying to get on first base.

And I'm I'm told, apparently, Eric likes to remind me when I talk about this, I'm supposed to mention it's an important detail, apparently.

At the time of my injury, I was sub-running for a pregnant woman so that she wouldn't injure herself.

So, in a way, it was heroic.

So, guys, just don't ask me to play softball.

I don't want to play softball.

I hate that game.

Well, you're playing softball?

I don't want to play softball.

I don't like to do it because I'm no good at it.

So I'm just not gonna.

And thankfully, this is America and I'm an adult and you can't make me.

Thankfully, you know, that strategy of I'm not good at it, so I just won't do it, it works fine for softball, right?

There's stuff where it's like it truly makes no difference in my life if I play softball or don't play softball.

That's a fine strategy for things that don't matter.

But the more meaningful of a thing in the first place, the less that's a good strategy.

So if if I'm not so it doesn't work to say, sorry, officer, I'm just not very good at going the speed limit, like that.

Or sorry, your honor, I've just never gotten very good at doing my taxes.

Like that's a that's a strategy if you're okay spending a lot of time in jail, right?

Let's go, let's go a layer deeper, more meaningful of a thing to do.

What about I just not I never got very good at conflict resolution?

And so now I've got this long wake of broken relationships in my past.

That actually ends up being pretty tragic, right?

Let's go down now to the most meaningful, the like the bedrock most depth of meaning relationship you'll ever have.

What a tragedy would it be if somebody was actually convinced I'm just not good at the Jesus thing.

I'm just not cut out for that.

That's fine for some people.

There's like the Christian professionals, I'll leave that for them.

I I need to stay at a distance.

I'll I believe in Jesus, but I gotta go fishing, I gotta go back to what I know.

Can I just lovingly, brotherly, pastorally look you in the eye and say, that's a lie from hell.

That if you if you're operating under the assumption that I'm just not good at the Jesus thing, that's not really ever a part of it.

That's where Peter is, I think.

But we're gonna see what happens next, and it's really beautiful.

Jesus restores him from that place.

So again, if you've ever thought that you have a lot in common with Jesus, lean forward right now and listen to what happens next in the story.

He says, I'm going fishing.

They went out and got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing.

Nothing! Can you imagine that?

This guy's been fishing his entire life.

He's a professional fisherman, and he caught nothing.

Can you imagine the frustration?

He's like, I'm not good at the Jesus thing, I'm going back to what I am good, and now I'm not good at this either.

Like, my gosh.

I I get Peter here too, because uh this past summer, over the summer, we went to Myrtle Beach.

My family got to go on vacation, and we went on what was supposed, I would call it a chartered fishing trip, but it was really just a six-hour boat ride because we didn't catch anything.

The only thing, the only good thing that came out of that trip, out of that six-hour boat ride, was the discovery that my nephew needs to take more dramamine before we get on a boat.

So it was super frustrating.

Imagine my frustration going fishing for six hours.

I'm not a professional fisherman, that's his vocation.

So he's like, We caught nothing.

But when the day was now breaking, verse 4, when the day was now breaking, somebody say there's always a day break with Jesus.

Come on, somebody.

Jesus stood on the beach, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

So Jesus said to them, Children, you do not have any fish, do you?

And they answered him, No.

And he said to them, Cast the net on the right hand side of the boat, and you will find a catch.

So they cast, and then they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish.

This is incredible, right?

They're following Jesus again.

Jesus said, Cast on this side, they cast on this side, massive success.

It's like a miracle that the nets didn't break and the boat didn't sink.

That's just like one step of obedience.

When they weren't following Jesus, when they left Jesus to go do their fishing thing, he made them bad at what they're good at.

That's crazy.

You just follow Jesus and he makes you good at something, and not following him does the opposite.

Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the Lord.

So when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and he threw himself into the sea.

Peter is back.

Amen.

Let's see what the sifting has made in Peter.

So this is one of the we're we're going to look at the lessons learned best through sifting.

There's going to be two of them.

Lessons learned best through sifting.

I say best through sifting because it's not like brand new information.

It's like you've never heard this before.

But what happens, I believe, you learn these lessons best because of the sifting process, it has this way of disassembling us, kind of stripping our guard down.

We don't have the energy to maintain our guard, honestly, when we're being sifted.

And these truths have a way of like sinking deep down inside of us.

Then we're reassembled into something new that Jesus has designed for us to be.

John 21, 8 says, But the other disciples came in the little boat, for they were not far from the land, but about 100 yards away, dragging the net full of fish.

So when they got out onto the land, they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed on it and bread.

Jesus doesn't even need their fish.

Right?

He's asking, Do you guys have fish?

He's already got fish and bread.

Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish which you have now caught, which you have now caught, because you followed my instruction, which you have now caught, which I cause you to catch.

Bring some of that fish, which you have now caught.

He doesn't need it, but he invites it anyway.

That's our first lesson learned best through sifting.

Jesus doesn't need my contribution, but he invites it anyway.

Jesus has everything and needs nothing.

Everything is held in his hand, right?

In the hand of the Lord.

Like he holds everything.

He has everything I need in his hand, and he needs nothing that I have.

In fact, everything that I do have, I got from him in the first place.

He doesn't need anything from me, but he graciously invites participation.

So bring what you have.

Bring the little that you have, and he'll add it in, he'll dignify it.

Have you ever been guilty of overestimating your contribution?

Have you ever subconsciously, maybe not actively thought this, but you've operated under this assumption, it's a good thing I'm on the team.

Jesus is lucky to have a guy like me.

That's kind of what we see Peter demonstrate.

He was like, No, Jesus, I'll go to prison and even die for you.

You gotta remember, come on.

He pulls them aside and rebukes Jesus.

Like, you gotta remember who's on your team, is kind of the character trait that's being expressed there.

You know, that's called pride.

Yeah.

And that's one of the things the Lord wants to sift out of us.

Have you ever maybe subconsciously thought it's a good thing I'm on the team?

Another way to maybe diagnose if you've ever been guilty of overestimating your own contribution, is I want to encourage you to surrender the outcomes.

So sometimes we go through life and we carry all this pressure and all this stress and all this extra burden, like a hundred pounds, hundred times heavier than it might need to be otherwise, because we're worried about taking care of every detail and taking care of every person.

And I gotta, I gotta take care of this person and this person, it's all on me.

And if I don't show up, nobody's gonna do it.

Some of the time that's true, but a lot of the time you're just operating in in pride again that God needs you to do, fill in the blank.

Can I tell you, you're not a tool?

We use that analogy sometimes, and and it's a fine analogy in some contexts, but every analogy has uh disadvantages.

Being a tool in the Lord's hand, you might have even prayed, God, I want you to use me, and we do want God to use us, but never think that you're just a tool because your value is not tied to what you can do.

I have no relationship with my hammer at home, right?

In fact, if it stops hammering nails in, I'm gonna throw it away and get a new one.

Now apply that idea to like if you do you want to be a tool for the Lord?

No, you don't want you want to be in real life.

The Lord wants to be in relationship with you.

He doesn't need any of your contribution at all, he doesn't need any of the things that you're able to do.

Somebody say, I can't save the day.

And that's all right.

Jesus says, You follow, I will make you what you need to be, right?

So sometimes we are overestimating our own contribution, sometimes we're undervaluing our own our own contribution.

Um sometimes we're guilty of of operating under the the thought that Jesus couldn't use a failure like me.

That's a heavy one, man.

Jesus couldn't use a screw up like me.

And again, if I could just like if it wouldn't be weird, I'd hold your hands and look you in the eye.

It might be weird, but I would do it.

Um if that was your if that was a real lie from the enemy that you've wrestled with, I would lovingly look you in the eye and say, Jesus isn't mad at weakness.

Jesus doesn't get mad at weakness.

Just because you you've made some mistakes, you've blown it, maybe you're not very good at something, you don't have a lot of skill, other people have a lot of skill, and you're kind of lame with some stuff.

Jesus doesn't get mad at weakness.

I don't know if you've ever had an authority figure in your life who got really mad at your weakness.

They didn't represent Jesus.

Jesus doesn't get mad at weakness, he dignifies it.

It's the very thing that He power is made perfect through weakness.

It's the thing he can use.

Jesus doesn't get mad at weakness.

If you don't have very much to offer, Jesus can move a mountain with mustard seed faith.

Right?

Like, why would he need you to have a lot to offer?

It doesn't make any sense.

Remember the widow who gave two pennies?

So they're in Jesus and the disciples are in the temple, they're watching that people are bringing in huge offerings and they're making a big show of it and stuff, they're putting in thousands and thousands of dollars, and then this little old widow just quietly kind of sneaks up and drops in two pennies.

And Jesus points out she gave more than all of them because she gave out of her lack.

She gave everything she had.

It wasn't actually monetarily very much.

So let me just encourage you, if you don't have a lot of skill, you actually might be best positioned to present the best love offering to the Lord, right?

Like, why would you why would you doubt what God has given you?

Bring it to Him, bring what you do have.

He doesn't need it.

Jesus doesn't need my contribution, but he invites it anyway.

So, what are some areas where Jesus might be calling you to follow him with the little that you have, the little bit of skill that you have?

Conflict resolution was an example earlier.

Maybe you don't have those skills developed very well.

Follow Jesus in that area might look like I'm just gonna try and learn what Jesus would do if he was in conflict.

I'm gonna try and do that to the best of my ability.

So maybe I'm going to lead with repentance.

The next time I sit down and talk to that family member who won't talk to me, um, and I kind of get why they won't talk to me because I've messed a lot of stuff up.

The next time I get the opportunity, I'm just gonna bite my tongue about everything else that they've done, and I'm gonna say, here's what I did that was wrong, and I'm sorry.

Would you please forgive me?

That would be following Jesus in the area of your relationships, your conflict resolution.

Remember that love keeps no record of wrong.

Maybe that's all you need to do as you're trying to follow Jesus in the area of your conflict resolution, your relationships.

What about finances?

Let's say I'm just, I've never been very good at managing my finances, and honestly, I'm afraid to even look at it.

I'm afraid to look at the money, I'm afraid to look at the bills.

It's a nightmare.

I just want to avoid it.

If you were to answer the call of following Jesus in that area, it might look like having a budget meeting with Jesus, a quiet time basically, like a devotional time with Lor.

Maybe for five minutes you're gonna read scripture and pray and listen to worship music, then you're gonna pull out the budget for 10 minutes, and then you're gonna follow up with five more minutes of you know getting rid of the anxiety from all that by praying again and just spending some more time with the Lord.

That might be just one area where you could follow the Lord, where he says, follow, you follow, I make, I'll make you better at this.

What about if every time you tithe, if you need to grow in skill with your finances, if every time you tithe, just a simple step, you pray the prayer, Jesus, make me smarter than I am and tithe.

Just do that.

I pray that prayer a lot.

Guys, I'm not very smart, but I pray that prayer and then I'm smarter, like it works.

So do it.

So that was the first lesson.

Lessons learned best through sifting.

The first one was Jesus doesn't need my contribution, but he invites it.

The second one is Jesus' perfect love for me perfects my love for him.

That's a little bit complex.

Don't worry if you're a little confused by that.

We're gonna see it in a second.

Jesus' perfect love for me perfects my love for him.

So we're we're we're shore side, we're at that charcoal fire.

Bring that, bring some of that fish over that you've now caught.

Jesus and the disciples are having breakfast.

They've had a lovely, wonderful breakfast by by the water.

And now Jesus stands up and starts asking Peter some questions.

And he asks them three times the same question.

Peter, do you love me?

Gives him the opportunity to say, Yes, Lord, you know I love you.

And he does it three times because it's this is kind of the classic like reinstatement of Peter as the disciple and then eventually as the apostle to the early church.

It's a it's a it's a uh reinstatement because um Peter denied Jesus three times.

So now Jesus is giving him the opportunity to express his love for Jesus three times.

So it's a reinstatement, but it's also a restoration of the relationship, right?

Remember that the last thing that Jesus heard him say before he was crucified was, I don't know the man.

Now he's giving Peter a loving opportunity to say, Do you love me?

Yes.

So they're being brought back together.

This is kind of clearing the air, like, okay, let's have this little conversation, and now we're cool.

We've talked about it, we're tight.

But what's really, really cool, this is so cool, guys.

The the Greek, if we look at the the original language, it's a simple conversation.

But if you look, if you just look at the original language, the Greek words, there's two words for love in this conversation.

In English, there's only one word for love.

I love burritos and I love my wife.

It's one word for love, but in Greek, there's different words for different kinds of love, right?

So there's agapow and phileo.

So we'll do agapow first.

Everybody punch your neighbor on the knee and say agapow.

Yeah.

Agapau love is self-giving sacrificial love.

It's the kind of love that says, I love them so much that I want good to happen to them even if it costs me, even if it hurts me, even if I have to suffer on their behalf.

It's it's the kind of love that demonstrates, that's demonstrated at the cross.

Romans 5, 8 says, God Agap God demonstrates his Agapow love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So that's the first kind, Agapow.

The second kind is Phileo love, which is a lesser love.

It's still love, it's genuine love.

But it's like a friendship love, a brotherly love.

It doesn't go as far as to say, I'll die for you, where Agapow goes all the way and says, I'll die for you.

So Jesus asks the first two times of his three times that he asks Peter, the first two times he says, Peter, do you Agapau love me?

And Peter responds, Yes, Lord, you know I Phileo love you.

So what's happening there is Peter like downgrading the relationship?

It's like DTR, like, I'm not ready to say that yet.

No, what's happening is he's now sifted.

He's responding with what is the appropriate humility now.

Unsifted Peter would have been like, Oh yeah, Jesus, I Agapau love you.

I'll go to prison, I'll even die for you.

I'm full of zeal.

Agapow love Peter before he's sifted is that unathletic 40-year-old cold sprinting to first base and tearing both of his hamstrings and retiring in disgrace.

That's unsifted, Peter would have said, Yes, Lord, I Agapow love you.

Sifted Peter knows himself a little bit better now.

It's like, I Jesus, I I don't love you even like I should love you, but I do love you.

I am an imperfect thing, so I can only offer you imperfect love.

I phileo love you.

So the first two.

The third one is so beautiful.

The third time Jesus asks, he says, Peter, do you phileo love me?

And Peter says, Yes, Lord, you know all things.

You know I phileo love you.

And Jesus looks him in the eye and says, Feed my sheep.

As if to say, that'll do.

That's all that's required.

I know you.

I know that you were an imperfect human, and you can only offer me imperfect love at best.

Bring it.

Offer me that.

Let's add that in.

I'll bring the how about this?

I'll bring the perfect Agapau love that only I can bring is Jesus.

You bring me what you have, and I'll add it in and I'll actually perfect it.

It's a little bit like if Phileo love was like a lit match, right?

And it's real love.

Like it gives light and heat.

It could burn my hand, right?

Agapow love is the surface of the sun.

Bring your bring your phileo love to the Lord.

You're not gonna dim the sun.

Bring it to him, and it's gonna get consumed and and burn all the brighter, right?

So bring what you have.

Um Jesus' perfect love for me perfects my love for him.

Maybe if you're going, honestly, I had other ideas of things, advice to give you if you're being sifted, but if you're truly being sifted right now, it may be time to not have maybe just a few words in terms of advice.

If you're grappling with the fact that Jesus' perfect love for you perfects your love for him, I would encourage you to just rest in that.

Just go slow with that reality.

Jesus' perfect love for me perfects my imperfect love for him.

He makes up for my imperfect love.

Go slow with that.

Just maybe just more often pray things like, You are God and I am not.

And just sit there.

Wait for daybreak, because daybreak is always coming with Jesus.

Amen.

What was sent to sift me is meant to make me.

Jesus says, You follow, I make.

Um, I told you I would tell you the the rest of my sifting story.

So I was in that season of of spiritual orphanhood, feeling like I didn't belong anywhere, kind of uh dislocated from any space of belonging for a couple of years.

Um, it was really, it was there were a lot of dark nights, dark, dark night moments, a lot of honestly bitter weeping of loneliness.

Um, and what happened the way the Lord used it, uh, C.S.

Lewis adopted me out of my spiritual orphanhood.

And my dead British great-grandfather imparted to me a deep love for um some deeper roots in theology.

So, so even now, even today, where if I hit a season of sifting, I'll sometimes just pull over with the Lord and crack open a deep theology book, systematic theology, or like J.I.

Packer or Knowing God, or something that's just like it's deeper waters than I'm used to.

And I'll take my brain out and I'll drop it into that deeper water and just kind of like float around inside.

God is so much bigger than I ever think of throughout a day.

And I'll come away from times like that, and I still have the same problems.

I'm still being sifted, it doesn't like go away overnight, but my problems seem smaller because my God seems bigger.

What was sent to sift me that freshman year of college ended up making me into that guy that does that now.

Also, another thing that happened that year was because I was super lonely, I didn't have any friends, and nobody wanted to hang out with me, and I didn't want to hang out with anybody that was nearby, my dorm in college.

I would take my acoustic guitar and my big three-ring binder of worship song chord charts, and I'd go down to the practice rooms at night.

If you've never been to a music school, practice rooms are like a six by six closet, basically, with a chair and a music stand, and I would just sit in there and sing songs to the Lord, worship the Lord.

That was actually the first time I ever learned to use my voice to worship the Lord.

And I came out of that season a fledgling worship leader, and then eventually a worship pastor, then eventually your worship pastor.

So, what was sent to sift me was meant to make me into something that I am today.

So, where would that be for you?

Maybe for you.

You're not gonna be a worship pastor, maybe you're not gonna be an apostle to the first century church like Peter was.

Yeah, I think we missed that.

But what if you were to just follow Jesus and let him make you into the thing that you're supposed to be?

What if you need to more rightly estimate your contribution, remembering that Jesus doesn't need your contribution, but he invites it anyway?

Do you just need to focus on his perfect love for you and let it um distract you from your imperfect love from him?

Remember that what was sent to sift you is meant to make you, and rest in his perfect love and wait for daybreak.

So we're gonna hear from Peter now.

Okay, so we've we've covered kind of his story arc.

He's gone from being that fisherman to becoming really more like the transformation is seemingly kind of complete.

He never, as far as we know, he never goes back to his nets.

And like I said, he preaches at Pentecost, and then suddenly his mouth is his net, and he's hauling souls into heaven instead of hauling fish into the boat.

So we've seen some of that transformation.

How would he encourage us now?

If he could, he can, because the first Peter, one of the letters that he had the honor of writing, um, Peter, this was written just a couple years, maybe just even a year before he was crucified upside down by Emperor Nero.

It's a pretty big deal.

And if you think of just for a second, I want to point out how beautiful that it's tragic for sure, but the beauty of the honor of dying for Jesus that Peter had no business claiming for himself before he was sifted.

Remember that when when Jesus is predicting his denial, he says, Jesus, I'll go to prison for you, I'll even die for you.

He can't actually claim that honor himself, as we saw.

It wasn't in him to do that.

Jesus granted him that honor.

That's beautiful.

So here's what he would say.

Could we stand to our feet?

Let me just read this blessing over you, especially if you're being sifted.

I'd love to read this over you.

We're gonna jump right into it, singing to Christ, our firm foundation after this.

First Peter 1 says, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are being shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief and all kinds of trials, what was sent to sift me.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

What was sent to sift me is meant to make me.

Though you have not seen him, you love him, even with an imperfect love.

And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your soul's fierce church.

What was sent to sift you is meant to make you.

Amen.

All right, folks, that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for listening to this sermon.

If you got a lot out of this, feel free to share this with somebody who might need it.

Also, there's a ton more content on our website, on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram channel, on our TikTok channel.

Feel free to check all that kind of a thing out.

Also, if you're interested in leadership type stuff, go ahead and check out another podcast or any other blogs or videos or anything over at BibleLeadership.com.

And whatever else you do, make sure that you believe God for something big today.