Denied / Restored

Good morning, Shepherds Gate. Great to see you all here today. Good morning to those who are watching online and those at First Lutheran Algonac.

I’m so excited to be here today to share God’s word with you. We are finishing our series called Holy Paradox. And by the way, I’m Eric Shambourne, if I haven’t met you yet, discipleship pastor here at Shepherds Gate.

This is the last Sunday in this series called Holy Paradox. And you might have noticed some of the titles of the sermons, so like Maundy Thursday, the title was Dirty, Clean. Easter was Empty, Full.

So today, you ready? It’s Denied, Restored. And we’re gonna be looking at Peter and Peter’s story of when he denied knowing Jesus and how he was restored to faith and to the community. You excited? Okay, it’s gonna be great, great, great time together looking into his word.

But why is this important? Why is this important for you? Why is this important for me? I mean, maybe you haven’t like had to publicly deny Jesus. I mean, it does happen in the world today. You do realize that, right? It’s a real thing.

If you read the news, you know, there’s a bunch of Christians in Nigeria on Easter who lives were taken, you know, but they proclaim Jesus right to the end. Maybe you don’t have that kind of a dramatic, so maybe you don’t think that you’ve denied Jesus. But, you know, as I’ve been thinking and analyzing myself and looking at myself, I realized that really, every time I choose sin, I’m basically denying Jesus.

And whenever I choose sin, I’m basically choosing my way and not God’s way. You know, every time, it’s like I’m turning away from the cross and I’m doing this my own way. That’s in a sense denying him with my actions.

So it is relevant to me. As I’ve been going through this message, I realized that it’s been really relevant to me in my life and maybe it would be relevant to you too as you think of it that way. How have we denied Jesus? How have we turned away from Jesus or from his bride, the church? We’re actually called, in the scripture, it calls us Jesus’s bride.

It’s really interesting. He’s the bridegroom, we’re the bride. And sometimes we turn away from the bride too.

So there’s a lot of things I think that can relate to us that we’re gonna get into today. But I first wanna start, and we’re gonna look at Peter’s beginning. Where does he start from? Remember, he’s a fisherman, right? He’s a fisherman, he’s got a fisherman’s business.

Jesus comes and says, follow me. They says they drop their nets and follow Jesus, right? Well, look at this amazing time Peter has here. Look at the heights of which he had walked.

Peter, his birth name is Simon, in case you’re wondering, that’s his birth name, Simon. Simon, he’s the first one to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He’s the first one to publicly, now that’s a big deal.

And actually, Jesus marked that. He said, no, this is important. This is the first time someone confesses that he is the Christ, the Son of God.

And he marks it, he says, look, Peter, on your confession, this rock of your confession, I will build my church. And I’m gonna give you a new name. I’m gonna call you Rocky.

Who wouldn’t want a nickname from Jesus, Rocky? Wouldn’t it be great if Jesus gave you a nickname, Rocky? How many would like that nickname by Jesus? Some of you guys, all right. That’d be great. Peter comes from the Greek petros, which means stone or rock, so I like Rocky.

So we’ll call him Rocky. So it’s from Simon to Rocky. So he’s the first one to confess Jesus.

He’s given a new name, got the cool name Rocky. Jesus then invites him and two other guys, James and John, so just three of the disciples. He says, come follow me.

I’m gonna go up this mountain. Come with me up this mountain. So they go up this mountain.

On this mountain, Jesus reveals his divine glory. Imagine that. Imagine you being able to behold and see with your own eyes the divine glory of Jesus, the Son of God.

Not only that, but it says that Moses and Elijah were there talking with him in this divine glory, too, which is kind of cool. Like, whoa. And so they’re there on the mountain and they’re bowing before, you know, through the power and majesty of what they’re experiencing.

It’s an amazing story. You can look it up. We call it the transfiguration is what we call it, where Jesus is transfigured into his divine glory.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a mountaintop experience in your faith. I’ve had one. I’ve had a mountaintop experience in my faith, literally.

I’ve told this story before, but when I was 16 years old is when I was invited to go to this church youth group retreat. I wasn’t active in church at the time, but I was invited to go along. We didn’t grow up with a lot of money in my house, so we didn’t really travel a lot.

In fact, I had never been out of the state of Michigan as a 16-year-old. I never left, and so it was appealing to me. They were gonna go to the Smoky Mountains and they were gonna go down to Florida, and that sounded great, so I went.

I remember, anybody ever been to the Gatlinburg Chimney Rock? I think it’s called Chimney Tops in Gatlinburg and climbed those? It’s pretty cool, pretty cool. It’s a little scary at the end there, isn’t it? I remember back in those days, and now when you go up there, there’s a sign that says, be careful. You might die.

Literally, it says that. When I went, there was a back way you could go up that was even more dangerous, and they decided to take me up the back way. I was terrified.

I remember, I’m like scaling these rocks like this. I’m looking thousands of feet down, and I actually slipped, because it gets slippery up there because of the mist and the water, the mist of the Smoky Mountains. I remember slipping, the guide grabbing me as I’m slipping.

I’m thinking, oh my gosh, I almost died. But it was during this whole trip is when I really heard Jesus say, follow me. I understood who he was, why he came, and what he wanted me to do.

I was a 16-year-old, and my life was changed, and it’s never stopped. I’m here today because of that mountaintop experience that I had. It’s amazing.

Peter had this amazing mountaintop experience, so how in the world did he deny Jesus three times? How does that happen? How do you go from that all the way down to this? I’m gonna read this story to you. It says that after Jesus was arrested, so think back to Monday, Thursday night, they arrest Jesus in the Garden of Eden, Garden of Gethsemane. Remember, Peter comes out with a sword, and he chops off one of the ears of the soldiers, and then Jesus puts it back on, puts it back in there, and it says that Peter follows Jesus.

I picture Peter putting a hood on, and just kind of incognito, kind of sneaking behind the trees, going from tree to tree. I don’t know. There are trees back there, but he follows them.

He follows Jesus. Jesus goes into this courtyard, and Peter goes in there incognito, and the soldiers and some of the servants and people there, they start a fire, and Peter goes there with the fire, goes to the fire, sits with the people. These are the people that arrested Jesus, that are gonna put him to death.

He’s sitting there with them incognito. Look what it says here. It says, a serving girl seeing him in the light of the fire recognizes him.

Looks at him and says, hey, this man was also with Jesus. And Peter said, woman, I do not know him. Now, remember, Jesus is like, he’s right over there.

Jesus is in the courtyard. He’s right there in the courtyard. He’s in the presence of Jesus when he’s denying him publicly, right there.

Later on, somebody else says, aren’t you also one of them? Peter said, man, I am not. And about an hour later, he’s still around the fire for an hour. I don’t know what he’s thinking.

Somebody else says, certainly this guy is one of them. He looks like a Galilean. Peter said, man, I do not know what you’re talking about.

And as soon as he said that, a rooster crows. A rooster crows. And Peter remembers, he turns, he looks at Jesus off in the corner, I imagine.

They make eye contact. He makes eye contact with Jesus at that third denial of knowing him. I cannot imagine the shame that he was experiencing in that moment.

I don’t think Jesus was looking at him with an angry look. I think it was a loving, compassionate look at Peter knowing what Peter’s gonna experience in that shame. See, fear and shame are two really powerful, powerful tools of the devil, powerful parts of our sinful nature, fear and shame.

Fear can make you do a lot of things. It can make you deny Jesus in front of his face like Peter. And shame, well, shame, look what it did to Judas.

If you know the story, Peter wasn’t the only one of the 12 to betray Jesus, right? Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. And you say, well, Judas, he was just evil. He didn’t, well, it does say that Judas actually, he betrayed Jesus and he also got paid to do it, right? He got 30 pieces of silver, the Bible says.

It says he threw that back. Like he gave that money back. So he must’ve had a time of regret and shame.

But what does Judas do with that shame? He takes his own life. He isolated himself, was consumed by that, took his own life. Peter fell pretty low.

The fear got to him, the shame got to him. It’s overwhelming. Sometimes after mountaintop experiences, things don’t always go the way you think they’re gonna go.

This is gonna be great. Jesus, me and you, we got this. And then all of a sudden, life happens.

After my mountaintop experience, I come back to my old way of life and everything’s different, right? I wanna follow Jesus. So I remember going home and telling my family and my mom was dating this guy at the time. My mom’s gonna hate that I do this, but I’ll talk to her later.

I’ll get her forgiveness later. She and this guy, and this guy was, he started mocking me. He actually started calling me Bible thumper from that point on.

I was just starting to read the Bible. So it’s not like I was a Bible thumper. I mean, I just was, I was excited about my faith, right? He would call me Bible thumper.

He would challenge me. He would try to trip me up with Bible questions and just really not, I did not like him, did not wanna be around him and it was just not, I was starting to like, God, what is going on here? I’m like, I’m getting persecuted in my own family. What the heck? Help me out, God.

I also met a girl on the trip, so I don’t know. And I had a big crush and she dumped me, let me down easy. She was like, let’s just be friends.

You ready? I mean, yeah. That was hard. I go to school.

I tell my classmates at school and they were just like, what? You, like, what happened? And I wasn’t as excited about football. I was kind of a star football player. I started at defensive end and tight end and I played on special teams.

I really loved football. It was my life. But I just wasn’t interested as much as I was in Jesus.

You’re right. Jesus was my sole passion and why I’m standing here today, right? And so I got kind of made fun of and they had laid with me some things and not all of them, but some of them and it was just, I kind of lost some friends and just, I was wondering like, God, what? Did I make a mistake here? You know, start questioning, start questioning, start doubting. Is this really good? I’m not having a good time right now.

I remember going to the principal, assistant principal and I told him, hey, you know, I’d like to start a Christian club here at my school. And he told me, no, you can’t do that. That’s against the law.

Can’t bring religion into the schools. Sorry. Don’t bring that up again or whatever, you know.

So I was just like, Lord, nothing’s working. Nothing’s working, God. I thought we had this great time together and now nothing’s working.

A lot of questioning. What about Peter? I wonder what he was feeling. Have you ever experienced shame? Do you know that feeling of deep shame? It’s a terrible feeling, terrible feeling.

Sometimes that shame can really turn you against God. It can. You can begin to become angry with God or angry with the church that represents God, right? You can walk away.

Was Peter’s salvation at risk? You know, it’s interesting. Jesus actually said in the Gospels, and Peter must’ve been in here to hear this, but he actually said one time, if you deny me before men, I will deny you before the Father. Didn’t he say that? That’s pretty strong words.

I wonder if Jesus was thinking about, I wonder if Peter was thinking about that. So yeah, I mean, I guess it was at risk, right? I mean, it was at risk for Judas too. How was their reactions different if we were gonna compare Judas and Peter? So you have Judas on the one hand.

In shame, he isolates himself, right? He goes out, takes his own life. What about Peter? What does he do? We don’t really know yet, because where is he? Where is Peter on Good Friday? He’s the leader of the 12, I thought. He’s the one that follows Jesus as he’s being arrested, and now he leaves, he weeps and leaves, and we don’t hear anything about him.

Where is he? Jesus is being whipped and suffered and beaten. All those things on Good Friday. It’s only John that sticks around, right? John’s the only one at the cross.

Everybody else is gone. Peter’s gone. What happened to this guy with the sword? Where’s the guy with the sword? He’s not there.

Where is he? Well, I’m gonna show you where he is, and it’s really important. It’s really important where he is. The next time we hear about Peter, the next time we hear about Peter is in the empty tomb.

The women go to the empty tomb to wrap Jesus in spices, his body in spices, which is the tradition that they did back then, to take care of the body, and the angel’s there. What does the angel say? Go and tell the disciples, right? Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He has risen. Now go and tell the disciples, and go tell Peter.

Go tell Peter. So that’s our first clue. Where is Peter? Where is he? He’s with the people of God.

I don’t know when. Maybe it was Friday. Maybe it was Saturday.

But we know Sunday morning, he’s with the people of God. He hasn’t isolated himself. In shame, he returns to his family, the family of God, and that’s where he’s found.

He went back to church, right? That’s what he did. After they told Peter and John, they run to the tomb. You know the story.

They run to the tomb, and they find it empty. Later, Jesus has a personal conversation. Jesus has a personal conversation with Peter.

You wanna see what he says to him? This is the first time Jesus, remember he had the eye contact with Jesus, but now he’s gonna have the first opportunity one-on-one with Jesus. This is where Jesus is gonna, I told you so, you know, he’s gonna give it to him, right? Let’s look at what Jesus says, this conversation he has. Maybe you’ve experienced shame.

Maybe you’ve had spiritual failure. Well, we’ve all had that, haven’t we? We’ve all chosen sin over trust in Jesus. So we all know what shame and guilt is.

Some of us have also walked away from God, walked away from the church, and maybe you develop an image of God, an image of Jesus, of who he is. You create some image that keeps you away. I want you to see Jesus here.

See his heart. That look he gave Peter wasn’t a look of hatred or anger. It was a look of love.

And here, Jesus is meeting with Peter, and he calls him by his birth name. Doesn’t use the nickname, he calls him, he says, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Feed my lambs.

He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter said, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend my sheep. He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved.

Why do you think he was grieved? Why was he grieved there? What do you think Peter’s thinking right there as Jesus asks him the third time, right? He’s remembering. He knows what Jesus is doing, right? He knows what Jesus is doing. He denied him three times.

Think he’s forgotten that? He hasn’t forgotten that. Lord, you know everything, and you know that I love you. Jesus says, feed my sheep.

Follow me, Peter, follow me. Jesus gives him three opportunities to confess him publicly. See, one thing I want you to realize today is this.

Your worst spiritual failure, so if you’re gonna think of the worst thing you’ve done, is not the final word over your life. The worst failure you’ve had as a Christian is not the final word over your life. The risen Jesus is the final word.

The victorious and risen Jesus, the one who won forgiveness, the one who carried your shame, the one who carried all those failures on himself, that’s the last word. Jesus meets you in that shame. He meets you in those moments, and he brings forgiveness, restoration, and he reminds you of the purpose of why he created you.

There’s a story in, there’s a story that Jesus told, a parable. How many have heard the story of the good, the prodigal son? The prodigal son. So the story of the prodigal son, it’s a parable Jesus told.

The story of the prodigal son was a story of a loving father who had two sons, and one of the sons wanted his inheritance, and he wanted it now. And he wanted to spend it in wild living, away from the family, and the father gives him the inheritance, and he runs off, and he blows it on, goes to Vegas, I guess, I don’t know, he just spends it and sows his wild oats. And at a certain point, his life’s not turning out the way he was hoping.

He’s not having such a good time anymore. He’s out of money, he’s eating the same thing that pigs eat, and he remembers how loving his father is, and he said, maybe my dad will just let me be a servant, or a slave, or something. So he returns to his father, and the story is, as soon as the father is actually looking for him, and as soon as he sees his prodigal son return, he runs to meet him.

He runs to meet him. That’s the God we have, that’s Jesus. He runs to meet you.

So he meets you in your shame, he meets you in the midst of your brokenness, he brings forgiveness, restoration, and recommissioning. See, you’re always a son. See, when you were baptized, you become, you’re born again into the family of God.

That’s what the Bible says. And you are always a son and always a daughter. And just like the prodigal, when the prodigal son returns, he’s still a son, right? He’s still a son, and the father loves him as a son.

Jesus is meeting you there. Maybe you’ve been away from church for 10 years, maybe you’ve been away for 20 years. Maybe you just show up today and God brought you here today to hear this very message, that God has not forgotten you.

That God is waiting and running to meet you. He still has a plan for you. And whatever it is that you think you’ve done that’s so bad that you can’t be at church anymore, know that Jesus carried that, and he died for it, and he offers you forgiveness and restoration.

He’s got a plan for you. Now, restoration is not always easy. It’s personal.

He addressed Peter by name, Simon, son of John. I don’t know what your name is. I’m Eric John, son of Carl, I guess.

But however he addresses you, it’s personal. It’s personal, it’s you and him. He’s talking to you.

He knows you. He knows everything you’ve done. He’s in the room.

Whatever it is you’re doing, guess what? He’s in the room. That’s what makes it so shameful when you realize that. It’s painful to revisit.

I mean, it was painful for Peter to remember, yeah, I did deny you. I denied my friend, my God, three times. Yeah, I can imagine that’s painful to revisit that, think about that.

But it was important that he had to revisit that failure with Jesus so he could receive that forgiveness, right? Confess it, right? We confess our sins to receive His forgiveness. It’s also purposeful. For Peter, it led to feed my sheep, right? It wasn’t just, I can’t believe he did that, Peter.

It wasn’t that, was it? No, it wasn’t that. It was to feed my sheep. I got a plan for you.

That plan is still existing for you. Step back into it, Peter. It wasn’t just feel better, it was I have purpose for you in this life.

And God has a purpose for you. No matter where you’ve been, what you’ve done, the purpose remains, and you can step into that purpose. Jesus walks into our shame with victory over sin, amen? He calls us by name, He knows you, and He sends us forward with purpose, and with hope, and with peace, and with love.

50 days after Jesus rose from the dead, Peter gets another chance. It’s the day of Pentecost. So you know the day of Pentecost in the Bible is the day, it’s a festival, it’s a day when all the Jews are gathered in Jerusalem again and it says that the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples like flames of fire.

They’re filled with the Holy Spirit for the first time, okay? And who is it that steps out among them to proclaim Jesus? This is the same crowds that cried, crucify Him, crucify Him, right? The same crowds. It’s the same crowds that were around the fire and said, hey, aren’t you one of them? And Peter was afraid. It’s the same crowds that he was afraid of.

Here he is, he steps forward, and you can read it in the book of Acts, and he proclaims Jesus. That you crucified the Son of God, Jesus. He’s the one that God promised from the beginning.

He is the Son of God. So it’s pretty amazing here. Going back to my story, I actually went back to the assistant principal.

Did I mention this story yet? So I told you I wanted to start a Christian club, right? He said no. I went back to him. I went back to the assistant principal.

I did a little bit of research, I was prepared. I won’t say I threatened him, but I did say I was gonna sue him if he didn’t. I did.

Well, I mean, I just tried to educate him, I guess. I said, you know, there’s this law called the equal access law, and if you allow students to develop clubs, like a ski club. We had a ski club that the students developed.

You have different clubs that students can develop at your school. You can’t deny me to develop a club on religious reasons. That’s religious discrimination.

Can’t do that. He was like, okay, sorry. And then he was very supportive after that.

Who knows, you know? So for a couple years there, I got to proclaim Jesus to my classmates at high school. We had meetings before school, after school. We put stuff in lockers.

We did all kinds of, put posters up. We had parties, we had, my sister was in the, she was one of the journalists behind the school newspaper. So I put a lot of stuff in there.

So we were able to really share Jesus, the love of Jesus, with all kinds of people at my high school. It was amazing. Those few years, yeah, it’s awesome.

You can do that too, young people. High schoolers, you can do that too. You know, to this day, this is true, decades later, decades and decades and decades and decades later, I still occasionally will have someone from high school reach out to me, like through Facebook, or ask for prayer.

I’ve had opportunities to be with people, you know, at the darkest time of their life and to support and encourage them with the love of Jesus. So that purpose, that plan is actually still going on, which is amazing. I’m still trying to fulfill that plan that God had back then.

It’s still going on today. You know, Peter kept going. So 30 years after this, so right here, 30 years after this, Peter writes something.

He writes this letter called 2 Peter. You can read it in the New Testament. So 30 years later, he writes this.

Now, I keep thinking when I read this, I think, man, Peter must have been thinking about 30 years ago when he writes this. Listen to what he says here. He’s writing this letter to the Christians.

He says, hey, God’s divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, what? You will never fall. Let me ask you a question. Where do you practice these virtues? Where do you practice these things? At home, when you’re by yourself? Right here.

This is where you practice them in the church. You can’t be brotherly affectionate to yourself, can you? I mean, I guess you could do the self-hug, I don’t know. These are all things that we do in the church together.

Peter knows what made the difference for him. He returned to Jesus, he returned to his body. You know, Jesus gave a, the Bible gives a term for us.

We’re not just the body of Christ, we’re also called what? His bride. We’re called his bride. Don’t abandon the bride.

That’s an awful thought, isn’t it? Of a bride being abandoned. Don’t abandon the bride, it’s his church. This is the greatest resource you have other than the Holy Spirit, right, is each other.

It’s his body. I know so many people in my life that have chosen Jesus but have rejected the church. Anybody know someone? They still believe in Jesus, but they just don’t believe in the church.

They don’t believe in this, just them and Jesus. But where is Jesus? Where is Jesus? He’s everywhere, but where is he specifically? What does the Bible say? Where do you find Jesus? Where two or three are gathered in his name, right? Where two or three are gathered in his name, there I am in the midst of them. If you want Jesus, this is where you’re gonna find him, in the church, amen? But I know it’s hard.

I know that the struggles and the things that happen in life and you get caught up and if the Holy Spirit is bringing this to your mind, then give thanks, give thanks. The Holy Spirit’s still working in your life. If you’re feeling the conviction, the guilt or the shame, just know that, hey, God loves you.

He’s still, he hasn’t left. He’s here, he’s waiting for you. He’s waiting, he’s getting ready to run toward you.

He’s getting ready. As soon as you turn back to him, he’s running to meet you. It’s important to be part of the body of Christ so we don’t fall like Peter did.

That was Peter’s words. You know, Peter, in closing, at the end of his life, Peter was asked to deny Jesus one more time. I don’t know if you know the story about Peter.

He was taken and arrested himself and taken to the Roman authorities. And he was threatened with crucifixion. Did he deny Jesus? No, he didn’t.

In fact, the story goes that when he was being crucified, he asked those who were crucifying, he said, look, I don’t deserve to die like Jesus, so crucify me upside down. So that’s kind of the legend we have about Peter, that he asked to be crucified upside down in his humility. It’s kind of a beautiful picture of Peter in his last moment, you know? He went from that, right in front of Jesus’s, he denies him three times, too, giving up his life.

Have you denied him in word or deed in your life? Have you neglected your faith? Have you avoided proclaiming Jesus or letting others know you’re a Christian because of that fear of what they might think or do? Have you ever experienced the shame from all that, from spiritual failure and mistakes you’ve made, that awful feeling of shame, regret, guilt, self-contempt, even? Forgiveness and restoration are found at the cross. They’re one for you at the cross. He has a purpose for your life, still.

Return to Jesus, return to his body. You may have to do it every day the rest of your life, right, but Jesus is here. Forgiveness is here.

Restoration is here. Finding your purpose is gonna be here, too. God loves you, he runs to meet you when you turn back to him.

Enter into that forgiveness, that restoration, his purpose for you. Don’t go the way of Judas, go the way of Peter, amen.