Arise: With Jesus After Failure - 19 April, 2026

So, you know, you have to count the small wins in your life.

But you know, it's a strange thing to be a pastor or to be a

preacher who sort of makes their living by talking and giving

talks. And if you meet someone five

years from now who sat here at Origin and asked them, hey,

could you remember the sermon that was given on April 19th,

2026? And they're like, why are you

asking me that? You know, because it's a small

win if you remember. And the the strange thing is, is

that I spend and many pastors spend their time preparing

deeply and giving a talk that no one remembers.

We get in the car, we drive down the road and I asked my kids,

hey, what do you think of the talk?

What was it about? Can't remember.

You know, it's gone whoosh in a few days.

I can't even remember. It's just gone.

But but here's the thing. Sermons and coming to service

isn't just about this winning location for your mind.

It's actually meant to provide a sustaining diet for your life

with Christ. And so you don't even remember

the meal that you ate on April 19th five years ago, it was

20/21, it was COVID. What'd you eat?

You don't remember. And so a sermon is, is like a

meal. It, it's one of these things

that's meant to provide sustenance for the next little

run in your life. And every once in a while

there's something that reaches a bit deeper.

There's a a little truth bomb that gets placed deep in your

heart. And later in your life, it goes

off and you're like, I don't know where that came from, but

the Holy Spirit just reminded me of this, this thing, the

Scripture and my life. And it's a win if somewhere in

your years here at origin, a truth was settled in your heart

and mind, and the Holy Spirit makes it go off like a bomb.

Later in life, a few weeks ago, you might remember that I asked

you to remember your darkest failures, your regrets, where

you experienced a sense of great grief and loss.

We, we, we tend to romance the failures that come in our lives

a little bit. Brené Brown has helped us with

that. She's remind us, reminded us of

Theodore Roosevelt's famous quote about the man in the

arena. Roosevelt was giving a talk

about citizenship in the Republic, and he said it's not

the critic who counts. It's not the man who points at

the man who stumbles, how the strong man fell.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,

whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives

valiantly, who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while

daring greatly. I feel better about all my

failures, don't you? Not if it was Math One O 1 this

past. Week, I heard.

It was a tough exam. Not if we're like Peter, who has

to face the one whom he considered the best person in

his life, and yet he failed him. You see last week's passage.

The breakfast in Galilee is one of my favorite passages in the

Scripture because, one, I've grown up loving breakfast, and

two, I think Jesus is just amazing to have cooked breakfast

and reminded them all of the moment that he called them this

group of fishermen, how they had spent the night trying to catch

fish. And Jesus is on the beach and

says, throw your net on the other side.

And Peter says, hey, you know, you're the Carpenter, we're the

fishermen. But because you say so, I'll do

it. And he threw the net over and

they gathered up this huge amount of fish.

And in that moment, Peter was reminded of all of his failures.

And he throws himself down on the deck of that boat and says,

go away from me. Go away from me, Lord, I'm not

worthy of you. And Jesus says, don't worry

Peter, from now on you will catch people.

And so here in the breakfast in Galilee, Jesus is reminding them

with that miracle and that miraculous catch a fish of their

beginnings with him and the calling that they had had with

him. But Peter would have been

remembering his failures where just just the week before Jesus

had been crucified. And Peter wasn't there because

in the early morning hours he denied Christ three times.

He denied that he knew Jesus, he denied that this was his rabbi,

and he ran away. I wonder what it was like for

Peter when he came back and he saw the coals of that fire

burning there and thought about the last time he and Jesus had

been in proxemics of coals of fire.

At some point in that breakfast, Jesus addresses Peter.

They'd finished eating. It says if you have the

scripture you can find it in John chapter 21.

John 21 · chapter mention

There we go. When they had finished eating,

Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love

me more than these? Yes, Lord, he said, You know

that I love you. Jesus said, Feed my lambs again,

Jesus said, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

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

And Jesus said, take care of my sheep.

The third time he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love

me? Peter was hurt because Jesus

asked him the third time, do you love me?

He said, Lord, you know all things, you know that I love

you. And Jesus said, feed my sheep

very truly. I tell you, when you were

younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted, but when

you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone will

dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.

Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter

would glorify God. Then he said to him, Follow me.

Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was

following them. This was the one who had leaned

back against Jesus at the supper.

And it said, Lord, who is going to betray you?

When Peter saw him, he asked, Lord, what about him?

And Jesus answered, If I want him to remain alive until I

return, what is that to you? You must follow me.

Because of this, the rumor spread among the disciples that

this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he

would not die. He only said, if I want him to

remain alive until I return, what is that to you?

This is the disciple who testifies to these things and

who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is

true. Jesus did many other things as

well. If every one of them were

written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not

have room for the books that would be written.

Peter and his story of failure and regret and shame actually

has a bit of back story and history.

Peter was the guy who was often daring greatly and he was often

falling on his face. Peter was often out front when

Jesus was walking across the water and Jesus says don't be

afraid, it's me. The the rest of the disciples

thought it was a ghost, but Peter says if it's you, Lord,

call me out. And Peter started to walk on the

water with Jesus, but then when he saw the storm and the waves,

he started to sink. Jesus had asked a question, What

do? Who do people say I am?

And Peter was out front again with the answer, Doesn't matter

what the people say, it's what we say.

When Jesus asked, who do you say I am?

And he says you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus says, hey, that's good, Peter.

But you didn't come up with that.

My Father in heaven revealed it to you.

And I tell you that you are Peter.

And on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell

will not prevail against it. It was just a few days later

then when when Peter heard Jesus saying, and you know, I'm going

to go to Jerusalem and I'm going to suffer there.

And Peter was like, never, no, that cannot happen.

By no means. He's daring greatly again.

And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan, you don't have in mind

the things of God, but the things of men.

So Peter was often out front, daring greatly, but his courage

was untried. And the night before Jesus was

betrayed, or the night of his betrayal, Jesus gathered with

his disciples, had washed their feet, and then said, where I'm

going, you can't go. And Peter says, where are you

going? I why can't I go with you?

I will lay down my life for you. Such courage in Peter.

He was daring greatly, but it was truly untried and it was not

the right time. And so Jesus says, listen Peter,

I tell you truly, truly, I tell you that by the time morning

comes, by the time the rooster crows, you will have betrayed me

3 times. Can you imagine your best friend

and you're walking down main Mall and there you meet someone

who's from another club, another Christian ministry, another

group that you really hope to belong to.

And and they, they say, hey, do you, do you know that person?

They're pointing to your best friend and you're like them.

No, I don't know them. They stink.

They're the worst. Peter did this three times.

Three times Jesus was just down in the courtyard being tried,

being beaten. And the last person who comes

says Peter, didn't, didn't I see you in the garden?

Weren't you the guy who cut the servant's ear off?

Peter says no, never. And he cursed and says I don't

know him. And then the rooster crows and

Peter goes out and weeps bitterly.

The other gospel writers say, what is this?

A fisherman weeping for his rabbi?

Such fear and conflict and shame and regret would have filled

Peter's life. How many of you would have

turned immediately and said, I'm just kidding, you know, you're

my great friend, You know, that's so hard.

That's so hard. You failed.

You failed your friend. You failed yourself.

And Peter had really experienced an incredible rupture in his

life about who he is and what he's about.

That's the only way I can imagine it, that this failure

was a terrible rupture of who Peter is, and Jesus is after the

internal emotional habits of Peter.

So when Jesus asked, hey, Peter, do you love me more than these?

It's possible that we might think, oh, Jesus is talking

about the fish. Do you love me more than fish?

Makes sense, No. Do you love me more than this

kind of work? Fishing work?

That hasn't really been the topic.

Instead, it's been the fellowship of the disciples

eating breakfast. And Jesus asks a very

provocative question. Do you love me more than anybody

else here? It's a trick question.

Who loves you more? It's a trick question, but the

trick in it is that Jesus is after Peter's internal workings,

that Peter himself was actually caught up in The Who loves you

more, who can serve you more? Who can be the strongest leader,

who can be the one who really shows up for Jesus?

And he'd failed at that. And Peter doesn't fall for it.

Peter has had enough of a rupture in his emotional

workings that he says, Lord, you know that I love you.

And Peter is getting off and out of the comparison trap.

This is Jesus's invitation to Peter.

Get out of the comparison trap. Because I tell you, when you

experience a great failure, you're going to be looking

around at those who seem to be doing well.

He's going to be looking around at well, John seems to have

stayed at the cross. John the beloved disciple, John

the one who was the closest friend.

John stayed at the cross, but I did not.

He would have been playing that game of comparison.

And Jesus is inviting him from his regret, from his shame, from

his failure to quit comparing himself to others.

Listen, friends, grades. Grades are just a small snapshot

of comparison on that day. They do not define your life.

Now, comparison actually is a little bit helpful, but it can

become a deadly spiritual virus. Before we get to it, let me just

say comparison is helpful, especially when it is about

excellence and admiration. Dear friends, Paul writes.

Brothers and sisters think on that, which is admirable.

So if you think on a person who is admirable and you're not

playing the comparison game, you actually go, wow, that Bethany,

she is fantastic at the piano and I so admire the way the Lord

works in her life. Wow, Noah, he plays the guitar

so well and leads us in worship, and we can go down the whole

worship team and say this is admirable in their excellence

and well, I want to be like Bethany.

How many of you said that? I want to be like Catherine.

I want to be like Noah. Hey there.

Wow, look at that, Noah. It's good, but when you see

excellence and and you're not in the comparison game, it's not

the condemnation of comparison, it's actually the admiration

that says, oh, there's excellence there and I'd love to

have some of that in my life. Where can I develop the unique

abilities that I have that can be built and fanned into flame?

That's good comparison. It works, it's great, but

comparison can be a deathly spiritual virus, and I believe

for Peter it was that envy, rivalry and rage was just at the

cusp of Peter's heart and life. James.

Says where you have envy and selfish ambition, then you will

find every evil practice. When our admiration flips into

envy, then we're in trouble. When the envy is that, oh,

everyone else is succeeding, they got the scholarship, they

got the call to the NFL or the NBA and I never got it and it

crushes us or I I'm so mad. They got the the best grade in

the class. They probably cheated.

And and so immediately you start this story in your own life that

condemns them and you it can create a great deal of

insecurity. Jesus told stories of comparison

that he didn't recommend of a Pharisee and a tax collector who

had gone to pray at the temple. And even in their prayers, the

Pharisee was saying, oh God, I thank you that I'm not like

other people. Don't you see it, Lord?

I'm not like the robbers and the adulterers and those who steal.

I'm not like that tax collector right there.

Can't you see the difference, God?

And so his pride puffed himself up.

His insecurity puffs himself up. Insecurity of comparison creates

overcompensation and we can track very quickly to legalism.

Comparison can crush the heart of a child if the parent is

always saying, well, why can't you be like your cousin Albert?

Why can't you be like your sister Sue?

Why can't you be like? And that is a crushing viral

spiritual disease. It creates immense insecurities

in US and it causes us to misplace our values.

Right. In the 10 commandments it says

of comparison, you shall not covet anything of your

neighbors, not your neighbour's wife, nor your neighbour's

servants, nor your neighbour's animals or anything else that

your neighbor has. You will not covet it.

Envy for it, which ultimately leads you to take it because you

say I deserve that, I'm owed that, I'm entitled to that.

And so we take it from them. Give credit where credit is due.

If someone else on your team does something well, let them

know it. Don't take credit for it.

Celebrate it. Don't steal another's glory.

In fact, the way comparison works is it makes us tone deaf

to grace. If you find yourself in the

emotional traps of comparison after a failure, after things

didn't go well, after regret, it makes it difficult to hear grace

in your life. Jesus has been exhibiting great

grace to Peter. They're having a conversation.

It's gone really well. And then he notices that John,

the beloved disciple, is sort of tagging along them on their

walk. And Peter says, but what about

him? Peter?

Peter's tone deaf to grace. He only sees John, who succeeded

in staying with Jesus to the end.

And he's like, well, what about him?

And Jesus basically says, Peter, let me plan your life with you.

Let me plan his life with him. When we're really struggling in

this rupture of comparison, we will be tone deaf to grace for a

while. We're We won't be willing to

accept what God has done for us. We won't be willing to accept

the great love of God. We will struggle with the

embrace and reception of God when we failed, especially if

our identity was really based in winning all the time, if our

identity was based in being the best all the time.

Some of you lived that rupture when you went from high school

to UBC, and you're like, my God, I'm surrounded by so many smart

people and it's so hard. But every rupture like that is

an opportunity for God to reshape your heart.

That's what Jesus is really after.

He's really after reshaping Peter's affections and the

center of his life. Jesus says, Simon, son of John,

do you love me? And he answered, yes, Lord, you

know that I love you. Then take care of my sheep.

Take care of my sheep. Do you love me?

He asked him 3 * 3 times. Peter denied him.

It really hurt. Jesus says you must follow me.

Do you know it's a It's a really difficult question to ask to

answer. Do you love me?

Especially when God asks it because our relationship with

God is so asymmetrical. God loves us so much and my love

seems so small. My faith seems even smaller at

times. God's faith in me seems so

large. My faith in myself seems so

small at times. God's ability to provide is so

large, but mine seems so small at times.

And so the asymmetrical relationship with God seems

really challenging. If God himself says, do you love

me? But every command of God is

weighed in the balance of love God and love people.

So welcome to our challenge of being Christian.

And every time we find that we did not do that well, we confess

it to the Lord and we must hear with Peter, Jesus is reset.

Do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you.

Is that in your own heart? Yes, Lord, I love you.

You know all things, you know that I love you.

And Jesus says, follow me. You must follow me.

You must become a student of the Rabbi Jesus.

You must become one who's been embraced and brought into his

salvation family just by relinquishing the rights of your

life to him. And that's how it starts for all

of us. Jesus is unfolding his

assignment through this conversation.

He said a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

And Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, do you

love me? And he said, Lord, you know all

things. You know that I love you.

And then Jesus says, feed my sheep, Feed my sheep.

What does a fisherman have to do with sheep?

This is all a metaphor. Take care of my people.

In the history of Israel, there was an occasion where God said,

I'm going to judge Israel by raising up a foolish shepherd.

You can say to your neighbor a foolish shepherd, What in the

world is a foolish shepherd? A foolish shepherd?

He goes on to say, as one who fails to do 4 things, a foolish

shepherd fails to care for the lost.

You know, sheep get lost, Sheep run off.

Sheep was like meh, grass. And they just go for it and they

don't think about where they're where it's taking them.

And you can lift a sheep out of a ditch and they will say grass

and they'll fall back in one more time and they'll do the

same thing over. The foolish shepherd fails to

care for the lost. The foolish shepherd, it says in

Zechariah, not only fails to care for the lost, they fail to

seek the young. Sometimes when a young lamb is

born, she becomes separated from the mother, or the mother fails

to attach to the child she had just born.

And so the shepherd must come along and use various strategies

to find that young lamb. So valuable, right?

To find that young lamb and then actually work to help create

attachment with that mother. The foolish shepherd fails to

find the young, fails to value the new young believer.

The third thing a fool of shepherd does is they fail to

heal the injured. So that sheep that fell in the

ditch shattered its arm, its leg, it was broken.

But the Good Shepherd comes and takes them up and resets.

That bone heals. And then finally.

The foolish shepherd fails to feed the healthy.

Just says. Well, hopefully the.

Healthy will just take care of themselves.

Fails to think about. Where do the healthy need to be

moved next together? And so Jesus has a great

tradition of shepherding and leading the flock of Israel to

draw from. And he has a great tradition of

the expectation of the Good Shepherd.

And so he's saying to Peter, listen, I want you all.

I want you to be all about taking care of this flock of

people that I'm creating, this new Israel that I'm creating.

I want you to be a part of taking care of it.

Now do you know what Jesus is doing here?

He's re elevating Peter to the very prophetic role that he had

called him to remember what had happened when Peter said you're

the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus says. You're Peter.

He's actually saying you're like a rock.

And on this confession, I'm going to build my.

My church. I'm going to build my flock of

people so he's. Reinstating.

Peter here to the very role to which he had called him.

When we fail. We lose sight of what we've been

called to and. Jesus wants to restore.

It. Dear Church, when the church.

Fails. Jesus wants to restore our

affections to him, and he wants to restore the vision to which

we have been called, the ministry of taking care of

people. It is our.

Together, ministry as the church to take.

Care of people. To care for the lost, to seek

the young, to heal the injured and feed the healthy.

When Jesus called Peter. Off that boat, this is what he

was calling into. And he's seeking to enfold.

Him again into his great mission and ministry.

Jesus's or Peter? 'S comparison game would never

work. He's going.

To be comparing himself. To Paul, in fact, he he later

says of Paul, you know his writings are difficult to

understand. You know Peter got.

Into trouble later when he was wanting to compare himself to

other people and he was afraid of being rejected because he had

been hanging out with Gentiles, the people who were outside the

flock. Jesus says I've got people who

are outside the flock, I want to call them in.

And later Peter was right at the front of that.

But then when he was worried about what others would think,

he he shrank back. But he had to be called forward

again, I find. A lot of hope.

In that for us and for myself. You see, Jesus is.

Very interested in your spiritual formation.

You are all being spiritually formed you by something.

You all have emotional internal habits, some that are helpful

and some that are not. Some that will help.

You to a certain point in your life and then they don't work

anymore for. Example.

When I fell down, my parents would say, oh, just get up and

shake it off, right? That became an internal setting

for me. If you fall down, if you fail,

you get up and you shake it off you.

Can tell your neighbors. Shake it off.

And that worked for a long time until it didn't work anymore.

I. Had a sense of.

Failure and regret and shame in my life that I could not seem to

shake off. And I'm like, I'm going to.

Have to learn something different, and I only recognized

that after I'd sort of banged myself against the wall a few

times. This is not working.

I can't shake this in my internal world.

It's going to require something different.

So Jesus will take both your. Wins and your losses to help you

grow and be formed in him. Jesus will.

Will will try to draw you out from the condemnation of

comparison. When you find that you're

totally always in the gap about your life and about others, and

you're like, this keeps happening to me, then maybe

Jesus is trying to free you from it.

Jesus will. Always seek to take your

vocation, not your vacation. He might take your vacation.

Jesus will seek to take your vocation and show you our common

call together to care for people.

If your vocation is. Teaching or in business.

If your vocation is in gardening or the forest.

If your vocation is in public policy or in the hospital.

If your if your vocation is in accounting or in pharmacy.

If your vocation isn't building things excellently and well, if

your vocation is in restoration, Jesus will still always seek to

enfold you and your vocation into His great work of loving

people. That's what he's after.

Is that? You would experience the.

Love of God and that you would join him in loving others.

To do that, you're going to have to take a long walk with Jesus.

I I love this passage. Let's just look at this picture

here. John's a genius.

At least Jesus and God are geniuses too.

Do you? Know Genesis.

Begins by saying in. The beginning God.

Created heavens and earth. In John chapter one it says in

the beginning was the word the word.

Was with God. He was with God from the very

beginning. And so.

The book of John is meant to help us see God's creating power

at work once again. And should it surprise you that

here at the end of the Gospel, we have come back to the garden?

What did Mary say when she saw Jesus in the garden?

She was like, oh, if if you're the garden Gardner, you must

tell me where they took him. She mistook Jesus as if he was

the gardener. And so I love this artist from

1500s and and they've looked Jesus is even sucking on a

little piece of straw. He's got a a spade in his hand.

He's got nail scars in his hand. The gardener.

John. Shows us that we're we're back

in the garden and what happens in the garden before the fall

what happened in the garden eve and Adam walked with God in the

garden and. Then what do we end with?

In this passage in John, we end with Jesus taking Peter on a

walk. Peter.

The son of Adam. He's taking.

Him on a walk and he's restoring to.

Him. His identity, his personhood,

his. Love relationship with.

God, his sense of vision, He's restoring it.

You and I need to take a long walk with Jesus.

It's strange what happens. On a long walk in Theo of

Golden, there's a great passage where a person has had a

terrible loss, and it says of them that they were drawn to

walking even. In his darkest.

Hour. He was drawn, if unconsciously,

to space and color. And so he walked and walked and

walked every day as if life depended on it.

He walked alone, tirelessly and desperately.

His walking was driven by fear and hope.

Fear of the thoughts that would catch him if he sat still, and

hope that he might somehow walk himself into a stupor or

oblivion, or better, into the place where he would find the

one he lost. The temptation, or to drug

himself into sleep was never strong enough to overcome his

remembrance of what that power had already taken from him.

Eventually the dark spell broke. After weeks of walking, the

beauty that had surrounded him, the beauty to which grief had

temporarily numbed him, became consciously present again.

Go walk with Jesus in the garden of his creation.

All the earth is. The Lord's.

When you feel grief. Shame, regret, take a walk with

Jesus, let him ask you questions.

Some of the questions that he asked Peter, do you love me?

You might ask you might ask God, do you love me?

But. You might also find.

God himself asking here, do you love me?

And then know. That with Jesus you can rise to

the occasion. With Jesus you can.

Rise up to every occasion into which He has called you.

And he's resetting your. Heart and your life and all your

relationships. This is the the.

Delight we take in coming to this table that Jesus the Risen

1. Came and invites us.

To the table that was only accessible through Friday.

Through Saturday. And then came Sunday.

And. So God can take.

Every rupture, every great failure and he can reset in your

life. A new creation.

So even as we take this bread, in just a moment, I'm going to

ask the worship team to come. When we take this bread, we

remind ourselves Jesus laid down his life for me.

Even when I failed, Jesus poured out His life for me so that I

might be forgiven for every failure in my life.

And then he resets. Us and calls us into something

great and glorious. Let's stand together.