EASTER AT ROCK POINT 2023 | Full Service

And it was awkward. And I made it really awkward. And I think here at this Easter time, I think a lot of us sitting in this room that could maybe describe your view of how your relationship with God is. How it works. And maybe that's how you're operating right now. That you think the idea is I need to show up at church. I need to do these things. I need to impress God with how I love him. And then I'll prove to him that he should love me back. It's this idea that he's got the list. He's got the rules. I'm gonna go do all these things, and then I'm gonna prove to him why why I should be loved and I should be blessed by him. And some of you, that's how you've been coming to church and operating, and that could be very difficult when you fail.

You

could really have a hard time with that. Some of you believe that that's what God wants you to do. And you're sitting here, and you're only here because family dragged here and said no ham for you if you don't come with me to church. And you're like, this is why I'm not into this God thing. Like, you people, you Christians that go to church, like so there's this God of the universe that knows everything, create everything, and he gave you a list of things. And he goes, you better dance, monkey, or you're going to hell.

And and you're like, you're you got the same problem. You view that what God wants is for you to perform for him, and then he'll love you. And now you're mad at God because he expects that. What if that understanding of how God even works and relates to us is completely wrong? And I believe the story of Easter proves it.

You see, following God is not about me performing and proving to God that he should love me. It's about me surrendering to his proven love for me. And that's what Easter is about. See, God loves us. He he prides away. And when we embrace that, we don't change ourselves and then God takes notice and and things change.

It's love. His love changes us. It changes everything. And I wanna look at a story that happened because there was one of his followers, one of his disciples. Jesus walked around and he gathered 12 guys to be his first disciples to follow him. And he walked up to him and one of me walked up to on the

the shores of the Sea Of Galilee. He was a fisherman and his name was Peter. And he just walked up and said, follow me. And Peter said, okay. And he went.

And then Peter made it awkward in their relationship just like I did on that disaster of a date, the worst date ever went on. Because he kept trying to prove to Jesus I should be on the team. After Jesus already invited him to be on the team. And and so it gets weird. And he would often do awkward things out of bravado, out of trying to show him, hey, I should be here, all this stuff. And one of the most awkward moments was right before Easter

when Jesus was had been telling his disciples, I'm gonna die. They didn't understand it. Mainly because they thought he is God. He's come to rescue us. And usually, the guy that's gonna be the hero doesn't just die.

So they they didn't get it. So finally, in my paraphrase of what Jesus said, he basically said, read my lips. I am going to die. Peter understood that, and his answer was to make it awkward. He acted like the imaginary boyfriend from that kid's movie Inside Out. He went, I will die for you.

In other words, he told Jesus, that ain't gonna happen. I will protect you. No one, you're not gonna die. I will die for you. So think about this. His plan to impress Jesus with how much he loved him was to stop Jesus' plan to protect us by loving us and dying.

So your plan was to make me not be able to do my plan in order for me to be impressed with how much you love me. It's like he made a scavenger hunt for Jesus to go on. And Jesus, like, not gonna do it that way. So he tells Peter. He goes, really, Peter? The truth is this.

You're gonna deny me three times before a rooster crows tomorrow. And then Jesus gets arrested. Peter follows. And then when he's standing by this charcoal fire, someone recognized and go, hey, weren't weren't you with him?

And instead of dying for him, he panics because he's afraid like, well, he said he's a savior. Now he's arrested. Doesn't he have the power to win? What's going he started to doubt and he got fearful for himself and he didn't wanna be in trouble. So he says, I don't I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know.

And someone else later on, hey. No. You you you know this guy. You were with him. No. I wasn't. And the third time he's felt like, I'm telling you, I don't know who he is. Leave me the bleepity bleep alone. Cock a doo. And he realized,

I was trying to impress Jesus with how much I loved him and how much I would sacrifice, and I failed. Here's the problem. When you think it's your performance, what happens when you fail, which we do?

You either go into despair or you decide to get mad at God because you think he set you up. Well, Peter goes into that despair. He feels like I blew it. In fact, in the Easter story, runs when they say that the tomb is empty and he runs, he looks and says he walked away kind of bewildered by it all.

But I want to pick up where his story kind of takes off from there. It happened after Jesus has risen from the dead and some people had spotted him, but you know, he hasn't really talked to Peter yet. He hasn't seen him and Jesus kind of comes into

back in his life and he does something to reset it to basically get him to understand that Peter everything's gonna change when you just surrender to how much I love you. And that's what's gonna change everything else.

So here we go. Starting in John 21, it says this later Jesus appeared again to the disciples beside the Sea Of Galilee. This is how it happened. Several of the disciples were there. Simon Peter, Thomas, nicknamed the twin. I wonder what his brother's nickname was.

Think about it. It's funny. Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee and the sons of Zebedee and two other disciples. They didn't even get their name listed. I wonder if they read the bible and it came and said, wait. What? Not even listed.

Number first three. Simon Peter said, I'm going fishing. See, he'd been a fisherman. He's not just gonna out visit. He's going back to his old life.

He figured I blew it. I'm off the team. It doesn't matter. You know? And that's what we do all the time. When you're disappointed or life kinda crudgy, we tend to fall back to what's familiar. And so he did.

And it said, well and then the rest of them said, we'll come too, they all said. Probably because a lot of them said, you know, Peter's kinda cocky and now he's acting weird. We should keep an eye on him. So they all went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night.

At dawn, Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn't see who he was. He called out, fellows, have you caught any fish? No, they replied. Then he said, throw out your net on the right side of the boat and you'll get some. So they did and they couldn't haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. So they professional fishermen didn't catch anything all night. This dude says, try that side of the boat, which he had done to them before, by the way.

And and and so at that point, it says that, then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter as the Lord. Because he realized, wait, this has happened before. That's Jesus.

It's interesting. Who's this disciple that Jesus loved? It's why is it right that way? Because John, who wrote this, John, he he wanted to be humble, so he didn't wanna put his own name in the book. So every time he's referencing himself, he picked a pseudonym.

So instead of saying his name to be humble, he said the one who Jesus loved, which is so much more humble. Maybe he wasn't trying to be humble. Maybe he's trying to stick it to the rest of the disciples. And the disciple who Jesus loved more than all you, I don't know.

All I know is John's gonna be mad at me in heaven. So hope I'm bigger than him.

Where was I at now? I completely lost it. Okay. He says, Then Simon Peter

heard it was the Lord. He put on his tunic for he had stripped to his work, jumped into the water and headed for shore. The other stayed with the boat and pulled the load loaded net to the shore for they're only a 100 yards from shore. When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them, fish cooking over charcoal fire and some bread. It's interesting. Charcoal fire.

What did I say Peter was standing by trying to warm himself when he started denying Jesus? Charcoal fire. So now he's back. He jumped in and swam. I've been to Sea Galley. It's cold. So he's probably cold. So now he's sitting there warming himself by charcoal fire again.

Now it's interesting because the book of John talks about fire.

It's only two times he bothers telling you what kind of fire it is. And for whatever reason, what we now know is he's trying to make a point here. He pointed out that it was a charcoal fire where Peter started to deny Jesus, and now Jesus invited him to come. He's wet and soaking and cold again. He's warming himself, and Jesus has a charcoal fire there again. Jesus

is setting the stage to take him back to this moment to help him deal with it, to help him understand something and help him to get past this and and and get to this point where things do change.

So he said, bring some fish you just caught, Jesus said. So Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net to the shore. There's a 153 large fish and yet the net hadn't torn. So usually, they just throw in that detail. I wonder just because they're all fishermen and these guys who's writing this figured someone's gonna say, get so distracted by the story. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus is where there I get it. He resurrected from the dead. But how many fish were in that net?

I gotta know. Anybody else get really curious about the stupidest things? Well, I don't think that's why it's listed. I think it's listed because part of Peter's struggle was when the Messiah gets arrested, you're like, wait. Can I trust him to protect me? To take care of me?

Jesus has already been taking care of him. He's a professional fisherman, doesn't catch any fish all night. All of sudden, he comes and do that. 153 fish. He's like, yeah, you just try to go back to what you're a pro at and I still did it better than you. I still protect. I can still take care of you.

And he went right back to doing what he's doing before. It's not like I'm not gonna take care of you. You betrayed me. You denied me, you loser. Get your own fish. No. So he says, now come have some breakfast, Jesus said.

It goes on to say they were afraid. They knew it was Jesus, but they're afraid to ask. It means didn't mean they didn't recognize him. They're like, they're still trying to wrap their arms around the fact that he was dead and now he's alive and it's kinda weird.

And if you jump down to verse 15, it says, after breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Now did he mean just the other disciples? I think he meant the other disciples, the life of fishing, going back to his old life. Do you love me more than this?

Yes, Lord, Peter replied, you know I love you. And then Jesus says, then feed my lambs. See, what he's about to do is he asked him this question is he's not asking for Jesus' sake. Jesus doesn't need to ask him this question. Peter needs these questions.

Matter of fact, we know Jesus is okay with them right away because the first time he asked him, do you love me? He says, yes. He goes, feed my lambs. He's like, go back to the life I called you to. We're right back where we were. Everything's good.

Well, then verse 16, Jesus repeated the question. Simon, son of John, do you love me? He says the exact same answer. Yes. Lord Peter said, you know, I love you. Then take care of my sheep, Jesus said. A third time he asked him, Sion, son of John, do you love me?

And now it says Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. Now that hurt. Sometimes when I first read that, it might sound like he was aggravated, irritated, upset.

Hurt means he was emotional. He was sad. It's something broke. It's like he realized he's sitting by a charcoal fire trying to warm himself. He gets asked three times, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? He denied him, denied him, denied him. And he's reliving that moment,

and we know that he was probably hurt, man. He probably broke down and was sobbing by the way he answered this third time. And what's interesting is the first two times he answers exactly the same way. The third time, Jesus finally got through to him with what he's trying to tell him, and he answers differently.

It doesn't sound that different in the English.

He simply says, Lord, you know everything. That part's different. You know that I love you. Instead of, yes, Lord, you know I love you. This says, you know everything. You know I love you. In the Greek, which is as written, it says something very significant. The first two times, the word for know, he uses this word that's called oida. It just means an intellectual fact. It's just a a a a trivial piece of knowledge with no experience. It's like you looked up something on Wikipedia, it says this.

This third time when he breaks down and he's hurt and he sobs, he finally Jesus got him to admit something. He uses this Greek word, which means to know something from intimate and most often relational knowledge and understanding.

It means it's a relational term. It's not something you're just saying like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's more of you know that you know that you know from actual experience.

As if he kept saying, yeah, you know I love you. Yeah, you know, kinda you know, you kinda know. And he's like, do you? Do you? Do you? He didn't need it. Jesus did not need to hear him say for each time he denied him, it's okay. Because the very first time he said, feed my sheep. He was good with them. Peter needed to deal with the fact that he was separating,

having a hard time saying, love you, because he had that wrong idea of how it works. He thought, I can't say it because I failed, and therefore, I'm probably off the team, and I don't deserve to be on this team, and now you're not gonna love me. And he kept saying, Jesus was every time he's asked him saying, I love you. I love you. I love you. And you gotta understand that. And he finally breaks down. What he's saying is, you know what? You know everything. You know my heart. You know how I messed up. You know how I feel. You know how I don't think I can say this. You know it all. And so Jesus, you already know I love you. I'm just ashamed.

That's what was happening.

And if you don't understand how God works now he loves you, you are either sitting here feeling ashamed every time you fail, or you're angry at God thinking he sets me up for failure by expecting something. But Jesus was helping him heal and get past it. Because then he says, then feed my sheep.

And then look what he says in verse 18. I tell you the truth. When you were young, were able to do as you liked. You dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you're old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don't wanna go. What?

Like, did Jesus just, like, have an aneurysm? No. It says here, Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God. And then Jesus said, follow me. That's the first thing he said to him when he met Peter. Follow me. We're back to where we were. Trust me. Be with me.

But what he said was and he said, you dress yourself. Now you stretch out your arms. What he was basically telling Peter was, remember how you said, I would die for you, and then you denied me? That's because it was all about you then. And you were trying to impress me, improve yourself. Mean, you don't you don't live for my love. You live from my love. You need to understand. I died for you. I'm the one that brought all the fish. I'm the one that can do it. That was my plan. I still love you. I loved you then. I chose you. I still love you now. And now you need to get back with me and and back on the program and feed the sheep and take care of it. Let's keep going. Let's just get back to where we're going. Quit feeling the shame. You are loved and you are forgiven. That was the plan all the time. And guess what? Remember when you said you would die because you're trying to beat your chest and impress me. But when it came down to it, you're really afraid and you failed? That's okay. Because my love is gonna change your life so much that there will come a day that you will honestly die for your faith, and you'll be okay with that.

You're gonna get there. You're gonna get there.

But what you need to do is you're not gonna get there. When you don't really know, when you think it's a game and you're trying to earn God's love, the things that he wants you to do, the things the Bible say to trust him sound scary. They sound hard. They sound different, and they are.

But when you understand why he calls you that direction because you understand how much he loves you, you come to start trusting that love. And as you trust that love, you step out and walk that way. You almost become like the person who loves you so much.

And then you understand that on the other side of that scary thing is something way more beautiful. Because you know that he loves you and where he's calling you to go is actually a better place to go. But you'll only do that. If you force yourself to do that, you'll never see the fruit of that.

You'll either be discouraged or angry.

But his love changes you.

That girl that I had the worst date with ever, In about six weeks, I'll be celebrating my thirty first anniversary of being married to that girl.

She chose to go out on another date with me because she knew I was trying too hard and I made it awkward. And she realized why are you doing this?

Why are you doing this? I already said yes to go out on date. Why do you have to prove yourself? I said yes. I already showed that I'm stupid enough to wanna go out on a date with you. You should just run with that.

And what is crazy is it got more normal. She's like, stop making it awkward. The funny thing is now that I've known her for so long, I look at how I plan that date knowing my wife.

I could not have tried to plan a date she would hate worse knowing her personality than what I did that night. She hates scavenger hunts of all kind. Hates them with a passion. She hates forced into she hates stuff that's not organic. So doing the expensive restaurant and trying to force it, she does not like Valentine's Day. She thinks it's contrived

and stupid. And and so I realized everything I did was the opposite because I planned everything to impress her without even thinking about her. And and and so I learned. And I can tell you that other than the love of God,

the closest thing to the most loved I've ever been has been my wife has loved me so well and so hard for thirty one years. And she has loved me even when I'm stupid. And and I can be a lot of the time. And you know what's weird about that love? When I know that I've been absolutely loved so much, it's changed me. I love back.

But when I love back, it's not just, well, I feel guilty or I feel like I owe her one. It's more of like I wanna do it. And not just to make her happy. I mean, I love to make her happy. I do it because now I've learned to trust her love. That when she says, hey, let's do this. I know there's something she'd want me to do. I've actually gotten to the other side of doing it. And I'm like, wait, that was really good for me too. I'm glad I did that. That's kinda how God's love works. When he calls to do something, I don't think that sounds fun at all. Then he was like, wow, I was actually rewarded. I'm glad I did that. Let me give you example. We both are really bad in the same way on this is that she picked out our vacation times because she's doesn't like me to just pick it. And so she got it and then didn't

I don't remember it. I don't look at my calendar very often. I let people tell me when I'm supposed to be somewhere. And so it turned out at the end of my time off, I wasn't really off. I worked the whole time. The last two weeks was vacation. We didn't realize it till the week before.

We're like, oh, no. It's our vacation. We haven't planned anything. It's too late to go anywhere. I don't know. What are we gonna do? And my friend, because you know we should do. We should just get all of the house projects we've been talking about done and then we'll pay our taxes.

You know what that sounds like to me? I'd rather you stab me in the eye with a soldering iron. The old me. It still doesn't sound fun. When I you know, I think I only have a job. I mean, I love being a pastor, but I think part of my motivation to be here is so I don't have to do house projects.

When she goes, you know what? You know, there's times when, hey, this project should get done. Please please be a meeting. Please be a meeting I have to be at. Please be no. But

that's my natural tendency is I don't wanna do that. But I've learned over the years that on the other side of the stuff she likes to do that I know makes her feel good and and happy, I go, wow. That was really good for me. I am so glad I did that. I end up blessed. So I found myself without even

sucking in and go, alright. Take one for the team. She's loved you so well. You owe her this. I literally said that sounds like a good idea. Let's do it. I'm like, what the I actually wanted to do it.

And it turned out awesome. We had some of the most fun and and the most could do. We we had so many talks about our relationship. We we were able to talk in ways that we haven't had the time to talk, why we're we're building stuff and tearing things apart and clean our cleaning the closet out.

You start cleaning out the closet. You clean out stuff in your life. You start talking about it.

So don't hear what I'm not saying. I didn't just love her back because she loved me and I felt compelled to. I literally have been changed by her love.

And so I did it. And it got it went so far as to at the end of it, I was glad to come back to work because I was tired and I needed to get some rest. But no. She went on on the woman's retreat. The women's retreat the woman's retreat. Yeah. She went all by herself on a retreat. The woman's retreat. Women's retreat.

And while I was sitting there, there was one thing we didn't get done. When we redid the closets, we had this old big piece of furniture we used in the closet. We had to pull that out. It was sitting in the middle of our bedroom. And and

we didn't get that out of there yet because, you know, it's a big piece where we figure out probably she's waiting. I'm gonna get somebody to help me. But we got busy, got everything else done. Sitting there, I know that she's coming back from the women's retreat in a few hours. We got up and I looked at it and I go, you know what? She'd probably really appreciate if that was out of here.

You You know why? Because I know her. She's one of those perfectionists that won't start projects sometimes if she thinks she can't finish it exactly the way she wants to because that'll irritate her. So I know that this one thing hanging over this has ruined two weeks of everything. It doesn't count unless I get that out of here. The the the the the second thing, she's also one of those ones that like nobody but she'll make her list of what she's gonna get accomplished.

She actually draws her own little box to check it.

Doesn't use makes her box. She'll check it. And like it'll be 10:00 at night. She'll reen over, grab her her list, and I'll see her making a box and writing. What do you do? I realized I did three things today that weren't on my list. So she wrote them down and then checked it.

Anybody else as dysfunctional as her? I've become a lot like her. That is not one of the ways I think I'll ever become like her. And and and and and and so I knew.

But you know what's weird? When I realized there was a time when I would have, like, that would have become background. I wouldn't even have noticed it anymore. I'd probably start reusing it, putting stuff in it, not even thinking. But what I realized that changed me is I'm looking at it. It wasn't really just about it'd be nice. It's like,

I realized and noticed, I was like, I gotta get this out of here. It's bothering me. I've become like I was like, her love is it's like, I know why she likes this out of here. I want it out of here.

And I didn't have much time. So here's where I'm still stupid. I said, I'm gonna move it out. I'm gonna take it downstairs all by myself. I don't have enough time to get anyone over here. I'm gonna do it. So there's a lots of reasons why I believe in Jesus. This is one of them.

Because I'm here to live the to live to tell the tale. There's so many times I do stupid stuff and God says it ain't your time yet. I mean, you keep testing it. You keep trying to make it your time, son, but no. So what I figured

is I'm gonna get this out of here before she gets here. So I scooted it over to the edge, and I go, you know, I will use gravity. And we'll just slide it down.

And then I had that moment where you get to that point that I get under it and I'm leaning in. I'm about to get to the point of no return. And it hit me. I go, wait. Am I gonna use gravity or is it gonna use me?

I haven't really thought this through because I'm not that smart. And so I was like, I don't know. And I thought, either way, I'll be finally able to live up to what Peter finally lived up. I'll be able to say, I will die for you and it'll be real. I'm gonna die for my wife. Here we go. Boom. And it worked. I got it downstairs, obviously.

And then I'm still a little bit, you know, haven't totally matured. I took a picture of it and sent it to her and said, hey. Look what I got done. And she goes, who helped you? I said, three people. Me, myself, and I. And then send a picture of me flexing.

Because I love her so much, I still like to show off for a little bit. But the point was this, her love changed me. That's what Jesus is saying for Peter here. And if you go and read first and second Peter, he wrote some of the New Testament.

And it was funny. He's writing first and second Peter like twenty five, thirty years later. Decades later, after this moment. And when he talks about, hey, you're gonna have tough times. You're gonna be challenged just because you know the Lord doesn't mean everything's easy. But you know what? His redemptive

blood, the what he did on Easter, his sacrifice, his love will change everything.

You might still have the same problems, but your perspective is different. You'll be able to get through this. You'll be able handle it. You can't read what he writes in first and second Peter without at least for me, I can't read that without sitting there and thinking, I wonder if he was writing that.

If he wasn't back in his heart and his head on the shores of the Sea Of Galilee warming himself by a charcoal fire, having Jesus ask him a question about him loving him when the whole conversation was really about, do you understand how much I love you is what Jesus was saying.

How about you? You sick of trying to prove yourself? Maybe you're sick of just being mad at a god because you think he's mad at you and just wants you to jump through some hoops. What if that's not how it works at all? What if Easter is not the most obvious clear expression of how it's God who loves you. God died for you.

God came to save you. And when you can trust that and embrace that, that is the key to everything else. So I wanna give some of us a chance in this room and online to say yes to Jesus today, to become what's called a Christian according to Bible, to become a follower of Jesus, to surrender to his love, to say yes.

And all you gotta do is pray with me, but can you close your eyes? And I'm gonna pray with you and you can just know, but if you pray with me, you just whatever I say, you make it your own words between you and God.

Surrender to him. But you know, as Jesus had Peter do something to make it real for him, he asked him that question three times, that wasn't for Jesus' sake. That was for Peter's sake. He needed to do that. I'm gonna ask you guys to do something for this to be real to you. If you want that love of Christ, if you wanna surrender to that and just be stop trying to impress him, stop trying to run from him, just surrender to his love right now, if you want to pray for that with me right now, I'm gonna ask you to lift your hand. Just hold it up while we pray. Hold it up high. See those hands? All around the room, I see them.

Just hold it up. Keep it up there while we pray. And just pray something like this, dear Jesus, thank you. Thank you that even when I was trying to prove myself to you, I didn't need to. That when I was running from you because I don't really care, I'm mad because I think you want me to prove myself to you.

When I've tried to prove myself to myself, living life for me, I missed your love. And I'm sorry. But right now, in the best way I know how, I turn back to you. I'm lifting my arm up, my hand up to you right now to say thank you. Grab my hand. It's your love I need.

So in the best way I know how, I put my faith in you, what you did by coming, living that perfect life. You died on the cross for me. You came back to life to save me.

I turned to that. I put my faith in that. I declare that, and I thank you for that. Thank you, Lord.

And I just wanna pray for everyone in this room that just prayed with me.

Lord, I just wanna pray for them and say, I pray that in this moment they understand and they they have that moment like Peter did right now that they feel themselves by that charcoal fire. They feel your love, that they are feeling that in their heart, that they know something just changed.

And that Lord, that they will embrace that love, and they will go out of here and things will change, that everything will change, Lord. That you will help them see the problems and the struggles they have right now that are still waiting out there for them. They will see them different through your love.

That, Lord, that they will see the successes they have different through your love. They will see the relationships around them with other people different and act in them differently because of your love. Lord, I pray that they will embrace your love in such a way that they allow your love to change everything. And I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

God's love changes everything. Amen, church? And there are some of you in the room tonight. For the first time ever, you've allowed the radical love of God change everything in your life. Can we give it up for everyone who said yes to Jesus tonight? Amen.

If that's you in the room, we want to know about it. On our website, rockpoint.io, we ask that you go there. You click on the say yes to Jesus tab, and you let us know because we wanna make sure you are walked alongside of, you are supported, you are plugged in. Let us know if you made that decision today.

If you need prayer today, we actually have a room right over here where we have people willing and ready to pray with you today. Please take advantage of that if you need that tonight. Make sure you stick around because we got an awesome experience ready for you guys. Get some coffee.

Go, you know, make a balloon animal. And apparently, at the petting zoo, there's an animal called a lompaca. What is that? I have no idea, but I got to pet one and so will you. So you guys have an awesome experience. We love you. We'll see you next week.