Wherever He leads I'll Go

Introduction

Good morning church and a blessed Lord’s day to all of you as we get to gather this morning to worship the Lord and grow in him. “Growing” in your relationship is a interesting phrase when you think about it. If you were “growing” in your relationship with your wife what would that you mean? Would you call it that or just saying “we are spending time together”? “We are hanging out?” You see, I think that those relationships growing, as we use the term, is a byproduct of the activity.

We are hanging out tonight,

going to dinner,

watching a show together on the couch,

because we like each other.

It just so also happens that doing those things grows our relationship with each other. We grow in intimacy, in communication, in trust, in fun, in appreciation, and in care; that is unless she tries to eat my food. I ordered the fries and if you wanted some you should have ordered them.

Tension

You see, while we wouldn’t say it like “I’m growing my relationship with my spouse” we do say with the Lord. We put it right there in the title of our ambition for the time. I am here to grow in my relationship. Well friends, what does that mean? Do we have a meter for each those things: intimacy? communication, trust, fun, appreciation? How would we know if they were “growing”? Would the tick mark on the communication meter go from 3 to 4? What would it look like to know that our relationship was strong? What does a strong relationship with the Lord look like? What does it do? What doesn’t it do? You see, this year we are going to dive deeply into practicality and practice. Cool story from the bible, great truth, but what does it look like for me to plug it into my life and actually have visable proof that I can see that I’m using it. That I’m growing in that relationship and walking it out. After all, if you had a friend who said him and his wife were in step with one another like hand in glove but they never spent time together, they never talked, they fought all the time, you’d probably have some questions.

Before we kick off the meat and potatoes of this year in our Time with 1 Corinthians, I want to talk about a couple of behaviors and attitudes that I feel are almost necessary before we can ever hope to find any success. So stay tuned and open your ears and hearts today because it starts in a conversation that I feel like I have to take the role of Dad with us for a little bit. I want to talk this morning about a symptom that I have become aware of within our church in recent months and one that the Apostle Peter gives us great insight into. Let us pray together and then dive into God’s word this morning.

Pray

Truth

This morning I want to walk with you alongside of our dear brother Peter and use these episodes to glean some important insights for us a believers, especially in the areas so growing in our relationship with Christ.

Matthew 16:13–20 (ESV)

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

If there was a album of Peter’s greatest hits, this would no doubt be track number 3. In the midst of a time when rumors were exploding around town faster than the truth could possibly, the Holy Spirit makes known to Peter a truth that others had only guessed at. You see, no one was really asking whether or not Jesus was different. It was obvious that these powers, these miracles, were evidence of a touch of the divine. Pharisees and Christ’s opponents declared all this power to be given by Satan, you know the guy who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. So it makes total sense that instead of stealing he would cause theives hearts to change radically disavowing their evil and giving back all their riches. That instead of killing he would call dead men out of the grave by the power of his word. And instead of destroying the world through war and revolution that he came to preach a kingdom of God that was indwelling the believer. Total sense guys.

However, those without an agenda or reasons to keep willingly blind, saw this divine power and wondered at it. I mean it would be hard to ignore or explain away, right. It would come up at the dinner table. “That Jesus guy healed a man that was born blind from birth. Mom, no one has ever done that and I mean no one, and I mean ever.” So the question going through hearts and minds was not “is Jesus divine” but “how is he divine.”

The people, who had never really encountered those touched by God in any other form than the stories of old, the prophets began to put Jesus in those prepared boxes. “John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, the prophets.” That was the best answer they had readily available that made any sense. And while the majority of people start to hypothesize about their best guesses, the Spirit moves and prompts Peter’s heart to another truth. One that no one was considering and the more it became a whisper in the back of his mind, the quicker it became a viable truth that matched what his eyes were seeing first hand.

“But who do you say that I am?”

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” My imagination plays with me here as I think on this scene, Peter, the words falling out of his mouth as if he doesn’t fully have control of them yet. Like he was thinking it in his head and it just blurted out. You have to be him, the long awaited one. You’re not a prophet. Those guys were just messengers but you have authority. You cause miracles. You have to be him. Nothing else makes sense.

The first step of obedience is to admit that He is the Christ.

We would call this salvation in the evangelical world and rightly so. You see, we are all blind due to our sin nature and can’t even see the truth of the scriptures played out right before us. I think of those videos of those people, born color blind their whole life, who put on those glasses and can for the first time see colors. For some its an intense and emotional experience. For some, the world clicks into place for the first time and understanding finally shifts into gear. For some grief overtakes and shame. But for all, the scales are taken off our eyes and we see clearly, “Christ is the Lord.” He is the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, including mine. You see friends, today I want to talk you about a rising problem in our church. As I’ve thought on its symptoms and its results I can best describe it as obstructing the Holy Spirit. Another way to put it might be “Intentionally drowning out the still small voice.”

Juston, what do you mean? What I mean is simple and hard to hear. When Peter was made aware of Jesus as the Christ, he could not help but confess this truth. His mental assent to this knowledge made its way to action— confessing him as such. Thought became knowledge. Knowledge became truth. Truth became obedience. Peter, as well as countless others in the New Testament show us that real faith makes its natural progression out into action.

Well, what does that have to do with us? Exactly church. It has been a constant theme over the past two years of my time as the pastor here that men and women will have, what I call, the meeting after the meeting, in the hall with me. “Pastor that was great message and the spirit was really weighing on me. Pastor, I’ve been meaning to talk to you but I could never go up there during the invitation. I’ve been hanging onto their hurt, this grief, this problem, this addiction, this struggle for X number of years now but I just can’t seem to give it fully to the Lord.” Friends, my dear brothers and sisters, my fellow believers, that is what this service is for. These isles are for you to walk down and take the step to get serious with the Lord. These carpets are meant to carry your feet to the side of a brother or sister who is going through the valley right now and needs your prayers. These microphones up here are meant to carry your voice as you tell the congregation the testimony the Lord has laid upon your heart as you confess your sin. These steps are an altar to the Lord where you can dump your burdens and find that his yolk is far lighter.

Yet, they are rarely walked down, even by those who definitively know they need to. Prayers are kept to ourselves out of fear, anxiety, or sometimes just outright laziness. I would never confess my sin to the congregation even if the Lord was calling me too because that’s scary. I’ve been wrestling with the Lord for years because I know baptism is what he wants me to do and I might get around to it in the next 5 or 6 years.

Friends, we have become fare too okay with obstructing the Holy Spirit when he calls us to obedience. We’ve grown far too good and drowning out the still small voice of God when he calls us out of the boat of comfort and onto the shifting waves and it has to stop. We have to decide that we are a people that will walk out on the waves if he asks us too. Not because we are good at it, or because we aren’t scared, or because the waves aren’t as high as we think they are, but because he told us to come. We often make fun of Peter on the water and him moving his eyes from Jesus but little do we remember that Peter was the only one who stepped out of the boat at all. The other disciples were too scared. They had the same experiences that Peter did but he acted on them and stepped out often on faith.

For some of us in this room, we have sat on the fence for so long we’ve got calluses. You’ve been playing games with God, squashing that still small voice, running from obedience, refusing to listen and the first thing that you need to get right with is the realization that Jesus is the Christ. That he alone can save and that you need him to save you. No games, no metaphors, no pastoring here. Without Christ as your Savior and your Lord, without him paying the debt of your sin you will die and spend an eternity apart from him in a real place called hell. “Juston, that is very narrow and inclusive.” Yeah, well the truth often is. If 2+2= 4 then that seems pretty restrictive of us by declaring there are all these other answers that it can’t be. Pretty narrow of us.

“Juston, If I were to accept Christ is would mean my whole life would have to change. I’d have to act different. My relationships would be different. I’d have to change my connection to substances. I’d lose friends and family. I might have to change jobs. I’d have to make amends for the things I’ve done to people and probably have to admit that I was wrong. I might have to admit that everyone else that I’ve said was at fault for my problems all these years wasn’t. I might have to come to grips with the fact that I abandoned my responsibilities to my family. To my wife. That i had that abortion, that I caused that accident, that I hurt that person.”

Yes it would and with all the encouragement and love I can muster within me to give to your friend, step out anyway and take hold of his hand. Quit playing games. Fear is all that is holding you back and I can tell you first hand that what he is offering is far greater than what keeps you from walking the isle. There is no sin that you could tell that would be bigger than his grace poured out on Calvary and if you haven’t accepted Christ’s offer, to follow him on his terms, that he is the messiah and can save you from your sins, the altar and the isle are calling you to walk them this morning. To step out in actual obedience and find that He is waiting.

But, as many of us know, Peter’s confession of the real nature of Jesus as the Christ didn’t end there. I’ll take us to John 18 as we read together a song that Peter would be ashamed to be on his album.

John 18:15–18 (ESV)

15 Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest,

16 but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in.

17 The servant girl at the door said to Peter, “You also are not one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.”

18 Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.

25-26

John 18:25–26 (ESV)

25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, “You also are not one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.”

26 One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?”

This hardcore example of obedience and faith, Peter, the Rock, struck out hard. The same guy who told Jesus that he would follow him up to and including his own death got scared and denied that he even knew him. To put this in context, the man who had it revealed to him that Jesus was the Christ is the same man who denied even knowing Jesus as a man. To save his own skin he denied even knowing who he was. Talk about a long, hard, fall from grace.

How about you? Have you let your once burning passion to make your savior known to anyone and everyone who would listen turn into a snuffed out ember? Have you fallen from where you where? Perhaps you’ve let your time with the Lord go distant, or the weight of the world and all its anxieties drown out that once fervent desire for the things of God. Perhaps the pursuit of happiness has become all encompassing and the pursuit of holiness has become passive at best.

If you’re there then take heart and take hold. The best thing for you to do at this moment is to not run from those feelings of “ick” that it brings up in your spirit. Don’t rush out of that because those same feelings wrapped up Peter when he failed too. I’m not going to encourage you in your disobedience or try to make you feel better either. Sometimes, and its often been the case in my own life, that when I’m off course the spirit convicts me and oftentimes, hard. Those feelings, those corrections, those rebukes are good and good for you. We need them again. We need to invite guilt and shame to come back into our lives again as tools to be used by the Spirit. Eventually, as you walk with him enough, you start to look on them as friends who help guide you towards holiness and godliness.

One of my favorite pieces of trivia contained within these verses is what verse 25 alludes to as “Peter was standing and warming himself.” John 18:18 account declares this to be a charcoal fire that he was warming himself by. Of note only because this is only one of two times that the term “charcoal fire” (an-thrak-a-e-a) ἀνθρακιά in the new testament. Do you know when the other one was?

John 21:1–15 (ESV)

1 After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way.

2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together.

3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

4 Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

5 Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.”

6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish.

7 That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.

8 The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread.

10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”

11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn.

12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.

13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish.

14 This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

Repentance is an act of obedience that brings us back into communion and relationship.

One charcoal fire became the symbol of Peter’s failure and disobedience and Jesus used that symbol of disobedience and shame to restore Peter back with fellowship and breakfast. Make no mistake, Peter was still asked a question that shamed him 3 times. As he denied Jesus he was now being called back into his fold. If you’ve gone away and run to a far off country rather than doing what you were supposed to that embrace that obedience, grab it by both hand and give it up to the Lord. I am sorry have got to be the most healing words we can say but we never say them. Our world is obsessed with never admitting when we are wrong and church, it is killing us. There can’t be restoration without repentance. There can’t be forgiveness without acknowledgment of sin. And you can’t expect change if you keep on going on the same way you’ve been going. When you are wrong admit it to the Lord, dump that all at the altar, between you and him and anyone else He commands you to get right with, and ready your heart for what he calls to next.

Lastly,

Restoration leads towards action and purpose.

As you will well know Peter got up, after this beach side breakfast and led like he never had before. He convened the disciples to prayerfully await the falling of the Holy Spirit, even though they had no idea what that really meant. Ready us for action. Ready us for obedience. Move us to your purpose. The next Day the spirit orchestrated events that none of them could have ever guessed would have happened. Acts 1 and 2 give you the story but to sum it up, the nations are drawn up the hill, the disciples can now speak languages they never knew, able to translate the gospel for all those there, and Peter gets up and for his first ever sermon he ever preached, the Lord called 3000 men to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Landing

Church, if we are ever going to get serious about the calling Christ has placed upon us to be disciples that make disciples we have to come back to being a people of the isle and the altar. A people that don’t run from obedience but towards it. A people who don’t fear the voice of the Lord when he calls us to the hard things, even inside of ourselves, but fear most that we would grieve the spirit who is calling us to holiness.

Will we step out again. Will we listen to his still small voice. Will we repent. Will we go where He leads, when he calls.

As for me, this morning I will be down on these steps, at this altar, beggin the Lord for forgivness. For a new passion. For a new fervor. And that I would embrace obedience to his word and his calling. You are more than welcome to join me if he calls you. But whatever he calls