Hi, this morning I'm reading from Acts 3 verses 1 through 10. One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer at 3 in the afternoon. Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.
Peter looked straight at him as did John, and Peter said, look at us. So the man gave him his attention expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, silver or gold, I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.
Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called beautiful.
And they were filled with wonder and amazement and what had happened to him. This word is true and can't be trusted. Thanks, March. I'm Alan.
Good morning. Happy Father's Day. Are we on? We're good.
Not on. All right. There was a green light. I saw it.
I'm green. I thought I could do it. It's wrong. Anyway, I was thinking about Father's Day and what you're supposed to say as a pastor when you're up here on Sunday now.
It's on, yeah. And so I don't know what to say. Dad's a great one of them, I guess, whatever. Happy Father's Day again.
I thought of a slogan though. Be a dad. You're guaranteed to mess it up. I don't know.
I don't know. You're guaranteed to get it wrong. Whatever. The Acts 3 passage that we just read.
I want you to think about it and what just happened there. Jesus as a walking person wasn't in that passage. It was Peter and it was John. Now, there are two of the disciples.
They hung out with Jesus a lot. But it wasn't Jesus there. And a guy got up and walked. A guy who had been lame.
A guy who used to get dropped off there to beg for money got up and walked. And you might think about this and kind of just read over it. I mean, it's in the Bible, stuff like that happens all the time. Oh, and it's Saint Peter.
You know, so Peter was there. So yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, we were talking the other day. And some other people, and Peter was the first pope.
So yeah, Peter's supposed to do these things. He's Peter. And we kind of hear that passage. I don't know if you do, but I do when I read it in this churchy, popish kind of I've got my stuff together.
Of course, Peter's able to do that. I mean, it wasn't Jesus, but it was Peter. He was next to Jesus for a long time. I mean, he's the guy that you got to swipe your card to get into heaven before the gates.
You know, Saint Peter, right? He's that guy. He's that guy because it's Peter. You know, he just healed this guy.
And I think there's a little more here than what we just see initially, right? I mean, we think about it. This is the first time. Now it says in Luke that Jesus did send out the disciples two by two and they did some healings and lots of things happen when they went out.
They proclaimed the good news. But we don't have a specific healing like this, especially a dramatic one. A guy who couldn't walk and instantly his feet and ankles became strong and he's jumping and walking all the way. We don't have that anywhere else.
This is the first time we see something like this post Jesus. We see one of the regular Joe's do something like this. But this moment though is so much bigger than this guy walking. I mean, that's awesome.
And for that guy, you know, good stuff. No telling what else he was able to go and do after that. He might have invented something. I don't know.
Done something great. He definitely told the story. I mean, good stuff for that guy. But the story is bigger than that.
It's more important than that because we see this at this is kind of the ending point, right? Of Peter's journey. If you know anything about Peter, like this is not the ending point. That's not the right word.
But this is where like, okay, now we're going to go forward. If you think about Peter. Now we're going to watch a clip here. And this isn't like actual footage from the Bible times.
You know, this is something made. It's not directly in the Bible. But it does kind of give a picture a little bit of where Peter started. So let's watch this really quickly.
Stay down. That's Peter on the ground. It's not the target. If you know what's good for you.
It's not the target. It's not the target. It's not the target. It's not the target.
It's not the target. It's not the target. It's not the target. It's not the target.
It's not the target. Yes! Seriously, I can only take 22... One.
One more punch! One more and I'm done. He's under now that! That was a suicide.
Something about your sister. You think if you keep hitting me hard enough I won't be married to her anymore? That's why they call me White Hands. Because of what I do to you, I never.
Hey, hey. I don't want to do this, Joseph. I'll get a please stop fighting every week. I know he never trusted me but I love their sister more than anything.
I will stop fighting you. Do it? My brother won't. My brother.
Alright, yeah, that's the promo for the chosen. You should be watching it, it's really good. I don't get any money from those guys, but oh, yeah, it's really good. Anyway, so Peter didn't start out as the guy healing people every time you walk by him.
Peter started out way on the other end. Now, we don't know if he used to get in fights, but they kind of show him, you know, his kind of fighting, their sort of scheming and gambling to try to, you know, rig the fight and win some money because he's behind in his tax debts and all this other stuff. But we know Peter has an interesting storyline, right? We're going to talk about that in a minute.
We're going to see how much you know. I've got a little quiz for you. But this is the moment when the guy that's laying, you know, on his back, the guy that's getting whipped and then all the way to Acts 3, what we just read a minute ago, where he's saying, stand and walk in the name of Jesus. That's the moment for him when he really steps into who he's been called to be.
Like if you're a movie person or whatever, this is when Luke Skywalker shows up in return to the Jedi and the black Jedi robes and he's using the force or when Neo stops the bullets or when, you know, this saves Woody at the end of Toy Story. He says, I'm not aiming for the truck or whatever, you know, this is, or if you're in Sweet Home, Alabama, this is when Reese Witherspoon, you know, punches out the crazy mother-in-law person or whatever. This is the moment in the story where Peter steps into who Jesus knew he was all along. And I say that because we are so much like Peter so many times.
We think we're not because, oh, it's in the Bible or whatever and he's so great, but he didn't start out that way. And we're so much more like him than we realize. He steps into the place that Jesus always knew he could be. So true false.
I got some true false ones for you. Our little Peter quiz. Only person to walk on water besides Jesus. True.
You feeling good about true on that? All right. You got to speak up or you don't get points. So he was nicknamed the Rock way before Dwayne Johnson.
True. Okay. All right. He brought his younger brother to Jesus.
True. See if I should have. That is false. It's the other way around the younger brother and drew brought Peter to Jesus.
He denied knowing Jesus three times. True or false? All right. That was an easy one.
He caught a golden fish. False. Are you sure? I think they brought it down the mountain with a golden calf.
They sat around. You don't remember the story? Golden fish? No.
It's false. He did actually catch a fish one time with a coin in his mouth. No. So close.
He cut a guy's ear off. True. True. True.
We all remember that. High priest ear. Jesus picks it up. That guy's famous in scripture because he lost an ear.
Okay. He was touched by an angel with extra strength to roll away the stone in Jesus'ed. False. That's false.
False. False. False. False.
False. False. False. He climbed through a roof to get closer to Jesus.
Sounds false. Right? Yeah. False.
False. He woke up his uncle Nicodemus in the middle of the night to meet with Jesus. False. Are you sure?
That's false. Nicodemus is not as uncles far as I know. He left his dad, his boat, and his nets to follow Jesus. True.
Pretty true. Pretty true. We don't use that in the way that could have been retired, the only thing we know is that that was a family deal. His buddy's dad was there in the story if you read that, James and John's son of Zebedee.
Anyway, but all of those, whether they're true or false, except for the golden fish part, the rest of them, Peter was there. He might not have done those things, the details might have been switched around, but he was there in those moments. He was never the Peter that we read about in Acts. He was always a guy who could have been that.
I mean the whole thing about the tomb, he doesn't even believe it happened. He definitely wasn't trying to roll a stone away, because Jesus has to be resurrected. He was just as lost as the rest of them. When Jesus comes to Nicodemus at night and meets with him, I mean, Peter and the other disciples are probably just as scared as Nicodemus was, and that's why they went at night.
They didn't know what was gonna happen. And yeah, we don't even know, Peter and Andrew, how they got to Jesus, not even really sure if what Peter really believed at that point. But Peter, we often think of as this guy, as these mountain top moments that he's untouchable, right? So we think that he's kind of like, but if you think about it, it's almost like roller coaster with him.
He has really high moments, and then he has really low moments. Now at our house, we used to watch her, probably still with what we got bored enough, remember the Titans, right? And my son read reminded me of this week, the line in there where they say, how strong are you? And it's too strong, you know, in that movie, you know, we say that a lot as a family, too strong.
And so I'll put the picture up here of, yeah, all right. So there's a too strong pose. That's a good backdrop right there, and a pretty good person in the picture as well, I think. But anyway, that's kind of what we think sometimes about Peter and the mountain top moments and being strong.
But I keep saying this over and over again, to get it through our minds that that's not what he's like. He's a lot more like us. He's a lot more like how we feel. He wasn't always rise and walk guy.
So you can take a picture down. So yesterday my son and I were driving back from working at our camp and he was talking about going to Disney and the comment that he made was, well, I'm not really a Disney guy. You know, I've never been the lines, you know, the people. I mean, we'd rather go out in the woods in the middle of summer and cut trees down for some reason and sweat, you know.
But whatever. I don't know much about Disney. I've never been either. And so, but as I understand it, the rides at Disney are designed to make you feel like you're there, to get a taste of what it would be like to be in that, you know, whether it's the Jurassic or Star Wars or how to even know what all I got.
But whatever it is, that's how I understand it goes. And so I just want to run through a little list here of Peter's roller coaster. And as I'm saying this stuff, as I'm talking about it, what I want you to think is, OK, put yourself in that spot. Like try to connect the dots to what's going on with Peter in this moment to what's going on with you or when you have felt in a way similar to that, right?
And we start out with Peter with the miraculous catch of fish. Like that's kind of his come to Jesus moment. And I would assume for everybody in the room that you've had a similar moment or you want to be sitting in a room like this on a Sunday morning singing songs and listening to some goofball talk about the Bible, right? Peter had that moment where he could not, no matter what, he could not deny it.
The power of God was real. And I feel like for all of us, we've had some kind of moment like that. Maybe it was a long time ago. Maybe it was kind of one of those deals where you feel like, yeah, but that was just when I was younger.
And that was just how I felt in the moment. But if you think back about it, like right now, like deep in here, that was real. You know it. So you're on the mountain top.
You're at that high point. You're too strong. You're with God. All right, Peter, you already said it in the true false quiz.
We know it. He walked on water. And you know the whole story. Or if you don't know the whole story, he doesn't walk very far on the water.
He begins to sink because the waves are big. And he's like, ah, I'm scared. And so he's out the mountain top. But then he falls off.
He starts to tumble down into the waves. Now, I want you to think about yourself. When you've been here, but then the waves come, and then you start to go here. And whatever the waves are, man, it could be your job, your finances, some kind of family stress.
It could be whatever. It could be an illness. It could just be a sea of doubt. I don't know.
But whatever the waves come, whatever the waves are, they come. And we kind of start to forget. Because the whole point, every preacher that preaches that passage is, he took his eyes off Jesus. That's why he sang.
I mean, absolutely. We take our eyes off Jesus. We forget who brought us up here. And then we start to see the roller coaster.
You're here. You're here. Another big Peter moment, big Peter moment. Who do you say that I am?
Jesus says, you are the Christ, the son of the guy, the one, the one we've been waiting for. And then he gets his nickname. Yes, Peter, you are the rock. And I will build my church on you.
So right down in the waves and he's back up. And you think about your pattern, your spiritual journey. You're here. You're here.
You're here. I mean, maybe you're just awesome all the time. But I feel like we're more like Peter. We're like that.
And so now he's feeling good again. He's flexing. He's probably nudging the other disciples. Hear that, the rock.
I'm good. I said he was the Christ first. You guys missed out, whatever. He's feeling good.
Right after that. Right after that. Jesus starts talking about how he's got to go to the cross and how he's going to be sacrificed. All that conversation begins to come up.
And Peter's like, whoa, no, we're not doing that. What do you mean? And so he goes from the rock to Satan. Jesus is like, shut up, Peter.
Don't say stuff like that. Get behind me, Satan. You're missing the point, man. So again, rock, Satan.
Not the nickname, right? Not good. Not a good direction. So then as we get closer to the cross, closer to that moment, that Jesus is washing his disciples feet.
They're in this big, big moment in there. And they still don't get it, but they know something's brewing. And Jesus is full of emotion at this point. And he brings him in and says, look, this is how it goes.
Like, I know you think I'm awesome or whatever, but I wash your feet. I serve. And then you got to do what I do. It's Peter's turn and he says, Lord, don't wash my feet.
You're too good. Peter's probably thinking about all the times that he screwed up. Yeah, you just called me the devil. You know, a couple of weeks ago, I was drowning in waves.
You know, I'm terrible. But Jesus says, no, you can't be part of this if I don't wash your feet. And then Peter makes this other bullet, well, then wash all of me, all of me, because I'm all in. So Satan, then to all in.
And there's probably been times in your life where you just know, I'm all in God. I'm all in. But maybe right before that or right after that, you felt like you were treating Jesus terrible. You felt like you were missing the point.
You feel like you don't understand what's going on. So then Peter kind of has two in a row of big, big lines, big moments. He says, look, if everybody else fails, because he's just saying, you know, you guys are going to desert me, you know, it's going to be rough or whatever. He's like, no, if everybody else fails, I won't.
My family, if they don't listen to me, if they're doing some dumb stuff, that's fine. I'm not quitting. If all my friends are doing the wrong stuff, if they're going down dark, it doesn't matter. I'm sticking with you.
And Peter's like, I'm too strong. I'm with you, Jesus. We stay on course. And right after that, Jesus is almost like, I wish you would.
I wish you would stay that strong. But before the night's over, you're going to deny me three times. So just imagine how bold he is. And Jesus doesn't let him mess up.
He tells him he's going to mess up. He's like, look, you're not going to be able to hang. You're going to get scared just like everybody else. And sometimes that's who we are.
We get scared. And we do like everybody else. The world is all crazy and all these things are happening. And we just can't handle it.
I mean, Peter's whole life for those three years have revolved around following this man, Jesus, and trying to figure out what he was doing and learning from him and all this kind of stuff. Being on mountaintops and then being in valleys and being in waves and on top of waves and everything else. And then now they've just arrested him. So everything he thought is a beginning to fall apart.
And sometimes that's how we are. Sometimes that's how it goes. It's been 93 times. And then you have the empty tomb, another kind of classic Peter where he just doesn't understand.
He and John race to the tomb. John beats him, whatever. They don't see Jesus in there. Even though he told him he wouldn't be.
He walks away confused. They go and hide behind locked doors because they're scared of getting killed too. He's just way down here now at the bottom. And I think for our lives sometimes we swoop way down there on this old journey thing following Jesus because of whatever gets thrown our way.
And then in the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus is resurrected, he's standing on the shoreline and he's calling out to him. And Peter says it's the Lord and so he dives in fully committed at that point. And so all his life, his journey with Jesus is up and down roller coaster. And he was right there with him for three years, remember that.
So for us, when we go up and down, don't beat yourself up about it, remember that God's leading you somewhere and God's believing in you even in the down times. Even in the times when you just can't get it right. I mean I was joking about the whole dad thing, but it's true. You don't get it right every time.
As a parent, as a kid, as a friend, as a follower of Christ. You don't get it right every time. Peter in Acts, he says, look, silver gold, I don't have. He didn't have what the guy wanted, but even what he did have.
Because Peter was counting on new birth. He was counting on Jesus to do what Jesus had consistently done throughout the whole time that he knew him. He was counting on that. Peter writes later in his life, in his letter, first Peter.
He says, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
In all this, you greatly rejoice. Though now for a little while, you have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. So Peter knows this.
This is his life, and it's why he's writing it later. It's like, yeah, you've got trials. Well, guess what? I had them too.
Yeah, it feels like you're in a furnace. Guess what? I've been there. And he's encouraging these people to realize that they have new life in Christ.
Peter could have walked off when Jesus said, yeah, you can get behind me Satan. Dummy. When he sank, do you imagine him getting back into the boat after the disciples pull him up? Oh, yeah, good job, buddy.
Way to go, three steps. We'll get a new teacher for you, you know? Just imagine that. Imagine the humiliation, but then also the understanding of what Jesus is holding on to this.
That's what he wants us to hear today. Our own strength, it's going to fail. But Jesus gives us new birth, new hope, and inheritance that doesn't perish. It doesn't spoil.
For two weeks now, I've talked about my camp that I've gone down to, my dad and mama are actually here today. So if you don't like a sermon, just blame them really. They brought me into the world. But my dad set aside this land, right?
And it's our family land. And we're going to inherit it as a family. It's just to stay in the family. Yesterday, Reed and I were down there, trimming back weeds and vines and all this stuff, because we hadn't cut this one section in a while.
And it just gets overgrown. Whatever inheritance that you have on this planet, your money, your land, your health, even, it's going to fade. All of your accomplishments. Somebody's going to beat them one day.
Records are made to be broken, all this stuff. Your only hope, my only hope is in Jesus. That's it. There's nothing else.
No matter what you think, no matter what you feel, that's it. Peter writes this to you in a few verses later. He says, for you know that it was not with perishable things, such as silver or gold, you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you by your ancestors. Hear that?
Empty way of life handed down to you by your ancestors. Now the great theological thing is you're born into sin. If you didn't know that, here's the good news. But also, all the things that we can pass down, ultimately are empty.
The world doesn't have anything for us that's going to last, that's going to revive us, that's going to send us on into eternity, the world can't do that. Into a lot of hidden down to you by your own, but with the precious blood of Christ, a land without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake, for my sake. Through him you believe in God who raised him from the dead and glorified him, so and set your faith and hope in God.
Now I think it's pretty interesting that when Peter and John are walking through by the temple gate and the man's there begging and he wants money, Peter says, silver or gold, I don't have. And then later he writes this down, it's not silver and gold that saved you. And he told the man, look, here's what I've got. Walk in the name of Jesus.
See Peter understood that look, I've been everywhere. I've been up and down, I've been crazy. My life, my journey with Jesus, it's all messed up. The only thing I know for sure is I have him.
And that's enough, right? Enough. That's what sustains me. That is what I can give to you.
And so here's the big deal. Peter and John walking down the temple area, whatever, probably lots of people begging, everybody has a handout, everybody's wanting something, everybody wants a little piece of our time, right? But what can we really give people that matters? This is not an excuse to never help people out again, that's not what I'm saying, right?
But give people what matters. And understand what matters to you in your life, in your messy life. And look, I know it's messy. Not because I stalk you on social media or whatever, I just know.
Because I sit over there singing these songs and realizing that you're all I need, as Mallory's leading us in that. And whatever comes to pass, no matter what the world throws at me, because my life is going to be messed up. I was recollecting some of my biggest screw ups as I was sitting over there singing and realizing that God is the only thing that is just saying. The only reason I can stand here, the only thing I can tell you, the only thing I have to give you is Jesus.
It's nothing else. I mean, literally I don't have much else, but I mean, that's the only thing. Last thing, I read this morning, this is from Jeremiah. It says, this is what the Lord says.
Kirsten is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands. They will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert in a salt land where no one lives.
But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends its roots out to the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, its leaves are always green, it has no worries in the ear of drought, and never fails to bear fruit. Because it's planted by the stream.
Mallory talked last week about the seeds, the small seeds that grow into the big tree. And any tree that's gonna last, it's gonna have roots that go find water. And so I would argue that Peter finally got it. And he planted himself by the stream of living water that is Jesus.
He stayed connected to him. And that's how he could tell that guy, walk in the name of Jesus Christ. And so for you and for me, like no matter what we have or don't have, if we stay connected to Jesus, if we plant ourselves by the stream, our roots go to him. Also when the craziness of the world may shift us, branches may break, stuff may fall, but we remain connected.
And it's not just that we are pretty looking trees and have green leaves, but we bear fruit in our lives. For this church, we gotta do that. Because there's a whole community around us that needs the fruit that we will bear. In your life, you gotta do that.
Don't make any excuse, don't say I'm too messed up. Don't say I'm like that guy Peter, and I just get beat up all the time. And I'm trying to figure my way out of things. Don't do that.
Don't think about all the times where you denied Christ. Don't think about any of that stuff. Step into today, who Jesus always knew that you were. Be who you were born to be, the new birth that Jesus has given you.
My redemption is in Jesus Christ. Same as yours. That's all I have. But I go forward from there.
Just like Peter, I don't think about the roller coaster. I just think about forward with Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for today.
We thank you for your word, which is true, which can be trusted. We thank you Jesus that you walk with us through ups and downs, through the roller coasters of life. And God, I pray that we would all be like those trees planted by the stream, the living water that is you and God that you will give us that new birth, even today. And then we will stand on your promise.
And then we will bear fruit for your kingdom in this world. Amen.