Shame Game with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

MetaCurch, it's so good to see you.

Thank you for joining us for our online streaming.

If you're new with us, my name is Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And if you're a part of this movement, make sure you are sharing this content online.

I think today's message could be helpful to a lot of people.

We're going to jump right into the Christian scriptures.

Uh the book of Luke, chapter 5, says, When he had finished speaking, that's Jesus, he said to Simon, Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

Master, Simon replied, We've worked hard all night, and we have caught nothing.

But if you say so, I'll let down the nets.

And when they did this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets began to tear.

And so they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.

And they came and they filled both boats so full of fish that they both began to sink.

And when Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and he said, Go away from me, because I am a sinful man.

Would you pray with me?

God, we uh we love you and we thank you.

We thank you for this time.

We thank you that you provide, we thank you that you are something outside of us where in times as uncertain as this, we can look to something that brings hope, someone who is already in our future fighting battles on our behalf.

We're living in difficult times, and what we want to do, God, is we want to be used by you to bring light and hope and love and peace.

We don't always know how to do that, and so we look to you.

And today, as we talk about shame, as we talk about self, God, I ask that you would show us something new and you would help us to walk out of this message closer to your purpose that you created us with.

We love you.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

What we just read is at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry.

He's starting this three-year tour all around the Jewish world, and he's gonna be preaching and teaching and healing and doing miracles, but first he was gonna call some disciples to himself.

He would eventually end up with 12 of these disciples.

And we're about to come to the call of one of the disciples that is called Simon in this story, but you probably know him as Peter.

And so when you hear Simon today, you need to hear Peter, because along the way, Jesus ends up changing his name from Simon to Peter.

Now I love Peter.

Peter is a great comfort to guys like me, and maybe you feel the same way, because when you look through the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, these books in our Christian scriptures, um, Peter is often portrayed as kind of an idiot.

Uh, he almost always gets it wrong.

He's clearly unqualified in every single sense of the world, word.

He always puts his foot in his mouth, he always jumps ahead of Jesus, and today's stories will be no different.

As someone who also oftentimes can feel quite like an idiot, it is really comforting to see that God has a plan for Peter anyway.

Peter is about to step into a journey with Jesus to become one of the most significant figures in all of human history and certainly in church history.

And so today we're gonna look at a few examples from Peter's life.

I really had to cut down this sermon over and over because Peter gives us so many good examples of what we're gonna look at today.

Peter is gonna show us this very real personal psychological truth, something that is so prevalent and so obvious in our world that it might be hiding right in plain sight.

Today I want to talk about the shame-self spectrum.

The shame-self-spectrum.

Now, a spectrum is used to classify something by using a scale between two extreme points.

Today, our extreme points are shame and self, and so if we're gonna dig in, let's talk a little bit about each of them.

Shame is not a feeling like you've done something bad.

That's a that's a common misconception.

The feeling like you've done something bad, you have a bad habit, a bad behavior, uh you're in a bad relationship, you're making bad choices.

That is guilt, or in a positive sense, it is conviction.

Shame is not the idea that you've done something bad.

Shame is the idea that you yourself, at your very core, at your very being, that you are obviously bad.

What it does is it negates all of your behaviors because the behaviors become kind of unnecessary.

Of course, your behaviors are obviously bad when you yourself are obviously bad.

Your bad habits, your bad relationships, your bad choices and decisions, they're an outflow, not of what you do, but of who you are.

You're living in shame.

Shame holds us back from our purpose because we all have worst ways.

We all have hangups, we all have habits, we all have these things that keep us back from the fullness of the life that God has called us to live.

And when we have given into shame, we have no chance of working on the things that are in the way of our purpose because we see we have no control.

We are bad, so what I do will be bad.

On the other side of the spectrum is self, and self is the fullness of your ego, and so sometimes that looks like arrogance, sometimes it looks like someone who is outwardly very cocky, and sometimes it is way more subtle.

Self is always selfish.

And while shame says, I am obviously bad, self says I am obviously good.

When I'm obviously bad, everything that I do is an outpouring of my badness, so it's gonna be bad too.

When I am obviously good, everything I do is good.

Whatever choice I make, no matter how it affects anyone else, whatever desire I have, whatever path I'm on, it is good by nature, because I am good by nature.

Both of these are extremes.

And both of them hold us back from the life of purpose that we've been called to.

If you are bad and everything you do is naturally going to be bad because you're bad, then the path to purpose will always be hidden from you.

You will always live in self-deprecation.

You'll have no sense of your worth or your value as a child of God and a part of his movement.

If you're living in self and everything that you do is obviously good, then you will have traded true purpose for prideful self-glorification.

It is no longer about a purpose outside of yourself.

You, your own happiness, your own pride has become your purpose, and pride is a poor replacement for a God-given purpose.

Both of these are extremes: shame and self, and both of them are wrong.

And we see many examples of them in the life of Peter.

If we go back to the text that we were just in, let me set a little context for you.

Jesus had shown up and he was preaching right on the edge of a lake, and everywhere Jesus went, crowds would form, and pretty soon the crowd had grown so massive that they had pressed him right to the edge of the lake.

Jesus needed more room.

He needed to elevate himself.

For the people in the back to hear him and see him, and for him to not be surrounded and overwhelmed, he had an idea.

There were some fishermen.

They'd been out all night, and luckily for Jesus, they hadn't caught a thing.

There were no fish to haul out, no fish to clean, there was just empty boats.

Jesus thought, I'll get on a boat, I'll push out a little way from shore, and now I'll be elevated.

It actually worked as a stage form, and his voice would carry over the water so everyone in the crowd would be able to hear him.

He saw Peter, Peter at a boat.

He lent it to Jesus.

And after he had finished, we pick up in verse 4, when he had finished speaking, Jesus said to Simon, Peter, put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.

Master, Simon replied, We've worked hard all night long, and we have not caught a thing.

And we look at this and we think, Why would Jesus argue with Peter?

Like, what is this guy thinking?

And see, we have this thing we do when we come to scripture, which is we have retrospect.

We're standing after 2,000 years.

We already know that Jesus dies and he comes back to life and he ascends back to heaven and he starts his church, and his church spreads all over the world, and here we are in San Antonio 2,000 years later, and we're still talking about this Jesus guy.

Peter doesn't know any of that.

Peter doesn't know that the lake thereon, the water was created by the word of God, who is Jesus, the author of creation.

He doesn't understand that the fish and nature itself will move at the command of Jesus.

He doesn't realize who is in his boat yet, and so Peter is arguing with Jesus.

And where does he move?

He moves into self.

Jesus is trying to do something nice for Peter.

He's like, bro, you let me borrow the boat.

We'll go out, I'll help you catch some fish.

Even Stephen, I don't know.

Peter is an expert.

I find that we rarely argue when God calls us to something we know nothing about, when it's something outside of our knowledge, outside of our experience, that oftentimes it's easy to trust God, to follow him in.

What's really challenging is when God questions us on our expertise, when God calls us out of something that we know a lot about.

And maybe you find it ridiculous that Peter would argue with Jesus, but we do it all the time.

We rationalize ourselves out of decisions that God is calling us to make.

We move into fear when he's calling us to faith.

Peter has been on a boat since he was a child.

The way the Jewish education system worked is all the kids went to school up to a certain age.

And then they took the top of the class, and only the top of the class got to keep going.

And the top of the class was brought into the temple, and they began to learn, and maybe they would even have a job someday inside of the temple, and it was a really piece of status, and everyone else that would go into an apprenticeship, and usually they would take on the family business.

And what that means is that Peter is uneducated as opposed to a lot of the other people, but but so is Jesus.

Interestingly enough, Jesus didn't go and extend into school, he became an apprentice as a carpenter.

His his stepdad, Joseph, is a carpenter, and he brings him the trade.

And so now here's Peter, the fisherman, who's been fishing his whole life, who knows that lake like the back of his hand, who's been out there all night, and the carpenter's gonna tell him how to fish.

He's like, bro, listen, you swing hammers, I'll cast nets, we'll both be good.

You do your thing, I'll do my thing.

We just tried this lake, it's fine, we'll come back tomorrow.

We can so quickly move to self.

I've got this.

You don't understand.

Arguing with Jesus.

He relents.

He says, if you say so, if you say so, now I'm just I'm throwing this into the text.

This isn't here.

Um, but if I'm Peter, I'm gonna throw the nets so I can throw it in his face.

When I pull up an empty net, I'm gonna get to just really subtly be like, maybe you should stick to carpentry, maybe you should build some stairs, bro.

Like, I'm just gonna throw the net just because you're on my nerves at this point.

Like, you think you can tell me, you think you can tell me how to catch.

And he throws the nets.

If you say so, I'll let down the nets.

You're gonna learn.

You're gonna learn.

I'll throw the nets.

In verse 6, when they did this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets began to tear.

And so they signaled to the other boat to come and help.

And they came, and there were so many fish that the nets were ripping, and both boats were so full that they barely made it back to shore.

And at this point, we expect a celebration.

This dude just hit the lottery.

Everyone's getting paid tonight.

We can take off for a few weeks.

This is more fish than we know what to do with.

Let's go to the market, let's make that money.

Jesus, he got us.

That's a good guy.

That's a good guy.

Let's celebrate.

Drinks on me.

You would expect a celebration.

But it's interesting how the shame self-spectrum often works.

A celebration is not what we get in.

Verse 8.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and he said, Go away from me.

And you gotta listen for it.

Because I am a sinful man.

And it swings from self.

He didn't say, I've done a sinful thing.

You have to remember, shame is not the idea that you've done something bad.

It's not the idea that you've made a bad decision.

It's not that you just messed up.

Shame says, I am a sinful man.

It's me.

And in an instant, Peter goes from I am obviously good, I know what I'm doing here, I'm the expert.

And swings all the way to I am bad.

Depart from me, Lord.

I'm sinful.

I don't even deserve to be in your presence.

And what this demonstrates for us is the primary way that this shame-self spectrum works.

It has a tendency to, when pushed too far into one of the extremes, when pushed too far into self or too far into shame, to have a necessary correction.

It almost operates as if it's on a pendulum.

And when it goes too far to one extreme, it by nature must begin to correct.

However, what we see at work is a law of over-correction.

We push ourself, we push our ego, we push our pride, we push our expertise, we push ourself so far to the limit that when it swings, we can't land in a healthy middle.

When it swings, it swings all the way.

We move from self to shame.

And when we push too far into shame, eventually it corrects and the pendulum swings.

And it rarely stops at a healthy middle.

It continues to go and to over-correct all the way into self.

This over-correction creates havoc in our lives.

And it's not an exact science.

Some people can live fully in their self, fully in their ego for decades before the bottom falls out.

And for some, it can happen in an instant.

Some people can live in full self-deprecation, no self-worth, no value.

I'm obviously bad, therefore everything I do is obviously bad.

They can get pushed so far this way for years and years, and for others, it can be a month.

The one thing that stands true and stands the test of time is that on the shame self-spectrum, the pendulum at some point always, always swings.

We see this over correction in many areas of our life.

We can see it culturally in the last five years with the term shame.

Shame became a big buzzword, and we began to attach it to all kinds of aspects of life.

We would talk about body shaming, mom shaming, slut shaming, wealth shaming, poverty shaming, religious shaming, career shaming, political shaming, of course, Dallas Cowboy fan shaming.

Hard to be a Dallas Cowboy fan.

We probably deserve it, to be completely honest.

I'm ready for the swing.

I'm ready.

Can we win something?

It always swings, and we've seen this.

Because for years we were in a society that was driven by high moral grounds.

And these high moral grounds caused people who felt like they had the moral high ground to stand in their self, to stand in their own self-righteousness, and to shame everyone who did not match up.

And shame is a powerful tool.

It's one of the most powerful levers for control and for manipulation.

And all of us have known uh people who are in relationships or even just hooking up with people who are losers.

And God didn't make losers, but some people are bad actors, some people have bad intentions.

And since the beginning of time, gross, sleazy men have been convincing women to sleep with them through the use of shame.

And little by little they attack their self-worth and they attack their value.

And if they can get them away from I do bad things to I am bad, if I am bad, I do bad things.

Shame is powerful.

And we pushed it as a society so far for so long that the correction came.

Society said, No more shame.

No more shame.

That's a radical idea.

It's an idea that we are finding out has radical consequences.

Because when the pendulum swings, it rarely lands in the middle, it normally goes into an over-correction.

And now we're at a point in our society where the things that we used to shame, we now glorify.

Like in their life, they are wired in a way where they cannot experience shame.

Those are called psychopaths.

Those are serial killers.

Those are arsonists, those are people who do things without any kind of middle moral compass.

And so let's talk about some examples on this spectrum.

You know, a group that I've always felt bad for are moms.

And it's like moms can never know where they stand, and no matter what they do, they can't really win.

And if you go back many decades, what you'll find is that there was this idea that if a woman did not stay in the home, raise the kids, and cook the meals, then she was inherently selfish.

And so career women were shamed.

You are bad.

Put your career ahead of your kids, ahead of your husband, ahead of your God-given duty to be in the kitchen with your shoes off.

Like this was shame.

And eventually you push shame too far and it swings.

It doesn't land in the middle, it goes all the way to the side.

And so you move forward a couple decades, and all of a sudden, it's not the career women who are being shamed, but there's a segment of society who are shaming moms who stay home.

You don't care about women's rights and women's power.

You don't care about yourself, you don't care about helping out in the economy.

And it's like you can't win.

You go from one extreme to another and back again.

And both of these are distractions.

Both of these keep you from asking the question as a parent, as a mother, as a dad, as a father, what is my purpose?

We see this in other areas of life.

For years and years and years, we put supermodels on the front of every one of our magazines.

Every one of them.

And we set this idea that for men and women, but let's be completely honest, mostly women, if you do not fit the exact perfect body type, then you are obviously bad.

You're not good enough.

If you are not six foot two with 0% body fat, if you're not walking the runways, then you don't measure up.

You are bad.

And so we have all kinds of body image issues, and people who feel worthless and valueless and they can never measure up, and they have all kinds of anxiety about what they look like and what they wear and how they live.

And we pushed it and we pushed it and we pushed it, and we're seeing it right now.

Begin to correct.

And it needs to correct.

What a gross idea! How many, how many women and men, how many people have grown up feeling bad about themselves?

I am bad because I don't look like the covers of the magazine when I'm checking out.

That is gross.

But it corrects.

And it could land right here in the area of body positivity.

There are bad habits and there are good habits.

There are bad things I can do and there are good things I can do.

I can live healthy, I can eat healthy, I can fuel my body, I can work to a level of fitness that whatever God calls me in my purpose, I am ready to do.

But it doesn't correct, it overcorrects, and we go all the way over into self.

And now we're moving into a time where we've corrected from this, but we've created a new problem where we treat as healthy things that are factually unhealthy.

And you see how we end up living ludicrous lives, swinging back and forth, never settling in a middle where we could actually move towards our purpose.

We see this in the church.

When people meet Jesus, nine times out of ten, they are living in their shame.

The bottom has fallen out, and they realize it.

The divorce papers came in, their children quit talking to them, the addiction came over, they got put in jail, something happened.

And they realize I'm kind of bad.

And it's Jesus who finds them, it's Jesus who saves them, and Jesus who pulls them out of their shame and puts them on the path to their purpose.

But so often people who come out of the most extreme shame overcorrect to the most extreme self, and we find self-righteous Christians, and nobody can judge your sin like someone who used to be living smack dab in the middle of it.

And we have churches who needed grace and needed a culture that would accept them as broken, screwed-up people.

And they come out of it and they swing over and they create cultures that are so judgmental and so self righteous that it wouldn't have even reached them when they found Jesus.

And so we swing and we swing and we swing.

And forever and ever, if you were promiscuous, you had to re wear the swing.

Scarlet letter, you were looked down on, you were ostracized, you were one of those people.

Shame, shame, shame, and it swings.

And now the problem used to be that men were objectifying the sexualization of women, and now we have driven so far to the side that we now glorify women sexualizing themselves.

We live in this constant back and forth to the most extreme positions, both of which forfeit our chance for the future that God called us to.

And we see this pendulum swing over and over throughout Peter's life.

And Peter is normally moving in this direction.

He's normally walking into self because he's a bit of an idiot at the beginning.

And then pretty soon he ends up in shame.

And Jesus says, Who am I?

Who do you guys think I am?

And Peter's like, Oh, should I say something?

Should I say something?

Here's I'll I'll take a stab at it.

You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

And Jesus is like, You did not come up with that on your own?

That had to come from God, star student A plus.

Peter's like, I'm the man.

I've got it now.

I mean, Jesus is listening to me.

Like five verses later, Jesus goes, here's what that means.

I'm gonna have to go to Jerusalem, I'm gonna die on a cross.

And Peter goes all the way into self.

Not on my watch, Jesus.

You're not doing that on my watch, Jesus.

And Jesus says, Peter, get behind me, Satan.

And the pendulum swings.

And one time Jesus is walking on the water in the middle of a storm, and all of the disciples are in the boat.

And I'll give it to Peter.

He's the one guy that has the faith to go, if it's you, Jesus, call me out there.

I'll walk on the water too.

And Jesus says, Come on.

And Peter gets out of the boat, and Peter is walking on water.

He is one of two human beings who has ever broken the laws of physics to actually be able to stand on the storm.

But pretty soon his eyes leave Jesus and he begins to rely on himself.

Instantly, he's under the water.

Jesus has to pull him up, rebuke him.

O ye of little faith.

Over and over in Peter's life, he's so radical, he's so out there that we can see the pendulum back and forth and back and forth.

And the most heartbreaking one is right at the end of Jesus' life.

Pastor Ryan preached on this last week, and I want to see it again today.

It's important enough to look at again today through the lens of the shame self-spectrum.

Jesus was having dinner with his disciples.

He knew he'd be arrested that night, that he would be tried illegally, that the next day he would be hung on a cross to die.

And he's worried for Peter.

And he lets him know Satan's coming for you.

The enemy's going to attack you.

And if you are not careful, you will be sifted like wheat.

If you don't stay here in the middle and focus on your purpose, you will give in.

And so Peter's response should have been help me, Lord.

Hold me, Lord, help me, show me, keep me here, keep me focused, keep me in my purpose.

But you know, Peter.

Peter walks right over to self.

In Luke 22, 33, Lord, Peter tells him, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death.

They're getting you a cross, they better put up a second one.

They better reserve it.

Put my name on it.

Peter, I'm coming with you.

There is nothing in this entire universe that could separate you, me from you.

You don't remember Jesus?

Remember, Jesus, remember when you got on the water and all these other idiots stayed in the boat?

I was the one that had the faith.

And you were like, who am I?

And I like knew the answer.

You remember that?

Like, I'm the one where we caught all the fish?

You remember that's me.

I'm not leaving.

It's Peter, bro.

I'm staying with you.

Peter is self-confident.

And Jesus didn't ask him to be confident in himself, he asked him to be confident in his faith.

And just like Jesus said, he's arrested.

And when he's arrested, all the disciples run.

And I'll give it to Peter because everyone ran far, but Peter kind of stayed at a distance.

He's like, I mean, I'm still with him, you know.

I'm just, you know, I'm gonna say distance.

Pretty soon one person comes up.

And they start saying, You were you were with Jesus, right?

You you were with him?

No, no, no, no, you you got the wrong guy.

You got the wrong guy.

And a second guy comes up.

Hey, you were you were one of the disciples, right?

That's that was you.

I know I remember.

I remember faces, bro.

That was you.

No, no, it wasn't me.

See, Peter says, I'll go to the cross, I'll go to death, I'll do whatever.

In the next verse 34, I tell you, Peter, Jesus said, the rooster will not crow today until you deny me three times.

A woman comes, a man comes, he's denied him twice.

It doesn't even sink in.

He's so far in self that he is now self-protection, protecting because when you live in self, you are good.

And if you are the one that is good, you protect yourself at all costs.

Finally, verse 59, about an hour later, another kept insisting.

This man was certainly with him, since he's also a Galilean.

Dude, you said that you weren't with him.

You told that chick, you told him, You're from Galilee.

You don't even live here, you're obviously with him.

Peter said, Man, I don't know what you're talking about.

And immediately, while he was still speaking, while he was still in the middle of denying his savior, a rooster crowed.

And the Lord turned and he looked at Peter.

And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he said to him, Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.

And Peter was stuck in self.

And you push it too far, it has to overcorrect.

And 62, he went outside and he wept bitterly.

I'm Peter.

Jesus, don't you know?

I'm Peter.

I'm not going anywhere.

I've got this.

They try to put you on a cross, I'll pull you off.

I've got this.

And the pendulum swings.

And Peter is stuck again in his shame.

And the pendulum works both ways.

Because when Peter was done weeping, he had to figure out what to do next, and he'd walked with Jesus for three years and he had this incredible purpose in front of him.

And the purpose is found in the middle.

Peter didn't walk back to purpose, he swung back to self.

And when Jesus met him, he was a fisherman.

That's what he knows how to do.

That's how Peter can take care of Peter.

And what does Peter do after Jesus dies?

He goes back to fishing.

Shame.

Self, self, shame.

Back and forth it swings.

It's the way the world works, it's the way we tend to operate as people.

That's the bad news, is that it's a very hard thing to conquer or to overcome.

But I have good news.

The good news is that we didn't finish either of these stories.

There is an answer to pull us off of the extremes and into the middle where our purpose is actually found.

To understand them, we've got to finish out our stories.

We've got to go back to when Peter met Jesus, before he walked on water, before he called him the Son of God, before he denied him.

This is the moment that Peter is called as a disciple.

Both boats were still full of fish.

There was money to be made.

In verse 8, when Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, Go away from me, I am sinful.

Shame.

For he and all those who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish they had taken.

And so were James and John, Zebedee's sons, who were Simon's partners.

Do not be afraid.

Jesus told Peter.

And what is at the deepest core of our shame?

I want to suggest that it is fear that keeps us locked in cycles of shame, over and over, repeating themselves.

We devalue ourselves, or the world does it for us.

We have no worth.

If we have no worth, we have no significance.

If we have no significance, it doesn't really matter why we're here on earth.

If it doesn't matter why we're here on earth, we have no purpose.

And so often, people who are living in shame, the only thing that would be worth worse than continuing that path is the fear of what would happen if they actually believed that their lives matter.

Peter's in shame.

And Jesus begins to call him out of it.

Do not be afraid.

He says, From now on, you will not be a fisherman.

You will be a fisher of men.

And what is at the root of our self?

At the deepest core, it is our pride.

We live to glorify ourselves.

We live to prop ourself up.

We live to make our own name famous.

And when we live in pride, we are desperately seeking to fill a gap in our souls that can only be filled by purpose.

Do you see what Jesus is doing?

Do not be afraid.

You do not have to live in shame.

You don't have to be afraid that you, at the core of who you are, are actually broken, that you're actually bad.

What you do is bad because you're a sinful, broken person.

But do not be afraid.

Jesus is calling.

You don't have to live for self.

You don't have to live in your pride.

He's calling Peter to replace his pride with real purpose.

You just had the catch of a lifetime.

Leave it.

Leave it behind.

Drop your nets.

Follow me.

Whatever you're holding, whatever you're holding that is to prop up self, drop it.

Follow true purpose.

Then they brought the boats to land in verse 11.

They left everything and they followed him.

And they followed him into the story that has shaped all of history from that point forward.

They followed him through trials, tribulations, miracles, teaching, unbelievable events that are still being talked about 2,000 years later.

They followed him all the way up to the night of the cross.

And finally, Peter would have the opportunity to see just how much faith he had.

And yet, Peter denies Jesus.

And the fisher of men goes back to being a fisherman.

In John chapter 21, verse 4, it says, When daybreak came, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not know it was Jesus.

John 21:4

And it's still a hard concept for them to be seeing Jesus because they saw Jesus get killed.

Jesus has risen from the dead, he has shown himself to the disciples.

Peter knows he's alive, but Peter is still fishing.

Peter is still caught between the shame of denying him and the self of giving up his purpose.

He knows Jesus is alive, he just doesn't know if Jesus still wants Peter.

Friends, Jesus called to them, You don't have any fish, do you?

No, they answered.

Well, cast the net on the right side of the boat, he told them, and you'll find some.

And so they did.

And they were unable to haul it in because of the large number of fish.

And the disciple, the one Jesus loved, said to Peter, It has to be Jesus.

We've seen this before.

Remember when a random Nazarene carpenter was trying to tell us how to fish?

The last time we saw this many fish, it was Jesus.

It must be the Lord.

And when Simon Peter heard that it was Jesus, he tied his outer clothing around him and plunged into the sea.

And Peter is so eager to find out where he stands with Jesus that he cannot even wait for the boat to get to shore.

Peter dives in and swims to Jesus.

And since they were not far off, about a hundred yards away, the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, and when they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there with fish lying on it and bread.

And the last time that Jesus had sat and broken bread with Jesus, Jesus told him, You will deny me.

A relationship had to be severed, and it had to be severed forever.

What Peter had done to Jesus was unforgivable.

And yet, in the Jewish culture of that time, to break bread was a sign of relationship.

Why would Jesus cook breakfast for Peter?

He had denied Jesus.

He had no way of knowing where he stood with him.

That fear leads us to shame.

And Jesus lays out a banquet.

He's beginning to pull Peter out of his shame.

In verse 15, when they had eaten the breakfast, Jesus asked Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

Yes, Lord, Peter said.

You know that I love you.

Feed my lambs, Jesus told him.

A second time he asked him, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Yes, Lord, he said to him, You know that I love you, shepherd, my sheep, Jesus told him.

And finally, he asked a third time, Simon, do you love me?

And Peter was grieved that he asked a third time.

Did he not believe him the first two?

Is this the end?

Is he trying to get Peter to admit, Of course I don't love you?

If I loved you, I wouldn't have denied you.

Is Jesus stuck fishing for life?

Or is there still hope?

Peter was grieved.

Lord, you know everything.

You know that I love you.

And Jesus said, Feed my sheep.

What is Jesus doing?

He breaks bread with them, he's pulling them out of fear, he's pulling them out of shame.

Jesus is the one thing that removes all fear from our life, even the fear of death itself.

He is the one thing, the one constant in this universe that can truly lead us out of our shame and back on the path to our purpose.

But Peter still has a lot of self.

He always has.

He defaults to it.

It's rooted in pride.

And it is purpose that leads us from pride.

Jesus says, You still have a job to do.

Shepherd my sheep.

And Peter goes on to be the leader of the church, to be one of the apostles that starts the movement of Jesus that we're still a part of today.

You see Peter after this moment, and he no longer strikes you as an idiot.

He's competent, he's powerful, he has an authority that can only come from realizing just how much Jesus loved him.

Do not be afraid.

Sit with me, eat with me.

No fear, no shame, feed my sheep, no pride, no self.

How do we live between shame and self?

How do we keep from overcorrecting and just continuing to swing the pendulum from side to side, living in these extremes far from our purpose?

In between shame and self is where we find significance.

The life that you were actually created to live.

It does not exist by living in a way where you are obviously bad, and it doesn't live, exist by living in a way where you are obviously good, it's found in the middle.

Shame says, I'm obviously bad, who cares what I do or when I do it, because whatever I do will end up bad because I am bad.

And self says, I am good, and what I do and what I think and anything that I want is good because I am good.

Significance is found when we see that whether we are bad or whether we are good, whether you are living with an idea that you should be steeped in your shame, or whether you are living with the idea that this world is about you, however you see yourself, whatever path you're currently on, whether everything is good or everything is bad, Jesus is better.

Jesus is the one person who can call us out of our shame because he paid the price of all the bad we would ever do.

He defeated death, he removed fear from the equation.

Jesus is the only one because he created us who can give us our created purpose, a purpose that is grander and greater and more immense and more fulfilling and more meaningful and has impact and changes things.

A true purpose to replace our natural pride.

It is in Jesus that fears eliminated.

It's in Jesus that purpose exists.

We're not to live as if we're nothing but bad or nothing but good.

To be honest, we exist somewhere in between.

We're not all good.

We're broken and we're sinful, but we're not all bad.

We're made in the image of God.

We are meant to live here in the messy middle where we wrestle with both sides.

We do not glorify as healthy things that are unhealthy, and we do not assume that everything we do is unhealthy because we're unhealthy.

We live in the middle where it is Jesus who sets the standard, not the world around us, not our neighbors, not our coworkers, not the media.

It is Jesus who calls us.

It is Jesus who leads us.

It is his movement, and his movement is found here in the middle.

No fear, no pride, purpose that leads to the significant life you were meant to live.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you.

And I know, God, I know with as many people as listen to this that there are many who are living in shame.

And God, I pray that they would quit seeing themselves in light of how the world projects them to be, but they would see themselves in light of who you have called them to be.

That they are not destined to just be bad, that they have worth, they have value, and it was displayed without question by Jesus dying to save their lives.

God, I pray for those who are living in self, who are living for their own glory, for their own good, for their own well-being.

God, anyone who is living there right now, I can speak with confidence there is something that is still missing.

That they can get all the money and all the status and all of the fame, they can stack all of it up, and I promise there is still something missing because pride is a poor replacement for our purpose.

I pray that they would see their life in light of who you have called them to be.

The hands and feet of Jesus.

That we were not meant to glorify ourselves, but to glorify you by loving the people around us.

Let us not let the extremes keep us from the life you've called us to.

Let us get off of the pendulum, quit swinging back and forth, living these radical, crazy lives.

God, but we would find you and live a radically faithful life.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for sticking in here with me today.

We're so glad that you joined us.

As always, you can continue to share these messages.

Tag people in here if you think it would be helpful.

Listen, we're continuing to find ways to not just stream together, but to serve together.

If you want to find out about that, make sure you're following us on Facebook and Instagram.

If you're a part of this movement, make sure that you are funding it.

Shame will say you can't give enough, so you might as well not give it all.

Self will say you need that money for your own glory.

Live in the middle.

Give to what God is doing.

Help us fund this thing.

You can give online at metachurch.tv or by downloading the MetaCurch app.

And I love you guys.

Y'all continue to stay safe and continue to be the movement.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

And I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.