Discovering Joy Amidst Life's Chaos

He didn't give the history of his screw-ups.

He didn't take the moniker of his failures, the same way that we do.

We've heard words all our life and we have molded a self-image around the negativity.

He didn't do that.

He shaped his life based on who he truly was.

Not what people said about him, but what he knew to be true that I am loved.

Welcome to the CityLight Church Podcast.

Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us.

If you want to connect with CityLight Church, feel free to visit us at CityLightNYC.com,

that CityLightNYC.com.

Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds.

As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God,

that you are surrounded by His grace, and that He has a real hope and a future for you.

Again, my name is Muhammad. I'm one of the pastors here and I'm just turned up and turned out by what God has been doing in our midst.

This season, it feels like it's right for us to take ground for the sake of the Kingdom, amen?

I think yesterday was definitely a bright shining light that affirmed that.

We saw 24 people give their lives and make a public profession of their faith.

And that was just for November.

We baptized a whole bunch of people last May.

God is working because understand, it's this thing where we're doing what we're supposed to be doing.

We're getting God's lost kids saved and we're getting the saved kids to grow and discipleship that there would be productive members of the Kingdom of God.

And the enemy doesn't like that, but I don't really care because God does.

I know God does because, again, the most powerful service that we have, when people proclaim their faith in Jesus and God comes by His Holy Spirit to give the thumbs up to that.

Now, I will say this because I'm not one where in neither is our church.

We don't look for a demon behind every situation, nor do we find our direction based on what the devil is doing.

But sometimes the enemy overplays his hand and it gives us a good direction that we're heading in the right way.

So we had such an amazing and powerful service and then all last night Pastor Bo has been struggling.

He gave me a call this morning. He was violently sick. I'll just leave it at that. Vomiting and everything. I guess I won't leave it at that.

But he had a very, very, very difficult time and it's one of those things where, like I said, we don't get our direction from what the enemy was doing.

We know that God is putting his hand on the things that are according to his will and we see him moving so we know we're heading in the right direction.

Because again, that's a command that all those that believe be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, right?

But then when the enemy overplays his hand like this, we kind of see that he's so mad at what we're doing.

He's like, I like a good, it's like, shut up.

It's funny, though, because the hits kept coming. So yesterday, after the baptism service, they're like practical things that we need to do.

Like we have towels and things like that. They need to be washed. They need to be cleared out.

So I'm packing my trunk. Volunteers are helping me. The trunk to my car door breaks. Can't close properly. I'm in Manhattan.

Lower east side. I live in deep in the heart of Queens. I'm like, how is this going to work?

So like, I jury rig a situation. I'm like tying down the trunk just to see, and it's still kind of flipping and flapping a little bit.

I'm like, whatever. We're just going to make it.

So now, driving going about the rest of my day, finally make it home. Get all the way upstairs. I'm like, my jacket must be in the car somewhere.

I go down to the car. I'm checking everywhere in the car, nowhere to be found. And then I notice, oh, the trunk is open.

Where my jacket was. Turns out, my wallet is in my jacket.

So I had the fun evening of calling all of my banks and telling them, one of the funny parts is I just changed banks like three days ago.

I was like, yeah, you know, I lost it. I need a new one. They were like, what's the card number? I don't know.

What's the account number? Don't know that either.

It's like, who are you? I'm me.

You might say, well, why are you so happy about that? I'm happy about that because the enemy doesn't stop anything.

Didn't you listen to Pastor Bo's message last week? There's sometimes there going to be some hardships and trials and things that come not of your choosing circumstantially.

So what? The Bible says that God has given us joy that cannot be taken from us. Amen.

So I got a boy in C on the inside of me. I'm floating on circumstance right now, feeling real good in the Lord.

And it's sad because you would think after losing valuable things like cards and money, the thing that hurts a little bit more is the jacket.

I like that jacket.

This is telling my wife like, listen, this is just a sign from the Lord. I don't even love the jacket.

To which she did not say amen.

All right, guys, listen. It is the final Sunday before the election.

Ooh.

So funny how you feel the tension. Some people get super excited. Some people tense up.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Is he about to preach on the election? Oh, God.

Raise yourself before you have an aneurysm through your butt. Just hear me out.

There's only one thing that I want to say to you concerning the election.

Please, if you can, you have the right to vote, exercise your right to vote.

You live in this country, you shoot. As a Christian, you are responsible for praying for the good and the peace of this land.

You are responsible for following and upholding civic and moral duty. Amen.

Now, will I tell you you need to vote all along one side or the other side? No.

Amen.

Because listen, I need you to be clear. If you're voting all blue going down the left and just feeling like everything is okay, you are wrong.

If you were voting all along side red all on the right, you are wrong.

We are not left. We are not right. We are up. We are north. We represent the kingdom. Understand?

But what does that mean? That means that, unfortunately, you have to do a little bit of due diligence to figure out who's on the ballot,

who's policies line up with the things that are making for a life where God is honored and glorified.

So, no, I'm not just going in there and scratching down all one side. Oh, they don't like that.

Because you're offending my side and my party. And? I'm not on your side. I'm on Jesus' side.

So, I don't mind offending somebody if I'm not on their side.

See, this is the thing that gets me about politics where they try to make it this spiritual thing like it's religious. It's not.

It's not.

You are choosing who is going to run the country on certain issues. Be mindful of that and choose accordingly.

Think about the things that are God honoring and what are not.

Okay, okay.

So, with that being said, we're going to juxtapose two sides today.

We're going to figure out what what what side is doing it right, what side is doing it wrong.

They are so nervous.

I'm not actually talking about the election though. I'm here to talk about two different types of Christians.

I'm here to I'm going to go even deeper than that. I'm going to give you the examples that we find in the scripture of two very particular Christians that represent one of us at any given point.

We have the Apostle Peter. You know him, the one with the foot-shaped mouth.

And we have the Apostle John.

I think the best thing that we could say about John is John is the beloved. We can all agree.

And we're going to juxtapose how they went about their life and how we need to be going about our life.

Let's take this journey.

We're going to start and we're going to go through their lives towards the end of Jesus' life.

We're going to start at the last supper in John 13.

Now, even before we read that, and you can hold it up there, before we read, I need you to understand something.

Because people always look at Peter and go, that's definitely to screw up, so I'm not going to join his side.

I need you to understand something about John the beloved.

John has to screw up.

So here's the thing. We always have this idea of the hierarchy of the disciples because there were three disciples where every Jesus went.

He called the three disciples and we think to ourselves, those are the mature ones, those are the good ones.

I will have you know that the reason why he always left certain disciples and he brought along the three Peter, James and John,

is the same reason that you can trust some of your kids' parents and some of them you can.

See, he would tell team B, all right, y'all hang back, I'm going to go up on the mountain.

Y'all three, come with me.

Because he knows, I leave these three here, I might come down, the whole village might be burnt.

James and John, they had the nickname, the scripture gives them, Bolognese.

When you break down the etymology on Bolognese, it means sons of thunder.

They ran up on some people who were actually preaching the word of God in truth, proclaiming Jesus as Lord.

And these, I was about to use very brisk language just now, these idiots still pretty harsh but they stopped them and said, hey, you're not with us, don't do it.

Now here's the thing that you have to know this, especially in the climate that we live in today.

It does not matter who says what if it's truth.

If the devil came in here today and said, Jesus is Lord, best believe I'm going to be in the front going, amen.

See the problem, we have a big problem today in our generation, somebody tells us truth and we call it painful.

Somebody gives their opinion, we applaud them, we applaud them.

But when somebody gives you good word, don't stop having a fight with the people that are telling you what's good for you.

There are relationships in your life right now that are suffering because all they're trying to do is deliver the truth to you but you can't see the truth for what it is.

All you see is the messenger and you're upset.

Who am I talking to today? Because this ain't in the notes.

But again, James and John, they came to a city that rejected Jesus.

Do you want to know what their response was? Let's just kill him right now.

Let's kill him. He acts Jesus. Do you want me to call down fire from heaven and destroy them like Elijah did?

Jesus was like cool bro, put the heat away.

So again, I'm giving you both sides but I don't want you to immediately think that John is perfect.

Jesus is like us and that should encourage you. He's not perfect but he does have one thing to his credit.

He learned how to appropriate the love of God. I'll show you from the scripture.

John 1321 says, when Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit.

And testified and said, most assuredly I say to you, one of you will betray me.

Then the disciples looked at one another perplexed about whom he spoke.

Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of his disciples whom Jesus loved.

If you didn't know and you missed this very hilarious part about scripture, he's speaking specifically about the Apostle John.

But people forget that John is the author of this gospel. So he's talking about himself.

That's like me having a blog post and going, yeah, this is one of the pastors of city like you know the really good looking one.

With a chocolate-melinated complexion.

It's funny though because here's what I want you to catch.

He didn't say this is one of the bollajini showing up.

He didn't give the history of his screw-ups.

He didn't take the moniker of his failures the same way that we do.

We've heard words all our life and we have molded a self-image around the negativity.

He didn't do that.

He shaped his life based on who he truly was.

Not what people said about him but what he knew to be true that I am loved.

He appropriated that and took it for himself and that was his identity.

He was not perfect by any stretch, by any means, but he had that one thing to his credit.

How do you identify yourself?

Is it as a filthy sinner or is it as somebody who's truly, truly received the grace, the mercy, the favor and the love of God?

It makes a difference how you see yourself.

Are you good looking?

Or you busted?

Are you faithful?

Because here's the thing, the other side of that, the religious side, they're always on the hamster wheel doing things so that they can get the favor of God.

I need to tell you that that religious system is always going to keep you from reaching perfection.

I don't do things to get things like approval from God because I've already got it.

The zenith level of love, there is no higher love than the love that I have received from God through Christ Jesus.

So there is nothing that I can do to perform to get him to love me more.

So then some might ask, well, why do you do the things that you do?

Why do you give? Why do you worship? Why do you attend church faithfully?

Because I get to.

I've been given this grace in mercy and I'm not dead the way I deserve.

I get to.

That's different from the religious person who says, oh God, I don't want to go but I got to go.

Oh God, I don't want to read but I got to read because if I don't read I'm going to go to hell.

And what was supposed to be this rich, beautiful relationship that caused you nothing but joy unspeakable has now become a burden on you every morning.

I was telling the Baptiste like, listen, this is like a marriage.

Like every day you have to choose to be loved, choose to love, every day going forward.

It's not just this one ceremony and it's over and you now go to heaven.

Wake up call today, Sunday.

Tomorrow's Monday, I prophesy. It will be.

You have to choose this thing every day but the problem is when you're stuck on the religious side,

you feel that if I do these things, he will like me.

What's the problem with that?

When you don't do them, you immediately think to yourself where he can't possibly like me now.

This is why you have to appropriate the love of God.

It's like the song said, I can't go by my feelings because when I don't have to rest on my feelings, I can rest on the truth of the matter.

The truth of the matter is I am loved.

I am incredibly loved.

He's madly in love with me.

Don't make no sense in the world but it's true.

But let's keep reading.

Now there was leaning on Jesus as one of his disciples whom Jesus loved.

Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask who it was of whom he spoke.

Then leaning back on Jesus's breast, he said to him, Lord, who is it?

Jesus answered, it is he to whom I shall give a piece of bread when I have dipped it.

And having dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.

So John was willing to accept that he was immaculately loved unconditionally and in that acceptance he received secret revelation.

Did you catch that?

So the religious one, the grandstanding one, chest out.

Anybody denies me? No, Jesus, I'll never be the one.

If you ever read the scripture, he was real.

Man, in the midst of all the other disciples, he goes, if all of them turn on you, I'll never do it.

And I love this period of Jesus' life because you see the divinity and his humanity working at the same time in great measure.

Because it's almost like, and maybe this is just the Muhammad paraphrase of the Bible when I read the Bible, it seems very cinematic to me.

Because he's like, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, Peter, Peter.

Wait, you're not going to be, wait, wait, Peter.

Wait, okay, so, all right, hold on, hold on.

Not only are you going to be shaving.

But before the Rooster Crow was brought, three times.

Oh, that was a good one, bro.

Like, Jesus is that blatant, like, are you kidding me?

All right, we'll just leave it there.

But here's another thing, too, because again, when you're in religion and not in relationship, you don't have access.

Because when Peter, the religious one who was trying to do things out of performance to be loved,

when he wanted the inside track to who was actually going to betray the Lord,

he didn't have the end to say, Jesus, who was it? What does he do?

Come on, man, just ask.

You know, you like you better, just come on.

You ever have a sibling and you know that you need something, and sometimes you got to go to the younger one.

Because you know you want that McDonald's.

Oh, nobody remembers being a kid with this.

Listen, my brother and my sister made it clear, you're the young one.

They're not going to say no to you, so you better ask for what I want.

I want Wendy's, I don't want McDonald's, you better ask for McDonald's.

Can we have McDonald's, please?

Please.

Okay, honey.

And this is what was happening.

He beckons him, he goes, you know, can you see the difference here?

The religious one reaches out to the one that's in relationship.

Both imperfect on both sides.

Wait, are we still talking about the election?

Imperfect on both sides, but he says, hey,

I know that you have a more direct approach.

I know that you have a closer position.

Even as you read what they were doing, they were having dinner,

and I know it looks a little weird because you think to yourself,

we're sitting at dinner and you leaning on somebody's head.

What's wrong with you, bro?

But you got to understand the positioning.

They weren't sitting at a table.

This is a middle eastern culture.

They actually dined reclining on the floor.

So it's just the type of situation where everybody's reclining on one elbow,

eating with one hand.

And it's like, I'm so comfortable.

Matter of fact, you know, Jesus, don't move, bro.

You are literally holding me up.

This is nice.

I like it.

That close.

But because of that relationship, he's not resting on religion.

He says, Jesus, who?

Who's going to do it?

And I love this.

The secret revelation comes.

Jesus is like, watch this.

It's the one.

I'm going to dip the thing in the thing,

and I'm going to give him the thing.

Just watch.

And John is like, oh!

He got the inside track.

He literally knew who it was that was going to betray Jesus.

What is the only difference between the two?

One of them appropriated the love of God and one of them didn't.

One of them was resting on their own ability not to harm the Lord.

But yet, John, in his imperfection, in his murderous zeal,

because you can't call anything other than that.

The one thing he had going is, I'm going to trust God and not myself.

And as he relied on God, God gave him...

I remember there was one day.

We were actually at our Manhattan location in Seventh Street.

This is years ago.

I wasn't preaching that.

I was just on a ministry team.

Somebody had preached and they called up the ministry team,

which, if you don't know, our ministry team,

they've been trained to release the presence and the power of God over you.

Notice, they're not called the prayer team.

We have a prayer team.

If you don't know about our prayer team,

reach out right on that connection card.

We have an active prayer team that prays before the services that literally prays midweek.

You can join that.

You can spend some time praying for our church,

praying for the kingdom of God, praying for this nation.

Amen?

But our ministry team is different from our prayer team.

The ministry team is meant to join their faith with yours

and minister the very anointing, the presence of God,

to release him into your life and over your situations

so that they would be breakthrough that you can't receive by yourself.

So this lady comes up and she says,

you know, pray for me.

So I then countered,

what would you have me minister to you for?

She said, just pray for me.

Just pray, bro.

Now I'm not going to lie.

In my flesh, I was like, go sit down.

I didn't say, I thought it.

I thought it.

But in my mind, I was just like, go sit down.

Because the whole point is that I would join my faith with yours

not just pulling stuff out of a hat

because if you're not believing with me, what are we doing?

But I said, you know what?

That's what I would do.

Jesus, what would you do?

So I relaxed.

I didn't follow my flesh.

I thought it, but I didn't follow it.

And I said, Lord, because in humility,

the beloved way decide that John was taking,

that way depends on God.

That way doesn't just go their own way in self-effort and self-reliance.

Humility does not mean meek and mild.

Humility means depending on God.

So I said, Lord, what do you have for this sister?

This is your daughter.

The Bible says that the thoughts that you have for her cannot be counted.

They are more than the sands of the seashore.

Give me some sand.

And then, this is the part where you might find it hilarious,

but because sometimes ministering feels very natural and not supernatural.

So you just wish that it was.

You wish that.

You just felt the power and just released it.

It wasn't that.

It felt super normal.

I'm like, Lord, give me some sand.

And I imagined some things.

And I say that intentionally with my image factory that is God-given,

I imagined some things about this woman, about her work life,

about lawsuits connected to her work life.

So now I'm just praying and coordinating that.

Now, here's the thing.

I don't feel no oil.

I don't feel.

I don't feel.

My knees weren't shaking.

The ground wasn't moving.

There was no trembling happening.

But I'm just praying, according to what I,

because I'm leaning on him, not me.

I could have went the self-reliance part and go,

well, I pray to 30 hours this week.

So let me just lay my hands.

Father, Father God, Heavenly Father,

Lily of the valleys, Jacob's ladder,

bread of life.

Touch.

And nothing would have happened,

because I'm just going through the AABB up, up, down.

Like, no, no, no.

It's not about just the names.

It's about, who are you really relying on for the power to be released?

Are you relying on your 30 hours of prayer?

Or are you relying on the one who can give one grain of sand?

So now I'm talking all this stuff that feels super weird,

because I don't know this woman from a hole in the wall.

And I do something I normally don't do when I pray for people.

I try to keep my eyes open,

because you don't know who got a demon.

And I am trying to get smacked.

So I let my guard down this one time.

Give me something, Jesus.

This is some sand and so on.

So I start praying.

I open my eyes to this.

Ah!

I said, is that registered with you?

I'm like, Lord,

she's like, you don't understand.

They've been trying to railroad me at work.

Now I know the Lord is the...

I've never seen this woman a day in my life before and nor after.

She came and stole the anointing and lusked her.

Don't be like the lady.

Stick around.

But it's just a funny thing that I relied on God

and then he gave the secret

in the same way that you can rely on God and receive the secret.

Amen?

Okay.

We're getting somewhere.

So next, we're at Jesus' trial now.

Let's go to John 18.

Then the detachment of troops

and the captain of the officers of the Jews

arrested Jesus and bound him

and they led him away to Amos first.

For he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas

who was high priest that year.

Now it was Caiaphas who advised the Jews

that it was expedient that one man

should die for the people.

And Simon Peter followed Jesus

and so did another disciple.

We talk about it.

We're talking about John.

Okay.

Now that disciple was known to the high priest

and went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest.

But Peter stood at the door outside.

Then the other disciple

who was known to the high priest

went out and spoke to her who kept the door

and brought Peter in.

When you move in the beloved way,

you literally open doors for other believers.

John got Peter inside.

The way of the beloved,

they're not concerned with competition.

This way understands that we all work

for the same boss

and individually are extremely blessed

by the rising up of somebody else.

Did you know that my role as a pastor

is to put myself out of a job?

I'm supposed to pour into you

along with the senior leadership of our church

that we all submit to.

Thank God for Pastor Bo.

Did we pray for him yet?

We didn't pray for Pastor Bo.

I forgot.

We love you Pastor Bo.

Feel better.

Father, blessing with divine health and strength,

even now.

By the way, we rebuke all sickness in the name of Jesus

where the viral or bacterial we commanded

to stop and go in Jesus' name.

Be made well.

All things are subject to the name of Jesus.

We command every cell in his body to be made well in Jesus' name.

And the church said,

Amen.

I got carried away.

I forgot.

Where was that?

Squirrel.

My role is to put myself out of a job as a pastor.

You were wrong, sir.

She was right.

So every job of every pastor

is to put themselves out of a job.

Meaning you're supposed to get the lost kids saved

and then the saved kids to grow in discipleships

such to the point that they are now discipling other people.

Amen.

So you know when you first get saved,

sometimes any little thing you go,

yeah, pray for me.

It is going down.

I don't know what it is.

Oh, y'all never been there?

Oh, I've been there.

But then you grow to the point when certain things happen

so, devil, come on, get off me.

In the name of Jesus,

you have no right to be in my home,

no my relationships, no my body.

In Jesus' name, go.

And you take the authority that has been given to you, amen?

It's wild.

You get to open doors for other people

and not compare yourself to somebody else.

This is a powerful thing because the religious side is constantly

comparing themselves to somebody else.

You know, just the last few weeks,

my daughter has taken up track.

Here's the thing.

My daughter is a sprinter.

She can go from here to there really fast.

She's my daughter so she's bigger than every other kid her age.

So she could just...

So being the parents that we are,

we challenged her.

We put her in cross country,

which is when you got a run for a long extended period.

So it was just hilarious because she would start sprang!

And then slow down.

And everybody would pass her.

And then we told her,

you're not racing them, you're racing you.

And when she got that through her mind, she got better.

She went to her first track meet.

Her time was like six minutes in change.

No, that's not good.

No, no, definitely wasn't.

But here's the key.

Her next track meet, her coaches were mystified.

She cut off a minute and a half of her time.

The next meet she came in at 433.

The coaches were like, is this the same person?

She just, she went to every practice.

She went to every meet.

The meet after that, she came in at instead of 433, 430.

Every day persevering and growing

because she got the message,

I'm not running against them, I'm running against me.

See, the religious way,

they think that they're running against other Christians.

I love it way, they're only living for an audience of one.

I'm not praying so that other people could see me praying.

Did you know that when you give and you do things

so that other people can see it, that that is your reward?

I'm sorry, but God pays better than that.

Because there are some people that,

Cassandra, I heard you had a need, praise God.

Here you go sister, yes, yes, yes.

Because I just wanted you to have that, praise God.

Whereas there's another type of Christian, I just...

Because the Bible says that you're not supposed to let your left hand know what your right one is doing.

So they're not competing, they're not looking for the rewards here.

Because listen, if that's all the rewards you get just to be seen,

that is weak. People see you already.

I want to get paid by God.

That's a word, not man.

We don't have to compete with other Christians.

We have to celebrate other Christians, encourage other...

Doesn't the Bible say to one another, each other,

more than 300 times in the Bible?

Hug one another, kiss one another, bear with one another,

love one another, encourage one, like all these different one another.

How could I do that if I'm now comparing myself to you, Mo?

I say Mo, because they call me Mo, but she's Mo,

so I got to deal with that tension.

I could feel the way about it, but I don't, obviously, right?

I don't feel no way about it.

Let's have these Pastor Mo, men's.

Registered trademark patent endings.

But we are meant to open doors for each other, amen?

Okay.

So now, let's go on to the crucifixion.

John 19, 25 says this.

Now, they're stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother and his mother's sister.

Mary, the wife of clopus, and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus, therefore, saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by,

he said to his mother, woman, behold your son.

Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother.

And from that hour, that disciple took her to his own home.

The secret of the beloved that John carried ultimately allowed him to be better

at serving the Savior in his time of need.

You want to know who wasn't there?

Peter.

Peter was struggling with religion at this time.

And you know what's the crazy thing about religion?

Religion, it involves self-reliance.

It involves you trying your hardest, your darnest to please God.

But the only problem with that is anything that you start in your own power

has to be maintained in your own power.

And your own power is insufficient.

So here you are in the hamster wheel of religion.

I got a church.

I got to read the word.

I got to pray.

I got to fast.

But I was tired.

And the minute you stop doing the things that you started

because you only started in your own strength to be seen by others in most cases.

And not because you loved God and treasured the privilege that you had.

Because you got to understand something.

I don't pray, read my Bible fast in a 10 church because it looks a certain way.

I do it because I can.

I get to.

It's a privilege.

It's not this thing where I need to do this in order to be loved.

I know that I'm loved.

I know that I'm accepted.

I know that I'm cared for.

Outside of my performance.

So now Peter, having come headlong with the fact that he was not measuring up,

he backslid.

He was no longer there for the Lord the way he promised that he would be.

When all these jokers turned their back on you,

I'm going to be the one standing there,

King Jesus with me at the side like Prince Peter, let's go.

Where was Peter at the cross?

Peter was tucked in a whole weeping.

But where was the beloved one?

You know the imperfect one with the murderous zeal?

The one that truly believed that God loved him despite him?

He was front and center.

Able because here's the thing that this bugles my mind.

Here you have Jesus, the Son of God, God in the flesh,

carrying the sins of the entirety of humanity,

past, present, and future on himself in this moment.

This is cosmically high brow.

And he steps out of that cosmic moment to handle some practical moments on earth.

Wow, if I go and when I go, not if, when I go,

my mom is going to be left in a patriarchal society

where at that point women are not really much more than furniture

and objects, possessions to be had,

and she'll have nobody.

So let me take care of that real quick.

Disciple.

Yeah, you the one who think you all loved and all that, all right.

This is now your mom.

Provide for her, protect her, keep her.

This is now your son.

And you know what his response was, yep.

I do it.

I'll make myself of use to Jesus.

How many people in here that would say yep when God calls you?

Yep.

Who want to pray for the sick of healing rooms?

Yep.

Who wants to attend life groups so that we can grow each other as a community?

Yep.

Who want to hit the streets and help abortion minded people

to change their mind that lives might be saved?

Yep.

Who want to join the prayer teams so that we can pray down the glory of heaven?

Yep.

But the thing that's in common with all of those yups

and all of those yeses is not the reliance that says,

I can do it, but God, if you're not with me,

I'm not going to be able to say yep.

Oh, he is preaching.

Cassandra, he is preaching.

Yeah.

Worship team, you can come on up.

So this is John and Peter after the resurrection.

This is John 21.

Most assuredly, I say to you,

when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished.

But when you were old, you will stretch out your hands

and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.

This he spoke signifying by what death Peter would glorify God.

And when he had spoken this, he said to him, follow me.

Then Peter turning around saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following.

Who also had leaned on his breast at the supper and sick as we come full circle.

And said, Lord, who is the one who betrays you?

Peter seeing him said, Jesus, but Lord, what about this man?

Jesus said to him, if I will, that he remained till I come,

what is that to you? Follow me.

There are beautifully beneficial moments where he will lead you by an unspoken calling,

more like a silent invitation born out of intimacy that results in his pleasure.

See, you have Peter on the right.

So the context for the scripture that we just read, Peter had to be reinstalled back into the faith.

After Jesus died, Peter completely backslides and says,

I'm going back to my old life because I don't know what to do.

I go efficient.

And the crazy part is because of the influence that he's still carried

because the gifts and the callings of God are without repentance.

His boys are like, oh, you going efficient?

You going back to that old life where we come into?

Even the beloved way member.

Backslidden.

Fishing.

He backslides.

So after he's done backsliding, Jesus has to pull him to the side and reinstate him

and tell him what really is.

Because before, he said, you know what?

I'm the one who really loves you.

I love you here.

And really, Jesus had to put him in his place so that he might recognize

this is not about religion. This is not about what you can do for me.

This is about what I can do for you.

You guys got a second?

Yeah.

First service didn't get this, but I'm a blush out with this.

Did you know that in English, we use the same word love for ice cream,

baseball, and our mom.

English is a little poor in that regard, but the language that this was written in the Greek,

there are four different ways to say the word love.

You have filet, which is like a friendship love.

That's my boy. That's my people.

Then you have arrows, which is a romantic love between a husband and a wife.

Then you have a storage, which is more of like a familial love between a mother and a son.

So you've got all these different loves and it's funny because when he restores him,

Jesus asks him, Peter or Simon, son of Jonah,

do you agape me, the zenith level of love, the sacrificial level of love?

Do you have the top brow love for me?

Like you said, you had it before.

Before you let me down and betrayed me.

Do you have it here?

Peter was like, no, sir.

I flail you.

I got a friendship love.

It definitely ain't here.

It's somewhere right here.

You never realize the context until you actually look at the language,

because the Bible says that Peter was grieved when he asked him the third time,

because really, it was like, Peter, do you love me here?

It was like, no, Lord, you know.

I only love you here.

But Peter, do you love me here?

He was like, no, Lord, I'm not relying on myself anymore.

I know that the reality of the situation is I don't love you the way that you love me.

I love you here.

And he reinstates and feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed the flock.

So now, Jesus reinstates Peter.

And he prophesies to him about his life and his death.

How it will glorify God.

And Peter's still a little bit shaky, because he's just coming out of religion,

so he's still looking around.

Because John doesn't even get all of that.

John gets up understanding his calling without being called.

You know, as a pastor, the number one thing that people come to you

and want to talk about is, what do I do with myself?

What do I do with my life?

My purpose.

What is my calling?

When you're not relying on yourself and yourself efforts, that comes easy.

I think I'm so grateful that I can say this with just great certitude.

I know what my purpose on earth is.

And I've known for many years, but it didn't come out of me trying a whole bunch of things in my own effort.

It came from me going, God, I don't even deserve to be in the building.

Whatever you want to do, let's go.

And in that, God opened up the revelation of who I was meant to be.

That's for some of you today, because John got up and started following.

And Peter was like, you didn't even tell him nothing.

What about him?

Tell him something nice.

He'd been following you this whole time.

And Jesus just being cheeky was like, brah, brah.

Little interesting tidbit.

He tells him, if I want him to stay back until I come, what does that mean to you?

Again, it's not about somebody else's race.

It's about you living with an audience of one, depending on that one audience for your pleasure.

Listen, do not live by the approval of other people because you will die by their rejection.

Live only for the approval of Jesus.

And here's the beautiful part.

You already have it in Jesus.

The blood that God spilled on the cross, it ratifies you.

It sanctifies you.

It separates you.

It makes you his.

You don't have to trust on your own ability to fast and pray and read the Scriptures.

I want every one of you to be masters at doing that.

I want you to enjoy reading the Word of God because his will is in his Word and you'll find direction as you read the Scriptures.

The Holy Spirit will lead you.

I love when you fast and bring the flesh low so that you can better articulate the will of God as he's speaking.

I love when you're here.

I wish there was an attendance carpet.

There's not because we don't believe in that.

Somebody came in and was like, yeah, you know, I've been here every day.

I'm like, when did you get that from?

We don't even have attendance cards.

I want you to do all those things, but I don't want you to do them so that God can love you more.

I want you to do them because you know that you get to do them because God loves you already.

So don't pick the self-reliant way, pick the beloved way.

You are accepted in the beloved.

The Scripture says,

indulge me.

Everybody, if you would be willing, close your eyes and repeat after me.

Heavenly Father, I renounce every form of self-reliance.

I don't trust myself.

I trust you.

Wash me.

Clean me.

Heal me.

Forgive me.

Make me to know that I'm yours.

Make me to grow.

To bear fruit.

To have a real relationship with you.

In Jesus' name.

Oh, hallelujah!

Hallelujah!

Now, we're going to sing a song before we get out of here.

But before we do, I want us to take communion together and you can administer the...

You might say, well, we're taking communion, what does that have to do with this message?

It has everything to do with this message.

You know, the Bible says that when you take communion, you do proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.

Proclaiming the Lord's death, what's that?

Well, what you're doing is you're shouting and announcing everything that His cross did for you.

Everything that you could not do for yourself.

You could not find eternal life by yourself.

You could not have supernatural healing by yourself.

You could not receive supernatural provision and finances by yourself.

You could not receive wholeness, enjoy, and stability of emotional sound mind by yourself.

You only gain these things through the cross when He died for you and as you.

So that divine exchange could take place where now you're receiving the righteousness of God.

You've become literally the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

And He took on your sin.

He took on your death. He took on everything that you deserved.

He was punished for you and now you get to take His perfect record and just live in peace and enjoy.

So when you eat today, think about anything in your life that is not lining up and proclaim His death until it does.

Stop relying on yourself and start relying on Jesus.

When you receive these elements, we're going to eat in faith.

And you got to love our volunteers. They thought I was so holy, I didn't need communion.

But the devil is a liar.

I'm relying on Jesus the same way you are.

Hold your elements and let us pray.

Father, thank you for the blood of Jesus, thank you for the sacrifice, thank you for the cross.

Everything that we have, we've received it through the cross, through the love of God that you've shown us in Christ.

Anything that is not lining up in our life, whether it be lack of finances, lack of stability, lack of health in our emotions,

even the need for physical healing in our body, Lord.

As we eat, we eat and drink to our salvation.

We eat and drink proclaiming the Lord's death till He come for us.

So have your way, great God, in Jesus' name. Amen.

This is the City Light Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message,

or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jansik in City Light Church,

visit us at citylightnyc.com. That's citylightnyc.com.

Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. We would love to connect with you.

We pray that you have been encouraged today, that you have been reminded how much God loves you,

and that you are surrounded by grace.

Thank you for listening.

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