Software Update Now Available // Hack The Wayback // Read
The Wayback Machine is an online digital library, holding over 580 billion web pages. It works by storing original source code so that previous versions of web pages are accessible—even if the page no longer exists. Did you know the Enemy has crafted his own Wayback Machine? Your past—regrets, sins, mistakes—are all archived, and He is working at a feverish pace to make sure you visit them again and again. But through the Holy Spirit, we have a way out. We can Hack the Wayback, turning the Enemy’s greatest weapon against him.
One of the most insidious features of the Enemy’s Wayback Machine is what it wants you to believe. Not simply that your past defines your present - but that it dictates your future. If He can make you believe your future is already determined, then why bother. The good news? While we can’t change our past, God can change our future. We just need to trust and follow Him!
Well, good morning everybody. This is kind of oldies but goodies. Yeah, I guess what do you think? That's kind of it? I'm so glad to be here. You know, I have people ask me quite often do you miss being senior pastor? Do you miss not preaching every Sunday? Do you miss that? Well, let me tell you, this is my perspective on it. I've loved my life, every single piece of it. Well, there's probably a few moments in there that weren't so great, but, but you know, my life, I love my life. I really love my life. I'm so grateful for it. And it's like being a parent, if you're a parent who has, you've had a great family, and you have grown children who now have grandchildren, you know, when you look back across it, in every season of life, you felt like that was the best one. You know, that was the best season when the baby's first born is so they're so adorable. They're growing too fast. But then when they can talk and have conversations with you, you're like, Oh, this is the best. And then all the way through. Now, you know, I have my kids and their grandkids, and that's the best season. Well, I want to tell you in the life of Cornerstone, it's that way. For me, this is the best season. For me in my life at Cornerstone, I've never been more excited. I've never been more filled with faith and enthusiasm about what God's gonna do. I'm so glad to be sharing this period of time with all of you. I think God is doing amazing things. And if you believe that, how about let's hear it alright? Oh, it's so great. It's so great.
So as part of the great things that are going on here at Cornerstone, the last few weeks have been amazingly helpful. I know that you think that because we've gotten so many comments from people that God is doing things in their life. We have learned through Pastor Jacob's messages the last couple of weeks, that the enemy has a WayBack Machine that records everything. It's his greatest weapon that he has to use against us because he uses our past records, to make us believe that our past determines our present. It determines where we are, it determines what we can do and how we feel right now all of that. But through forgiveness, we learned last week that through forgiveness, giving it and receiving it both, God can change all of that.
Now, before I happen to where we are today on the finale of the series, I want to talk to you about last week, last week was a hard word, right? If you if you were here, if you listened online, or you were here in person, you know that it was a hard word, because it was very personal. If you were listening at all, it was very personal to you. Very personal. And it meant that, you know, you had to, you had to check the Wayback Machine and see what was going on in there. Anytime that you talk about forgiveness, apologies, reconciliation, that's a difficult subject. And it's very personal for all of us in one way or another. But for some, it's very, very touchy and very personal. As we were reminded last week, we all have been hurt. We all have hurt other people. And we all have hurt ourselves. Mostly though, we always feel that the wrongs that the other person did to us are worse than the wrongs that we did. Like, you know, the other guy's headlights are always brighter than yours, that kind of thing. We typically feel that way. But the bottom line is for some people, that is really true. In some situations, we get into the thing that the other person did that is so destructive. It's so hard and they are so unrepentant. That thinking about forgiveness, and all that goes with it is a very, very difficult thing. The hurt is so great, the person so unrepentant that you just don't know how to do this, you don't know how to do it.
Well, the truth of the matter is, you do have to set healthy boundaries. If someone is in that place in your life, you do have to do that. But you do it from a place of forgiveness, a place of forgiveness and health. Jesus never lifted the responsibility from us, of forgiving other people. He never lifts that responsibility. Now, he does say that that's not the same as reconciliation, you may not be able to let that person back into your life in the same way. Jesus never said that the other person who hurts you deserves forgiveness. But he does say that you deserve to not carry the pain and the anger of unforgiveness for the rest of your life. And unforgiveness will be more destructive to you than what they have done to you. 100% Jesus says you deserve to forgive and move on. God for Jesus sake, forgave us when we didn't deserve it. And he invites all of us to decide to personally forgive and release them to his judgment. It doesn't mean that it makes everything okay. We're releasing them as we heard last week to his superior judgment, and then you can go on with your own life and your own future. They can stay in their darkness if that's where they choose. But you don't have to stay there with them. You don't have to do that. And that's when the past can remind you. But it doesn't define you anymore.
Did you know this, this might be one of the best things you'll hear this morning, you have to release your past, or your past won't release you. It's really true, really true, you have to release your past so the past can release you. So if that is a place where you've been stuck in hurting and you don't know how to do the healthy boundaries, and still forgive, you don't have to do that you need some help, I want to suggest a resource to you. It's actually four messages long. And it's by Andy Stanley, you can go to YouTube and download it or you can download his app, Your Move on your phone and get it there. The title of the series is Starting Over: How to Make Sure the Next Time is Not Like the Last Time. It will help you so much. So we're gonna leave that right there. And we're going to have a word of prayer and then jump into the really great news we have for today.
Father, we thank you so much for how good you are to us. We thank you that the Wayback Machine does not need to have power over us anymore. As we cooperate with you, I pray this morning that you would help each one of us to put away any other thoughts that are in our minds right now. And concentrate on the word that you have for each one of us today. We ask it in Christ's name, Amen.
I think one of the worst experiences in life is to realize that you're disqualified. Like, for instance, you know that you're going to be the next winner of the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes, but you kind of put it in the rest of your mail, and you forget it until it's too late to send it in and you're disqualified. Isn't that awful? It's like, wow, depression-worthy. I'm talking about disqualification that's a lot worse than this, like we've just seen in the Olympic Trials starting up for the Olympics in Tokyo, Sha'Carri Richardson is a 21-year-old racing phenom, that girl can really do it at 21-years-old. Past with flying colors, all the races, won everything she needed to win to be able to go to the Olympics. And then when they did the drug testing, they detected marijuana in her blood and she was out. She was no longer allowed to run in the 100 meter race, which is her star race, or star performance. She was not allowed to do that. The United States Olympic Committee had the right to reinstate her after one month, and allow her to run in the relay race which would still be going on. But they chose not to do that because they felt like that she had disgraced the team, and she needed to not be able to come. Can you imagine what that felt like for her? I mean, can you imagine the sickness and the pain that she would feel? That's worse than not qualifying at all. I'm sure she would have rather lost in some of the things coming up than going to her dream the Olympics and being disqualified.
When I was thinking about this message and thinking of things that disqualify us I googled disqualifications and the first thing that came up on disqualifications besides her Olympic disqualification, the next subject was felony disqualifications. If you're a convicted felon, the things that you're disqualified from doing after that, and there were so many things that I didn't know, you know, I always heard you couldn't run for president if he had been convicted of a felony, which actually happens to not be true. It's kind of complicated. I was surprised about that. But there are many things you can't do. Like if you if you're a convicted felon, if you've spent one year or more in prison, you're no longer allowed to bear arms, you're no longer allowed to have ammunition. If you were convicted of a misdemeanor, but it was domestic violence, that also disqualifies you from having a gun. And there's all kinds of things that you can lose, you're disqualified from, if you've gotten that kind of a record. And it's very disheartening, because in every one of those situations, it requires extreme effort. And in the, in the cases of like the gun things, it requires a presidential pardon to take you back again, to get the things that you once had lost. Isn't that an utterly sick feeling? To think that you can do something and lose things so profound? Well, the enemy's Wayback Machine wants you and I to believe that our past determines not only our today, but our future. The Wayback Machine, our enemy that runs it, wants us to believe that we are disqualified, no matter what we might have done, no matter how much God might have used us, that our sins, our mistakes, the things we have done have ruined it all. And for us, it's worse than never having had a chance to be great because it's out of reach. A dream is out of reach. We are disqualified for a fulfilling future.
No one ever believed that more than the Apostle Peter. Now it started out great for him. I want to remind you of his story. We don't have time to do all the scriptures, but I want to remind you of his story because man, this guy had a future. He had a future. It started great. Jesus called him he was one of the very first that he called. And to Peter's credit, he immediately responded, he left his fishing. And he, he went to Jesus, and Jesus immediately changed his name from Simon to Peter, he changed it to Peter. And he said to him, he said, Peter, you're a Rock, I'm gonna call you the rock. Any the guys here like to be called the rock? I mean, we know somebody that's like that. He saw the miracles of Jesus up close and personal. He was one of only a very few, not all the 12 disciples, only a couple people saw Jairus, his daughter who was dead, raised back to life. The Gospel record tells us that Jesus kicked virtually everybody out of the room, but he allowed Peter to stay. And Peter saw that little girl start breathing again and come back to life. He was one of the ones who handed out the bread and fish, he saw the, the loaves of bread, that, you know, we had three and five loaves of bread and fish, and he saw them get multiplied over and over again, Jesus breaks them, there's more and more fish, and he's seeing that with his eyes. He's passing that out with his hands. He sees that. What a privilege.
His name is also named first. His name is listed first. If you read the list of the apostles about any place you see it, like when you hear Peter, James and John, who's first? Peter, Peter, James, and John, always it's that way. He's the first. He is the one who when Jesus was saying that everybody's talking about him, he recognizes that all the crowds, all the people are talking about him. And Jesus, some of them say, you know, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this, who do you say that I am? Peter was the only one who had the nerve and also had the wisdom to speak up and say what he said. Now keep in mind, he was a Jew. He was a Jew, for a Jew, no one was God, but God, it was blasphemy to say something like this. But Peter looked at Jesus, and in light of all the evidence that he had seen, he said, well, I believe that you are the Christ, you are the Son of the living God. What courage it took to say that, what courage and what wisdom it took to say that and he nailed it. Jesus told him that he nailed it. He said, Peter, you are right, you are right. And on this rock, not on Peter, but on this rock, the statement that you just made, that I am the Son of the living God and your declaration of it, on your declaration of that I am going to build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It was just so powerful, he affirmed it.
He was one of only three people to see the Transfiguration. Now, if you're not familiar with that word, or that story, it's towards the end of Jesus ministry. He goes up on a mountain and he invites Peter, James and John, to go up on a mountain with him. And while he's up on the mountain, he's talking with God, the mountain is covered with clouds and bright light, and all of a sudden, Elijah and Moses show up in the flesh. Wow, he was there to see that. Maybe one of the greatest things that he thought that he was part of was, he was fishing one day, and it was time to pay taxes and he caught a fish. And in the fish's mouth, there was enough money to pay his taxes. Would that have been your favorite miracle? Yeah, Yeah, that'd be one I would probably pray for. And then he walked on water. No one else besides Jesus ever walked on water. And he did. We tend to remember the fact that when he lost his faith for a minute, he went under the water. But he was the only one in all of history who had the faith to even walk on water at all. That was him. Jesus was so close to Peter, that they spent so much time together, Jesus trusted him. He taught him the secrets of the kingdom. He told him all about things that were coming up, he discussed the signs of the times with him. He just was so close to him.
Peter had it all. He had it all. And then he disqualified himself. He was disqualified. And the strangest thing about his disqualification after these years of walking about three years of walking with Jesus and knowing him really well. The strangest thing about this is that he disqualified himself in a big way after he just announced to Jesus and all the rest of the disciples that he would never disqualify himself. Jesus was talking the night that he went to the Garden, and then ended up going to the cross before the night was over, went to the trial, and was crucified in the morning, the next day. That night, Jesus is telling them things that are going to happen and they can't believe it. It's all a big stretch for them. They just can't believe it. And Jesus said, you know, you're all going to betray me. Well, Peter was just full of fury at that thought he couldn't imagine that and he said, Everyone might do that all these losers in the rest of the group but me, they might do that, but not me, not me, I will never betray you, I will die for you. And Jesus looked at him with his warm and loving eyes loving him all the way even though he knew this, and he said, "Peter, before the rooster crows tonight, you're going to deny me three times." Peter couldn't believe it. But he did. He did. And I don't have time to read you these scriptures. But I'll tell you where you can look them up if you want to, if you want to write them down. In John chapter 18.
We hear about what happened just a few hours after he said that they go to the Garden, Jesus goes, takes them to the Garden with him. And he asked them to pray. And he tells them, he says, Man, my heart is overwhelmed. I am so grieving. This is their leader, their man that they love more than anything. And he says, I'm so grieving, my heart is overwhelmed. I need you to pray with me. I need you to pray with me, please be fervent in prayer. And so he leaves and he goes away deeper into the Garden of Gesthemane, and he prays. And when he comes back, Peter is asleep. He's asleep. He's not praying for Jesus, he fell asleep. Jesus wakes them up. And he's like, Guys, I told you, my heart is overwhelmed. I need your prayers. I need you to be lifting me up to the Father. Don't you think if Jesus told you once not to fall asleep, you drink all the coffee you need until you do whatever you had to stay awake? Don't you think? I would think, but you know, I, I wasn't Peter, afraid to think of what I might have done in that situation.
Jesus comes back again, and they're asleep. Again. Sleep again. And then the next time he comes to get them, he wakes him up. And he says "The ones who are coming to get me are here." They didn't believe this was going to happen. So you know, he's failing Jesus there. He's dropping the ball there. And then the soldiers come and he sees Judas in the front. He's like, What in the world is going on? This is supposed to be one of Jesus's guys. And he's, he's betraying him. He's doing this. And they announced that they've come to take him. They're looking for Jesus. And Peter decides, well, I'm going to defend Jesus, I'm going to do this. This is good idea. I'm going to defend him. And so he grabs a sword from one of the soldiers that are coming in, he grabs the sword. Thank God, Jesus' life didn't depend on Peter at the moment, because he swung so wildly, that he cut off the servants here. I mean, that's not much of a defense, right? That's pretty lame. Pretty lame, not much of a swordsman. And he forgot what was even worse than the fact that he cut off in the ears. He forgot in that moment that Jesus said, we never defend ourselves by violence. That's not what we do. We are the peacemakers. We don't do that. We don't do that. He forgot it. But it was all he had. That's what he did in that moment.
And then we read on in John chapter 18, that after he made his lame defense, and he saw that the soldiers who were really serious, and that Judas had told them who Jesus was as if they couldn't tell anyways. He ran away. He ran away. He didn't even stay with Jesus. He didn't help him at all. He ran away. They all did not just him, they all ran away. And he followed at a distance far enough back that people couldn't see him. He might have not been a good swordsman, but he was pretty stealthy, apparently. So he's, he's running behind them. He's following at a distance. And when he does, though, some people see him in the dark, little girl sees him. And, and she says, I saw you, I saw you, you're with the man they just arrested, Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, I was not. And he's really angry with her. That was not me. You saw, he's chilling at night. He's warming his hands by the fire trying to pick up a little bit of news from some of the soldiers and people that are around there. And one of them said, weren't you one of the guys with the Nazarene, he gets so angry that he swears at them. He curses them. And he says, no, he was not. He told people he didn't even know Jesus. It gets even worse, after the trial of this man. And the news gets out that Jesus is being at that very moment taken to Golgotha to be crucified. And crowds are following to see this as sport. Peter doesn't go. In fact, of all the men who followed Jesus, the only man that was at the cross when Jesus was crucified, there were a few women, his mother and a few of her friends. The only man that was at the cross when Jesus was crucified was John, little John, not little John from Cleveland history, not that guy. Charlie used to love him. But not that guy.
Little John and they called him Little John sometimes because he was the youngest of the disciples. They say that when he came to follow Jesus, he was probably just a teenager. So John was the only one there. And I can just imagine how Peter would excuse himself, when he knew that John was there, oh he's, he's a kid. I'm a married man and have children, I have things to worry about. He doesn't. He had better reason to be there. He excused himself and he excused himself for not being there. Isn't that the way we do it? We always have an excuse for our failures. People who do better than us, we always have a reason why if they had exactly our situation, they would be bad too. That's just the way we do it. Just like Peter, when he saw Jesus alive again.
You know, the the women had seen the empty tomb and they came to tell them, he was so overwhelmed by it. He couldn't believe it was true. He took off running, he outran little John, he was faster than John, he, he outran him, he ran into the empty tomb, and he saw it there. But he still was unable to really believe what he saw. They ran back and they told other people, but people who were safe, but he still couldn't hardly believe it until when he saw Jesus. And when he saw Jesus, he was so thrilled. He was so thrilled that Jesus was alive. But do you know what he did? Even though Jesus was alive, even though he was thrilled by that, even though it was the fulfillment of the biggest dream he thought he could ever have? He still went back to fishing. He still went back to fishing, the thing that he had left to follow Jesus, he went back to that, he went back to fishing. Why did he do it? Well, because his dream was dead. He had disqualified himself, man, he had been just like this with Jesus. He had been so close to Jesus. But everything was different. Now, he had disqualified himself, no way he could be Jesus right hand anymore. He had crumbled under the pressure, he had failed him miserably. The dream was dead. His past was in charge. Everything was different now. And he had great remorse.
You know, the Bible tells us that in the historical records, very historical records, the four gospels, they tell the story, and they tell us that there was one other person who experienced great remorse. And you know who that was, right? It's Judas. Judas experience great remorse, he experienced great remorse. But he didn't simmer himself down and give himself time to consider and see Jesus and see if he was alive. He didn't do that. He hung himself. You know, that's what a lot of people do. The Wayback Machine just eats them up, and tells them how disqualified they are, and how they've completely blown it. And they may not kill themselves physically, plenty of people do. But they kill themselves in every other way. They keep spiraling down. They have remorse. And that's all they have. And so they keep going deeper and deeper into a hole. Peter was different. Peter was different. He didn't let himself go down into that hole. He had remorse. But he learned how to do something else. And it's a really good thing that he did. Because when you move into John 21, the record there shows us that Jesus showed up to the people who were still following him. To His disciples, He showed up with a software update. He was changing the WayBack Machines, material that he had to work with, for anyone who would cooperate with him.
I want to read a little bit to you from John 21. This is where it is it says this is how it happened. "Several of the disciples were there, Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples. Simon Peter said, 'I'm going fishing.' 'We'll come too,' they all said. So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night. At dawn, Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn't see who he was. He called out, 'Fellows, have you caught any fish?' 'No,' they replied. Then he said, 'Throw out your net on the right hand side of the boat, and you'll get some.'" I don't know why they even obeyed that. They didn't know it was Jesus yet. "So they did. And they couldn't haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. Then the disciple Jesus loved," you know who the disciple Jesus loved was, John, the one writing this?Don't we all feel that way? Sometimes though, sometimes you think Jesus has to just love you more than anybody else because he's so good to you. That's kind of what he did. He called himself that all the time. "Then the disciple Jesus loves said to Peter, 'It's the Lord.' When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord he put on his tunic for he had stripped for work, jumped into the water and headed to shore. The others stayed in the boat and pulled the loaded net to the shore for they were only about 100 yards from shore. When they got there, they found a breakfast waiting for them. Fish cooking over a charcoal fire and some bread. 'Bring some of the fish you've just cut,' Jesus said. So Simon Peter went aboard and drag the net to the shore. There were 153 large fish, and the net hadn't been torn. 'Now come and have some breakfast,' Jesus said. None of the disciples dared to ask him who are you? They knew it was the Lord. Then Jesus served them bread and the fish. This was the third time Jesus had appeared to His disciples since he had been raised from the dead. After breakfast, Jesus got Simon Peter alone. And he said to Simon, Peter, 'Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?'"
Do you love me more than your fishing way of life? Do you love me more than what you ran back to when I had disappointed you? And you felt like you had disappointed me? Do you love me more than what you go to for comfort? Do you love me more than the old stuff you used to do? The only thing you knew I called you, you left your fishing. You came to me. And now I come to you and you're back fishing again. You're back fishing again. Peter. Let's figure this out. Peter. Do you love me? More than you love this big catch of fish? More than you love the comfort of this way of life the way you've always done things? Do you love me more than that? "'Yes, Lord.' Peter replied, 'You know, I love you.' 'Then feed my lambs,' Jesus told him." You can't be a shepherd and a fisherman, same time. Gonna have to make a choice. "'Then feed my lambs,' Jesus told him. Then he repeated the question, 'Simon, son of God, do you love me?' 'Yes, Lord.' Peter said, 'You know, I love you.' 'Then take care of my sheep,' Jesus said. Then a third time he asked him, son of John, do you love me?'"
Okay. Now, let me ask you a question. Why do you think Jesus was asking that question over and over again? It wasn't because he didn't know. I mean, he knows all things. He was asking that question to Peter, because Peter needed to know. Peter needed to figure out, do I actually love Jesus more? Do I believe in Him, in the future that he's called me to more than I want to run back to my old sins, and run back to my old ways of getting comfort and getting fulfillment? Do I love him more than that? Do I love him more than that? Jesus was asking Peter, because Peter had to figure that out. He had to figure it out, or the Wayback Machine would dominate his future. He had to do that. So a third time he asked him, "'Simon, son of John, do you love me?' Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time, he said, 'Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.'" And so then Jesus shoots out a little picture to him of the future, far down in the future. And he says to him, "'Peter, I tell you the truth. When you were young, you were able to do as you liked, you dress yourself, and you went wherever you wanted to go. But if you follow me, if you love me more than these, when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don't want to go.' Jesus said this to him, to let him know by what kind of death, he would glorify God. And then Jesus told him, 'Follow me.'" Jesus was telling him, Peter, you're going to be such a phenomenal leader, if you love me more than your old ways. If you love me more than that, you're going to be so phenomenal. I'm going to use you in such great ways that you are going to be such a threat to the kingdom of darkness, that you will be a martyr for me. They are going to take your hands, and they're going to lead you to a place you don't want to go. But you will go there. Because you love me more than these. Wow. Can you imagine Jesus telling you that? And Peter understood it.
He turned around and he saw behind them who? But the disciple Jesus loved, you know, he says it one more time, John. And Peter asked Jesus when he saw John back there, he said, "Oh, what about him?" Isn't that what we do? Isn't that what we do? As soon as Jesus calls us to something? We want to know well, what does somebody else have to sacrifice? What do they have to do? You remember if you listened to the message last week, and I sure hope you did, Pastor Jacob said, he told us when when God leads you to forgive someone or to ask for forgiveness, one of the first things that's going to pop into your mind, well, what if they? What if he? What if, what if? What if, right? Because we don't want to have to give any more than anybody else's giving. We don't want to say sorry if they're not sorry, we don't want to do that. And he's saying, okay, I'm gonna follow you and I'm gonna be a great leader, but I'm gonna die because of it. What about John? Is he going to die too? Listen what Jesus said, "Jesus replied, 'If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, you just follow me.'" You understand what Jesus is saying? And he says that today, too, he says that to you. It's none of my business how God handles you. It's all about how he handles me. It's not about how close you follow. It's about how close I follow. That is one of the huge problems in Christianity and from the very beginning, like from right here we see it, we're so quick to think other people need to straighten out their sins and their sins are so bad. And we're not too concerned about our relationship with Jesus, we want them to straighten up too. Jesus said, Don't do that. Don't do that. You don't focus on them. You focus on you, you focus on you and me, and you make sure that you believe me, and you love me more than this.
You know, Peter repented, and he found that Jesus had already forgiven him. You know, Jesus is not waiting for you to ask for forgiveness, he already forgives you. He did that on the cross once and forever, he forgave you. But it doesn't make any difference in your life until you act on it. Jesus had already forgiven him, Jesus let him know that he was still his friend and disciple. His past didn't get to define his current relationship with Jesus, he was still Peter. But even more than that, Jesus let him know that his present didn't get to determine his future. He was not disqualified to Jesus, his past didn't get to dictate his future. Jesus goes beyond just reinstating Peter as his friend in the present. He trusts him and has a magnificent plan for Peter in the future, to represent him. To be a leader, to be to have a future that would impact people forever. He did that. He uses him going forward.
So here's what you need to get a hold up today. This is so important. Jesus doesn't just forgive your past and let you be okay. Today, he forges a new future for you, if you will work with him, one that is not dictated by your past. Now, I can take from now until sometime in the afternoon, honest and true, telling you the stories of how Jesus used Peter, detailing his future to you. Jesus trusted him. Jesus used him. And it's powerful. His influence is still changing people today. How did that happen? Well, Jesus was with him, and trained him for the next about 40 days spending time with him over and over again. And he he taught Peter about the Holy Spirit, he taught him about all different kinds of things. And do you know how that happened? You know how that relationship got tighter than it had ever been before? Listen to me, this is really important. Because Peter didn't go fishing anymore. He stayed with Jesus.
You know why some of you never had the experience and the thrill of the Christian experience that you see in some other people and you never have that joy? You won't stick with Jesus long enough. You know, you won't stick with him and let him train you. You're just so glad to be forgiven. You just run out and go fishing again. You run to your old ways of life. If you do that, you will never have the experience. You'll never have the life that God wants for you if you do it that way. Well, he stuck with Jesus, he let Jesus train him, he became the leader of the disciples when Jesus left and went back to heaven. When they were in the upper room, and they were waiting for the Holy Spirit to come as Jesus told them to do while they were waiting, Peter took charge and, and he helped them get another disciple to take the place of Judas, who had left. And then after the Holy Spirit came, they were so excited. They were so filled with everything that Jesus had promised them that they spilled out onto the streets, the very streets that they had been afraid of before, the ones where he had run and hid behind columns and all that kind of stuff to get away from people. They went out into the streets, and he preached one of the most powerful messages in all of history. Now, I'm not saying his history, I'm saying all of history. If you look at Christian scholars today, they will still tell you and the facts will show you that that was one of the most powerful messages ever preached. He went out there in the face of the people who had just crucified Jesus. And he said, we rejected the Son of God and you crucified Him. You got to say, you're sorry, you got to repent, you gotta quit that. You need to accept him. He is the Savior of the world. God has raised him from the dead. He went out there. And he told all that stuff in the face of the very people who had just crucified Jesus. It's incredible. The power of God was on Peter so strongly that over 3000 people came to Christ that very day.
You know what happened to him because of that? He got in trouble. Right away. Right away, he got in trouble. They questioned him. And they told him, the leaders and the authorities told him, don't you preach again. Quit talking about Jesus. And this was his answer. "I cannot help but tell the things I've seen and heard," He just said, you know, do what you got to do. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be able to quit. And so he went on, he healed a crippled beggar at the gate of the temple, right after that got in trouble again. And that was the story of his life. He had one great adventure after another to get in trouble. He'd get beaten, he'd get put in prison, he'd have this over and over again. But it was such an adventure. I can go on and on about his story, it's so thrilling and powerful. If you're bored this week, don't watch another episode, have something on Netflix, get out your Bible and read the book of Acts. And you will hear a real true life story that is quite an adventure. No one has ever been used in the history of the faith more than the Apostle Peter, the one who thought he was disqualified. No one is saying what about Paul? Paul wouldn't be Paul, if it wasn't for Peter. Peter knew Jesus before Paul did and he was very effective in training Paul.
Now how did he get there? Well, there are three big words I need to share with you that determined in his life, how much power he allowed the Wayback Machine to have over him. And it will determine it for you as well. Let me share these with you quickly, but pay real close attention, because they're very important. I know that you have experienced two of these words. Many of you have never experienced the third word. The first one: Remorse. Peter felt it. Oh my gosh, he felt terrible. He felt terrible. Remorse is when I feel terribly sorry. And ashamed that I did something. I feel deep regret. But sometimes, the deepest regret I have is because I got caught. Not that I really did something wrong. We make so many excuses when we feel remorse, because all of us have a lifelong struggle with pride. Is there anybody here with enough humility to say amen to that? Amen. Yeah, we all do, don't we? We all have it. Pride was Lucifer's downfall. And that dogs are heals as well, it has from the very beginning. The reason that we conceal our sins, even when we feel great remorse, and the reason we make excuses, and we say things like the devil made me do it, and blah, blah, blah, all this kind of stuff, is because we want to look better than we actually are. Well, if she wouldn't have done this, I wouldn't have done this, she started the whole thing, that kind of thing. But remorse will never give you freedom. Remorse keeps the key to the Wayback Machine in the hands of your enemy.
Number two word: Repent. As a big word, that's an important word. This is when I change my mind about my actions. When I change my mind about what I've done. It's more than just feeling. It's more than just being remorseful. It is when I change my mind, and I actually commit to new and better behavior. It's when I say I was going this way, I'm going to turn around, and I'm going to go this way. This is a really good step. It's a really good step. And it's in the right direction. But here's where so many of us fall. God is so good. And he is so merciful, that he will do a tremendous lot of good for you with the minimal amount of repentance. If you repent a little bit to God, you know, every every step you take towards God, he takes a couple towards you. And so he will do that, and he'll have mercy on you. But this is why we repent over and over again, without lasting change. For the same old sins.
Josh Minnich, I appreciated so much his testimony that he shared with us, we've seen him on video if you're on Facebook, or, or you go to our website, you've seen it. It's it's very powerful. And one of the things he said that I identified with him immediately, he said, I can't tell you how many times I got saved when I was a kid. Can anybody else identify with that? Yeah, over and over again, over and over again. If you ever went to youth camp more than once, I'm sure that you did it. Because you go to youth camp and you feel so guilty and so bad, and you do all this stuff and you stand around the campfire and you throw in your little twig and you make your promise to God that I'll never do that again. And next year you repent for the very same thing. Dang, man I did that way too many times, way too many times. And the reason is we keep committing the same sins over and over again. Because we just repent. We repent, we get mercy and forgiveness. But we don't hang with it. You know what we do? We call ourselves mistakers instead of sinners. Yeah, we want to say I made a mistake, I made a mistake. Yeah. but you know what, you bought a ticket, you made a flight to make that mistake. You made a dinner date, so that you can make that mistake. You rearranged your schedule, to have time to do that mistake. You turned on the computer to make that mistake, friend, that's not a mistake, that's a sin, grow up, put on your big girl pants, your big boy pants and call it what it is. You're a sinner. You're not a mistake, or that's what that's what Peter did. He came to the place where instead of calling his mess ups mistakes, he realized he would never experience abundant life and freedom in that way. He knew he was going to have to learn a new word.
And what is that word? It is Renounce. It is renounce. This is the power step. This is a decision that Peter made for his life. You know, there's a number of people not, you know, not tremendous amounts of people, but there's a number of people, most of them have a little bit of money, a little bit of prestige. But some of them get to be citizens of two countries, for instance, Tom Hanks and his wife, they're citizens of two countries, because they, they made an appeal to get to keep their American citizenship, while they would also be a citizen of Canada, because of their relationship. They're all that that kind of stuff. And so that was permitted. They didn't do the thing that many German citizens did after World War Two, when they realized the depth of deceit and everything that had been in their government. And they realized all of this, there were many Germans who renounced their German citizenship, they gave up their property, they gave up all the rights they had as citizens, and they became citizens of the United States, they made an active choice to be a citizen of a new country, a new kingdom. Did you know that you cannot be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and retain your citizenship in the kingdom of Satan? You can't. You just can't. You don't get to hold dual citizenship. For you to have the full rights as a son and daughter of God, you have to choose to throw your weight into the new kingdom. And it means you have to renounce the ways of the old life that you have lived.
Peter did that. He was not going to live the way he used to. He was not going to go back to fishing again. He had done that for the last time, he was not going to do that anymore. Jesus trusted him with an amazing future, and an assignment. And he was all in and you know what he did? He actively hated his sin. He didn't look back to those days of fishing, as you know, oh, the most glorious time of my life, I can't believe Jesus won't let me do that anymore. Any of you do that with your sins? Just can't believe Jesus won't let you do it anymore. That tells us a whole lot about where you are in your relationship with Christ. He knew that he had to kill his desire for fishing, or it would kill him, it would take him away from the life that God has for him. And he would go back.
And here's what I want to tell you. If you and I are going to defeat the WayBack Machine and quit giving it more material, more of the same old thing to taunt us with, like every time you go back to an old way of life, every time that you do that. You just give that thing more material to work with. And take away more freedom from your life. You have to quit calling yourself a mistaker and own that you're a sinner. You have to actively hate the things that you do.
Now, I'm going to tell you the truth right here. This is true. That was great, Owen, you and Jordan talking about Adam Locke and his cooking and I'm a witness. Oh my goodness. He said he's a good cook. And my weakness is chocolate chip cookies. I love chocolate chip cookies. And I gotta tell you, I have to be so careful. Because I have not actively renounced chocolate chip cookies. I haven't declared them to be a part of my past. But I have taken this step. I think one of the greatest inventions in modern history is the way they do chocolate chip cookies in this little pack of 12. And you can break off one corner and cook one cookie at a time. I mean, what's the problem with one cookie, right? You can just make one cookie at a time and you can eat that chocolate chip cookie. I gotta tell you, I would go from one to 12 just like that. I would do that. I would do that. You know what I have to do? I have to on a regular basis renounce that part of the grocery store. Don't go there. Don't get those cookies. Why? Because if I bring them into my house, those suckers are getting cooked.
You know your own sin, you know, your own fishing. You know, when you get too close, you know, when you go certain places when you're with certain people, when you think certain thoughts, when you watch certain shows, you know, the places you go back. You've got to renounce that. You have to hate it, you have to say, no, you have to hate it and name it, you have to call your sin for what it is. What is your sin? I'm gonna say for a whole bunch of us, it's just not trusting God. We just don't trust Jesus enough to know that if we don't go back to our old way of life, if we don't run back there for comfort, if we don't run back there for assurance that we're still okay, and we're all this kind of stuff, and we still got it and all that kind of stuff. We don't believe that Jesus will come through for us. We sing all these beautiful things like nothing is impossible. And you know, he can do anything but fail. And then we don't believe it for a second, when it comes down to going back to our old way of life. We think that's what can fulfill us. That's what can take care of us. If I hang in here. You know what, she's going to do this, and he's going to do this and they're going to enjoy their sin. Jesus won't let me do it. Maybe that's just what we do. You know, it's true, right? You know, it's true. And that's what we do. We don't hate our sin. We don't even call it that. We call it a little mistake and misjudgment. It's not that.
We have to come to where Peter did where he was able to say this, I love Jesus so much, I hate going back to there. I won't do that anymore. I can't bear the thought of living that way, I would rather die than go back. And so when you do that, you renounce your citizenship, you renounce your fishing career, you name it, and you hate it. You call it what it is. And you take the steps with God, to keep those chocolate chip cookies out of your way, you don't have the opportunity to bake them anymore. You don't have that. As you read the book of Acts, you will see that Peter quit making excuses. He never went back to fishing again. He quit blaming, he quit feeling disqualified. He deleted that software. And he allowed his relationship with Jesus, his love for Jesus and Jesus trust in Him to reframe his life, and forge his future. This will make all the difference in the world in your life with God too.
You know, you have been showing up. You've been showing up if this is where you are today, you've been showing up and asking God for mercy. You ask him for mercy all the time, and you take what he gives you and you run with it. But you have not renounced the lies with which you've become comfortable. You have not renounced the attraction or the dependence you have towards us and you commit, you keep a little baggage of him in the fridge just in case. Easy to get to. You have not quit blaming and excusing, you do not hate your old way of life, quit it. And you have not come to the place where you would rather do anything than sin against yourself and the Savior of your soul by doing that. You have not specifically named and renounced the root of what it is that you do.
But I'm a witness. Once you come to the place where you decide, I'm not going back. I'm not going back. If I'm alone, the rest of my life, I'm not going back. If I don't have enough money, the rest of my life, I'm not going back. If I never get to be friends with her again, in the same way, I'm not going back. I'm just not doing that anymore. Once you get in the practice of renouncing, you will experience a freedom in your spiritual life that is available no other way. You will become one of those people who blows and shows and it's just awesome. You'll become one of those people that you envy and you don't understand why Jesus loves them more than you. Such a lie. That's a lie of the Wayback Machine. Jesus doesn't love them more than you. They hate their old life more than you hate yours. And they don't go there anymore. That's the difference. That's what Peter did.
Now, I don't have time I wish I did. I don't have time to read to you from the books of First and Second Peter letters that he wrote that are included in our New Testament, but you need to read them because he will give you the formula for how he defeated the Wayback Machine. He will say this all the time. You have to get rid of this. What's he saying? Hate your old life. Hate your slander, hate your jealousy, hate that. Get rid of it, put it off and in its place put forgiveness, put loving kindness. You do that. He's saying you have to hate the old and you have to put on the new and when you do that, oh my gosh. The life that you have will be the same kind of life that Peter had. Jesus has declared you as qualified, you are already that. You don't have to earn that you're qualified. But he will qualify you as his very own representative in a way that you can experience and enjoy. He will lead you without fear, to experience the life of honor and joy that glorifies him. That's what will happen. That's what will happen. When you go the next step, and you renounce and you say, I won't go there again. I won't go there again. I love Jesus more than that. That's what Peter did.
Honestly, if you want to have an inspiring read, get yourself a book on the life of Peter, go just back through the historical record, the way God used him was magnificent. It was just so amazing. And he used him in such a way that, like I said, Peter never went back to fishing. The only way Peter ever expressed his disqualification again, and it was a truth was this. What Jesus said was true. When it came down the way his life ended in about his mid 60s, the way his life ended, was, he was martyred. They didn't take his hands, they did put a blindfold around his eyes, they did lead him to a place that he didn't want to go. They led him to a cross, when he realized exactly what they were going to do. This is how he disqualified himself. He said, and history shows us this. He said to the soldiers who were ready to crucify him, he said, "My Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is so far above me. And he loves me so much. I am not qualified to be crucified as he was. Please crucify me upside down." And that's what they did. That's what they did. He, in one second was in the presence of the one that he served and had given him incredible joy his entire life. He defeated the Wayback Machine.
And you can too, you can realize you're a son of God, you're a child of God, but it does you no good if you don't live like that. You can realize in the depths of your soul that you are a son, you are a daughter of God, and He will lead you in an adventure you can't believe. Let me pray with you. Jesus, we thank you, you're a Savior, we can't begin to imagine. You love us so very much. You love us so much. Help us not take your mercy for granted. Help us renounce the things that drag us into the Wayback Machine of remorse and regret and repentance over and over again. Help us to love you so much, that our lives are lived in an adventure with you. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.
