One Man's Journey Toward Hope in God

In ways that are infinite, beyond our ability to understand. And you've brought them here this morning and I pray that I, that you, Lord, would enable me to serve them well, help me to be their servant this morning, and yet I know that, that I am a weak and ignorant man and I cannot, preach as I ought. As is necessary, and so I ask that your spirit would, would be a help to me as I seek to serve the men and the women and the boys and the girls that are in this audience today.

We just commit ourselves to You, Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to First Peter chapter one. First Peter chapter one, which is where we'll start, this morning. I want to speak to you this morning on the subject of one man's journey toward hope in God.

One man's journey toward hope in God. There are many people in our culture today who would say that, all religions are equally valid. All religions are equally true. And so if you don't need a religion, that's OK.

If you feel like you need a religion, then just pick one, any of them, any one of them. And then you'll often hear the words, whatever gives you hope. Just pick the religion that seems to give you hope. And if you find that, then that would be OK.

This council is naive at best and dangerous at worst because it ignores the fact that not all hope is good. Not all hopes are good. Some hopes are bad, very bad, and they destroy and they kill. When a person puts his hope, for example, into drugs and hopes to find meaning and fulfillment.

In drugs, that is a bad hope that will lead to his destruction and hurt to those that love and care about him. When a married man puts his hope in another woman who is not his wife, that is a destructive and deadly hope for himself and for his own marriage and for the members of his family. When a person puts their hope in career advancement or in making more and more money, and that's what they're banking on and putting investing all of their hope in, that can lead them to sacrifice things that are too important to sacrifice and could lead them possibly to make unethical choices that can bring about hurt to others and their own downfall.

You guys understand that not all hope is good.

Adolf Hitler had hope. He had a ton of hope. And he would say, hey, I've got a belief system that gives me hope. And my, my hope is that if I dominate the world, I can make the world a better place.

His hope was if we can get rid of all the Jews, then this world will be a better place. And even the most passionate relativist would say, actually that's a bad hope. There are many who have hope. They put their hope, they invest themselves with such great intensity of hope in another person or in a relationship to such a degree that it crushes that relationship and crushes that other person.

There are others who have hopes and dreams that when those dreams and hopes are not satisfied or fulfilled, it's cataclysmic to them. They don't know how to live and have joy and happiness apart from the fulfillment of their hopes. Not all hope is good. Ladies, when you're riding in the car with your husband and he is lost.

And that he is lost. You've known it for 30 minutes. And you've said to him, let's stop and let's ask for directions, but your husband ignores you and continues to hope in his own instincts. And intuition That's not a good hope.

Not all hope is good. Some hopes need to die. The message of Christianity is not come to God and pin all, take all of your hopes and dreams, and pin them on God, and He will make all of your hopes come true. The message of Christianity is to come to the foot of the cross with all of your hopes and dreams.

And allow those hopes to undergo a thoroughgoing review and allow them to die at the foot of the cross where Jesus was crucified. And on the other end of that death, allow God to produce in you a hope that is refined and pure and good, a hope that is in God and in God alone. That is the journey we're gonna be talking about today. This is the end game of Christianity.

This is the purpose of Christianity. This is, we can say this is the purpose of Christ's resurrection. Christ's resurrection occurred in part, so that you could have hope, the right hope in God. Look at our passage this morning in First Peter chapter 1, verse 20 and 21, where Peter says, Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that, here's the purpose, so that your faith and hope may be in God.

Part of what this passage is saying is that one of the primary purposes for the death and the resurrection of Jesus is to give you the right hope, to shape and direct your hope to where it rest in God. To wean you from hope in yourself or in anything or anyone else, and to direct you to God to where he is your hope. Hoping in God with the right hope is the only safe hope to have. And if Peter, the apostle who wrote these words were here this morning and we said to him, wow, Peter, those are incredible words, what you say in verse 21.

It's amazing insight of the purpose of the resurrection, so that we would have hope in God. Peter would probably laugh and he would say it was quite a journey getting here. This is what I believe, this is what I teach now, but it was an ugly journey to get to this location with my hope. What we're gonna do today is look at a few passages in the gospel accounts.

And observe Peter on this journey to this place where his hope was shaped entirely by the death and the resurrection of Jesus. What we'll do with the time that we have is make 6 observations about Peter's journey toward an end to a resurrection shaped hope in God, which is the only safe hope to have. You'll be amazed at where he starts out in some of these early observations. Observation number 1 is at one point, Peter didn't even have much hope that Christ should be befriending a sinner like him.

early in Peter's relationship with Jesus, there is an incident recorded in Luke chapter 5 where Jesus needed Peter's boat to sit in and to pull away from the shore to teach the multitude gathered on the shore. When Jesus was done with the boat, the disciples, they had essentially fished all night and not caught anything. So when Jesus finished with the boat, he told them, Hey, why don't you get in the boat and just push out to the deeper waters and then throw your nets in the water and see what you catch.

And Peter said, Lord, we've fished all night and we've not caught anything.

But nevertheless, because this is what you're telling us to do, that's what we'll do, which is always a safe thing to do. Just follow Jesus, whatever he says. And so they pushed the boat out and they cast the net into the sea, and all of a sudden there was a massive catch of fish that was so great. So massive that it was tearing the nets and they were having trouble getting the nets and getting all the fish onto the boat and to the degree that they were able to do that, the boat began to sink from the weight of the catch, and they also needed to call for their friends in another boat to come over and to help them with this huge haul of fish.

It's an amazing miracle. I go fishing maybe a couple of times a year or so, and I don't catch a lot of fish. and when we go up to Mammoth with some of the men from the church, some of those guys are just catching all the time. But for me it is a seldom occurrence, but when it happens, there's nothing more exciting than a fish on the other end of the line.

Can you imagine just casting a net into the water after having fished all night and not caught a single fish, and there are so many fish that it's tearing your net and sinking your boat. That's what happened in Luke chapter 5, and the camera then turns on Peter and it's intriguing the way that Peter responds. In Luke chapter 5 verse 8, it says that when Simon Peter saw that, when he saw this massive catch of fish, he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

He goes to Jesus immediately falls at his feet and says, move away from me, Jesus, because I am a sinful man.

The good thing that's happening here is that Peter is reflecting a consciousness of sin. He understands that he is a sinner. He's very mindful of that. But what he's doing in this moment is he's viewing his sin as something that disqualifies him from Jesus.

He's like, Jesus, I'm, I'm bad news for you, Jesus, and, and it's in your best interest, Jesus, to move away from me, because I am a sinful man. The problem here is that Peter views his sinfulness as something that disqualifies him from Jesus. When the teaching of the Bible is that it is our sin that qualifies us most for Jesus. If you come to Jesus and you flash your righteousness and say, hey, look at all the great things I've done, we should have a relationship.

Jesus would say, I'm not interested in a relationship with you on those terms. But if you come to Jesus saying, I have nothing to bring you but my sin, Jesus says that's who I came for. And your sin is what qualifies you for me. I did not come to call the righteous.

I came to call sinners to myself. Christ came into the world to save sinners. If you're here today, the sins that you've committed throughout your life, I'm, I'm here to tell you, this is good news, your sins do not disqualify you from God. They're the very things that qualify you most for him.

Do not run from Jesus. Do not beckon him to depart from you as Peter does. Peter is probably also implying, Jesus, hanging out with you and, and receiving your amazing kindness and generosity, is making me see my sin more and more, and I'm not sure I'm liking that. The more I hang out with you, the more I see my sin.

So go away from me, Jesus. Maybe, maybe there were things about Peter that he didn't want to see. And maybe Peter is also implying here, Jesus, you, you've, you've given me a ton of fish, you've done a lot of miracles, but I'm not real confident at this point you're gonna be able to change me with regard to my sin problem. So move away from me.

That's the best thing to do. Step back and go away from me. Jesus does not reply or his reply is not in the pages of scripture, but by his actions, he basically replies by saying, I'm not gonna go away from you, I'm gonna stick with you, Peter. And he also said to Peter, basically, don't fear, I'm going to make you.

I'm gonna make you fishers of men. I'm gonna make you into something that you are not right now. What you are right now, you will Not forever be. I will get a hold of you and I will make you into something different.

And the text as it unfolds tells us that Peter left everything and followed Jesus. But at this particular point of him making the statement, Peter did not have much hope that Christ should even be befriending a sinner like him, but Jesus is a friend of sinners. And those who are sinful, those who have committed sinful acts, those who are plagued with guilt over their sins, ought to run to Jesus knowing that he will not send them away, neither will he turn and walk away from them.

There's a second observation we make about Peter on his journey towards and into a resurrection shaped hope in God.

And that is at one point, Peter's hope for himself did not depend on a savior who died and rose again. It's very interesting what happens in Matthew 16. What Peter's belief system was, it didn't, it didn't require a savior dying and rising again for him. In Matthew 16, Jesus asked his disciples, who do you say that I am?

And Peter spoke up and said, You're the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said, good answer. Good answer. My father revealed that to you, Peter.

He said a few other things, but then, look at what happens next in verse 21. From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples. That he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the 3rd day. He's saying what's going to happen is you've just recognized me as the Messiah and that's good, but here's what I, the Messiah, I am going to do.

I'm heading to Jerusalem and I'm going to be killed. I'm going to die, and on the 3rd day, I'm going to rise again from the dead. And Peter should have thought, well, I guess Christ knows what he's doing and this is a necessary thing, but look how Peter responds in verse 22, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. This is Peter rebuking Jesus, saying, God forbid it, Lord, this shall never happen to you.

Think about this, the death and resurrection of Christ are absolutely central to the Christian faith, and Peter would say there was a point where I told Jesus not to even do that. And we can be grateful that Jesus did not heed Peter's counsel. But obviously, whatever Peter's belief system was, he's like, I believe in Jesus, I believe he's the Messiah, I believe he's the king. but I don't like what he's saying, and Jesus needs to go about this business of being the Messiah King differently than he is.

And so I'm going to try to fit Jesus into my mold. Well, that's a bad idea. Jesus does not fit into our mold, we have to fit into his mold. Verse 23, but Jesus turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interest, but man's.

Peter, you're not gonna stop me from doing what I have just told you is gonna happen to me. I am going to die and on the 3rd day I'm going to rise again. But in that moment where Peter is saying, don't do this, Lord, don't die and don't rise again from the dead, Peter is representing that part of him that actually we see displayed everywhere in our culture today and beyond. there's basically two religions.

There's the true religion, which is a path to God, the only true path to God that goes right through the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. And then there's every other religion. There are those that believe their only hope for salvation is through Christ, resurrected or crucified and resurrected, and then there are those who believe in a way of salvation that does not require a dying and resurrecting savior. Examples are numerous.

John Shelby Spong, who ought to know better because he has studied and he even preaches, according to his definition, the scriptures, and he says, we don't need a savior. If Jesus died for your sins, you are one wretched human being. I don't think that's good news. It's like whatever we need for salvation, we don't need some savior God coming and dying for us.

Paul Heffron of the Humanist of Minnesota Organization. is speaking to other humanists, and he's saying, Christians have their gospel and we've got our good news. We've got our gospel. And our good news is that we don't need a savior God, we can save ourselves.

We don't need some God coming and dying for us. We can save ourselves. About a month or so ago, Miley Cyrus, whom I've never quoted from the pulpit here at Cornerstone. She tweeted a photo of Lawrence Krauss, the theoretical physicist.

and under the photo, there was the, the word beautiful, and with this tweet came a quotation from Lawrence Krauss. And listen to what he says that she quoted in this tweet. He said, you are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded because the elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, all things that matter for evolution weren't created at the beginning of time.

They were created in stars, so forget Jesus. Stars died, so you can live. Wow. Imagine someone writing a hymn celebrating that reality of the stars dying so that we could live.

That's as far as his thinking goes. Forget about this Jesus stuff and him dying for your sins. The stars died so that you might live. There are millions and millions of people that are thinking they're on the road to God and whatever path of life they're on, it doesn't require some savior dying and being raised for their salvation.

And when Peter would hear people talking like this, he would say, what, I get that there was actually a point where when Jesus first told me I'm gonna die and get raised on the 3rd day, I actually told him not to do it. I didn't see the need for it at that point in the journey that God was taking me on toward and into a resurrection shaped hope in God. There's a 3rd observation we can make in Peter's own personal story, and that is that at one point, Peter had great hope in his own righteousness.

At one point, Peter had great hope in his own righteousness.

Peter is a study in contradictions. We've already seen how at one point he was so low and down on himself that he's seeing his sinfulness and telling Jesus, go away from me. And yet, At a later point, what we're going to see right now, Peter was so full of himself that he had confidence in his own righteousness and actually told Jesus, you're wrong about me. When you talk about me sinning.

In the hours before Jesus was arrested, he turned to his disciples, and he gave them some really bad news. In Mark 14:27, Jesus said to them, You will all fall away. Literally, you will all stumble. You will all fail.

This is the word we get our English word scandal from. You're all gonna be scandalized on account of me, you're gonna fall away, you're going to fail tonight because it is written, I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. I'm gonna be struck. Down and you are going to fail.

You will fall away. You will stumble tonight. Verse 28, but I want to tell you right now, before you stumble and fall, after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee. That expression go before is a shepherding term.

And so he's saying, I'm your shepherd right now. I've shepherded you to this point. I'm telling you what's going to be happening, you're going to fail tonight, but I want you to know that after that failure, after I've been raised from the dead, I'm going to continue being your shepherd. And I will continue to lead you, and go before you and be to you everything that a shepherd is to his sheep.

The disciples, including Peter, should have been humbled by This announcement from Jesus, they should have trusted him that wow, failure awaits us, that's so unsettling, Jesus, but thank you that you're not gonna give up on us and continue, you're gonna continue to be our shepherd on the other side of failure. But that's not how Peter responds. In verse 29, Peter said to him, even though all may fall away, yet I will not. Two things are happening.

Number 1, he's outright disagreeing with Jesus. You're wrong about me, Jesus. You're so wrong about me. You think you see something in me?

In the way of sin and failure, it's not in me, you're wrong about me. And another thing Peter is doing is he is comparing himself favorably to other people. He doesn't just say, hey, we're not gonna fall away from you. He doesn't just say, hey, I'm not gonna fall away from you.

No, he has to say, even though all may fall away, I won't. He's looking at the other disciples that Jesus is talking to. He's basically saying, Jesus, I understand what you're saying when you say you're all gonna fall away, you're speaking to us collectively as a group. And I understand what you're saying with regard to these guys.

But you're wrong about me. Even though the rest of these people will fall away from you, I won't. I'm better than you think I am, and I'm better than these people are. He's comparing himself to others and trying to posture himself as better than Jesus is saying that he is at this point.

Jesus did not respond by saying, oh, I'm sorry, Peter, I must have misjudged you. No, verse 30, Jesus said to him, truly, I say to you that you yourself, this very night before a rooster crows twice, shall 3 times deny me. Peter, not only are you going to fall away, tonight, you're actually going to deny me 3 times, you're gonna feel worse than all the others are going to fail. Peter kept on, even after this, saying insistently, even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.

And they were all saying the same thing. This is so common in the human fallen condition. There are people that they read the Bible, and they, they read the unsettling things that God says about us as human beings. We're created in the image of God and created for relationship with Him, but we have sinned, we have rebelled against God, and the scripture says there's none good, not even one, there's none righteous, not even one.

And there are people that read that revelation about themselves from scripture and say, this book is wrong about me. I am better than this book says that I am. God is wrong about me. I'm better than he in this book says that I am.

There's also the instinct in all of us to compare ourselves favorably to other people, right? And we're not sure what to think about ourselves, so we just start looking around and we'll compare ourselves to other people. Well, at least I don't do that. And at least I don't do that.

Oh man, look at that serious moral failing over there, hmm, shame. I've never done that. And we compare ourselves to other people and we feel self-righteous. We also have high hopes for ourselves and it's like, here's what I'm gonna do, here's what I'm resolved to do, and not that determining to do something is bad, but we don't feel like we need God's help or to depend upon him in any way, shape or form.

I'm gonna be able to do this, I'm gonna be able to pull this off, because I got it in me to do this. It's exactly what Peter is doing in this passage. And he would say to us, what, I'm at a place of hope in God now, but there was a point where I'm, I'm ashamed to admit that I actually stood in front of Jesus and I boasted in my righteousness, and I told him he was wrong about me, and I actually had the audacity to compare myself to other people. And I just knew this was going to be my finest hour, when I alone would be the one who sticks with Jesus and undivided, undaunted devotion to him, and the rest of human history would speak of my faithfulness in this my finest hour.

Well, that leads to the 4th observation because he would say, what, that I should have known right away I was setting myself up for significant failure. When you start comparing yourself to other people, thinking yourself better than other people, when you're looking at God's revelation and saying, God, you're wrong about me and about my sin, and when you think that you can just do right things without totally depending upon God to be performing that through you, you are setting yourself up for royal failure.

The 4th observation we make in Peter's journey towards an end to a resurrection shaped hope is this, that the events surrounding Christ's death shattered Peter's hope in himself. After Christ was arrested, he was taken to the house of the high priest and, and the narrative of the Gospels tells us that Peter followed from a distance and then he went into the courtyard of the high priest and he began to warm himself by the fire.

And look at what happens, and as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came. And seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, you too were with Jesus the Nazarene. But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what you're talking about. And he went out onto the porch.

And the maid saw him again and began once more to say to the bystanders, this is one of them. Meaning one of Jesus' followers, but again, he was denying it. And after a little while, while the bystanders were again saying to Peter, surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean too. But he began to curse and to swear.

I do not know this man you are talking about. When the text tells us here that Peter began to curse and swear, it means something more than just that Peter uttered some profanities. It means either one of two things or possibly both. It means that Peter pronounced a curse upon himself, saying something to the effect of, May I be damned if I am lying when I say I don't know that man.

May I be cursed eternally if I am lying when I say I don't know him. Or some writers suggest that Peter is cursing Jesus. And they're saying you, you were with him, him, you're one of his followers, and, and Peter is like, curse him. Curse him.

I don't know this man that you are talking about. He can't even bring himself to mention the name Jesus. And immediately a rooster crowed a second time, and Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him, before a rooster crows twice, you will deny me 3 times. And Peter began to weep.

If you read Luke's account, I believe it is in the Gospels. What what's revealed is that after the rooster crowed, Jesus, who was standing trial, turned and looked at Peter. And Peter and Jesus, their eyes would have met for one awful moment. Jesus has already been punched and slapped and spat upon, mocked and ridiculed.

His face is no doubt, riddled and swollen from the abuse he's already endured, and as Peter curses. Himself or curses Jesus and saying, I don't know this man that you're talking about. Jesus turns and looks at him, and Peter looks at Jesus for one awful moment. And then you put all the data from the Gospels together, Peter covered his face and went out and he wept bitterly.

Over what he had done. Peter is shocked and he's devastated. He had such high hopes for himself, he never thought he would be capable of just this. Just a few hours before, he thought this would be his finest hour, and here he is in this devastating moment, having said and done things that he didn't even think that he was capable of, and Jesus heard it all and saw him in that moment.

In the hours that followed, wherever Peter went to go weep bitterly in mourning over his guilt and his sin, Christ would have ultimately been condemned and then crucified, and Peter would have been informed that they've made the decision, he's going to be crucified, and then Peter would have been informed that Jesus died. The next day, Just imagine you being Peter, and imagine what you would be feeling. Peter no doubt was thinking there's no one who's been better to me than Jesus.

No one has loved me like Jesus has.

He's been with me through thick and thin over the last 3 years and he has taught me, he's opened my eyes to see things about God and about myself that I've never known before. He has taught me how to pray. He healed my mother-in-law. He's given me hundreds of fish and a miraculous catch.

He's let me just live with him and to watch the way that he lives and relates to people. I have never seen one so holy and righteous, loving, and full of grace and truth in Jesus. No one has loved me like he has. And this is how I repay him.

And as he is going to his death, the last thing he sees and hears from me is me cursing and swearing myself or Jesus and saying, I don't know this man. The guilt that Peter had been feeling was awful. And he was no doubt thinking in his remorse, what, I'm no different than Judas. What is the difference between me and Judas, Judas sold him out for some money, and I sold him out just to protect my own hide from a little servant girl.

My sin is even greater, and I cursed him. I cursed myself. This resonates because there have been times in my life and I know all of us who are really honest would testify that there have been times where we, we've had such high hopes for ourselves. I, I remember even after I became a Christian, I was 19 years old and I remember sitting at a New Year's Day breakfast at our church.

I, I'd given my life to the Lord a month and a half earlier, and I remember sitting there going, what, I think I got this sin thing licked. I seriously thought that I, I've got this thing under control, and yeah, I might battle or struggle a little bit, but by and large, My days of committing evils are over. How naive I was. We, we make resolutions, we utter our goals, we make our plans, we.

We summon the very best that's in us and before we know it, we walk away from a circumstance, devastated, shocked, amazed at the words that have come out of our mouth and actions that we have engaged in that are sinful. This is what happened to Peter. And he's riddled with brokenness and guilt. Fortunately, the story does not stop there.

The 5th observation we make in his journey towards a resurrection sized hope, Is that after Christ's resurrection, Christ sought out and ministered hope to Peter. if Jesus was never raised from the dead, Peter would have gone to his grave, a broken, decimated man, ruined by his sin. I don't know that he could have lived a month with the load of guilt that he was carrying for what he had done. But on Sunday, Sunday came and the earth rumbled, and Christ was risen from the dead, and after he was raised, he sought Peter out in some beautiful ways.

Remember his promise in Mark 16, Jesus said to them, You will all fall away. Because it's written, I'll strike down the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered, but hey, after I've been raised, I will go before you to Galilea. You're gonna fail, but after I've been raised from the dead, I'm going to continue to be your shepherd. We'll pick up where we left off, and I will lead you and be to you what a shepherd is to a sheep.

That's exactly what he does. In Mark 16. Which of all the gospels, historians suggest this is the gospel that reflects Peter's perspective. John Mark would have taken Peter's recollections and put those down in what we call the Gospel of Mark.

And in the Gospel of Mark, this is Peter's recollection. The women showed up on Sunday, resurrection Sunday, and the tomb was empty and they're like, Where is Jesus? And, and an angel appears and says, Why do you look for the living one amongst the dead? He's not here, he's risen, just as he said that he would.

And then the angel says to the women, go tell his disciples and Peter. He is going before you into Galilee. That's almost a direct quote from what Jesus said to the disciples about after I've been raised, I will go before you to Galilee. But notice this, go tell his disciples, and Peter.

I am sure the women ran to tell the disciples, hey, Jesus has risen and, and they're like, well what happened? They're like, well the tomb was empty and there was a, there was an angel at the tomb and the angel told us to, he, he said, go and tell his disciples and Peter that he's risen from the dead. And I'm sure Peter would have stopped them and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, back that up. What, what did the angel say?

They said, well, he, he said, go tell his disciples and Peter. What would you think if you were Peter? What comfort would that speak to your heart that your name would be the only one mentioned of all of the disciples. I think part of the reason why Peter's name gets mentioned is because if all that the angel said was go tell his disciples, Peter probably would have said that does not include me, because I am no disciple of Jesus.

No one who is his disciple says what I said in Jesus' dying hour, or he would have at least wondered, does this include me, but now all doubt is removed, go tell his disciples and tell Peter that he's going before you as a shepherd in the Galilee and there you will see him just as he said. We don't know the details of it, but in 1 Corinthians 15 and in Luke 24, we're told that Jesus made a very personal, very private appearance to Peter, and the details of that are not recorded in scripture.

I can only speculate that Peter upon hearing of Christ's resurrection was like excited, but then he was dreading like he's raised from the dead and And I, I might be seeing him here real soon. What is he gonna say to me?

What is he gonna, what does he think of me? What is he gonna do to me? And so there was probably a mixed with dread that tainted his excitement over the resurrection, but somehow in some setting Jesus appeared to Peter in a personal private way. And I, I can only imagine that wherever Jesus appeared to Peter, when Peter was aware that it was Jesus, that Peter was not able to lift his head.

And lift up his eyes and look at Jesus. How could he? And Jesus, no doubt, said Peter, look at me, look at me. And probably had to help Peter to lift up his face and actually look at him.

And Jesus would have somehow in some way spoken love and deep forgiveness into Peter's heart. I love you, Peter. I am your shepherd. And I forgive you for what you have done.

We know that something happened between Peter and Jesus that was so profound that And Jesus, in one of his later appearances in John 21, Peter was up in Galilee with his colleagues and he said, hey, let's go fishing, and they went out fishing on the Sea of Galilee, and they, they, weren't catching anything and then there was a stranger standing on the shore. And it was Jesus, they didn't know it. And he was like, hey, have you caught anything? And they were like, No, we haven't caught anything.

And he said, well, cast your net on the right side of the boat. And so they were like, well, we'll cast our net on the right side of the boat, and they did, and immediately there was a net full of 153 fish. and as soon as that happened, I love the way the text reads, as soon as that catch happened, the disciple, therefore, whom Jesus loved, said to Peter, it's the Lord. He may be far away and I may not recognize him, but that must be Jesus.

And so when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his outer garment on, for he was stripped for work, and he threw himself into the sea, not to drown himself and not to swim away from the shore, but he threw himself into the sea to swim to Jesus, because the boat couldn't get there fast enough for Peter. Here is Peter. Peter racing toward the one whom he has wronged more than any other person, but who has forgiven him and loved him. And Peter's like, I can't, I can't get to him fast enough.

I'm just going to jump in the water and get to Jesus and I'll let everyone else handle this huge catch of fish. Jesus is so much more important to me. That's what love and forgiveness is the power to do. Somehow in some way, the resurrected Christ would have opened Peter's eyes to understand why he had to die.

Peter later in his life says in 1 Peter 2:24 that Christ Himself bore our sins in his body on the cross. That's what was happening when he died, it was not some freak accident of history. No, when Christ was on the cross, all of our sins were placed upon him. And he bore our sins in his body and he died as if he committed those sins.

He died for the crimes that we committed. In fact, I can just see Jesus saying to Peter, Peter, the sins you committed against me, what you said, when I died, I died for that. I bore that in my body, so that you would not have to. And as a result of this, Peter also says you were redeemed from your feudal way of life, inherited from your forefathers with precious blood of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

the word redeem means to deliver. Christ died on the cross so that we would be delivered from a futile, empty, hopeless way of life, and also to be delivered from the way of life inherited by our forefathers. there's no one that really shapes us. More than our mom or dad, their presence or absence, they're good or they're bad, and they were shaped by their parents and so forth.

And it's out of that matrix that we are profoundly impacted and shaped and influenced even decades after we have left the home. And yet Peter says, That the death of Christ introduces a more powerful change agent, transformation agent that blows away the power wielded by parents and ancestors and whatever matrix we find ourselves being growing up in and being shaped by. Peter's like, you want to understand me? You want to put me on a psychiatrist's couch and try to understand what makes me tick and what has molded and shaped me more than anything else, I'll take you back into my past.

It's the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Through that event I've been redeemed. I've been delivered. Jesus would have opened his mind to understand those things, and that leads to 1/6 and final observation, and that is that Peter happily testified of a rebirth of vibrant hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

In 1 Peter 1:3, here's, here's how he begins his letter, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. imagine experiencing such a profound transformation in your life, that the word change is not sufficient to carry the weight of that meaning. You use words like reborn. I, I've been reborn into a living and vibrant hope, as a result of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from The dead.

When Peter heard the news that Christ was raised, and when Christ made his personal loving, forgiving appearance to Peter, Peter was an absolutely changed man. And that brings us full circle to the passage we started with, where Peter gives this testimony. That through Christ, we are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory. Why?

So that our faith and our hope might not be in ourselves, might not be in anyone or anything else, might not be in our deeds of righteousness that we have done. But God did this so that our faith and our hope would be in God. If you're here today and you've never put your hope in God, in the way that Peter did. If you've not allowed your hope in yourself and in anything else that you depend upon to die, And to be weaned away from those hopes to where you're looking to God saying, you are my only hope.

Jesus, you are my only hope and my hope will be in you and you alone for my salvation. My prayer is that you would turn to him and fix your hope. On him today. I can say this happily to everyone in this room, regardless of whether you're a Christian or not.

To every one of you, I say you are not a product of evolutionary chance. You were created by God. And God created you in His image. You are an image bearer of God.

His image can be seen in you. You say, I'm not a Christian, I don't even believe in God. You bear the image of the God that you deny. You are not reformatted slime.

You were created by God in His image and God created you to live. In the context of relationship with Him, and to find significance and meaning in life inside of a relationship, a love relationship with Him, and he gave you his word, he gave you his laws to serve as a loving guide for you, to show you how to Live out your life in the context of a humble, loving relationship with him. But you and I and all of us in this room, we have rebelled against that. We have rebelled against God and said, I will find my own way.

I will find my own significance apart from you, God. I will find glory for myself. And thus we have awakened the wrath and the judgment. Of this God who created us in His image.

But this god, looks upon our sin and our sin is no match for him. His grace and love are greater, and he sent his son into the world to die on the cross. To bear in his own person the sins that we have committed and God raised him from the dead, saying, I accept this sacrifice, and he ascended Christ to his own right hand, where from that position of absolute lordship, Jesus is giving out relationship, forgiveness, and love and righteousness for free. To all who are willing to see their bankruptcy and to see God's riches and say, I want your riches, not mine.

I want your righteousness, not mine. Jesus is the savior and the only savior for me. If you've not put your trust in Christ in this way, I would urge you to do that even right now where you're seated. As we pray in just a, a moment, if God is calling you to Himself and his spirit is working in your heart and drawing you with his love, respond to that.

Come and talk to me after the, the service. I'll be up front, we'll have other people up front and, and outside there's a resource table. please pursue this. If God is calling you to Himself, respond to his call.

It'll be the best thing that you've ever done. In your life. We pray for you and pray for all of us as we close our time this morning. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for Not only the glory of God that we see portrayed in scripture, but we thank you for the examples of brokenness and despair. Lord, here at Cornerstone, we're, we're no better than other people. We're still trying to figure out what all of these things mean. We just We just know that you're a great God, and you take us deeper and understanding the things that are wrong and broken with us.

And every time you show us that, you take us to yourself. Because you are always the answer. You're always the healing that we need. What a great, mighty, wonderful God you are.

You are the King. You are the savior for us. If there's any here today, Lord, and And your spirit is working in them. And drawing them to yourself, give them the courage to respond to that and to come to you and may there be no one in this room who's afraid to come to you because they think you're going to send them away.

May they hear your words, Jesus, when you say, anyone who comes to me, I will not, I will not cast them out. You will accept all. All who come to you. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to give up our offerings to you also at this moment, receive these funds, Lord, and do much with them for the glory of Jesus.

And we ask these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen.