Who Are You Seeking? Part 1

In this sermon, "Who Are You Seeking?" Pastor Pete uses Jesus's question to His captors in John 18 as a launchpad for a deeply introspective message, arguing that it is entirely possible to be a "Jesus seeker" and still be wrong, just as Judas and the soldiers were. The central problem identified in this first part is seeking the right person in the wrong place. While the soldiers correctly sought Jesus in the familiar Garden of Gethsemane, they failed to seek Him in the most important place: their own hearts and souls. Pastor Pete draws a sharp parallel to modern believers who may seek Jesus only in the comfortable and familiar places—church, the Bible, small groups—while avoiding the call to seek Him in the hard, messy, and uncomfortable places of life, such as trials, temptations, and service to the marginalized. Using the analogy of asking children the same question multiple times for seven different reasons (clarification, consideration, confirmation, conviction, confrontation, correction, and coaching), he demonstrates how Jesus's repeated question serves all these purposes. The sermon concludes by introducing the next dimension of the problem—seeking with the wrong purpose—and challenges listeners to honestly examine their own motivations for following Christ, asking if they are seeking an easy life and a problem-solver, or if they are seeking genuine, transformative surrender, with the haunting reminder that "you can seek the right thing and still be wrong."