"Welcome Resurrection" - Easter At Evolve 2022

Hi, this is John Ozanting, lead pastor of Evolved Church, and this is the Evolved Church Podcast.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

We hope that you find today's message encouraging and full of hope for wherever you're at.

There's so many stories, so many lives that have been transformed by the grace of Jesus and by the love of a really real God.

And the danger of stepping into a room like this on Easter Sunday, if you're not usually in a room like this, the danger is that you believe the lie that you can't have this kind of life, this kind of wholeness, this kind of experience of welcoming resurrection each and every day.

But I want to tell you you can.

It's almost four years.

Um we're just a couple weeks shy of our four-year anniversary of actually moving to this city, Nicole and I and our kids.

April 30th, 2018, we drove here from Winnipeg and moved to Edmonton.

And moving to a new city, um, maybe you've done that before.

Maybe you're watching online from another city, or maybe you've recently moved or settled into a new home.

But moving to a new city uh requires an embracing of the moment.

Yeah?

An embracing of a new season, embracing of something new.

You have to welcome change.

Most people in this room are adverse to change.

We don't love it.

There's a few, a few random people that do, but uh, God bless you.

But most of us, right, when it comes to change and even difficult change, it's not easy.

It's not easy to accept, it's not easy to welcome that kind of renewal, that kind of newness.

And for us and our kids, and our dog, actually, because you know he was pretty stressed out moving to a new city, but it had us embracing a new city and a new home and new school and new friendships, new relationships, new rhythms, new life, new community.

Leaving something that you like have loved is really hard.

Leaving something behind to step into something new is not easy.

And attached to it is is hurt and unmet expectations and hesitations for what you're stepping into and even questioning God in the mix.

God, did I hear right?

Are you are you sure, right?

Stepping into something new is is difficult.

To embrace like a full stop life change, it's not an easy thing.

But that's the invitation that Jesus extends to every life in the room today.

And if you could listen, if you could hear the voice of his spirit in the room, what it's gonna say is, hey, for today, would you embrace that I'm making everything brand new for today?

Can you trust me today that I want to do something new in your life?

We opened our service with this song called Welcome Resurrection, and these lyrics were sung.

Speaks the whisper in the silence, sleeps the harvest in the seed.

Cradled now a new beginning in the heart that dares belief.

So crucify your hesitation.

Wounded expectation bring.

Will you welcome resurrection?

Will you crown the risen King?

That's my question for all of us in the room here today and everybody watching online.

That's my big question.

Will you dare to believe?

Will you keep on believing?

Will you crucify your hesitations?

Will you bring your wounded expectations?

Will you choose to crown the risen King Jesus?

Will you today, today, for this moment, will you welcome resurrection?

And will you continue to welcome it tomorrow and the next day and the next day?

And I want to look to um John chapter 21, to a story from the life of Jesus after he rose from the dead, specifically looking at this character called Peter, and just see how Jesus come to us after the hesitation?

John 21 · chapter mention

How does Jesus come to us after the disappointment, after the letdown, after the unmet needs in a season that's felt hard or like change or difficulty?

How does Jesus meet us in those moments?

We're gonna look to the life of Peter today.

And if you're a note taker, feel free to jot some things down.

If you're a photo taker, we always encourage people to take pictures of things that come across the screen if you want to.

But in John 13, it says this, dear children, I'll be with you only for a little longer.

And this is Jesus before he dies speaking to his disciples.

He says, As I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can't come where I'm going.

So now I'm giving you a new commandment.

Love each other just as I've loved you.

You should love each other.

Your love for one another will prove to the world that you're my disciples.

Verse 36, Simon Peter asked, Lord, where are you going?

And Jesus replied, You can't go with me now, but you can follow me later.

Why can't I come?

Why can't I come now, Lord?

He said, I'm ready to die for you.

And Jesus answered, Die for me?

I tell you the truth, Peter.

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

Deny that you even know me.

And so here's impulsive Peter, passionate Peter, loyal Peter, but still missing the big picture, Peter.

Here he is inserted into this story of Jesus saying, I have to leave, and he's like, I want to come, I'm gonna die for you.

And Peter's so passionate, but what he's really saying is, I want my Messiah, and I want my Messiah my way.

I want my Messiah my way.

Peter wanted Jesus to rise up with military might and seize the day, push back against the tyranny of Rome, push back against the Jewish law, push back, I'll die for you.

Push back, Jesus, be my kind of Messiah.

And Jesus is like, really?

Or will you reject me in the moment that it might cost you the most?

Some of us in the room here today are ready to die for a skewed version of Jesus that we want him to be, rather than a resurrected Jesus who simply wants us to live for him today.

And maybe you grew up in religion, and there were pictures painted on the canvas of your heart about who Jesus is or what that means to follow Jesus.

And over the years, those pictures maybe haven't served you well.

Or maybe today is like your first time sitting in a room like this, experiencing like a public teaching from the Bible, or public singing together that the Christian people call worship.

Maybe it's your first time, and you're just asking a lot of questions.

Is this for me?

Could I welcome Jesus?

Could I welcome resurrection today?

In John 18, after Jesus is arrested, Simon Peter followed Jesus, as did another of the disciples.

And I I love that John writes about himself as just another or that guy.

This is John writing, and he's actually writing about himself.

That other disciple, me, is what he means, was acquainted with the high priests, and so he was allowed to enter the high priest's courtyard with Jesus, but Peter had to stay outside.

And then the disciple who knew the high priest, it's a subtle flex by John there, right?

Spoke to the woman watching at the gate, and she let Peter in.

So John does Peter a solid, brings him into the courtyard.

And the woman says, Hey, you're not one of that man's disciples, are you?

And here it is, Peter just like, nope, I'm not.

Because it was cold, the household servants and the guests had made a charcoal fire and they stood around it warming themselves, and Peter stood with them, warming himself.

And meanwhile, as Simon Peter was standing by the fire, they asked him again, you're not one of his disciples, are you?

And Peter says, No, I'm not.

But one of the household slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man, whose ear Peter had cut off, so she knows.

She's got the inside screw.

Didn't I see you?

I saw you.

Didn't I see you out in the olive grove with Jesus?

And again, Peter denied it.

And immediately the rooster crows.

Peter had been warned.

Peter, in his zeal and in his passion and in his excitement, had been like, I'll die for you.

And Jesus was like, actually, dude, like, when it matters the most, you're gonna bail.

When it matters the most, he gave, even gave Peter a heads up.

And still, in this moment, Peter failed.

He missed the mark.

He still allowed fear and shame to keep him from identifying as I follow Jesus.

And I know because I see it all the time, there's fear, there's doubt, there's misbelief, there's skewed information, there's stuff that's taking place in your story that has you full of shame to boldly say, I'm following Jesus for today.

The fear of what other people think, what other people might say, and how they could respond keeps us from fully embracing life in Christ.

So this sets the stage for John chapter 21, verses 1 through 19, and that's where we're going to spend the rest of our time together.

John 21:1–19

Later, Jesus appeared to the disciples.

So this is after Jesus has been crucified, this is after Jesus is risen from the dead, this is after the stone's been rolled away, and the disciples have run to the tomb, and he's alive.

He's not there anymore.

And so the disciples, it says several of them were there by the Sea of Galilee.

Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples.

Not important to name, apparently, but uh Simon Peter said, Here's Simon.

Simon said, I'm going fishing.

And they said, We'll come to.

So they went out in a boat, but they caught nothing all night.

And it's fascinating to me that just three short years before this moment, one day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, same shore, he saw Simon Peter, same Peter, and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the water.

They fished for a living.

That's what they did.

And Jesus called out to them.

He said, Come follow me, and I'll show you how to fish for people.

In other words, when you follow me, I'm gonna give you a new assignment.

When you follow me, I'm gonna give you new worth, new value, new purpose, new identity.

Come follow me.

And so they left their nets at once and followed him.

And then Jesus is crucified and buried.

And what does Peter do?

He goes back to fishing for fish.

In despair, in discouragement, in his shame, I rejected my Savior.

I betrayed the one that I love.

I let him down.

He just slides right back into his old ammo, right back into his old purpose.

Or maybe just void of real purpose.

He just turns to the the only other thing that he knows how to do.

Will you dare believe?

Will you keep on believing?

Will you crucify your hesitation today?

Will you bring all of your wounded expectation to Jesus today?

Will you choose to crown the risen king in your life today?

Will you welcome his resurrection?

Will you continue to welcome?

Verse 4, at dawn, Jesus is standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn't see who he was.

And the Bible doesn't say why.

Maybe he was just too far away.

Maybe it was misty.

Maybe he was shrouded.

I don't know why, but he called out to them.

He says, Fellows, have you caught anything?

And as I was preparing for today, I did some deep dive, and it was funny to me, this translation, what Jesus literally said to his disciples was, hey boys, you haven't caught a thing, have you?

Is actually what Jesus said.

Literally.

Hey, you haven't caught a thing, have you?

Here you are in your despair, in your grief, in your brokenness, and you turn back to the only other thing you knew how to do, but you haven't, hasn't, hasn't produced anything in your life, has it?

No, they replied.

Then Jesus says, throw out your net on the right side of the boat, and you'll get some.

So they did.

And they couldn't haul in the net because there were so many fish in it.

And there it is.

Cast to the right side.

Come on, kid.

Come on, daughter.

Come on, son.

In your moment where you turn back to the only thing you knew how to do before Jesus.

In your moment where you're struggling to produce some kind of purpose, some kind of sense of rhythm, some kind of sense of life, and it's not working.

And Jesus says, Would you trust me and throw it to the right?

The correct, the obedient response, the right side.

Even in us turning back to the past, Jesus steps into our lives with reminders of his power and his provision.

He shows up as a risen king and says, Let me blow your minds for a second.

Let me do something you can't do on your own.

Let me remind you of whose you are.

That's what Jesus does.

So it's on us to answer the question: Will we dare believe?

Will we keep on believing?

Will we trust him?

Will we crucify hesitations?

And will we lay down our wounded expectations and will we choose to crown him?

Verse 7.

The disciples, the disciple that Jesus loved, here's John again.

The disciple that Jesus loved said to Peter, and this is important.

John turns to Peter.

Because John didn't betray Jesus.

He followed him into the courtyard, but he didn't deny Jesus.

So John's a good friend in this moment.

Even though he's flexing hard, he turns to Peter, he says, It's the Lord.

And when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his tunic.

Seems to me that fishermen in this day and age fished in their underwear.

So it's in the Bible.

He put on his tunic, for he had stripped for work.

He jumped into the water and headed to shore.

And I love it.

Why?

Because Peter goes into the water.

Rather, Peter goes back into the water.

Peter goes back into the water.

It's the Lord.

Remember, it was Peter in Matthew chapter 14 that jumped out and walked on the water with his Savior, right?

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

In the middle of the storm, he jumped out of the boat and stepped onto the water, and his faith wavered and he sank a little bit.

But in this moment of despair, in this moment of Peter losing hope of carrying the weight and the shame of having betrayed Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times.

As soon as Peter hears it's the Lord, he jumps.

As soon as he hears, he's back into the water.

And I don't know how far out they were.

The Bible's not clear on that either.

But I do know this.

Peter reached the shore about the same time as the boat did.

So it must have taken him a while to swim back.

Because here's Peter's honest moment.

I want to dare to trust.

I want to dare to believe.

I want to dare to put my faith in this Messiah that I hadn't planned for, but that shows up as my risen king, my crowned risen king.

The others stay with the boat and pull the net to shore?

Oh, here it is, for they were only a hundred yards from shore.

So there it is, right there.

When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them.

Fish cooking over a charcoal fire and some bread.

Isn't it just like Jesus to be like, fish and bread?

I'm gonna provide for you.

Remember when I did it last time?

You can trust that it's me.

And there's a consistency to the rhythm of Jesus showing up in our lives.

And Jesus invites them to bring some of the fish they've just caught.

So Simon Peter went aboard, dragged the net to shore, and there were 153 large fish, and the net hadn't torn.

And this miraculous provision of us struggling to find purpose and all we know how to do, and God showing up and turning it into something beautiful that brings no destruction.

It's just incredible.

There's lots I could say about these verses right here, but here's where I want to land as we close out our time.

John 21, verse 13.

John 21:13

Jesus served them bread and fish.

This was the third time that Jesus had appeared to his disciples since he'd been raised from the dead.

And after breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

I was reading a commentary by an author named Leon Morris, and here's what he says about this.

We're sometimes inclined to think that a question about Peter's love was unnecessary or even excessive.

But this is not the case.

His actions had shown that Peter had not wanted a crucified Lord, but Jesus was crucified.

How did Peter's devotion stand in the light of this?

Now I stand before you a risen Messiah.

Do you love me?

Was he ready to love Jesus as he was and not as Peter wished him to be?

That was an important question.

That's an important question for us today.

Are we willing to love Jesus as he is?

Not just as we want him to be, conveniently religion, what we learned growing up, but who he really is.

And Peter replied, You know I love you, Lord, then feed my lambs, Jesus said.

Verse 16, Jesus repeats the question, Do you love me?

Peter says, You know I do, then feed my sheep.

A third time, do you love me?

Peter was hurt.

Listen to this, Peter's hurt now that Jesus asked him this question a third time.

And I can't help but wonder, in this moment of like getting caught up in the resurrected Jesus and in feeling a little bit of redemption, feeling a little bit of value coming back, he soon forgets that a few days prior he stood in a courtyard and said, I don't know this man.

Three times.

And so the hurt of what Jesus is asking him to do overrides the sense of failure and guilt attached to how he failed.

And this is powerful because Jesus walks Peter right through this.

Lord, you know everything.

You know that I love you.

And then Jesus said, Then feed my sheep.

I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked.

Dressed yourself, went whenever you wanted to go.

But when you're old, you'll stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don't want to go.

It's actually a picture here.

Some people think a prophecy that Peter would be led to go somewhere he didn't want to go and face the same kind of crucifixion that Jesus did.

Peter didn't want to crucify Jesus.

He wanted his own Messiah.

And Jesus is saying, This is going to cost you everything, your love for me.

Then Jesus said, Follow me.

So it's important to note the redeeming intentionality of Jesus in asking not one time, not two times, but three times, Peter, will you declare your love out loud for me?

Peter, who said he would die for the kind of Messiah that he wanted.

Peter who three times denied that he even knew that Jesus.

Peter who, in his disappointment and hesitation and unmet and wounded expectations, withdrew to a past, former version of himself.

Only Jesus can quickly and gently and lovingly go, kchink, kchink, kachink, you love me, you love me, you love me.

One, two, three, Peter, you and I, we're good.

It's okay.

I see you.

And that's what Jesus wants to do for each one of us in the room here today.

It's the same thing.

What shame has kept you from embracing him?

What wounded expectations, what failure, what season of turning your back on him, betraying him as Lord.

Can we consider today that Jesus is asking each one of us, do you love me?

Do you love me more than these?

Verse 15, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

And this is what I like to close with.

This phrase, do you love me more than these?

It actually means three different things.

And you might identify with one or two or all three of these in the room here today.

You might be watching online and something just grabs a hold of your heart.

Do you love me more than these?

Simply, number one, more than these, more than the other disciples who were present.

Peter, do you love me more than these other people?

More than these who actually accepted you in your betrayal, came back with you into your past, walked you right back into who you used to be.

Sometimes it's a friendship or a relationship that Jesus is asking us to lay down.

Do you love me more than these?

More than these who easily go with you into the past, easily go with you into your betrayal, easily slide right back into who you used to be.

Do you love me more than these?

Or maybe Jesus said, Do you love me more than these?

The things that were present and what they represented.

I can picture Jesus pointing to the net full of fish and to the boat.

Do you love me more than these things?

More than the boats and the nets and the fish, more than who you used to be?

Do you love me more than what you're good at?

Do you love me?

Can you trust me with your assignment?

Can you trust me with your tomorrow?

Or do you love your pre-Jesus sense of self and sense of worth more than who I show up as in your life today?

Do you love me more than these?

Or maybe Jesus was saying, Do you love me more than these?

Maybe it was a comparison of love.

Can I possibly love Jesus as much as so-and-so?

I have this friend who's super Jesus-y, and they know all the Jesus words and all the Jesus things, and then all the Jesus songs, and I couldn't possibly love Jesus more than that person, and so I disqualify myself from real love.

The sin of comparison robs us of trusting Jesus for ourselves for today.

And yet, whichever one of those it is, more than these, more than these, more than these?

Jesus asks us the same question.

Do you love me?

Do you love me?

And you're making room for that love to show up in real ways in your life.

Will you dare to believe?

Will you keep on believing?

Will you crucify your hesitation?

Will you bring your wounded expectations?

Lay them at the feet of Jesus.

Choose to crown him today, your risen king.

Welcome his resurrection.

Keep welcoming it tomorrow.

Verse 18.

I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked.

You dressed yourself, went whenever you wanted.

But when you're old, you'll stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don't want to go.

And Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God.

And then Jesus told Peter, follow me.

And attached to Jesus' question, do you love me?

Do you love me more than?

Is the assignment, follow me.

Do you love me more?

If so, follow me.

Leon Morris again.

This prophecy, this prediction about how Peter would die, and in fact, that is how Peter died.

He was crucified.

This prophecy is followed by a call to Peter to follow Christ.

There is possibly significance in the use of the present tense.

Keep on following will be the force of it when we read Jesus' words to Peter.

Do you love me?

Yes.

Keep on following me.

Peter had followed Christ, but not continuously in the past.

For the future, he was to follow steadfastly in the ways of the Lord.

And that's our invitation.

That's our assignment for today.

To first of all answer these questions: will I dare to believe?

Will I dare to keep on believing?

Will I crucify my hesitations?

Will I lay down all of my wounded hurts, my wounded expectations, hurt from home, hurt from parent, hurt from church, hurt from spiritual authority?

Can I bring it back to Jesus and open up my heart?

Regardless of my past, regardless of how I've walked away from or denied Jesus, regardless of how I've lived in this defeat and in this shame, regardless of how I've trusted in other people instead of Christ, regardless of how I've trusted in myself and in what I'm good at, my own abilities instead of Christ.

Do you love me?

Then keep following me.

Do you love me?

He says, then keep following me.

Thank you so much for listening to today's message.

If you're ever in the Edmonton area, pop by for a visit.

And if you need any more information, visit Evolvechurch.com.

We hope to see you soon.