An Encounter with Jesus: How to deal with shame

I want to thank you for coming to Venture Church this morning. If you

don't know who I am, I'm Brandon. I'm the lead pastor of the

church. I'm glad that you have joined us here today. We are just

beginning a series that we're calling an Encounter with Jesus. And what we're doing

is we're looking at different stories in the Gospels where someone has an encounter with

Jesus. And we believe that the one thing that every single one of us

has in common is that at just the right moment, Jesus crossed our path.

And when Jesus crossed our path, it changed everything. And if you

weren't here last week, I introduced you to a guy by the name of

Peter who became one of Jesus' disciples, and I talked about that moment where

Peter became a follower of Jesus, and I discussed the progression of faith and

the progression of belief. You see, the progression of belief, it starts

with trust, where you're willing to put your trust in someone, and then

when trust is not abused, that can earn you faith in that person.

And then when faith continues to develop, there comes a point where you'll be

brought to that moment where you have to take a leap, and that leap

can be a leap that leads to belief. But I'll tell you, belief

in Jesus changes everything. You see, Peter was a fisherman, and he

has this profound encounter with Jesus that leads to belief. And then Jesus looks

at him and he says, Peter, you will no longer fish for fish

from this day forward. You're going to be a fisher of men. Now.

Interesting thing about that phrase fisher of men is Jesus didn't that phrase That

was a very common phrase for Greeks and Romans to use. You see,

that phrase was a challenge that was meant for you to go out to seek

and persuade people and catch them with the truth. So Peter was challenged to

lay down his nets, stop fishing, and now fish for people. And

the whole discourse ends with Luke five versus eleven, and it says this.

So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything, and followed Jesus.

I want to ask everyone to buy your heads, close your eyes,

repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say dear Jesus, speak to my heart,

change my life in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to pick up

in the story of Peter two years later in John chapter twenty one. You

can go ahead and turn there. One of the things that I want to

talk to you about when it comes to having an encounter with Jesus, that

the longer you journey with Jesus, the longer that you are a follower of

Jesus, you will have multiple encounters with Jesus in your lifetime. You'll have

multiple opportunities for Jesus to touch your life. In fact, Sunday night,

we're having another revival service, and we are believing that you are going to

come here and have an encounter with Jesus. Then no matter where you are

in your walk with Him, that God is going to meet you and it

is going to be a significant moment in your spiritual life. I refer to

in my journey these moments where I have an encounter with Jesus. I'll call

them the Aha moments. I call them spiritual mile markers. You see,

the way that our faith journey works is once you become a follower of Jesus,

you're faithful and you just you're walking in obedience. You're trying to conform

your life to the image of Jesus and be more and more like him,

and you're faithful, and you're faithful, and then all of a sudden,

boom, wow, and encounter happens. It's life changing. You see a

miracle, something extraordinary, and you plant a mile marker, thinking that was

amazing, and then you go back to being faithful, faithful, faithful,

and then wow, miracle happens again, encounter happens again. Here's one of

the warnings that I always have for people. If you are a charismatic or

you're a Pentecostal, and I very proudly I am a card carrying charismatic man.

I believe in the power of God. I want more of Jesus.

I believe in the supernatural. I believe in miracles. But I also believe

in reading your Bible and praying and being faithful and getting up and going to

church every Sunday and tithing when I don't feel like it. I also believe

in the faithfulness part of this. And one of the challenges that you have

when you're a charismatic is I like to say, you can become an addict

you get so addicted to the encounters with Jesus that you chase after them.

You'll go wherever you hear that maybe something like that could happen, and you

chase and you seek, and anything that's ordinary or mundane or faithful or routine

isn't spiritual anymore because you've addicted yourself that it has to be something extraordinary,

something supernatural, some encounter. And I would argue that the Bible is really

clear. The author of Hebrews says, without faith, it is impossible to

please God. That our spiritual life is a lot of being faithful, being

obedient, being faithful and obedient, and then all of a sudden, boom,

miracle, and we're like, wow, this is real. When you

market and then it's faithful, obedient, faithful, obedient, over and over

again. Peter lays down his nets and he starts following Jesus. And for

the next two years it was a lot of learning, a lot of sitting

under his teaching, a lot of being faithful, a lot of serving,

and then there'd be the moments he'd see the unexplainable, he'd see the undeniable.

In those two years that to your period of time Peter witnessed many miracles.

He had many encounters with Jesus. He saw the blind see, he

saw a leper healed, he saw the lame walk, Jesus calm a storm.

He sawt Jesus feed five thousand. He saw Jesus with his own eyes

walk on water. And then there was that moment where they were in the

city of cessarea where Jesus is teaching, and he points at a rock and

he says, Peter, upon this rock, referring to Peter, outbuild my

church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. Peter has

encounter after encounter with Jesus. But Peter's most famous for his mistakes. He's

most famous for his failure. If I was to ask you tell me one

thing you know about Peter, you probably remember Peter screwing up. I will

argue that it's one of the reasons that we relate to Peter, because we

screw up. We fail too. We're fai and we're faithful, and then

we see something undeniable, we see a miracle, we're faithful again, and

we still screw up, we still make mistakes. As the story goes,

it was right before Jesus was arrested. Jesus looked at Peter and he said,

Peter, you were gonna deny that you even know me? Three times?

And Peter's like, whatever, not a chance you know who I am.

Maybe one of these other yahoos will do that. No chance, it's

me, Jesus, I got your back. Well, as the story goes,

Jesus gets arrested and Peter denies he knows him three times. Peter witnessed

the arrest, the crucifixion, the resurrection. Peter saw it all. We

know today that Peter is one of the most significant pie years of the Christian

faith. Acts tells us the story of the beginning of Peter's full time itinerant

ministry. So on the day of Pentecost, Peter gets filled with the Holy

Spirit, comes down and spontaneously preaches his first sermon, and then he gives

his first Holy spirit filled altar call, and three thousand people get saved.

That's Peter. We know from the Book of Acts that Peter performs nine different

miracles. Catholics refer to Peter as the very first Pope, So Peter becomes

this significant figure. But I think it's important to understand dates and times.

So follow this chronology. We just celebrated Easter. That was two weeks ago.

That crazy, that was two weeks ago. Did you know that next

year Easter is two weeks from today. It's like March. Then it's the

end of April. It's like messing my whole world up. So Jesus dies

on the cross. Three days later, he rises from the grave. For

the next forty days, Jesus appears to people, appeers to his disciples,

appeers to random different people their eyewitnesses of the resurrection for the next forty days.

Then after that forty day period of time, Jesus says, tells his

disciples, I want you to go to Jerusalem and wait because I'm gonna send

the Holy Spirit and that is going to be really significant, and it is

going to give you the power to do ministry and carry out my mission.

So again, resurrection happens. For forty days, Jesus is appearing to the

disciples. Then ten days later they're celebrating the festival of Pentecost and the Holy

Spirit comes, and that is the day Peter preaches that sermon and three thousand

people get safe. Say following this, So this is basically fifty days after

the resurrection. John twenty one begins, about a month after the resurrection.

I want you to imagine everything up to this point Peter has experienced. Are

you with me? John twenty one. Afterward, Jesus appeared again to his

disciples by the Sea of Galilee again, about a month after the resurrection,

about ten days before Jesus ascends into Heaven, and about twenty days before Pentecost.

So afterward, Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee.

It happened this way. Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of

Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. Seven disciples are together, Seven

of the followers of Jesus are together. Peter says, I'm gonna go out

to fish, and they all said, Peter, we'll go with you.

So they went out, got into the boat. But that night they caught

nothing. Why is Peter fishing again? I thought he laid down fishing.

Why is he fishing again? Not only Peter, but why are seven disciples

who laid down their nets said we're giving up this life and following Jesus.

Why thirty days after the resurrection are they fishing again, after everything has happened,

after everything he's seen, after everything he's experienced, Peter goes back to

fishing. Why is Peter fishing again? Because Peter couldn't get past what he'd

done, couldn't get past the fact that when Jesus needed him most, he

failed messed up. Peter was consumed with shame. Shame is that painful feeling

of humiliation that's caused by being full aware you committed a wrong or foolish behavior.

Shame is a feeling of embarrassment or humiliation that arises from the knowledge of

having done something that you personally believe is dishonorable, immoral, or improper.

Shame doesn't allow you to get over your past. Shame makes us dwell on

the past. Shame makes us go back to the past. Peter's shame sucked

him back into his past, so he goes out fishing again after swearing he'd

never fish again. I told you last week. Professional fishermen who fishes on

the Sea of Galilee knows you catch fish at night in the shallow end.

It's morning. Peter and the Disciples are heading back to shore, and the

Bible says they caught nothing I wonder if Peter remembered the last time he caught

nothing. It was two years before. It was when he really encountered Jesus

the first time. It was the day he laid down fishing, swear he'd

never go back to it. Here he is, month after Jesus' resurrection and

his own personal failure, and he's back to doing what he swore he'd never

do again. You see, the worst part about shame is it takes you

back to where you came from. But it feels different the second, third,

or fourth time around. We have an amazing Celebrate Recovery program at Venture

and Monday Night. Celebrate Recovery helps you get over hurts, habits and hang

ups. And oftentimes I'll talk to people that have gone all the way through

Celebrate recovery and shame consume them later on, and then eventually they found theirselfs

stumbling, tripping back into the thing that they had gone through recovery from to

begin with. But the second or third time around, it's not as fun.

It just feels different. When you get sucked back into your mass because

of shame, you realize it's a mess now, So how can you be

free of shame. Here's Peter back to doing what he swore he'd never do,

goes out, doesn't catch any fish? Verse four. Early in the

morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize it

was Jesus. This sounding familiar. Once again, Jesus is standing on the

shore of the Sea of Galilee. Once again the disciples don't recognize who he

is, and Jesus asks this question to them, calls out to them,

friends, haven't you any fish? Such a weird statement, isn't it,

Haven't you any fish? What does it mean? Even mean? Well?

It was likely spoken in Aramaic, was translated into Greek, then it was

translated into our English Bibles. By the time it gets to our English Bibles,

it's this weird statement, haven't you any fish? Here's what he meant.

Hey, you got skunked, didn't you. You guys didn't catch anything,

did you? And they shout back, Nope, didn't catch any fish.

And then Jesus shouts from the shore. Throw your net on the right

side of the boat, and you might find some sound unfamiliar. These guys

are professional fishermen. Again, this illustration didn't go over great in the first

service. You're the more advanced progressive service. Have you ever heard the phrase

man'splaining? Women do not like it when guys man's play you're getting it,

this, this, this service gets it. What is man's plaining? Man'splaining

is when a man tells a woman something that's obvious and the woman, out

of like sort of respect to the man, doesn't sit there and think duh,

moron, So they call it man'splaining. Women don't like that. If

you're dude and you're dating, don't man's plain. It's not gonna endear you

to the girl you're dating. And guys, I know you're just trying to

be helpful. Do you know who hates man's plaining more than women? Other

men? Oh, we hate it when other guys man's plain to us.

And it's always someone that you're an expert, like you're a financial planner,

you're an accountant, you are an expert in finances. And here is some

guy like Brandon who gets an e trade account and thinks, all of a

sudden he is a stockbroker and he starts giving you advice. Have you consider

or this? And you're like, yeah, you know, you are an

engineer. You work on planes. And then some random person who flies on

planes says, man, I was sitting by the window where the wing is,

and you know the wing, it kind of curves up at the end.

Have you guys thought about just having the wings go straight? We love

that, don't we, ministers. It's the nature of our job. Like

I've studied John twenty one more in the last week than every single person in

this room combined for the last year. But some of you are still gonna

want to grab me in the lobby. Have you thought about this? Brandon

Well and somebody said this with this, Yes, I know, I just

chose to not talk about that part. We don't like man's plaining. Jesus

is standing on the shore to a bunch of fishermen who got skunked, and

he says, throw your nets on the other side of the boat and maybe

you'll find some fish. To guys that think you catch fish at night in

the shallow end, I wonder if Peter in that moment remembered the last time

someone gave him fishing advice. The end of verse six, they did it,

and when they were unable to haul the net in because of the large

number of fish, it was in that moment. Bible tells us that they

caught about one hundred and fifty three fish. There's lots of scholars have debated

this one hundred and fifty three number, like the significance of it and all

the different things it means. In fact, you can read twenty different books

and it'll be twenty different things that they think. I just think it meant

that they caught a lot of fish. It was this miraculous catch of fish.

Here's a quick spiritual lesson. If you don't get anything else, catch

this one. No pun intended. There's a small margin between success and failure

when it comes to our spiritual lives. You're never far from success. When

you let Jesus give you the orders, you might be much closer to success

than you realize. Some of you you took a step of faith and you

started a business, and you're struggling and you can't figure out why you thought

you were doing the right thing though. The simple thing is you haven't been

obedient and tithing. So you want God to bless your finances and bless your

business. But you don't realize that your finances are right now under a curse.

And once you start tithing, God will turn around and bless your business.

There's a small margin between success and failure. When you submit your life

to Jesus, you will quickly bridge that gap. Verse seven, John realizes

it's the Lord, and as soon as Simon Peter hears him say it's the

Lord, he wraps his outer garment around him and he jumps into the water

and he begins to swim towards Jesus. The rest of the disciples are like,

it'd be faster to row let's just row in, So they beat Jesus

into the or they beat Peter into the shore, and when they're there,

they realize Jesus has made a fire, and Jesus says this. He says,

I want you to come and let's eat breakfast together. I love this

because he's feeding his sheep. He's literally illustrating what he's about to remind Peter

that Peter was called to do before Peter allowed himself to get sucked into the

shame vortex. Peter finally arrives on shore, sits down around that fire that

Jesus made, drives himself off, and he eats breakfast, and then it

begins. One of the most famous discourses that has been preached for generations between

Peter and Jesus. This conversation is referred to as Peter's reinstatement. I think

you can think of it as how do I overcome shame? So begins like

this verse fifteen, When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Peter,

so picture this. Everyone is there, like everybody's there. This is not

done in private. Peter's denial of Jesus was done in public, and now

his restoration is done in public. Two and he says, Peter Simon's son

of John, do you love me more than these? This question do you

love me more than these? Has been debated. In fact, if you

took probably five of the greatest New Testament scholars, they would say he means

something different here, and they're all great scholars, and they all say he

means something different, like do you love me more than these? Is he

saying do you love me more than you love your friends the other disciples?

Or do you love me more than fishing these fish? You love me more

than these? Or is Jesus asking do you love me more than these people

love me? Do you love me the most? I think it's probably all

three I think Jesus is saying, Simon, do you love me more than

your past and the things that you keep getting sucked back into doing. Do

you love me more than you love your buddies? Do you love me more

than these other people love me? How can you be free of shame?

Conviction and shame are different. Conviction comes from the Holy Spirit. That is,

when you and I do something wrong and it separates us in our relationship

from Jesus. The Holy Spirit comes and con victs us, makes us feel

bad so that we will repent of our sin. But the Bible is clear,

if you repent, he restores you. I've told you a hundred times.

That word restore means you are instantaneously brought back to a right relationship with

that person, meaning you are brought back to that moment you were before the

mistake happened. And then we also know the Bible says that he remembers our

sins no more. He chooses to forgive and forget. Jesus is totally forgives

you when you repent. So there is conviction, and that is good,

and we need to pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit. But conviction

is different than shame. Shame comes from the enemy. Shame is a lie

that you are not forgiven. It is a lie that you are not good

enough. It is a lie that the mistake that you have made you can't

get over it. It is a lie that tells you you can never do

what you thought you were going to do before. Simon, Peter, do

you love me more than these? Yes? Lord, you know that I

love you. Feed my lambs, Peter, move on, live be your

calling. We already went over this, Peter. You already laid down those

nets. I already called you to be a fisher of men. Why are

you going back to the nets? I just feel so bad. You just

don't know what I've done. Am beating myself up. Simon's Son of John,

verse sixteen. Do you love me? Peter answered again, Yes,

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

Then, Peter, stop fishing, start preaching. The third time,

Jesus said to him Simon's son of John, do you love me? Peter

was hurt because Jesus asked him this the third time? Do you love me?

That word hurt it's more accurately translated as grieved. In fact, it's

the same Greek word that's used to describe. Other instances of this word in

the Gospel are used to describe how the disciples felt about Jesus' death. So

Jesus asking Peter a third time, do you love me? Crushed Peter devastated

Peter he wants Jesus to know, yes, Lord, I love you,

and I really love Peter's response because his response is a call to jesus divinity.

This is Peter acknowledging I love you. You are the Messiah, you

are God, you have rose from the dead. All of this In this

statement. He says, Lord, you know all things, your God,

you're the Messiah. You're omniscient, you know everything. You know what's in

my heart. So you know that I love you. And then Jesus said,

then feed my sheep. Shame tells you you'll never get over it.

But Jesus says you're forgiven. Shame says I'm not worthy of my calling.

Jesus says your gifts and callings are irrevocable. Shame says I'm not good enough.

Jesus says you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Shame says I have to

start all over again, Jesus says, if you repent, I'll restore you

that you may serve me. Move on, get over it, forgive yourself,

be free, live out your purpose. Why did Peter go back to

fishing? Why do you keep going back to your junk? Why do you

keep going back to your stuff? Want everybody to buy their heads and close

their eyes. If you're here and you want to say, pastor Brandon,

pray for me. The enemy is lying to me. The enemy is overwhelming

me with shame. I want to be set free of my shame. I

want to walk out of this place forgiving myself, moving forward, knowing my

destiny and my calling. I do not want shame to control me. I'm

going to pray. And if that is you and you say Brandon, I

want you to pray for me. I want to overcome my shame. Raise

your hand right now. Thank you putting them down. Lord Jesus, I

pray for all these people that that said shame takes root in my life,

that I struggle with it. Lord, I want to pray that you will

remind them that they're forgiven. You'll remind them that they are set free.

And Lord, I asked that they would be able to walk in forgiveness,

and may today be a first step in doing that. May they turn away

from what they left to follow Jesus and keep walking towards him. God.

I stand against the spirit of shame in Jesus' name, and I ask that

you would set them free. In Jesus name, I pray Amen. Before

I set a free I just want to direct your attention to our What's Next

page on our app, which Pastor Brandon has provided some resources for and if

you have you're going to dig a little bit more into what we study today

or even on the topic of shame. There's some resources there for you.

Also, if you'd like some extra prayer, I'm going to make myself available

and a few of us, maybe some prayer workers, some staff will hang

out down front of you. Would like any prayer before you head out.

Other than that, if you'll stand to your feet, we want to say

thanks for being here this Sunday morning. Enjoy the beautiful day out there,

go make Jesus famous. I love you. Have a great week.