Have you ever heard the saying, practice what you preach, or maybe talk the talk, walk the walk? We throw out these phrases, and we might even point the finger at someone who's let us down. And yet, if we're honest, we all struggle with commitment on some level. We've all been there, pledging to do something and then grappling with the reality of putting those intentions into practice. Granted, I get it, some people struggle more than others, but depending on the request or the requirement of the commitment, we all have the potential to walk in the other direction. Why? Because it's so much easier to just say we're going to do something.
But following through often costs us. It costs us time and effort, maybe even money. So we procrastinate. We avoid, pretend, make excuses, get passive-aggressive, or do whatever it takes to dismiss what we've been called to do. We might assume this is a mental or an emotional problem, but it might be more of a spiritual problem related to our brokenness as human beings. The fear, anxiety, shame, and guilt that prevent us from experiencing the fullness of God's plan can't be fully addressed in a self-help guide. Instead, we need to address the spiritual problem. Then we can start to address our commitment problems.
This is week two of our new series, Not Quickly Broken, exploring the intricacies of building spiritual resilience. Hopefully today, you'll learn how to make some commitments and actually follow through with them. Our focus is the ability to start and how commitment builds the momentum of our faith. This message isn't just about starting. It's about the commitment to start and then following through. It's about having the courage to step up and step out when God calls us to. It's a spiritual practice that can become a massive asset for your life.
The baseline is that commitment should never be a passive engagement, but an active decision to step into the unknown, trusting that God will guide our path. Learning how to start can reshape the trajectory of our faith journey. Our exploration of commitment extends beyond theoretical understanding. It's practical. Moreover, it's transformative. By leaning on Jesus, we'll discover the courage to take those vital first steps in trusting Him with the outcomes.
Over time, these commitments become stepping stones, reducing fear and anxiety and fostering spiritual growth. Through our journey today, we'll learn the significance of those initial steps and the ongoing commitment required as we deepen our relationship with Jesus. To illustrate today's concept, consider Jesus' disciple, Peter. At different times in his journey, he was afraid and ashamed, and yet he serves as a great example for us with today's topic in particular because Peter didn't let his fear nor his guilt prevent him from stepping out into the unknown to follow his Lord and Savior, Jesus. Grab a Bible if you can, or a mobile device if you have a Bible app, and we're going to turn to Matthew chapter 14. Matthew chapter 14.
And if you are unsure how to look something up in a Bible, that's okay. You can look to the table of contents in the front, find Matthew, and it'll give you a page number, and then you can get to, as I've done here, chapter 14, big numbers, and then we're going to be looking at verses 23 to 33. But maybe for you, you don't have access to a Bible. You can go to Bible.com. You can grab a mobile device, iPad, your phone, and look to the app store and just search Bible, and you'll find a Bible app there, download it, and then just search Matthew 14, and you'll have it right there. Okay? So these are those. Matthew 14, 23 to 33.
And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it's a ghost. And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. He said, come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and he began to sink, and he cried out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, O you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshipped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God. Peter, like the rest of the disciples, was terrified. And yet, when Jesus called, he stepped out. Yes, he became afraid, but at the time, it seemed like he was being reckless, stepping out into a raging sea. Imagine the other disciples' astonishment when Peter walked on water in a storm to reach Jesus. Now, in the face of fear, Peter's step of courageous commitment allowed him to experience a miracle for a time. That being said, when Peter wasn't focused on Christ, the fear returned, and he faltered, went into the water. Jesus, thankfully, saved him.
But this situation vividly demonstrates how a first step of commitment can empower us to overcome fear and experience the amazing works of God in our lives. You may even step into a miracle. Maybe God's spirit is stirring inside of you, calling you to follow Jesus. Set your spiritual gaze upon Christ and step out. Make that commitment to follow him and receive God's Holy Spirit. Perhaps you've made a decision to follow Jesus at one point in your life, but lately you've been living out a haphazard faith. You're a Christian in your belief, but you're not really living like a Christ follower.
Are your eyes fixed on Jesus? What is he calling you to do in this season of life? What are you afraid of? Step out and commit. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Be courageous. Start something new and let him build your faith this year. Fix your eyes on Jesus and remain centered on him and walk. Now let's fast forward to the Gospel of John.
Chapter 21. If you were in Matthew, you want to go ahead. A couple books. It goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So you want to go there and then go John 21. To give some backstory before we read, this second account takes place after Peter has denied Christ. When Jesus was arrested, the disciples fled in fear. During that time, Peter was asked three different times by three different people if he followed Jesus, if he was a follower of Jesus. And three times Peter denied Christ, stating that he didn't even know him. Then Jesus was crucified and buried. Imagine the deep guilt and sorrow.
Left with that, Peter returns to what he knew before. He ever followed Jesus? Fishing. Let's catch up the story there. Starting in verse 3 of John 21.
So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, It is the Lord! When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off. When they got onto the land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid on it and bread. Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish that you have caught.
So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast. Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, who are you? They knew it was the Lord. Isn't this account incredible? All of the disciples had fled and they must have all been feeling ashamed on some level. Lots of regret. But Jesus, though he was buried, God raised him from the dead.
If we think about Peter's perspective, he would have been really feeling it. He was the one of the disciples who verbally denounced Jesus three times. Nevertheless, the moment John, who's the one Jesus loves, according to that account and further study of scriptural and scholarly insight, when John says, it's the Lord, Peter is in the water like that. He dives in to reach the resurrected Jesus on the beach as soon as possible. He didn't think about his guilt or his shame or how it might prevent him from accessing Christ. In an instant, he determined that he could get to Jesus quicker swimming. So he went for it.
leaves his disciples behind. This powerful act symbolizes courageous commitment within the context of guilt. And it leads to restoration because after Jesus has breakfast with his disciples, there's an account further in John where Jesus restores Peter. And this points to who Peter would become. He becomes an essential leader, an evangelist, a missionary for the early church. Maybe you feel guilt and shame for past mistakes or for your current situation.
If you've convinced yourself that God will never forgive you and that you've fallen too far, I am telling you that is a lie. Peter denied Christ three times. Think about that. And yet he was restored. Please do not ever think that you've fallen too far. Don't ever let Satan's lies beat you down into the mud of guilt and shame. Jesus Christ took every dirty, rotten thing that you've ever done or that has ever been done to you and accepted the punishment for it all at the cross. You're forgiven and you're clean through Jesus.
Jesus was fully human, yet fully God, and therefore the only one that could be a sacrifice worthy enough to take the sins of the world, including whatever you're thinking about right now. And after his death, he was buried, but then God gloriously raised him from the dead. The resurrected Jesus conquered death and he conquered your sin. And then he ascended to heaven to prepare a place for those who would choose to follow him. God sent Jesus to be the way, the truth, and the life for every human being to access eternal life. Every human being, including you.
You've never fallen so far that you can't stand up, jump out of that ship, swim to Jesus, and experience restoration. And I don't know who needed to hear that right now, but please, I'm begging you, take Peter's story to heart and apply it. Read through John 21. Let it soak in. Jesus loves you, he forgives you, and he wants a relationship with you. Today's the day to follow him.
Now, for our transition here to the application, we're going to do something a little bit different. To build some application into our teaching, we're going to hear from one of our pastoral apprentices, Elijah, and his wife, Elizabeth. Both of them have served in lead ministries. Moreover, they'll be moving on to a permanent ministry posting this year. So, without further ado, here's my Q&A with Elijah and Elizabeth. All right, here we go.
The first question I have for you guys, thanks for doing this, by the way, who are you, what ministry do you currently oversee, and how have you volunteered at Mountain View in the past? Who are you? I'm Elizabeth. I work in office administration, and I led the music ministry for a few years, and I've kind of dappled all over, welcomed us, base camp, helped in youth a couple times. I am Elijah. I'm the youth director, the outreach director here at Mountain View, and I have helped in almost every department that we have. I've spent a lot of time downstairs in base camp, and I've even served on the worship team when they're really desperate. Didn't you start in like facilities too? Yeah, I was in the facilities ministry for a long time. Also our prayer ministry when we used to have it. That's right. Yeah, and I actually started in base camp doing security as a baby bouncer. That's right. Yeah. That's awesome. Great. So I have a question related to today's message. So kind of a bit of a scenario. You approach two different people and ask them if they'd be willing to volunteer in your area of ministry.
One declines because they're afraid of the unknown, lacking previous experience. And the other also declines, but because they're ashamed and they don't feel worthy enough to serve in that ministry. How would you respond to these people? How would you reassure them? Would you want to take one? Yeah. So as for the person who's afraid of the unknown, doesn't feel like they have the experience, I would say the church is the best place to learn a new job. So usually when you go into a new job, you give yourself some grace for at least a few months as you're learning all the ins and outs. It's the same in the church. Like as you come in.
we hope we will be able to fully train you it'll take some time we'll give you lots of grace and we'll walk you through it of course yeah for sure and for the person that's maybe ashamed they don't feel worthy enough maybe they got some mysteries background and maybe thinking like the church to serve in it yeah yeah i mean that's that's a tough one i mean that's a gospel issue right like at the at the cross all that stuff's dealt with and so like your identity in christ means you are immediately made worthy to be in that position um with that being said like you don't bring who you've been your whole life into the ministry that you go into right jesus like we're taught that in christ for a new creation so when you step into the church and you're trying to get involved and you don't really know what you're supposed to do uh you are in fact turning over a new leaf you can step in and say look i have no history in doing this i'm just trying to start over i don't know what you want me to do and that's sort of that's sort of the vehicle you're stepping into when you get into the church we're equipped to help people through that yeah no that's for sure those are great answers thank you um so the tagline of today's message was commitment builds the momentum of our faith commitment builds momentum into our faith how have you experienced this personally in your own ministry juries well yeah how did that work
so my answer kind of relates to the last question i guess um i am a person who likes to know exactly what i'm doing because i don't like to let people down um but if i had waited until i i knew all the ins and outs i knew what i was doing i just wouldn't have done it um but when i actually just committed there were some days i had to like drag myself to to music events but once i was there it was so good and i always left feeling really great having been able to work with and worship with other people it was awesome so yeah looking back you see how your kind of faith was built but if you had a bailed on it it wouldn't it wouldn't Cool. What about you? Very similar, right? I stepped into Mountain View Church at 27. I had like very little experience dealing with people, especially kids. I wanted to serve. I wanted to get involved. And one of the first positions I took was actually, like I mentioned, doing security and base camp. So yeah, never around kids, no experience around young kids. I'm like, how am I going to do this? And people were excited that I wanted to help. So their expectations of me were not super high. They're just like, hey, thanks for showing up. This is what we want you to do. I was nervous to take the first step. But as I got more and more involved, then it was like, oh, OK, well, we actually need a facility. And well, great. So then I stepped into that. And this time has gone on.
I've seen over and over and over again that God kind of put me in one spot and then moved me a bit closer. And now I think I'm actually exactly where he wants me. But if I hadn't taken the first step to actually go downstairs and do the security down there, I wouldn't end up where I am now. Yeah, and it's crazy because you start doing security and kind of doing some facilities things. And now this year, you're actually going to move into a full-time pastoral role. So the faith journey with you, there's like definite specific markers in the building of momentum, but more than most people, I guess. But you definitely can see the story. But you can definitely see for me, like when I look back, it's definitely the first step of like, oh, you really need people in base camp?
okay do you want me here we go and they're like yes absolutely you'll do great and it was just one thing after another and here we are five years down the road it's amazing yeah and uh yeah through the process you got on the dream you guys are now going to be a full-time ministry couple wow it's going to be amazing amazing okay so for our last question we can actually talk to everyone who's listening here uh you have a chance i want to give you a chance what is your greatest volunteer need right now and how might it build momentum into that volunteer space so someone might be listening like maybe i want to serve in the church i don't know where what should i do uh i want to give you a chance to talk to everyone uh yeah so i am actually in need of volunteers for the office and when i first stepped into the office i struggled with this a little bit like how can you know pushing papers really help um help the gospel help spread jesus to the world um and i always kept going back to the verse and everything you do do it as for the lord um and as i continue to kind of just remember that verse i now find myself in all the little things every day just like Everything I do, do it as for the Lord. And always trying to remember Jesus in everything I do. And so I hope that whoever steps in to volunteer in this role, that that would help them as well to just see Jesus in everything they do.
Yeah, and I can say for sure, without administrative people like you and Rachel, but also volunteers doing little things, any sort of what would just seem like menial paperwork, it's so important to me as a pastor, and Elijah's experienced it too, the organization of the church to run if we didn't have people taking care of what may seem like menial tasks. It's an important, important cog in the wheel of the church functioning, so I'm super thankful for it. What about you? Yeah, I mean, my biggest need has been the same need I've had for like two years. I need more junior youth volunteers. The reason we don't have many is because junior youth is hard. The kids are kind of in a weird stage. They're very active. They have a lot to say. You know, I'm 32 and I get home from junior youth and I'm exhausted. And I know that all of our volunteers feel the same way. And so it's kind of like it's like a big burden of performance on junior youth volunteers. And I think it scares people away. But the downside is you don't end up hanging around long enough to see the difference in the lives of the kids when you build into them. I've seen some of these kids go from being like 10 years old to like.
now 12 and they go from being the young kids in the program to being the older kids they go from being led to leading and you're there for them you know every every two weeks it's when you see that it's not just a sunday for them but it's a big deal for them i mean you you start to understand okay i'm actually having a huge kingdom impact just by showing up and it's worth it it's absolutely worth it i love it that you didn't sugarcoat it no you're saying like junior high middle school they're moving from kid to teenager somewhere in the mix of it and uh yeah you can have a 10 11 12 year old uh one that's mature one that's not one that's you know somewhere between so it's But I appreciate that you're not sugarcoating it. It takes some real stamina. And maybe there's someone out there that can... Maybe that's you. Maybe that's you. And you love that age. You love those kids. You love the excitement. Now, the thing is, too, when you are working with junior youth in middle school, you always have a great story to tell. There's always an adventure. Oh, yeah. You're never bored, right? That's right. Like, do I ever come home from youth with nothing to say? Oh, every time. It's like, oh, this happened. Check it out. This thing happened. It's fun. You'll never be bored, for sure. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for doing this little Q&A. And I want to take an opportunity. I just actually want to pray for you both as a couple.
and pray for your journey. Again, this year, we don't really know where God's going to lead you, but moving into full-time ministry is full-time ministry. It's a big step. And so I hope you join me right now as we pray for the moment. Dear Father, I thank you for Zyschenko's. I thank you for the work they've done. It's been a blessing and a privilege for me to see the journey, small acts of ministry, how you just built it little by little by little. And now, by the end of this year, at some point, they're going to go into a church that needs them, and you're going to use them in a mighty way. So I pray that you prepare them. I pray that you prepare the right church that needs this couple of skills and abilities they have. I pray for us that the roles they're going to leave eventually will be filled. We thank you for administration. We thank you for...
the little things that add up to a big work in the church and for the gospel and that liz is part of overseeing that pray if there's someone that's that's gonna pay for it they like it and that they would talk to her and volunteer in that capacity we thank you for elijah and his work with our youth and it's it's a big job like you said it's a middle school is an energetic group i pray if someone has the energy to match it they got the creativity they have the drive and they love kids that they would talk to elijah and step up and serve in that role father we thank you again for them please bless them in the name of jesus amen amen thank you so much thank you We started today's message with the sayings, practice what you preach and talk the talk, walk the walk. Many, unfortunately, who claim to follow Jesus struggle to live this out. What about you? If someone were to ask you, how do I follow Jesus? What would your response be? Attending church? Praying and reading your Bible? These are great practices, don't get me wrong, but according to Jesus' teaching in the Gospel accounts, it should be much more than just that.
You see, the call to follow Jesus is an active one. It involves choosing hard things. Here I say it, maybe even scary things. A follower of Jesus actively participates in a local church. They support his gospel mission, and they invite others to follow him as well. With that in mind, I'll pose four questions to you as we kind of close off here. Question one, how are you following Jesus? Question two, how are you supporting his mission? Question three, how are you serving his church? And question four, how are you sharing his message?
we need to reshape our collective commitment to Christ's mission. We do. We need it. Every local church should be fully grasping this ability to start. Over time, our commitments build that momentum within our faith. And at the end of our lives, we will never regret stepping out in faith for Jesus and committing to a ministry and sharing the gospel with a friend. At the end of our lives, these decisions today, to follow Jesus more closely, more deeply, at the end of our life, we will be so glad that we made that choice. Let's pray.
Dear Father, thank you so much for that interview again with Liz and Elijah. I thank you so much for the accounts of Peter. He was courageous, and yet he was impetuous. And in the mix of it all, even though he was failing, you were restoring him and you were building him toward something great, that he would be an amazing leader in the church, one of our forefathers of the apostles. And I thank you for that. I thank you that Peter's a great example for us, that you use...
Impetuous people. You use people who are scared. You use people who are shamed. And through your son, you supercharge them. You build them up. And they do incredible things, even miraculous things for you and in your name and in your glory. Father, if there was anyone who was listening today that has never chosen to follow your son Jesus, I pray that they would confess their sin to you, the wrong and the brokenness in their heart, and that they would receive the forgiveness that was offered to the cross, that their sin was paid for.
And that they would also receive that miraculous resurrection that Jesus has conquered their sin and conquered death. And that you might send your Holy Spirit and they may trust in you and live their life following Jesus. And for those of us who have chosen to follow Jesus, but maybe we're faltering and maybe we're struggling with fear or anxiety or we're ashamed of something, or maybe we're just being apathetic, whatever it is that's stopping us from using our spiritual gifts, from using our abilities to further your gospel and to serve your church, may we pull those aside. May we step out and start something amazing for you. Give us that power. Give us that courage. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Next, we have our discussion and prayer focus. We do not just want you to listen or watch this and walk away. We want you to think about it, talk about it. So here we go. Hopefully you can share some of this with a friend. Maybe you're with someone now. Ask this question. How have you struggled with commitment in your spiritual journey? And have you been afraid, ashamed, or apathetic? How have you struggled with commitment in your spiritual journey? And what's been the barrier? Has it been fear, guilt, being ashamed, or has it been apathy? Tell your story and hear the story of others. And after that, spend some time in prayer.
Pray for courage to overcome fear, guilt, and apathy. Pray for courage to overcome fear, guilt, and apathy in our commitment to follow Jesus. Thank you again for watching or listening. Please come back for our third week of our Not Quickly Broken series. We want to continue to build spiritual resilience into each other with the power of Jesus throughout this year, start this year right, and we hope you join us next week.