7 Transformational Habits, Part V - A Kingdom Orientation

Thank you for being here.

My name is Randy and first time guest.

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Hopefully.

Today we're in the middle of a series Called seven transformational habits.

We all believe here that we, as Christ followers, are on a journey.

We're not there yet.

We're not, we're not finished yet, but hopefully every week we're getting a little bit better, a little bit more like Jesus, and that's what these teachings are all about, because we know that, like almost like un, unlike any other time, we're getting challenged the other days of the week, aren't we?

Everything you believe is under assault.

Now it's called Deconstructionism.

Used to be moral, relative Moral relativity, which basically meant I'm gonna believe my version of the truth.

Yours might be a little bit different.

That's okay.

I'm tolerant, I'll tolerate you, you tolerate me.

We'll respect each other and we'll go on about our ways.

That's gone.

That's gone away.

What we now have is a social pressure that comes to bear on all of us, which is built on what is being projected as the new social norms, which is another way of saying.

We're tearing down the truths and principles that we've long held and we are rebuilding or redefining them.

And, contrary to Tolerance, if you don't get in line with that, there's something wrong with you.

You're a bad person and you're bad enough to be put over on the side, and We'll let you know when you can get back in the group.

It's basically when you start to agree with us, and so we've really gone in a different direction there.

We in this room believe in the Word of God.

We believe that there is a standard and a truth, a set of principles to live by, to order our values, by both as a body of Christ as well as individuals.

So let me throw something at you.

What if tomorrow, in your prayer time, you hear as clear as a bell?

God comes to you and he says you know all that Stuff you just read in the Old Testament.

There.

That's not true anymore.

I'm redefining it.

Would that not bother you?

Would that not throw you into a turmoil?

It sure would me, because I've grown up all my life thinking there's my anchor.

That's what I can believe in.

Believe it or not, the person we're gonna study in the book of Acts faced one of those days when he said basically, literally surely not, lord, surely not.

You're asking me to do something that has been off limits and against the law my entire life, surely not?

Let's, pray, father, help us to understand you to the point that we can understand better how to live for you.

We all have to unlearn some things.

We've all got some baggage, we've all.

We all have issues.

Jesus said so clearly blessed are the poor in spirit, lord, I would rather be strong in spirit, but I understand that means I'm only as good as my dependence level on you, my submission to you and the acknowledgement of how weak I really am.

And so, god, in the event of doing that you've promised us, we'll see the kingdom of heaven, and that's what we ultimately are after.

So, lord, for those of us that are not sure about Jesus and our need to be related to him, made today, you come crystal clear with that because you love them.

Those of us that have been away, we've got a little stale, got a little cold.

Would you challenge us today to come back to Back into, into your family and Lord, whatever next step decision we need to make, we need to help us in challenges to do it, and we'll be better for it at the ends.

So thank you, lord, for what you're gonna do.

Please now come.

Holy Spirit, amen, all right, turn to acts 10.

My question today is are you comfortable being uncomfortable?

If you are comfortable being uncomfortable, you have all the ingredients to be a great christ follower.

If your comfort comes first, you're gonna really struggle with a lot of the scripture and you're gonna really struggle with a lot of the Holy Spirit things that come into us, and Peter's a good example of that.

What's going on in in acts?

Acts 10 is where we are.

So thank you for bringing your bible or your device turn that on, if you will and out there.

It's better to see it, too, in print than to just listen.

So acts chapter 10 is where we are, versus 9 through 23.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

What's going on in acts 10?

9 to 3?

2 weeks ago we studied community.

Right.

We all need a community, we all need to be together as christ followers.

And and acts 2 was the Pentecost moment that birthed what we call the church age, or the.

You know that and and we're in that, we're in that, and so the new testament church was created.

It was like hugely popular for a window of time because we know in chapter 4 there's already 5000 people that identified with this new movement, called the way at that time.

And it's great, everything's great.

But then didn't take long for the hard times to come, the challenges to come, the evil to move.

In Chapter 4 and 5, they start arresting the leaders, they start interrogating them.

By chapter 7, a new deacon his name was Stephen is the first martyr.

Stephen is the first one killed for his faith.

Now things are getting hard.

Now people are starting to evaluate Wow, is this worth it or not?

It's really uncomfortable.

Now, chapter 9, a shockwave rips across that region.

The Pharisee of Pharisees, trained under Gamaliel, the top teacher, rabbi in the whole country, has converted To be a christ follower after hunting down all the christians he could find and either throwing them in jail or having them killed.

How do we come to terms with this?

Peter spent time personally with Saul Trying to unload that for his own mindset.

He's trying to come to terms with.

How did that happen?

This is the guy we've been running from.

Now we're asked to accept him into our group and then, in chapter 10, the second big shockwave hits.

Peter comes face to face with the voice that is coming from God saying basically, all this time you have believed this to be the truth.

Now I'm telling you this is could it be?

Could it be that God is fallible and not infallible?

It seems like everything is up for grabs for about ten or fifteen minutes If there's a bigger picture, because the bigger picture is just what Jesus taught for three years.

Every conversation, every teaching he had came back to the Kingdom of God.

Every good leader knows when to challenge his group to go a little further and see a bigger picture.

The leader knows when to let everybody just hold on, but he also knows when to challenge to see the big picture.

Jesus is doing that.

Jesus is saying the world doesn't revolve around what's best for you.

The world is about the Kingdom of God.

What's the Kingdom of God?

Kingdom of God is life as it should be, not as it is.

Kingdom of God is what if the presence of God came into this earth and inhabited me and you?

And we are relating to each other based on the Holy Spirit rather than us, and we are trying to live based on that picture rather than just what the world is telling us to do.

That y'all is the Kingdom of God, and Jesus taught that over and over and over again.

So let's read.

I'm going to read it all first and then we'll make a couple of points based on this, because it is.

It's about my character today and your character, and not my comfort level, because if my character is not growing and evolving, then my being able to be obedient to the Kingdom of God is not growing either.

So, verse 9, about noon the following day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, peter went up on a roof to pray.

What in the world's going on?

Peter has left Jerusalem.

Probably under heat, got probably too hot in Jerusalem.

He leaves.

He goes 40 miles west to the shore of the Mediterranean Sea on the way into town.

Just before he gets into town, he runs into a funeral procession and everybody's crying and wailing and he asks what's going on and they say one of the leading citizens.

A God fearing lady by the name of Dorcas has died.

Dorcas blessed everybody here.

She was a seamstress.

She made his clothes, she gave us stuff, and they're justthey're beside themselves with grief.

He is shown into the quarters where her body lies in state.

He walks up to her, he does what he has seen Jesus do earlier and he prays over her and guess what?

She comes back alive.

Now there's a shock wave too that goes through the whole region.

At that point he goes on into Joppa is the name of the place and you can put.

You can put that photograph up there.

He is going to stay with a man by the name of Simon the Tanner's in his home.

This is believed to be in present day Joppa.

It goes by a different name now present day Joppa.

This is believed to be the home actually of Simon the Tanner.

Where Peter states some of you have seen this there was a flat roof on most of the homes back in the day.

That flat roof looked out over on the Mediterranean Sea.

People love to go hang out there at night because it was cooler.

They love to go in the mornings to be by themselves and do their prayers or their meditations or whatever.

And so in this case, peter comes up there.

We believe that he had walked on in the rest of the way.

He had missed breakfast with all the commotion going on.

It's not every day that somebody comes back to life.

Right, that you saw dead.

And so he gets in.

He's missed a meal, he's waiting on lunch, he's hungry, he's up there praying, falls into a trance.

Now let's go back to verse 10.

He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meat was being prepared, he fell into a trance.

He saw heaven open and something like a large sheet being let down to earth on its four corners.

It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air Verse 13,.

Then a voice told him Get up, peter, kill and eat.

Surely not, lord.

Peter replied I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.

The voice spoke to him a second time Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.

Peter has lived all of his life as a good Jew, not eating either uncoated food or impure animals like hoofed animals of certain types, certain kinds of birds, reptiles, all of those things.

Those were off limits.

He's never broken that law.

He's not going by his own opinions.

He's going to the book of Leviticus and the book of Deuteronomy, verse 16,.

This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon's house was, and they stopped at the gate.

So who is Cornelius?

Cornelius was a centurion.

That makes him a Gentile, a Roman citizen.

He, though, was a follower, if you will, or a fear, they said, of God.

He's trying to figure out who God is.

Although he's not a Jew, he's nice.

He's an advocate for the Jews in the community.

They all liked him, and he receives a message from an angel to go look for this man called Peter.

In the next town, he sends three of his messengers Verse 18,.

They called out asking if Simon, who was known as Peter, was staying there.

While Peter was thinking about the vision, the spirit, holy Spirit, said to him Simon, three men are looking for you, so get up, go downstairs, do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.

Peter went down and said to the men I am the one you are looking for.

Why have you come?

The men replied we have come from Cornelius the centurion.

He's a righteous and God-fearing man who is respected by all the Jewish people.

A holy angel told him to have you come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say, and Peter invited the men into the house to be his guest.

Now, don't gloss over that last verse.

He just broke a law that they all went by, also their whole lives, by inviting a Gentile into their house.

You just didn't do that.

You didn't go into a Gentile's house and you didn't invite one into the Gentile's house, I mean into your house.

One reason he might have done that was he saw Jesus do that at one point in order to heal a little girl, or actually to resurrect a little girl who was dead.

So at this point he's already been shocked here.

So let's talk about a couple of things that's going on here, because if we really are here for our character development over our comfort, this is quite a little conversation through this trance, this vision that Peter and God are having, because Peter said I've based my whole life on believing this was true.

Think back, y'all.

Jesus said I've come to complete the law.

That didn't mean tear it out and start over.

It meant it's not quite finished.

I have come to finish it, to complete it, to perfect it.

He also said in Mark 7, 15, he said it's not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, it's what comes out of us that makes us unclean.

He's starting to establish the second part of the ceremonial law that they had to rely on If the Messiah has come.

He's now perfecting the ceremonial law.

In other words, he's saying you can still do that, but that's not what makes you holy.

You are holy because of your relationship with me, because I've come to establish a new covenant, and that's what Mark chapter 7 is all about.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

So let me make another point about this.

God is out to crush biases and assumptions.

That has to happen before I can be the best Christ follower I can be, and I imagine that's the same with you.

And that's what Mark 7 is about, where Jesus is teaching.

What he's doing is he's moving back in to Peter here and saying you're off to a pretty good start.

You're zealous.

I need to work on your theology now because, quite frankly, peter, you still have some biases, you still have some prejudices and you have made some assumptions that are not true.

All right, I'm that way and you're that way.

We all operate more than we believe we do, off of those things.

In part we got it honest.

We're all products of our sociology.

We're all products of our family of origin.

We're even products of the geography of where we grew up.

Right, where you grew up influences a lot of things.

Some of you talk funny just because you grew up in a certain part of the country, right, you got an accent Like we don't have accents, I guess, but that will influence what we believe In those days.

In the first century, a Jew knew he or she was the chosen race.

No question, they enjoyed that privilege, so they saw everybody else around them as well.

I guess God made them to exist for our pleasure.

And when it comes to these discussions they're not eligible.

This guy's a God-fearer, but he is a Gentile.

He's hit his ceiling.

He's not going to advance anymore.

He's as much as God's going to allow him to be, because he's not a Jew.

And that was clearly wrong.

The New Testament says there is no race, there is no difference.

God is no respecter of men.

God sees everybody equal and that's how it has to be.

Everybody is equally valued in God's eyes and he's trying to bust that up with Peter, because he knows Peter is going to spend a good portion of the rest of his days ministering to and evangelizing Gentiles.

In the upper room you're going to hear from James, the son of thunder.

James was a prejudice guy.

There's one time where they're going through Samaria and they get shut out.

They probably kicked them out of Samaria.

What in a gentle?

No, we don't want you here.

And on the way out James says to Jesus you want me to call down some fire from heaven, and that was one of his last Christian days, I guess there.

But he had said you know, the mindset is.

Well, what do you expect?

Those are Samaritans.

That's why we hate the Samaritans.

That's why they hate us.

No loss.

So we got to get rid of our, because here's the other thing at the stake.

Y'all, we all, can get judgmental.

Now you can argue that point.

I'll speak for me.

I can get judgmental.

But when we boil it down, when we peel the onion back, what we are saying is my prejudice, my opinions and maybe even my background has helped me formulate this opinion of this person.

So let's flip it.

How many of you have done that, have kind of judged book by its cover and then, like three weeks later, you're thinking man, I was wrong, this guy may become my best friend.

You ever been there Some still.

Waters run very deep and we can be fooled by appearances.

In verse 13 through 15, there's this conversation where God is starting to rip out the prejudice and the assumptions and the judgmentalism in Peter's life, because Peter is not a kingdom-oriented guy.

Until that happens, jesus is challenging him and expanding him to say you are not defined anymore by the ceremonial law.

You can go to church every day, you can fast, you can do all those things until the cows come home and you can never touch a piece of unclean food.

But if you don't have a relationship with me and you're operating out of a love context, like I love you, forget it, because Jesus is saying I came to do a new creation.

He said that I've come to build a new community.

He said that in Mark 16.

I'm going to build my church.

And he also said I've come to build a new covenant.

The Scripture is still the Scripture, but you're going to look at it through a different lens if you are on this side of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that's where it gets really interesting.

So let me ask you a question and we'll move on.

I know you all have people you're concerned about, as I do.

They just are not where they need to be with the Lord.

Maybe you'd love for them to be there.

That's why we call it building bring.

We had some people standing with others who joined at the first hour, and they're just those people.

They're in their life group now.

Some of them invited them to come and this is the reason they're here and they're making a commitment to the Lord here because of that.

That's a great thing and we promote that all day long.

But are we really trying to conform people to be more like us?

Are we trying to conform them to be more like Christ?

Two different things, right.

If we're trying to get them to become more like Christ, we're going to need to be open with and tolerant of.

That means that he might not act like I do every day, he might not vote like I do every day, he might not love exactly the same things I do every day, but he's a brother in Christ and if he's getting closer to Jesus, who am I to judge him?

Because God never put me in charge of that and he hadn't put you in charge of that either.

He put his son in charge of that, and so the next thing is, he calls us God calls us based on attitude, but not abilities.

As I look out across this room, like the last hour man, there are some unbelievably talented people in this room and I appreciate all the things you do when that is channeled through a kingdom orientation as a Christ follower.

Oh, my goodness, you're affecting some of you are.

You're affecting lives every day, every week in a really good way.

But don't think for one minute that you're called to be in a certain role because you're so talented.

That's not it at all.

It's an attitude.

He cares more about your character than your attitude.

God is not going to give me or you more responsibilities than my character will handle.

If I'm not ready for something, he's just not gonna offer, he's not gonna call it, and that kind of comes back to who are we as a church and what do we try to communicate?

On Sundays, we only have a few minutes and there's so many things we need to talk about.

That's the frustration.

So we can make a choice.

One choice is to simply do that.

We all know how messed up our world is, don't we?

Let's just all shake our head and we'll agree on that.

There's a list of 29 things we could make a list on on PowerPoint and we could all agree and amen, that's wrong.

That's wrong.

That's wrong.

That's wrong in our society, couldn't we?

I'm not saying we never do that, but we could do that every single week and we could walk out of here feeling a little bit better about ourselves.

But nothing changes Other than that.

Why don't we focus on what Jesus focused on, the gospel of Jesus Christ that builds a kingdom orientation.

And then, whether we're 16 years old or we're 76 years old, we walk into every setting making our own decisions, not just that that's wrong, but why it's wrong and why there's a better alternative.

Am Iare you picking up what I'm putting down here?

I think that's much more advanced.

I'd rather raise our kids to make their own quality decisions based on the kingdom of God than to just have to have somebody standing over them saying oh yeah.

In case you didn't know, that's wrong.

I'll use an example.

Transgenderism is not a new thing.

That's been around since some of the earliest societies.

The difference is transgenderism is being celebrated as a preferred choice nowadays.

Now we can rail against that and we can curse the darkness, or we can teach each other and teach our friends that there's actually a better alternative, and this is it.

Transgenderism says that God somehow messed up and made you a freak of nature, or creation did that to you and it's all up to you to reverse that, to change, since you're a lady in a guy's body to somehow medically, surgically, whatnot change that so you can truly construct who you need to be.

Because a terrible accident happened back here.

The gospel says God creates male and female.

He's never got it wrong.

He never will get it wrong.

He created you as you are.

Your DNA code will not change no matter what you do.

Your biology will not change no matter what you do.

So, rather than fight it, why don't we go with it?

If he's really God, that means you are a girl or you are a guy, because he loves you and he wouldn't dare make you a male if you're supposed to be a female, that's not love, that's cruelty, that's abuse.

I would God abuse you for no reason.

He created you to love you.

And here's where it gets even better.

It's not up to you to have to decide what you're going to be like the rest of your life.

He has that worked out too.

We just talked about it with Crosby.

He already knows what Crosby's path is.

All we got to do is get in line with it.

The pressure is off Now.

It's not going to be comfortable because everybody else is trying to pressure you to conform to the world's image.

But God is loving you into being in His image.

He even made it crystal clear.

He sent His own Son to show us how to do it, and there was nothing comfortable about His Son's life.

But in the end, because Jesus died and was resurrected for me and you, if I'm a guy or if you're a girl, I stay on that track and I am in the middle of how he designed me to be and I will have the opportunity to walk in His love and to make decisions, not standing all alone against everybody else, but informed by His Word and by His Holy Spirit.

And if I'm obedient in that path, I can't go wrong.

There's a better option.

I'd rather us all get to that point where we're choosing for ourself our life rather than what's been imposed on us, and that's what Jesus is teaching Peter here.

This is not about what it's okay to eat and not eat anymore.

He's expanding His horizon to the kingdom orientation and he's saying Peter, this is not about that.

This is about you following me and you deal with who I put in front of you, no matter what part of the world they're from, no matter what their ethnicity is, no matter how much they disagree with you, no matter how different they grew up than you.

Your job is to love them and to love them clear into the kingdom of God, and if you do that, there's going to be a place waiting on you in heaven and you're going to rule with me one day.

He made Him that promise and Peter's on track to do that.

Here's a good test for all of us.

If you were filled with the Spirit, I'd just been preaching to the choir, because you do love everybody.

You may not agree with them, you may not like their choices.

I have people in my extended family and I can't agree.

I can't get to first base with them on their lifestyle.

But God has called me to love them right up to the very end, whether they turn or whether they don't.

My job is to love them.

Do I do it perfectly?

The heck, no.

But when I do it somewhere close to what he has given me to do, they start I can see it.

They start to change just a little bit.

Just a little bit.

You and I are called.

We're separated out.

We're not supposed to march like the world does.

We're supposed to march in the world, but not with the world.

And when you do that, you're just curious enough, you're just unusual enough to where, sooner or later, people are starting to be drawn toward that, because God made all of us with something in us that wants to know Him.

We may not want to admit that, but that's how it works.

And then if we love Him, all the more better.

Last thing, real quick he convicts us as he creates chyros.

He calls us, he crushes the bias and assumptions.

We have to unlearn first what we can then learn.

That's the calling.

He wants your attitude.

And don't get me wrong, we love talent around here.

If I got a pick as a leader, I'd rather hire somebody, and you know Zach's a good example that he's our newest pastor.

He came with the attitude and the talent.

I'll take that over.

You know if I got to choose one or the other every single time.

So don't get me wrong there.

But he convicts as he creates chyros.

Look at 16 through 20.

It happens three times and immediately she's taken.

So Peter is wondering, he's confused, he's dazed, trying to come to meaning with this.

And, cornelius, you know, his men have found out the house and at that very moment they've stopped at the gate.

That's not Iran, that's not some random accident.

The trance is over.

He's sitting up there on the flat roof, his head is spinning and these three men come to the gate just below, at that same moment, 18.

They called out asking if anybody knows.

Peter was in there.

So reminder, it's a flat roof, it's out in the open.

There's a stairwell outside the building leading down from that second floor.

They're at the gate right outside.

They call into the house.

There's a guy named Peter here.

Well, he's hearing them.

He's on the roof, he hears everything they're saying.

So the Spirit said to him there's three men looking for you, and 20 is the big one.

So get up, go downstairs, do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.

You know what tyros means.

It's a great restaurant, by the way.

The name of it you know.

I recommend it.

But it's a Greek word that means time, but it's not like Kronos time.

We got a dose of Kronos time overnight, didn't?

We had to reset.

We lost an hour of sleep.

That's just the time.

That's time and space.

It's created so we can, you know, do things.

That's not what this means.

Chyros means oh, this is God's time.

Here's the problem.

My Kronos time seems to never match God's Chyros time.

Anybody have that same problem?

I do.

He never is on my time schedule.

He's usually way behind it and it looks like at my age.

I would just kind of prepare for that rather than continue to be surprised by that.

But if it's God's time, it is perfect.

Kronos time, even when it's not a good time for you.

Right Now, we're back to uncomfortable.

How many of you have kind of felt okay, god's telling me to do this and he, you know.

And you say, and you'll say something like this oh, I love to do that, lord, I just can't do it right now.

We've all done that, haven't we?

Or vice versa, lord, it's the 31st of the month.

I can't pay my car payment.

They're going to repo my car tomorrow if you don't show up and he doesn't show up.

Here's the rub If we are brave enough and if we are humble enough to get in step with God's timing, the Kronos will work out.

It just requires more faith and more trust and more leadership of the Spirit.

And yes, the reality is you'll be more uncomfortable more of the time.

Jesus is the greatest leader ever.

Part of leadership is risk management.

Is it time to push or is it time to rest?

And this is Peter's occasion to be pushed, and he is certainly doing that.

We have this all through the New Testament.

In Acts 7, actually Stephen's speech before he is killed, he goes back to history and he says you know, moses went back into Egypt at the right time.

Chairos First time he kills a man because he's operating on Kronos time his own.

The second time God sends him, 40 years later.

And God goes with him because now it's God's time and if he's willing to operate in God's time, he cannot be beaten.

Even if he loses an earthly battle, he is not going to lose the kingdom battle because the kingdom will remain undefeated.

Jesus has never lost a fight and he's not going to lose a fight and if you're on his team, that's what you have waiting on you.

It just won't be comfortable.

There was also the negative where Jesus one time in John 2, and marriage feasts came.

Remember what happened there?

Marriage feast of Cana is very early on in Jesus' ministry.

They're sitting there at a wedding feast and everything, and they ran out of wine.

Remember what Jesus' mom did?

She looks at Jesus and says do something.

They're out of wine and you know she doesn't have to finish that.

It's like I know who you are.

You can take care of this and remember what he says Woman.

It is not my time, chairos, but here's the instructional for all of us.

He still does what mama told him to do, didn't he Even Jesus?

So here's a practical thing of how it all breaks out.

You and I submit you and I obey Christ in progressions.

If we're willing to take the next step progression he will do His part.

He will be faithful.

I'll give you an example.

This will be a good reading for a devotion this coming week.

Luke, chapter 5.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

Luke, chapter 5, jesus comes down to the Sea of Galilee.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

There's people all over Him.

He's like a rock star.

They're crushing on Him so bad they're pushing Him literally into the water.

And so there's two fishermen boats up there.

Their men and their nets have been fishing all night.

He asked if he can get in one of the boats.

The person says sure, climb in the boat.

That way he's got a little space and he can be safely.

He can safely teach Guess whose boat that was Peter.

Peter and John are sitting in the boat, men and their nets, sure, come on in.

They listen to His whole speech, which is recorded in Luke 5 and Matthew 5 and 6.

At the end of that he turns to Peter and he says go on out a little further and get your nets back out.

And Peter goes ooh, we've been fishing all night.

You know, respectfully, jesus, we're the fishermen, you're a carpenter, we got shut out.

What met?

He says since it's you, since it's you, we'll do it.

Progression number two they go out a little further to put their nets down.

You know the story, some of you Boom, a record catch.

It's going to capsize your boat.

They got help from another boat.

They come over here.

They finally get all these hunters fish in the boat.

They get back to the shore, peter, while they're collecting the fish, peter hits his face in the bottom of that boat and bows before Jesus and he says please leave, please leave me.

Why?

Because I'm a sinful man.

He has come face to face with the holy, true God.

The only thing left to do at that point is progression.

Number three Jesus does this.

Follow me.

Because he did number one and because he saw what happened after number two, he leaves everything and he goes and he follows Jesus.

If he doesn't do number one, he doesn't do number two.

He's not gonna do number three.

He's okay with you being uncomfortable.

He's just not okay with you being unfaithful.

I have looked y'all, I've looked all over the Bible for some verse that says he just wants you to be happy and he wants you to be stress free every single day.

It's not in there.

It's not cause he hates you or he's cruel to you.

It's because he loves you and he's got a better plan and we have free choice to that for that better plan.

So let me let me put all this in context.

This discussion in Acts 10 does not happen.

If John 21 does not happen, it's after the resurrection.

Jesus is still kind of coming and going and appearing.

Peter, though, remember Peter blew it the night before the resurrection.

The crucifixion Peter brags about how he's big and bad and he's gonna be the one standing.

He'll die with him and all like that.

He's the first one to run.

So Peter thinks I've blown it, I'm no use, I've disqualified myself by John 21,.

He has decided to go back to his profession of fishing.

They're out there fishing.

They see somebody on shore.

Who is it?

Can't quite make it out.

They're cooking breakfast already.

Oh no, that's him, it's Jesus.

And there's this reunion, there's breakfast.

They're sitting there and Jesus, three times again, comes in.

Threes, he says, asks the same question to Peter all three times.

Remember what that was?

Do you love me?

Do you love me, peter?

Do you love me?

Do you agape me?

Do you unconditionally accept me and love me?

Peter's squirming again, just like he is on this roof.

Well, you know Jesus.

Well you know he uses love, but it's filet of love.

So really, he's saying you know Jesus, I care about you.

You know Jesus, we're like brothers.

You know Jesus, I think you're great.

But that was the beginning of him being renewed and restored and repurposed.

Jesus is doing this one more time and he's saying now you're mine and now you're back in the game.

That is gone, that is over with.

I have recreated you and you're in a new covenant.

So then, although he struggles with it, he understands and he accepts Acts 10.

How do you know?

He goes with them.

And there's this massive conversion where people in Cornelius' house are all baptized, they all receive the same Holy Spirit, and it's a wonderful, wonderful thing.

And then here's the next progression, if you read 1 and 2, peter Peter wrote it, but that's not the same guy.

That's not the arrogant, egotistical, impulsive Peter of the Gospels.

That is St Peter who is saying be humble and he will lift you up.

God says be holy as he is holy.

He's the one saying that I have learned I'm only as good as my dependence level at my submission to Jesus.

That is a different cat than the one of 20 years earlier, and that's what he has designed for me and you.

But in order to do it, he's got to refine and he's got to rebuild my character, and he has to do yours also.

Well, how often's that got to happen?

Pretty much every day in my case, and I think you're probably the same too.

How much time do you spend, randy, being uncomfortable?

Pretty much every day at some point too, and I think you may have that experience too.

But I'm here to tell you when Jesus said I've come to give you life and to give it to abundantly.

That's what he meant.

It's the hardest life and it's the best life and it is the most fruitful life, and this is the only path that you truly will impact other people around you forever, and so I'm inviting you to get in that life.

If you're not yet a Christ follower, today's the day of salvation.

He loves you, he's calling you.

He just wants your surrender.

He just wants your first step submission, obedience, like we talked about.

If you know him already but you've kind of grown stale and cold and a little bit indifferent and you thought you were doing good, but you're not, that's called a return.

It starts with repentance.

That returns you to your first love and that makes all the difference in the world around you.

Also, if you need a church family this and God's led you here we can celebrate that in a second too, down front, or just or just to pray with you.

This is a place where I hope we all understand we're in process.

We're not yet there, we don't even belong here, but while we're here we're gonna do some damage for the kingdom of God, agreed, so let's all stand.