back to index2018-05-13 Raising Kingdom Minded Kids
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If you can turn your Bibles with me to Matthew 16, 21-36. 00:00:10.000 |
We're going to take a break from the book of Romans for this week. 00:00:13.000 |
We want to take some time to highlight what's going on in this text. 00:01:14.000 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for your goodness. 00:01:18.000 |
We ask you especially, Lord God, as we celebrate Mother's Day, 00:01:22.000 |
that you would help us, Lord God, to remember your goodness through them. 00:01:27.000 |
We ask for your word to come and speak to us. 00:01:30.000 |
Help us, Lord God, to fix our mind and our heart where it belongs, 00:01:46.000 |
As I said, I'm going to be taking a break from the Book of Romans. 00:01:49.000 |
My intention this morning is not to talk about and worship our mothers. 00:01:54.000 |
It is Mother's Day, but it is a service that we're here to honor and glorify God. 00:01:58.000 |
So we want the word of God to be spoken and Christ to be highlighted. 00:02:02.000 |
But at the same time, we want to address certain issues. 00:02:07.000 |
And I think motherhood especially is one of those things that I think is 00:02:12.000 |
extremely important for us to take time to consider the grace that God has given us 00:02:17.000 |
through the various people that God has given us, but in particular with mothers, 00:02:26.000 |
I was thankful that early on when we started having our kids, our first kid, 00:02:33.000 |
we weren't in a financial situation where Esther could stay home. 00:02:39.000 |
And obviously I wasn't making enough money, and so at least for the time being, 00:02:43.000 |
we made a decision that I would stay home with Jeremy. 00:02:48.000 |
I don't think it was more than a year, but it felt like a couple decades. 00:02:54.000 |
And it was a -- I think I'm very thankful for that period because it gave me a glimpse 00:03:00.000 |
of what it's like to be home as a mother because on the surface it looks like, 00:03:04.000 |
well, you're taking care of the kids and you don't have to go and work hard, 00:03:08.000 |
or at least on the surface some people may think like that. 00:03:10.000 |
But I would honestly say that the whole time I was there with taking care of the baby 00:03:16.000 |
or a baby/toddler at that time that I was daydreaming about getting a regular job. 00:03:24.000 |
Because at a regular job, if you're tired, you just don't work as hard. 00:03:30.000 |
You go to your desk and then you just kind of take your time. 00:03:41.000 |
But when you have a child at home, there's no such thing as a break. 00:03:45.000 |
The only break you get is when they're sleeping, and if they're not sleeping, 00:03:54.000 |
And I remember that during that period it was just so exhausting. 00:03:57.000 |
And I took plenty of naps when I shouldn't have while he wasn't taking a nap. 00:04:03.000 |
I just kind of cornered him in with the sofa so that he couldn't break out. 00:04:09.000 |
Because there are some nights when they would just not sleep all day. 00:04:17.000 |
And then Esther had to go to work because she had to go to work. 00:04:21.000 |
We didn't have any insurance, and she had to pay the bills. 00:04:26.000 |
But I remember so many times just cornering him with the sofa 00:04:35.000 |
And then he would roll to the other side of the room and say, "Oh, that's where he is." 00:04:40.000 |
So many times--I've never shared this with Esther. 00:04:43.000 |
At least not at that time because I didn't want her to be worried 00:04:49.000 |
And I shared with her before, like 3, 3:30, 4 o'clock, about time for her to come home, 00:04:54.000 |
I would be literally waiting for the doorknob to turn. 00:04:57.000 |
And then as soon as she would come in, I would take him, 00:05:00.000 |
and then I would walk into the room and just--I just need to be alone for a little bit. 00:05:05.000 |
I'm thankful for that because it gave me a glimpse of how hard it is to take care of a child 00:05:15.000 |
Even when you're not with them, you're with them mentally 00:05:21.000 |
Even when you get babysitting and you go out to enjoy yourself, supposedly, 00:05:24.000 |
but the whole time all you're thinking about is the kids. 00:05:29.000 |
I hear a lot of people saying things like, "We're not ready to become a mother or a father." 00:05:35.000 |
How are you ever going to prepare to literally give your life to somebody else? 00:05:40.000 |
So God gives you the grace that you need at the moment. 00:05:44.000 |
And so moment by moment, you feel like you can't handle it, 00:05:48.000 |
but God gives you the grace to be able to do that, 00:05:50.000 |
and then eventually God uses that to raise up children. 00:05:53.000 |
And so I'm very thankful that I was able to experience that even for a short period of time 00:05:58.000 |
because obviously half of our congregation are females, 00:06:01.000 |
and to be able to better understand just how difficult it is to raise children. 00:06:05.000 |
And one of these days that you, some of you guys, you know, 00:06:10.000 |
and I don't think you really appreciate your mothers until you've been a mother yourself, 00:06:14.000 |
at least for a period, and then you're like, "Oh, somebody did that for me." 00:06:19.000 |
And among all the common graces that every human being experiences, 00:06:23.000 |
I think one of the greatest, if not the greatest common grace, 00:06:29.000 |
And so I think it's important for us, again, not simply to celebrate motherhood, 00:06:33.000 |
but to be able to recognize the people who poured into our lives 00:06:36.000 |
because if we are not able to recognize them, 00:06:39.000 |
how do we recognize the Heavenly Father up in heaven that we cannot see 00:06:46.000 |
Now again, as I told you, the purpose of this morning is not to highlight and say, 00:06:53.000 |
But in the context of that, I want to talk about how if we're not careful, 00:06:59.000 |
if there's anything that we want to get right, 00:07:01.000 |
we want to get right in raising our children. 00:07:04.000 |
And oftentimes we do things and we don't do it right, 00:07:08.000 |
and we'll say to ourselves, "You know, we made an attempt." 00:07:11.000 |
The worst thing that you can do in life is not to do something, 00:07:14.000 |
but even when we fail, we gain because we learn, and we grow, and we're sanctified. 00:07:20.000 |
You can apply that to almost everything in life, 00:07:22.000 |
but when it comes to your children, you don't apply that. 00:07:25.000 |
You don't say, "Well, you know, I failed when he was one, 00:07:30.000 |
"I failed when they were young, but when they get older." 00:07:33.000 |
But you only get that period once during their life, 00:07:37.000 |
and we want to make sure that we get that right. 00:07:42.000 |
There are two people in the Scriptures that at the end of Jesus' ministry, 00:07:56.000 |
Both of them, Jesus mentions about satanic influence, 00:07:59.000 |
where one was actually, Satan actually entered into Judas, 00:08:03.000 |
and with Peter, Satan actually had influence on him 00:08:07.000 |
and was able to use him to say certain things to Jesus. 00:08:13.000 |
because in John 12, 5-6, it states that Judas was a thief. 00:08:18.000 |
On the surface, he made it sound like he was interested in the poor 00:08:21.000 |
and why you're doing this, but behind the scenes, 00:08:24.000 |
he was actually taking money from the money bag. 00:08:28.000 |
So we can see why Judas was open to satanic influence. 00:08:39.000 |
and yet, Jesus says to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan." 00:08:46.000 |
In Luke 22, verse 31, Jesus predicts that Peter is going to fall. 00:08:57.000 |
He says, "Satan has asked permission to sift you like wheat, 00:09:00.000 |
but I pray that your faith would not fail you." 00:09:05.000 |
Now, what does it mean to be sifted like wheat? 00:09:08.000 |
You have to understand, again, we're not farmers, 00:09:16.000 |
To sift something like wheat is kind of like the farmers at that time. 00:09:20.000 |
In order to separate the wheat and the chaff, 00:09:23.000 |
what they would do is they would take a pitchfork 00:09:25.000 |
and just throw it up in the air and let the wind separate the lighter chaff, 00:09:29.000 |
and then the heavier wheat would fall to the ground. 00:09:31.000 |
That's how they would separate what they wanted 00:09:33.000 |
from the stuff that they wanted to throw away. 00:09:36.000 |
Some of you guys who've been to India, the way they do that 00:09:38.000 |
is they would just spread it onto the ground where the cars are coming. 00:09:41.000 |
Cars would run over the harvest, and then by the force of the car going over it, 00:09:46.000 |
they would separate the wheat and the chaff that way. 00:09:49.000 |
Now, the reason why they do that and the imagery that Jesus is giving 00:09:53.000 |
is to separate what's valuable with things that we're going to throw away. 00:09:57.000 |
So what Satan was asking was permission to test Peter, 00:10:03.000 |
just like Satan asked permission to test Job. 00:10:07.000 |
He said, "The only reason why Job is faithful to you 00:10:09.000 |
is because you put a hedge of protection around him. 00:10:12.000 |
Take that away. Let me at him, and we'll see what's real. 00:10:17.000 |
We'll see how much of his righteousness really remains. 00:10:20.000 |
Give me a chance to prove to you that this is not your man." 00:10:23.000 |
And so Job's whole story begins with Satan asking for permission to sift him like wheat, 00:10:28.000 |
and the whole story of the book of Job is him being tested, 00:10:35.000 |
So that's what Jesus was saying. Satan has asked permission to test you, 00:10:39.000 |
to test Peter to see how much of his loyalty, how much of his love, 00:10:46.000 |
"Let me at him. Take away the hedge of protection, and see what remains." 00:10:51.000 |
So what I want to do this morning is take a closer examination of Peter. 00:10:58.000 |
And through the testing at the end, what was revealed about his faith 00:11:03.000 |
that he was so vulnerable that Satan was able to have influence on him? 00:11:08.000 |
Considering how close he was to Jesus, considering all the confessions that he made, 00:11:12.000 |
considering everything that he already knew about him, 00:11:15.000 |
why was Satan able to have this kind of intimate access to this man? 00:11:21.000 |
So the first thing that we want to look at, number one, 00:11:25.000 |
Peter's perspective was temporal, not eternal. 00:11:29.000 |
Peter's perspective was temporal and not eternal. 00:11:35.000 |
"But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan. 00:11:38.000 |
You are a hindrance to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, 00:11:45.000 |
This is the reason why, Peter, you are being influenced by Satan. 00:11:53.000 |
Because you do not have the things of God in mind, but the things of man. 00:12:01.000 |
and the word literally means "to make a trap." 00:12:05.000 |
So in other words, what Jesus was saying was, 00:12:07.000 |
"Peter, you may be saying these things thinking that you're helping me, 00:12:12.000 |
but you are being influenced by Satan to put me in a trap." 00:12:21.000 |
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 00:12:25.000 |
In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your path." 00:12:30.000 |
The reason why he tells us this is because our natural inclination is to survive. 00:12:37.000 |
And our natural inclination is to make sure that our physical bodies, 00:12:42.000 |
our physical life in this world is a better place for us to live. 00:12:46.000 |
That's our natural inclination because that's how we are raised. 00:12:52.000 |
It is the flesh that we are most concerned about. 00:12:58.000 |
And the reason why you do not have the things of God 00:13:01.000 |
is because you're thinking about the things of man. 00:13:05.000 |
See, in Romans 12, verse 2, the reason why Jesus says, 00:13:12.000 |
"In view of this mercy, to present your body is a living sacrifice, 00:13:15.000 |
to give it all to God, and not to conform to this world, 00:13:18.000 |
but be transformed by the renewing of our mind," 00:13:20.000 |
because our natural mind doesn't think about the things of God. 00:13:26.000 |
Our natural mind is concerned about this world. 00:13:33.000 |
It's concerned about our investments and the things that we've done, 00:13:38.000 |
If we work hard, what are we going to get tomorrow? 00:13:41.000 |
And that's our natural inclination, and that's exactly what Jesus was pointing out with Peter. 00:13:52.000 |
And because of that perspective, they could not understand what Jesus was saying, 00:13:59.000 |
In Matthew 16, 24, right after he says to Peter, in that passage, 00:14:05.000 |
"Get behind me, Satan, because you don't have the things of God but of man," 00:14:10.000 |
It says, "And Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, 00:14:13.000 |
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 00:14:18.000 |
For whoever would save his life will lose it, 00:14:20.000 |
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 00:14:23.000 |
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? 00:14:26.000 |
Or what shall a man give in return for his life?'" 00:14:30.000 |
Did you know that that passage was in the context of rebuking Peter? 00:14:38.000 |
That unless you forfeit your life, for Christ's sake, you will lose it. 00:14:42.000 |
It's in the context of rebuking Peter for not having the things of God in mind, 00:14:48.000 |
He wasn't simply talking to a generic multitude. 00:14:53.000 |
He was talking to Peter, who was telling him, "You can't go to the cross. 00:14:59.000 |
You can't be doing this because it didn't make sense to Peter." 00:15:02.000 |
And so he's telling Peter, looking right through the surface, 00:15:06.000 |
that your value is based upon what you think you're going to gain from following me. 00:15:15.000 |
It wasn't just Peter. None of the disciples understood this. 00:15:19.000 |
Because their whole paradigm was about this physical kingdom. 00:15:24.000 |
In Mark 8.31-32, "And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things 00:15:31.000 |
and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, 00:15:35.000 |
and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly." 00:15:40.000 |
Mark goes out of his way to make sure that we understand that it wasn't because 00:15:46.000 |
Jesus was speaking in parables or he wasn't making it clear. 00:15:50.000 |
He was absolutely crystal clear. He made it very plain. 00:15:54.000 |
In fact, if you were to study through the Gospels, 00:15:58.000 |
at the end of the Gospels when Jesus is going to the cross, 00:16:04.000 |
How did the disciples not know that this was what Jesus was going to do? 00:16:13.000 |
"I'm going to Jerusalem to be killed, to be crucified, and to be raised." 00:16:19.000 |
We know that they heard him, but they didn't understand him. 00:16:23.000 |
So he said he was going to rise, but remember after three days? 00:16:28.000 |
Nobody went. The only people that went were the women, 00:16:33.000 |
who were there to anoint his body and take care of his dead corpse. 00:16:38.000 |
And they were shocked that he was raised. But if you look at the accounts that Jesus gave, 00:16:41.000 |
he made it very crystal clear he was going to die and he was going to be raised on the third day. 00:16:46.000 |
It wasn't until after he was raised, lights started going off. 00:16:55.000 |
They completely missed it because they had the things of man in mind and not things of God. 00:17:01.000 |
When they were thinking to themselves about what Jesus was saying, 00:17:10.000 |
Now we could look at that and say, "Well, how could they have missed it?" 00:17:13.000 |
Our churches are filled with people who come to church every single Sunday 00:17:18.000 |
and working so hard to make this kingdom a better place. 00:17:26.000 |
Is it because there's any kind of ambiguity in the Bible about what he says about the eternal kingdom? 00:17:33.000 |
That all of this that we see, that we value so much, the comfort and safety that we want so much, 00:17:39.000 |
even for our kids, all of it is under the judgment of God, 00:17:43.000 |
yet it comes through one ear and completely out the other. 00:17:46.000 |
We can talk about it in Bible study in small group, 00:17:49.000 |
and yet all of our lives, our projection of life, has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. 00:17:55.000 |
It's because we have the things of man in mind and not the things of God. 00:18:01.000 |
That's why Peter, even though God made it very clear, at the end it didn't make any sense to him. 00:18:07.000 |
In Romans 8, 5-8 it says, "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, 00:18:12.000 |
but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit." 00:18:16.000 |
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 00:18:23.000 |
"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. 00:18:28.000 |
Indeed it cannot, those who are in the flesh cannot please God." 00:18:33.000 |
If our whole projection in life is to have a comfortable life, for us, 00:18:41.000 |
and then the temptation gets really great when we have kids. 00:18:43.000 |
I've never had, I won't say never, but I felt like when I decided to go into full-time ministry, 00:18:49.000 |
when I met the Lord, the world to me, at least I felt like it died. 00:18:54.000 |
And all of that began to resurface when I had kids. 00:18:58.000 |
I'm not into cars, I don't care whether I live in a big house or not, or able to travel, 00:19:09.000 |
And it started to test all of the things that I thought was given to the Lord, 00:19:16.000 |
It's one thing for me to suffer and sacrifice, it's another thing for my wife to go through that, 00:19:21.000 |
but it's another whole thing to see it being done with my children. 00:19:26.000 |
And I had to wrestle with that, even to this day. 00:19:30.000 |
And I've shared with you the passage that I memorized more than any other passage before I had kids, 00:19:37.000 |
was "I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live." 00:19:40.000 |
That's a passage that I meditate and think about often. 00:19:44.000 |
But the passage that I struggle with the most in application is Matthew 6.33, 00:19:48.000 |
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you." 00:19:53.000 |
And the reason why I memorize that and meditate on that constantly is because of that temptation 00:19:59.000 |
to have man's perspective, to live my life like the rest of the world, 00:20:10.000 |
And we can completely miss, and if you take it further, you end up not wanting to hear it. 00:20:14.000 |
And that's why the scripture says at the end times, people are not going to persevere with sound doctrine. 00:20:26.000 |
So if we're projecting our life to make this kingdom a better place for us and our children, 00:20:32.000 |
and God is leading us to the cross, at some point that's going to intersect and contradict, 00:20:39.000 |
and the only way to be able to deal with that is to nullify the preacher, or nullify the theology. 00:20:49.000 |
I shared with you that years ago when we were out in China, I met an underground church leader, 00:20:56.000 |
and he shared about how much of the health and wealth gospel was penetrating into the church, 00:21:03.000 |
and he told me that he was part of that, and when I heard that, we decided to spend some time together, 00:21:11.000 |
and literally spent no more than an hour, it probably wasn't even a full hour. 00:21:15.000 |
And I decided to sit with him and go through the passage after passage, 00:21:19.000 |
how the health and wealth gospel just does not fit the gospel that we know. 00:21:23.000 |
It doesn't fit the life, it doesn't fit Jesus' life, his teaching, the apostles, 00:21:28.000 |
nothing written in scripture supports what they're saying. 00:21:30.000 |
So after about an hour of discussion, I asked him, "What do you think?" 00:21:33.000 |
And he honestly said, "Well, I can't refute what he's saying, 00:21:36.000 |
because clearly you've shown me in scripture that that's what it says." 00:21:41.000 |
And yet, he said the underground church in China said, "This teaching won't be popular." 00:21:49.000 |
Now what was confusing to me was, he was a very smart guy. 00:21:55.000 |
He was, I mean, I would say out of all the people that I met in China, 00:22:01.000 |
who was raised in China, his English was probably the best. 00:22:05.000 |
He sounded like a guy who came maybe to the United States, immigrated when he was a young child, 00:22:10.000 |
and that's how great his English was. His vocabulary was far better than mine. 00:22:15.000 |
And he was an editor for Xinhua newspaper, the English version, and so he was a very educated guy. 00:22:24.000 |
Very well studied, very smart, went to the top universities, 00:22:27.000 |
and yet all it took was one hour or less of sifting through scripture 00:22:34.000 |
for him to come to the conclusion that everything that he was learning and teaching was wrong. 00:22:40.000 |
Now why was something so clearly taught in scripture so easily rejected, 00:22:47.000 |
and so few people are able to filter that out? 00:22:52.000 |
And he was just honest with me, and he said, "It's because they want it." 00:22:56.000 |
It fits what they want. In fact, so many Christians, so many people are confessing faith in Christianity 00:23:01.000 |
because they see America as a rich country, and Americans are Christians. 00:23:06.000 |
So if you become Christian, you're going to become rich. 00:23:10.000 |
Even though it contradicts everything we know in scripture, 00:23:13.000 |
and yet so many people, so many people claim to be followers of Jesus Christ 00:23:19.000 |
and yet so many of us are adhering to that gospel, which isn't a gospel at all. 00:23:24.000 |
Why is it so popular? Because it fits what they want. 00:23:30.000 |
How much of our understanding of Christianity is what we want, and not what is? 00:23:36.000 |
How much of what we are hearing and learning from the Word of God 00:23:40.000 |
has to do with the truth of the Bible rather than the life that I was set before me, 00:23:45.000 |
and we kind of hear some certain things and then not hear certain things? 00:23:51.000 |
In Colossians 3, 2-4, it says, "Set your minds on the things that are above, 00:23:54.000 |
not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ. 00:24:00.000 |
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." 00:24:04.000 |
When it comes to our children, the temptation and the testing is great. 00:24:07.000 |
Nothing will expose the idols in our hearts than when we have children. 00:24:14.000 |
I remember years ago in 1991, I was choosing between coming to Irvine and L.A. 00:24:21.000 |
For me, it was an obvious choice to go to L.A. than Irvine, because Irvine at that time was the boonies. 00:24:28.000 |
It still was pretty developed, but it wasn't as developed as it is now. 00:24:33.000 |
I visited Irvine in 1986 or '85 to visit a friend who was at UCI, 00:24:38.000 |
and I remember getting off the 405 on Jamboree, and it was literally farmland. 00:24:43.000 |
Right now, you have high-rises, condos, and all these new buildings, 00:24:48.000 |
but at that time in 1986, you literally drove through orange groves and farmland 00:24:53.000 |
and smelled cows to get to UC Irvine. I was thinking, "Who goes to this school?" 00:24:59.000 |
That's what I was thinking at that time, because it was in the boonies. 00:25:04.000 |
When an opportunity opened up, I had a friend of mine who was asking me to come to Irvine to work with him. 00:25:11.000 |
He was asking me to come, but L.A. is where I feel comfortable, 00:25:16.000 |
because that's where my friends were, and that's where I got saved, so I was leaning toward L.A. 00:25:21.000 |
Then I went and talked to the youth pastor that I was going to replace. 00:25:25.000 |
He was trying to recruit me to take his place, and the lunch that I had, he started sharing. 00:25:30.000 |
He started opening up with me why he was leaving. 00:25:33.000 |
This is what he told me. He said he was frustrated with the parents. 00:25:38.000 |
He said when the kids started to really grow in their faith and really start giving their lives, 00:25:46.000 |
The parents wanted to drop them off so that they would be good kids and not join gangs, 00:25:50.000 |
because this is in L.A., but as soon as they got beyond that surface and really wanted to dedicate their lives 00:25:57.000 |
and talk about possibly going to missions or ministry, the parents turned on them. 00:26:02.000 |
He said he was so frustrated with the parents, one day he had a PTA meeting, 00:26:07.000 |
and he told them, "Stop dropping your kids off on Friday night. I'm not their babysitter." 00:26:14.000 |
He said he rebooked the parents, and then he wanted me to come and replace him. 00:26:22.000 |
I wasn't sure if he was quitting or he was being let go, but he asked me to come, 00:26:28.000 |
because he was so frustrated with the parents, "I'm leaving, so would you come and take my place?" 00:26:31.000 |
Obviously, the answer was, "I don't think so." 00:26:34.000 |
That's what propelled me to come to Irvine. I didn't know nothing about Irvine, 00:26:38.000 |
but I came to Irvine, and then I've stayed ever since, in 1991. 00:26:42.000 |
Nothing exposes our idolatry than with our children. 00:26:48.000 |
We can be godly people in every other aspect of our lives, and if we're not careful, 00:26:52.000 |
we can be raising nominal children, Pharisees in the church, where Jesus is on Avenue to get what you want. 00:27:01.000 |
We make the sacrifices. We do everything for our children. 00:27:05.000 |
They're memorizing scripture, Sunday school, VBS, and doing all these godly things, 00:27:10.000 |
but at the core of our pursuit is the world through Jesus Christ. 00:27:17.000 |
Peter was completely blind, because he had the things of man in mind and not the things of God. 00:27:22.000 |
That was the first reason why he was vulnerable. 00:27:24.000 |
The second reason is because of Peter's confidence in his own flesh. 00:27:29.000 |
Remember, Peter says in Matthew 26, "They will all fail, but I will not." 00:27:34.000 |
He had utter confidence in his own flesh. This is what made him vulnerable. 00:27:43.000 |
Think about the arrogance of Peter, pulling Jesus aside and rebuking him. 00:27:48.000 |
Some commentators believe that Peter may have been older than Jesus, 00:27:55.000 |
and maybe that's where his confidence came from. 00:27:57.000 |
Peter was a fisherman who worked with his hands, and he was a successful fisherman. 00:28:03.000 |
If you remember the story of the paralytic, and they're in a home, and Jesus is teaching, 00:28:10.000 |
and somebody breaks the house, and they lower him down. 00:28:14.000 |
It was obviously a big enough home where they can have a meeting like that with a bunch of people. 00:28:20.000 |
The commentators believe that that was probably Peter's home. It was Peter's hometown. 00:28:25.000 |
So the fact that he even owned a house that was that big of a size, 00:28:29.000 |
pointed to the fact that he was probably a very successful businessman, and he also owned his own boat. 00:28:35.000 |
An average fisherman at that time was a hired hand. 00:28:38.000 |
So the fact that he owned his own boat meant that he was at minimum middle class, possibly upper middle class. 00:28:44.000 |
He wasn't part of the aristocrats, but he was a very wealthy man. 00:28:48.000 |
So when they were asking Jesus, Peter, John, James, and Andrew, 00:28:52.000 |
"What benefit do we have that we've given up all that we have to follow you?" 00:28:57.000 |
They did give up quite a bit. It wasn't like they were in poverty, 00:29:01.000 |
and these were people begging for alms outside of the temple. 00:29:04.000 |
These are guys who were making a good living. 00:29:07.000 |
And that's why, remember, after Jesus is resurrected, where do they go? 00:29:11.000 |
They go right back, because they had a pretty decent life. 00:29:14.000 |
They went right back, but they forsook all of that stuff to follow Jesus. 00:29:18.000 |
So Peter was not a man who was just desperate when he met Christ. 00:29:24.000 |
He just calculated that following Christ would be beneficial than not following Him. 00:29:29.000 |
He was a man of courage. He was fiercely loyal. 00:29:34.000 |
Strong leadership, and even other disciples probably looked up to him. 00:29:40.000 |
That's why he's always mentioned as a first name among the twelve disciples, 00:29:45.000 |
So here's a strong man who's successful in his career, 00:29:49.000 |
who has a character, and maybe even age, to garner attention and respect of other people, 00:29:55.000 |
and it was that in and of itself that made him the most vulnerable. 00:30:02.000 |
It is the areas in our life where we think we know is when we are the most vulnerable. 00:30:11.000 |
He says, "Even if everybody falls, I will not fall." Luke chapter 22, 29. 00:30:17.000 |
Or 33, Peter said to Him, "Lord, I am ready to go with You both to prison and to death." 00:30:24.000 |
You know what scene that kind of shows me Peter's character? 00:30:28.000 |
Is when Jesus is walking on the water during the middle of the storm, 00:30:31.000 |
and everybody's freaking out, like, "Who is this?" And Jesus says, "It is I." 00:30:35.000 |
And Peter's first response isn't, "What are you doing out there? 00:30:39.000 |
Why are you walking on the water? Get in here." He doesn't say any of that. 00:30:42.000 |
He said, "If that's you, let me come out to you." 00:30:44.000 |
He's a man of action. He's not a guy who sits there and contemplates, 00:30:48.000 |
and he's like, "If this is the right thing to do, I'm going to do it," and he goes out. 00:30:52.000 |
And that kind of shows me his personality, his character. 00:30:56.000 |
He convicts, and he acts. I mean, he gets into a lot of trouble because of that. 00:31:02.000 |
He doesn't think through what he's doing, but he's a man of response. 00:31:06.000 |
He does things. So he had supreme confidence because in every other areas of his life, 00:31:13.000 |
he probably was successful. Strong-willed man who garnered respect from his peers. 00:31:21.000 |
But it's in the areas where we think we are successful, where we are talented, 00:31:27.000 |
we are gifted, where we are the most vulnerable. 00:31:32.000 |
Jesus said in Romans 12.3, "By the grace given to me," 12.3, he says, 00:31:38.000 |
"I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, 00:31:42.000 |
but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned." 00:31:49.000 |
He says, "Think with sober judgment." The reason why he says that is because when we're not sober, 00:31:56.000 |
we begin to see things through our lens of whatever we think we are good at, 00:32:02.000 |
and that's the area that we stumble the most. 00:32:08.000 |
There's a reason why. Here's a man, Apostle Paul, who's gifted, educated, powerful in his testimony. 00:32:17.000 |
Jesus deliberately makes him weak by putting a thorn on his side and caused him to beg before God 00:32:23.000 |
to take it away, and he says, "No, because my grace is sufficient for you." 00:32:27.000 |
And the lesson that he learns is when I am weak, he is strong. He deliberately makes us weak. 00:32:33.000 |
He deliberately humbles us. He deliberately puts us in places where we don't know what to do 00:32:38.000 |
so that we can depend on him. When it comes to our kids, we have so many books. 00:32:45.000 |
There are so many things that we think. Everybody has their opinion about what we ought to do, 00:32:48.000 |
what we shouldn't do. If you do this, your kids are going to read better, 00:32:51.000 |
they're going to behave better, and we control all of these things, 00:32:54.000 |
and the successes that we have, not realizing, and the longer you spend time raising your kids, 00:33:01.000 |
the more you'll realize how little control you ultimately have, because they're human beings. 00:33:07.000 |
And it causes us to be desperate. There's a reason why the Scripture says in Joshua 1.8, 00:33:13.000 |
as they are going into the greatest battle that Israel has ever encountered, 00:33:18.000 |
and the consequence, they could have completely been squashed, humanly speaking. 00:33:22.000 |
If this war didn't go well, the whole deliverance from Egypt, the whole wandering in the desert for 40 years, 00:33:28.000 |
all the tabernacles and the sacrifice, all of this could have been squashed with one battle. 00:33:34.000 |
Humanly speaking, they had no chance. And the only instruction God gives to the nation of Israel, 00:33:39.000 |
Joshua 1.8, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, 00:33:44.000 |
so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous, 00:33:54.000 |
In other words, humble yourself. Listen carefully to what the Word of God has to say. 00:34:00.000 |
And don't turn from it to the left or to the right. 00:34:05.000 |
It is often in the areas where we are the most successful, where we are the most vulnerable. 00:34:11.000 |
Peter was deceived because of his own confidence. 00:34:17.000 |
And that's what Satan was given permission to test. 00:34:20.000 |
Throw Peter up in the air and see what falls to the ground. 00:34:25.000 |
And the only thing that will touch the ground is your dependence on God. 00:34:30.000 |
And that's exactly what happened. Satan threw him up in the air, 00:34:34.000 |
and all the self-confidence, all the determination that he had, 00:34:46.000 |
And the only thing that remained with him is the grace of God, 00:34:54.000 |
"I wasn't who I thought I was. I wasn't as strong as I thought I was." 00:35:00.000 |
And that's why Jesus says, "Your spirit is willing, but your flesh is weak." 00:35:06.000 |
And the greatest part of our sanctification is coming to a greater recognition of our weakness. 00:35:12.000 |
So we come to the same point of Peter weeping before God, 00:35:26.000 |
And until you and I come to that point that we don't have it figured out, 00:35:37.000 |
We kind of figured all things out, and then we want Jesus to come 00:35:42.000 |
It's almost kind of like we built the house, but we want security in what we built. 00:35:50.000 |
And that's the way our sanctification, that's the way our Christian life 00:35:54.000 |
We built it. We planned it. We worked hard. We built it. 00:36:01.000 |
And that's why so much of our prayer is about protection. 00:36:05.000 |
Protect our children. Protect what we built. Protect our job. 00:36:09.000 |
Protect our health. Because we worked hard for this. 00:36:15.000 |
It is in our own confidence where we are the most vulnerable. 00:36:28.000 |
Now we can look at that and say, "That sounds foolish." 00:36:31.000 |
Because the Bible says the love of Christ compels us. 00:36:34.000 |
He says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. 00:36:49.000 |
even though his worldly perspective caused him to hear certain things 00:36:57.000 |
when he said to Jesus, "This will never happen to you. 00:37:02.000 |
I think Peter meant it because he loved Jesus. 00:37:06.000 |
He was going to the cross. I mean, this is a man that he followed. 00:37:10.000 |
I mean, I don't know about you, but if you've ever experienced any kind of activity, 00:37:16.000 |
even for a very short period of time with a small group of people, 00:37:21.000 |
And I think the best reference that I can think of is when you go to short-term missions, 00:37:28.000 |
And that short period where you sacrifice, you live together, 00:37:34.000 |
And that's why I really enjoy going out to short-term missions with the smaller group 00:37:38.000 |
because I get to, even though I've been at church for five or six years, 00:37:41.000 |
sometimes that one trip out to China or India or wherever, or to Japan this year, 00:37:48.000 |
Oh, I learned things about you that I didn't before. 00:37:53.000 |
It's not because there was strong team-building exercises. 00:37:56.000 |
It's just we were just committed to the same thing, spent a lot of time together. 00:38:00.000 |
These disciples spent two-plus years, almost three years. 00:38:08.000 |
They were in the storm, concerned about their survival. 00:38:15.000 |
They were in the midst of people wanting to kill Jesus and walking through clouds. 00:38:20.000 |
They fed the hungry. They raised dead people. 00:38:24.000 |
And they were in the midst of all of this for two and a half, 00:38:33.000 |
And so when Peter heard Jesus saying that he was going to the cross, 00:38:40.000 |
Why would you go to the cross? I'm not going to let this happen. 00:38:44.000 |
The problem was not simply that he loved Jesus, 00:38:48.000 |
but he loved Jesus with a worldly perspective. 00:39:03.000 |
I mean, you don't have to ask a parent to love your children. 00:39:08.000 |
I mean, God gives us that ability to be able to do that. 00:39:13.000 |
And everything we do is because we love them. 00:39:19.000 |
And oftentimes it is the love for our children that blinds us 00:39:23.000 |
to think that we're doing what's best for them. 00:39:32.000 |
And if we're not careful in that perspective, 00:39:35.000 |
that we can protect them ultimately from God himself. 00:39:40.000 |
We think we're protecting them from the world. 00:39:47.000 |
But if we're not careful, ultimately we can protect them from God. 00:39:52.000 |
Because God's primary goal is to bring our souls to himself. 00:39:58.000 |
And he said, "If you do not pick up the cross," 00:40:01.000 |
and oftentimes we'll pick up the cross for our children. 00:40:05.000 |
We'll pick up the cross because we don't want them to experience pain. 00:40:10.000 |
So we do everything in our power to protect them. 00:40:13.000 |
But in the midst of all of this protection, we weed out God. 00:40:33.000 |
Think about what must have been going through Peter's mind. 00:40:38.000 |
Right before Jesus says, "Get behind me, Satan," 00:40:47.000 |
Who do men say that I am? Some say you're Elijah. 00:40:49.000 |
Some say you're the prophet. Who do you say I am? 00:40:51.000 |
He says, "You are the son of God. You're God." 00:40:56.000 |
And he says, "Upon this confession, I will build my church, 00:41:00.000 |
and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." 00:41:02.000 |
I mean, if there was any time when he had a spiritual high, 00:41:08.000 |
And he said, "I'm going to build my church upon this, Peter." 00:41:22.000 |
Can you imagine what Peter must have been thinking? 00:41:25.000 |
He probably was thinking, "I don't want you to go to the cross, Jesus." 00:41:28.000 |
And at the minimum, you would think that Jesus would say, 00:41:31.000 |
"Peter, you're pretty successful. You're older than me. 00:41:34.000 |
Maybe you've experienced a little bit more like... 00:41:38.000 |
Or at least say, "Your intentions are good, you know, 00:41:45.000 |
Now, you're willing to sacrifice. You really want to put your body out there, 00:41:47.000 |
and you're willing to die for me. I appreciate you." 00:41:49.000 |
You would think at the minimum he would say that, but Jesus says, 00:41:56.000 |
Probably dumbfounded. "What? I love you, Jesus. 00:42:03.000 |
Because what Peter was saying was influenced by Satan himself 00:42:09.000 |
because he was vulnerable because of his love. 00:42:13.000 |
Every single one of us, every single parent, and every single child, 00:42:28.000 |
When we love them from a worldly perspective, 00:42:35.000 |
In fact, that's the area where we are the weakest. 00:42:45.000 |
He's consistent because the only way to true life is Christ. 00:42:52.000 |
And it doesn't make any sense that we are so concerned 00:42:56.000 |
about the speck of eternity that we live in here, 00:43:00.000 |
that we do everything in our power to protect them 00:43:02.000 |
so that they can have a good life during that speck of life that we have here, 00:43:06.000 |
and to forfeit the eternity that comes after that. 00:43:09.000 |
And what God is trying to save us from is that. 00:43:13.000 |
Is that kind of worldly mindset that has been tainted by sin, 00:43:19.000 |
that though we confess to believe in eternity, 00:43:22.000 |
that every decision we make for ourselves and our children 00:43:25.000 |
contradict the very plain teaching of Scripture, 00:43:33.000 |
One day, 100% of the people here will no longer be here. 00:43:39.000 |
And the only thing that will remain are the things that we've invested in eternity, 00:43:48.000 |
So the very thing that we think are doing what is best 00:43:52.000 |
can actually be doing Satan's work if we're not careful. 00:43:58.000 |
Matthew 10, 34-39, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth." 00:44:06.000 |
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth." 00:44:12.000 |
How much of our paradigm is influenced by trying to bring peace to our lives, 00:44:19.000 |
"I did not come to bring peace. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 00:44:25.000 |
For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, 00:44:33.000 |
and a person's enemies will be of those in his own household." 00:44:37.000 |
Some of you are probably experiencing that right now 00:44:43.000 |
It has devised your home because you're taking your faith seriously. 00:44:56.000 |
And then he says in verse 37, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me 00:45:01.000 |
And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." 00:45:07.000 |
I pray that this Mother's Day, that we will be sober about the lives that God has given us. 00:45:16.000 |
That our ultimate goal as parents is to bring them to Christ. 00:45:27.000 |
And at the end of our life, even the wildest dreams of being successful in this world come true. 00:45:35.000 |
What does it profit if they do not have Christ? 00:45:39.000 |
Let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us. 00:45:46.000 |
And as our worship team leads us, let's take some time to come before the Lord in prayer 00:45:49.000 |
because the greatest thing that we can participate in is to connect God with our concerns. 00:45:57.000 |
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything with thanksgiving, with supplication, 00:46:01.000 |
let your requests be made known to God so that the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. 00:46:09.000 |
So let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us.