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Andy Stanley - Christmas Its All Good Part 2 Leveling the Playing Field · Andy Stanley Sermons

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Speaker 1: You know, most people, most people, and you're probably part
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Speaker 1: of this, most people, maybe not. You may disagree with this,
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Speaker 1: but most people assume that there's some sort of universal
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Speaker 1: code of conduct that we ought to ascribe to. And
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Speaker 1: this code of conduct is basically reflected in the laws
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Speaker 1: and the customs of every nation of the world and
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Speaker 1: pretty much every ancient civilization as far back as we
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Speaker 1: can study ancient civilizations. It's kind of a set of
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Speaker 1: like universal oughts to which we hold. Sometimes we hold
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Speaker 1: ourselves accountable, like you know, I really should you know,
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Speaker 1: you see coeople come in and they're having a hard time,
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Speaker 1: You think I really should get up and give them
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Speaker 1: my seat. I ought to do that. Somewhere outside of you,
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Speaker 1: there's a sense of aught, or I really ought to apologize.
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Speaker 1: I don't want to apologize. I don't want to admit
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Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but I was wrong enough I ought to apologize.
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Speaker 1: Or you're tempted to do something that hurts you, or
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Speaker 1: tempted to do something you know ultimately hurt somebody else,
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Speaker 1: and there's something that's like I ought not to do that,
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Speaker 1: I ought to do that. So there's there's this kind
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Speaker 1: of aught that sits outside of it, and we know
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Speaker 1: it doesn't. We know it doesn't originate inside of us,
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Speaker 1: because if it originated inside of us, we just tell
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Speaker 1: it to shut up, you know, we would just move
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Speaker 1: on and we would change it. But it's kind of
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Speaker 1: it sits out there, and it informs our conscience, and
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Speaker 1: sometimes it condemns us, and sometimes it encourages us when
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Speaker 1: we do the right thing. And so sometimes we hold
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Speaker 1: ourselves accountable to this universal sense of aught, but we
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Speaker 1: always hold other people accountable. Right isn't this true in
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Speaker 1: set of universal oughts to which we hold others accountable?
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Speaker 1: I mean, even if you don't even believe there is
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Speaker 1: such a thing as that, you think it's all internalized
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Speaker 1: or just culture or part of the evolutionary process, even
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Speaker 1: if you don't even believe that such a thing exists.
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Speaker 1: The truth is, you hold other people accountable to these aughts,
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Speaker 1: even when you sort of negatum in your own experience.
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Speaker 1: I mean liars, right, Liars don't like to be lied to.
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Speaker 1: I mean, a liar may say it doesn't matter I
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Speaker 1: didn't tell the truth, but it's okay if I lie,
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Speaker 1: because I need to get my way and it's part
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Speaker 1: of my survival instinct. But what whoa whoa, whoa whoa.
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Speaker 1: You can't lie to me do somehow? You know in
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Speaker 1: those moments the liars reach out and grab that external
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Speaker 1: thing and say and apply to you. Thieves. I bet
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Speaker 1: you knew this. They don't like to be stolen from.
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Speaker 1: You know, somebody breaks in your house and take stuff. Well,
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Speaker 1: if somebody breaks in their house, they don't go, oh well,
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Speaker 1: this is how the world works. No, they're angry. They
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Speaker 1: call the police. Thieves call the police. As you know this,
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Speaker 1: it's like it's crazy. Cheaters. Cheaters do not like to
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Speaker 1: be cheated on. They really don't. I have a friend
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Speaker 1: who his thing is he says, He says, I don't
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Speaker 1: do guilt. I don't do guilt because you know, if
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Speaker 1: I'm a pastor and we have conversations, don't I don't
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Speaker 1: do guilt. And it always kind of baffles me because
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Speaker 1: if you don't do guilt, then everybody around you has
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Speaker 1: to be wrong, so you don't have to be say
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Speaker 1: that again, if you don't do guilt, like you don't
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Speaker 1: accept responsibilities, then everybody else has to be wrong. They
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Speaker 1: have to kind of dance around you. So the thing
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Speaker 1: is this, people who don't do guilt, are adamant regarding
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Speaker 1: the guilt of others. So again there's this kind of
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Speaker 1: this universal aught that kind of sits out there, and
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Speaker 1: we grab it when it's convenient because and then sometimes
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Speaker 1: we ignore it personally. But here's here's a hypocrisy that
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Speaker 1: Christians and non Christians share on a level of playing
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Speaker 1: field a little bit. Here's a hypocrisy that we all share.
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Speaker 1: We can't help ourselves. We cannot stop holding others accountable
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Speaker 1: to an external standard. We sometimes ignore ourselves. We just
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Speaker 1: can't help. But you know, we can kind of silence
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Speaker 1: our conscience and kind of get through doing the wrong thing.
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Speaker 1: But when somebody does the same thing to us, we
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Speaker 1: reach out there and grab that thing, and all of
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Speaker 1: this this dynamic that kind of condemns all of us.
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Speaker 1: This underscores why the arrival of Jesus was such good news.
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Speaker 1: It was it was such good news that that ultimately
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Speaker 1: it moved the needle. It was such good news that
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Speaker 1: people eventually leaned in. Now, as we said last time
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Speaker 1: we were together, some people resist Christianity. And you may
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Speaker 1: be one of these people, which I understand this. There's
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Speaker 1: there this makes perfect sense to me, and it's it's
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Speaker 1: I'm not playing a game. I mean, I don't judge
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Speaker 1: you a bit. If if this is your thing, you
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Speaker 1: have a good reason for it to be your thing.
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Speaker 1: But a lot of people, their big question is it
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Speaker 1: relates to Christianity? Is is it true? But for more
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Speaker 1: and more people, that question is different. The question now
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Speaker 1: for more and more people is is it good? Is
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Speaker 1: Christianity even good? I have a friend that lives in
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Speaker 1: a different state, different city, in a different state, and
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Speaker 1: I haven't seen him in a long time, and he
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Speaker 1: texted me this week. He said, I saw your message
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Speaker 1: last week where you're asking the question is it good?
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Speaker 1: And I couldn't believe you're talking about that because Andy,
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Speaker 1: I'll be honest, this is a kid raised in church,
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Speaker 1: he said, I don't know anymore. I don't know if
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Speaker 1: it's good anymore. I don't know if Christianity is good
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Speaker 1: for society. I don't know if it's good for culture.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if it's good for me, he said.
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Speaker 1: And this is you know, more and more people were
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Speaker 1: asking this question, and maybe that's your questions. That's why
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Speaker 1: we're talking about it. But here's the thing. Isn't this
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Speaker 1: true when you hear news that's not good. When you
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Speaker 1: get news that's not good, or you hear news that's
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Speaker 1: not good, you hope it's not true, right, And when
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Speaker 1: you hear news that is good, you hope it is true.
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Speaker 1: And the amazing thing is this, When the birth of
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Speaker 1: Jesus was first announced, it was announced as good news
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Speaker 1: of great joy. And this is the part we can't
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Speaker 1: begin to understand how unusual this was for all people.
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Speaker 1: And the reason this is so unusual is isn't it
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Speaker 1: true that generally speaking, good news for one person's bad
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Speaker 1: news for somebody else, or bad news for somebody else's
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Speaker 1: good news. I mean it kind of good news and
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Speaker 1: bad news. It's good news for you, it's bad news
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Speaker 1: for somebody else. And the announcement of Jesus was good
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Speaker 1: news of great joy for everybody. And the world was
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Speaker 1: so divided it's hard to imagine. It would have been
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Speaker 1: hard for anybody in that culture to imagine there's something
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Speaker 1: that's so good that's gonna benefit everybody, because generally the
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Speaker 1: good news benefits one group and it punishes or undermines
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Speaker 1: the integrity or the success of another group. So seriously
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Speaker 1: all people, but which brings us to the question that
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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a lot about next week so they
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Speaker 1: don't miss next week. If the birth of Jesus really
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Speaker 1: is good news for great joy for all people, why
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Speaker 1: is there so much resistance? Because again, when we hear
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Speaker 1: something that we think is good or we're convinced is good,
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Speaker 1: we want it to be true. We hope it's true,
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Speaker 1: we look for reasons to believe it's true. So, if
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Speaker 1: the birth of Jesus, the coming of Jesus the planet
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Speaker 1: Earth is good news, why are the resistance? Why doesn't
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Speaker 1: everybody lean in? And one of the problems is the
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Speaker 1: original version has gotten so distance from our cultural and
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Speaker 1: our contemporary version. That's one of the problems because when
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Speaker 1: Jesus first showed up, when Jesus stepped on the planet
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Speaker 1: Earth as an adult, people leaned in. In fact, the
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Speaker 1: original version of jesus message, and the original version of
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Speaker 1: the Jesus story was actually called the Gospel. It wasn't
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Speaker 1: called the Bible, it wasn't called the Story of Jesus.
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Speaker 1: It was called the Gospel, which is two Old English
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Speaker 1: words put together, which means the good story. The best
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Speaker 1: title they could come up with is was you on Gellion?
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Speaker 1: In Greek, the Good News or the Gospel and the
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Speaker 1: Good News or the Gospel of Jesus was such good news.
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Speaker 1: It caught on sandwich between the Roman Empire that eventually
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Speaker 1: made it illegal in the Jewish Temple, which was threatened
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Speaker 1: by it. Somehow it caught on because so many people
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Speaker 1: leaned in, because again, when you hear something that sounds good,
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Speaker 1: when you hear something that sounds good, you hope it's true.
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Speaker 1: And the Gospel, the original Gospel, the original message of Jesus,
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Speaker 1: the original story of the life of Jesus, was so
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Speaker 1: good people needed. In fact, Luke Matthew Mark Luke, the
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Speaker 1: third Gospel writer, who said, I thoroughly investigated all these
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Speaker 1: things that you would know with certainty, the things that
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Speaker 1: have happened among us. That's how he starts as gospel.
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Speaker 1: We talked about that last week. Luke says that at
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Speaker 1: one point Jesus said this, He said, the Law and
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Speaker 1: the prophets, which we call that the Old Testament, but
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Speaker 1: it was just the Jewish Scripture, the Hebrew Bible. The
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Speaker 1: Law and the prophets were proclaimed until John. The Hebrew
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Speaker 1: scriptures were proclaimed until John. And the Hebrew scriptures were
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Speaker 1: very good news for the Hebrew people, especially the ancient
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Speaker 1: Hebrew people. But they weren't good news for everybody. He said,
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Speaker 1: The Law and the prophets have been proclaimed until John
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Speaker 1: the Baptist. But when John the Baptist came and announced
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Speaker 1: that God was about to do something new, and when
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Speaker 1: Jesus steps onto the pages of history as a man,
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Speaker 1: as a grown up, things changed. The law and the
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Speaker 1: prophets have been pre proclaimed until John since that time.
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Speaker 1: Here it is the good news of the Kingdom of God,
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Speaker 1: that God is about to do something in the world
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Speaker 1: for everybody in the world. The good news of the
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Speaker 1: Kingdom of God is being preached. And look at this,
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Speaker 1: Jesus says. Look around everyone, everyone, everyone who hears it,
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Speaker 1: everyone who understands it, everyone who senses that God is
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Speaker 1: about to do something in the world for everyone. Everyone
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Speaker 1: is leaning in. Everybody is moving toward. Everyone is forcing
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Speaker 1: their way into it. Everywhere Jesus went crowds upon crowds
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Speaker 1: upon crowds, which brings us to this tension. If the
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Speaker 1: life and the message of Jesus doesn't strike you as
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Speaker 1: good news, perhaps you've never heard the original news. If
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Speaker 1: the life and the message of teaching of Jesus doesn't
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Speaker 1: strike you as good news of great joy, you may
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Speaker 1: not believe it's true. But if there's not something in
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Speaker 1: you that just says, you know, I don't believe it's true,
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Speaker 1: but wow, wouldn't it be great if it were true?
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Speaker 1: If there's not something in you that would lean forward
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Speaker 1: and say, you know what, At this point, I think
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Speaker 1: it's a fairy tale. At this point, I don't know
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Speaker 1: if we can trust New Testament documents, but wow, wouldn't
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Speaker 1: that be amazing? If the message of Jesus doesn't strike
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Speaker 1: you as something that you would want to be true,
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Speaker 1: perhaps you've never heard, or perhaps you've never understood the
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Speaker 1: original version the Good News of Great Joy for All
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Speaker 1: People version, because the original version was so extraordinarily compelling,
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Speaker 1: it was so extraordinarily worth telling, and so it was told.
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Speaker 1: Luke tells us that many people endeavored to give us
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Speaker 1: an orderly account of the life and the teaching of Jesus.
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Speaker 1: It was that good. Now, one of the things, or
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Speaker 1: part of the you know, one of the things that
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Speaker 1: makes the good news so good is that Jesus, with
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Speaker 1: his message, he basically leveled the playing field that the
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Speaker 1: message of Jesus was just stood as a deci disturbingly
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Speaker 1: but appropriately humble reminder that we aren't so good, that
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Speaker 1: we aren't so good. In fact, it was this message
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Speaker 1: that disturbed the people that thought they were so good.
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Speaker 1: And it's the very part of his message that gave
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Speaker 1: hope to the people that knew they weren't all that good.
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Speaker 1: People like us that know, from time to time we
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Speaker 1: reach out there and we grab and we leverage and
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Speaker 1: we use that universal sense of aught when people have
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Speaker 1: hurt us. But when it comes to us sometimes we
10:25
Speaker 1: kind of play it down and ignore our conscience and
10:28
Speaker 1: just do what we want to do anyway. But for
10:31
Speaker 1: the people who were aware of the fact that they
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Speaker 1: weren't so good, this was good news of great joy
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Speaker 1: for all of those people. Now in February of twenty eighteen,
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Speaker 1: I saw a great example to me, a great example
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Speaker 1: of what this must have looked like, maybe from God's perspective,
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Speaker 1: in a little microcosm. In February twenty first, Billy Graham
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Speaker 1: passed away, and on March the second, his funeral was
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Speaker 1: scheduled in Charlotte, North Carolina. And when I heard that
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Speaker 1: Billy Graham passed away, I called my dad because I
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Speaker 1: heard they were only going to invite a thousand people
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Speaker 1: to the memorial service, and everybody who got invited could
11:03
Speaker 1: bring one person because there's only room for two thousand people.
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Speaker 1: And I called my dad, I said, I know you're
11:07
Speaker 1: going to get invited. Can I go with you? Because
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Speaker 1: I would love to be a part of Billy Graham's
11:11
Speaker 1: memorial service. And then lo and behold, I got an invitation,
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Speaker 1: which means I'm one of the most thousand most important.
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Speaker 1: Is skidding? So I think people just kept they couldn't go,
11:21
Speaker 1: and they got down to me. But anyway, so I
11:23
Speaker 1: got invited, I know, to Billy Graham's funeral, And so
11:26
Speaker 1: Sandra and I went, and my dad went, and he
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Speaker 1: took a friend and it was so amazing. This was Okay,
11:31
Speaker 1: they're dignitaries. There are famous journalists. Everywhere you look. There
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Speaker 1: are people you either know who they you knew who
11:36
Speaker 1: they were, or they're like, okay, I've seen them on television.
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Speaker 1: I know that somebody impored it. People from all over
11:40
Speaker 1: the world, the heads of state. I mean, it was incredible.
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Speaker 1: A thousand people invited, they could all bring one person.
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Speaker 1: And the best part of this was these were mostly
11:49
Speaker 1: all people who were like big shots somewhere who are
11:53
Speaker 1: used to traveling in motorcades, who were used to showing
11:55
Speaker 1: up and tricked out escalades with their people, you know,
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Speaker 1: and their people would get out and we got sunglasses,
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Speaker 1: got people, we got security. And the beauty of this
12:03
Speaker 1: day was you couldn't bring your people. You could bring
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Speaker 1: one people. That's it. And we showed up at a
12:08
Speaker 1: distribution center. Okay, this that wasn't even That was like
12:11
Speaker 1: twenty minutes away from where the ceremony is going to be,
12:13
Speaker 1: and everybody has to go into this kind of warehouse
12:15
Speaker 1: area and we had to stand around for about an
12:17
Speaker 1: hour and fifteen minutes while we waited for buses to
12:20
Speaker 1: come pick us up. It was beautiful. See if all
12:23
Speaker 1: these important people and they can't be important because they're
12:26
Speaker 1: surrounded by other important people and suddenly nobody's important. And
12:31
Speaker 1: then they put us in lines. You had to wait
12:32
Speaker 1: in line, and we all got hurted onto these buses.
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Speaker 1: Everybody had to go to the back of the bus,
12:36
Speaker 1: fill up every single seat from the back to the front.
12:38
Speaker 1: These people haven't ridden on a bus since they were
12:40
Speaker 1: in elementary school. Okay, now they're all sitting in these
12:44
Speaker 1: buses and they're in and then we drive for about
12:46
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. We get out and it's freezing cold. This
12:49
Speaker 1: is Mark second Charlotte, North Carolina. It's beautiful sunny day,
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Speaker 1: freezing cold, and the service is in a tent without
12:55
Speaker 1: any sides, so you could get under the tent and
12:58
Speaker 1: you're super freezing, or you can stand out in the
13:00
Speaker 1: sun where you're just freezing. So we're miserable for an
13:02
Speaker 1: hour and fifteen minutes before this thing started. And I'm
13:05
Speaker 1: telling you, I was enjoying this part so much. As
13:09
Speaker 1: I looked at all these famous people. They couldn't be
13:12
Speaker 1: famous because there weren't any people for them to be
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Speaker 1: famous for. Because they everywhere they looked, there were people
13:16
Speaker 1: more famous than them and more important than them. And
13:18
Speaker 1: we all just kind of milled around waiting for the
13:20
Speaker 1: ceremony to start. Nobody, nobody was anybody special that day.
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Speaker 1: I mean, you may be a big shot in some
13:29
Speaker 1: circle that you work in, and they may be a
13:31
Speaker 1: big shot on some television station, but hey, you're not
13:35
Speaker 1: Billy Graham. Okay, So everything just leveled the playing field.
13:39
Speaker 1: And again, you know, you may have a big ministry,
13:42
Speaker 1: but Hey, this is amazing and I wanted to show
13:44
Speaker 1: you a picture, but we didn't get permission in time.
13:46
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three, I mean, most of peop weren't
13:48
Speaker 1: around nineteen seventy three. Talk about big church. He preached
13:52
Speaker 1: in Seoul, South Korea, and one point one million people attended.
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Speaker 1: Let me tell you all, my church is sh Let
14:01
Speaker 1: me tell you about this. Billy Graham showed up to preach. Well,
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Speaker 1: I don't mean they watched on television. You should see
14:07
Speaker 1: this picture. You should google it. Over a million people
14:10
Speaker 1: showed up. Okay, so you may be a big deal,
14:14
Speaker 1: but your funeral isn't gonna be on Fox News and
14:16
Speaker 1: CNN and c SPAN. Okay, you may be a big deal,
14:19
Speaker 1: but your body is not gonna lie in the US
14:21
Speaker 1: capital for people to line up all around the blocks
14:24
Speaker 1: to come see your body. Okay. You know some people
14:26
Speaker 1: were better known than others. You know, some people were
14:28
Speaker 1: more famous than others. Some people have more followers than others.
14:32
Speaker 1: But on that day, we all fell short of the
14:36
Speaker 1: glory of Billy Graham. And it was amazing. But perhaps
14:41
Speaker 1: the most amazing part of that, part of it, that dynamic,
14:44
Speaker 1: was you could tell who is uncomfortable. They didn't like it.
14:49
Speaker 1: They were used to being special. They weren't special leveled
14:56
Speaker 1: the playing field. Peter, the fisherman that eventually became one
15:02
Speaker 1: of Jesus followers. Peter was a good man. He was
15:04
Speaker 1: a really good man. He's a businessman. He's a family man,
15:07
Speaker 1: had a good reputation in the community, had brothers, you know.
15:10
Speaker 1: And Luke, who thoroughly investigated all this stuff, tells us
15:13
Speaker 1: that one day Jesus was in the community and he
15:17
Speaker 1: was teaching, and he was standing by the Lake of Genezra,
15:20
Speaker 1: which is the Sea of Galilee, and there were people
15:22
Speaker 1: crowding around Jesus and they were listening. And I can't
15:25
Speaker 1: spend much time on this. This is an amazing phrase.
15:27
Speaker 1: They were listening as he taught the word of God.
15:31
Speaker 1: But does is say he taught the word of God.
15:33
Speaker 1: They were listening to the word of God. This is
15:35
Speaker 1: a big deal. When we see the phrase word of God,
15:37
Speaker 1: we think the Bible. Okay, this is way way way
15:40
Speaker 1: before there is the bibl e And he wasn't teaching
15:43
Speaker 1: the law and the prophets. After the resurrection, the people
15:46
Speaker 1: closest to Jesus realized, oh my goodness. When we sat
15:51
Speaker 1: and listened to him teach, we were hearing the words
15:57
Speaker 1: of God. Oh my goodness, that afternoon when he told
16:01
Speaker 1: that story, I was just a rabbi telling a cool story.
16:04
Speaker 1: We were hearing the work. So Luke recognizes after the resurrection,
16:08
Speaker 1: when Jesus taught, the people had the awesome, amazing opportunity.
16:12
Speaker 1: They were hearing. Not the Bible being taught. There's no
16:15
Speaker 1: Bible yet, not the law and the prophets. You know,
16:17
Speaker 1: that's just the backstory. They were hearing the very words
16:20
Speaker 1: of God. It's just amazing anyway. So he saw Jesus
16:23
Speaker 1: looks around. He sees at the water's edge two boats
16:25
Speaker 1: left there by the fishermen who were washing their nets.
16:27
Speaker 1: So the way this works, you fish all night. When
16:29
Speaker 1: the water's cool, the fish come up at the surface.
16:31
Speaker 1: You can fish with a net. When the sun comes up,
16:32
Speaker 1: the water heats up, the fish go deeper. So they
16:35
Speaker 1: fish all night. They come in after fishing, they string
16:38
Speaker 1: out their nets, They lay out their nets, dry the nets,
16:40
Speaker 1: get all the seaweed and the beer cans out of
16:41
Speaker 1: the nets. Then they roll the nets back up, stash
16:44
Speaker 1: them away, and then they sleep during most of the morning,
16:47
Speaker 1: and then they do it all again the next night.
16:48
Speaker 1: So these guys have been up all night. They are
16:50
Speaker 1: cleaning and drying their nets. Peter has one of his
16:53
Speaker 1: nets cleaned and drying and rolled up in his boat,
16:56
Speaker 1: and Jesus says, hey, let's push out a little bit,
16:58
Speaker 1: and I'd like to get away from the shore a
17:00
Speaker 1: little bit. I'll be able to see the people more
17:02
Speaker 1: and they won't crowd so much. So he got into
17:04
Speaker 1: one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon or Peter,
17:07
Speaker 1: and he says, let's put out a little from the shore.
17:08
Speaker 1: And then he sat down and he taught the people
17:11
Speaker 1: from the boat. So there's Peter sitting there. You know,
17:14
Speaker 1: he can't captive audience, can't leave early. He us slip
17:16
Speaker 1: out for lunch. She's sitting there on the boat. There's
17:18
Speaker 1: Jesus got the net, and Jesus is teaching and amazing.
17:21
Speaker 1: I mean, you're listening to the word of God. They
17:23
Speaker 1: didn't know it at the time. And then Jesus finishes
17:26
Speaker 1: his sermon. Peter gets ready to kind of or back
17:29
Speaker 1: over to the shore for Jesus to get out, and
17:30
Speaker 1: Jesus says, to Peter, take me fishing. Take me fishing.
17:36
Speaker 1: And I don't know what Peter thought. He thought, hey,
17:38
Speaker 1: we already did that. We didn't catch anything when you're
17:40
Speaker 1: supposed to fish, so this is gonna be a complete
17:41
Speaker 1: waste of time. Maybe he thought, we you known, I've
17:43
Speaker 1: never taken a rabbi fishing, maybe I'll have some good luck.
17:46
Speaker 1: Who knows it's a rabbi and good message, great guy,
17:48
Speaker 1: you know. And then he says this. He says, well,
17:51
Speaker 1: and we don't know what's behind this phrase, but it's
17:53
Speaker 1: pretty powerful. He says, well, Jesus, you know, we've been
17:56
Speaker 1: fishing all night and we haven't caught anything. But since
18:00
Speaker 1: it's you, and since we're kind of out here, let's
18:02
Speaker 1: give it a try. So apparently we forget this part.
18:05
Speaker 1: Jesus and Peter now row out a little ways, unfurl
18:10
Speaker 1: those nets, drop them down, and they start catching fish.
18:13
Speaker 1: May you may remember the story. And they catch fish,
18:16
Speaker 1: and they catch fish, and they catch fish, and they
18:18
Speaker 1: catch so many fish it almost sinks the boat. And
18:21
Speaker 1: somewhere within the process, Peter looks up at this rabbi
18:25
Speaker 1: from Nazareth and he realizes something's going on, and suddenly
18:33
Speaker 1: he's overwhelmed with self awareness. Suddenly Peter begins to see
18:38
Speaker 1: himself in a way that he had not seen himself before.
18:41
Speaker 1: And suddenly he's not okay with what he sees in himself.
18:47
Speaker 1: And he's, you know, being above average in the community
18:50
Speaker 1: and being the above average brother to James and John.
18:53
Speaker 1: Suddenly that just didn't matter. Suddenly in this moment with
18:56
Speaker 1: Jesus in the boat with all these fish, I mean,
18:58
Speaker 1: he's not gonna have to fish for you know, days days.
19:01
Speaker 1: He's ashamed, and he let's go with the net. And Luke,
19:06
Speaker 1: who probably got the story straight from Peter, said, when
19:09
Speaker 1: Simon Peter saw this, when he saw what it was happening,
19:14
Speaker 1: Suddenly some of you can relate to this. Suddenly, the
19:18
Speaker 1: fish and fishing and the fishing business and the crowd
19:23
Speaker 1: on the shore watching, all of a sudden that becomes
19:26
Speaker 1: inconsequential because his world was way out of balance and
19:32
Speaker 1: Peter was not okay with Peter. And listen to what happened.
19:36
Speaker 1: Luke says that Peter, let's go with the net. And
19:39
Speaker 1: he drops down on his knees in this boat and
19:44
Speaker 1: he falls at Jesus knees and he says, go away
19:49
Speaker 1: from me, Lord go away from me. Lord, I am
19:56
Speaker 1: a sinful man, to which we'd say, wait, wait, wait, Peter,
20:02
Speaker 1: get up. Peter, you haven't done anything wrong. In fact,
20:05
Speaker 1: not only have you not done anything wrong, you did
20:07
Speaker 1: something right. You took Jesus fishing. I mean you took
20:10
Speaker 1: Jesus fishing when it was a waste of times, your
20:11
Speaker 1: nets were already dried. I mean you did the right thing,
20:15
Speaker 1: to which Peter would have said, no, No, I didn't say
20:16
Speaker 1: I sinned. I'm not here to confess a sin. I'm
20:20
Speaker 1: just telling you. In the presence of this person, I'm
20:23
Speaker 1: just telling you, I suddenly became aware of the fact
20:26
Speaker 1: that I am a sinful man. I'm not okay, and
20:31
Speaker 1: I just became more aware than ever of how not
20:35
Speaker 1: okay I really am. Then he said this, Jesus, I
20:44
Speaker 1: need you to go away so I can feel okay
20:48
Speaker 1: about myself. This is what he meant when he said
20:50
Speaker 1: I go away from me. Lord, what he meant was this,
20:52
Speaker 1: I need you to go away so I can get
20:55
Speaker 1: back to feeling okay about myself. I was fine with me,
21:00
Speaker 1: I was fine with Peter until you showed up. And
21:03
Speaker 1: then I love this and Jesus smiles and he says
21:09
Speaker 1: to Peter, don't be afraid, to which he could have said,
21:15
Speaker 1: it's true, you are a sinful man. In fact, Peter,
21:19
Speaker 1: let me tell you, your greatest sin is still in your future. Peter,
21:25
Speaker 1: You're about to see things that mere mortals long to see.
21:28
Speaker 1: And at the end of that journey, you are going
21:30
Speaker 1: to deny that you've ever even met me. You are
21:34
Speaker 1: going to deny the events of this day. And I
21:37
Speaker 1: know that because you are a sinful man. That's why
21:43
Speaker 1: I've come. That's why I'm here to level the playing field.
21:50
Speaker 1: Because in the kingdoms of this world it's all about
21:53
Speaker 1: power and prominence and prestige. But good news, Peter, good news.
21:59
Speaker 1: It's a new kingdom with a new kind of king
22:05
Speaker 1: And Peter, I am going to go away, but I'm
22:09
Speaker 1: taking you with me, and together we will introduce the
22:13
Speaker 1: world to the Kingdom of God. Sure, Luke says at
22:20
Speaker 1: that point, they pulled up their boats onto the shore,
22:23
Speaker 1: and they left everything, and they followed him, and they
22:26
Speaker 1: left their mark on Western civilization, and the journey begins.
22:31
Speaker 1: The moment Peter recognizes I'm good, but I'm not that good,
22:36
Speaker 1: and in your presence, I'm not just not good. I
22:39
Speaker 1: am a sinner and should not even be in your presence.
22:44
Speaker 1: And Jesus sends him a message and a signal and
22:47
Speaker 1: sends you a message and you a signal, and he says,
22:49
Speaker 1: I know. Now follow me, and we will do something
22:53
Speaker 1: significant together. See, what makes the good news so good
23:01
Speaker 1: is that we aren't so good. We fall short of
23:06
Speaker 1: our own expectations. We fall short of other people's expectations.
23:10
Speaker 1: And we know, we know, we know, we fall short
23:13
Speaker 1: of that elusive sense of aught. In fact, it's worse
23:15
Speaker 1: than falling short. We hold other people accountable to what
23:19
Speaker 1: they ought to do, and then we give ourselves an out.
23:22
Speaker 1: What do you call that? We hold other people accountable
23:25
Speaker 1: to this the sense of awe? But at the same
23:27
Speaker 1: time we decide that we know there's an excuse to
23:29
Speaker 1: be made, there's a reason not to And suddenly Jesus
23:32
Speaker 1: shows up and suddenly all the excuses burn away, and
23:36
Speaker 1: we realize what we're really like and who we really are.
23:40
Speaker 1: He smiles, and he says, and that's why I came.
23:45
Speaker 1: And let's be honest. Okay, our falling short it's not
23:50
Speaker 1: always an accident, is it. Sometimes we fall short on purpose? Right?
23:55
Speaker 1: We call it a mistake, and our culture we call
23:57
Speaker 1: it a mistake. Well, she made a mistake. I'm like,
23:58
Speaker 1: well she did it four times. Is that a mistake?
24:01
Speaker 1: You know? I mean, is there such thing as a
24:02
Speaker 1: premeditated mistake? Or like you plan it out and then
24:05
Speaker 1: you make the mistake. That's not a mistake, but we
24:06
Speaker 1: call it a mistake. Jesus, is no a premeditated mistake
24:11
Speaker 1: where you hurt somebody and you plan to do something
24:14
Speaker 1: that ultimately hurts somebody, that's not a mistake. Look at me,
24:16
Speaker 1: he would say, that's a sin When you hurt another
24:20
Speaker 1: person on purpose, and then you do it again, and
24:23
Speaker 1: you plan it and you scheme and you hurt another person,
24:26
Speaker 1: or you hurt a company, or you hurt someone you love,
24:28
Speaker 1: either by accident or on purpose, that's not a mistake.
24:31
Speaker 1: A mistake is when you're doing math, right. A mistake
24:35
Speaker 1: is when you put the wrong button in the cell
24:36
Speaker 1: phone and call somebody you don't know. That's a mistake,
24:39
Speaker 1: Jesus is come on, let's just be honest, all right.
24:42
Speaker 1: You're not mistakers, you're sinners. And suddenly the playing field
24:51
Speaker 1: is level, and suddenly the good news gets even good.
24:57
Speaker 1: Paul This is amazing, And if you don't know this story,
25:01
Speaker 1: you should read the Book of Acts Acts. It's amazing.
25:04
Speaker 1: Paul shows up in the pages of history as someone
25:07
Speaker 1: who claimed to be like one of the best people
25:09
Speaker 1: who ever lived. He said, when it comes to the righteousness,
25:12
Speaker 1: when it comes to keeping the law, when it comes
25:13
Speaker 1: to keeping the law of Moses, when it comes to
25:15
Speaker 1: keeping God happy, you know, I'm the best. I don't
25:18
Speaker 1: know any other way to say it. I'm like the best.
25:20
Speaker 1: I'm like the Hebrew of Hebrews. I'm the Pharisee of Pharisees.
25:23
Speaker 1: I mean I can out Pharisee all the Pharisees. I'm
25:25
Speaker 1: so good. I mean, when I get to the temple,
25:27
Speaker 1: they're just happy to see me there. I'm so good.
25:30
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a lawkeeper. I'm a meticulous lawkeeper. And
25:34
Speaker 1: then he meets Jesus. And do you know what label
25:37
Speaker 1: he gave himself after he met Jesus, this man that
25:40
Speaker 1: was the best of the best. He said, I'm the
25:43
Speaker 1: chief of sinners. Hey, wait, wait, wait, you can't wait,
25:45
Speaker 1: what what you just You're like the best person that
25:48
Speaker 1: ever lived. Now you're the chief of sinners. Now you're
25:49
Speaker 1: the worst of the worst. How can you go from
25:51
Speaker 1: being the best of the best or the worst of
25:52
Speaker 1: the worst. Paul would say, because I am encountered God
26:01
Speaker 1: in a body, because I encountered the resurrected Savior. And
26:06
Speaker 1: like Peter, there was just a sense of please, I
26:11
Speaker 1: just go away from me. I am a sinful man.
26:16
Speaker 1: And Jesus would say to Paul what Jesus said to Peter.
26:19
Speaker 1: I know Paul, I know Paul, but guess what follow
26:22
Speaker 1: me and we will change the world together, and together
26:26
Speaker 1: we will introduce the Kingdom of God to earth. Here's
26:32
Speaker 1: what he wrote. You've heard these words before talking about himself.
26:36
Speaker 1: He's not believe me, He's not wagging his finger at you.
26:39
Speaker 1: This is an all escape, he says, for all have sinned,
26:46
Speaker 1: and all fall short playing field level. We don't just
26:52
Speaker 1: fall short of our personal ambitions and our personal standards.
26:55
Speaker 1: We fall short of others, and we all fall short
26:58
Speaker 1: of that nagging sense of that we feel accountable to
27:02
Speaker 1: and always hold others accountable to. This is the way
27:05
Speaker 1: he says it, and we all fall short of the
27:08
Speaker 1: glory of God. The reason Peter fell at Jesus' needs
27:13
Speaker 1: was suddenly a little bit of glory leaked out. The
27:16
Speaker 1: reason the apostle Paul finds himself flat on his face
27:19
Speaker 1: and scrambling for words and trying to figure out what
27:21
Speaker 1: to say, is because a little bit of glory leaked out.
27:25
Speaker 1: And the God that we say we believe it in,
27:27
Speaker 1: the God that we say we serve, and his son
27:29
Speaker 1: who came to Earth to pay for our sin, was
27:31
Speaker 1: a God of glory. And in the midst of that glory,
27:33
Speaker 1: and in light of that glory, everybody falls on their
27:36
Speaker 1: knees in the playing field is level, and that's part
27:39
Speaker 1: of the good news, because you cannot get to where
27:42
Speaker 1: you need to be until you acknowledge where you are today.
27:49
Speaker 1: And don't ever forget this. In these moments when people
27:54
Speaker 1: were so aware of their failure, those were the moments
27:57
Speaker 1: when Jesus leaned in and said, now come on, follow me,
28:02
Speaker 1: and we will leave our mark on the world together.
28:08
Speaker 1: That's the kind of the bad side of the good news.
28:11
Speaker 1: But listen to what he says for all of sin
28:13
Speaker 1: and fall short of the glory. Guy, here's the part
28:15
Speaker 1: that you didn't memorize in Sunday school, or maybe you
28:17
Speaker 1: didn't hear before. And all same, all are justified. Justified
28:21
Speaker 1: means made right. That we're all made right, but we're
28:24
Speaker 1: not made right by doing right, and we're not made
28:27
Speaker 1: right by promising to do right. The problem with promising
28:30
Speaker 1: and committing is this, promising to do better next time
28:33
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything about the last time. Right. If I
28:36
Speaker 1: promise I will not break another window in your house,
28:39
Speaker 1: that doesn't do anything to pay for the one I broke,
28:41
Speaker 1: or you know, makes your I mean doesn't do anything
28:43
Speaker 1: to fix the one you broke, and it doesn't do
28:45
Speaker 1: anything to pay for the one that I broke. So
28:47
Speaker 1: when you make someone to promise not to do something again,
28:50
Speaker 1: it doesn't do anything for last time. This is why
28:53
Speaker 1: you need more than just a second chance. This is
28:56
Speaker 1: why you need more than a commitment. This is why
28:59
Speaker 1: the playing field is level because everybody needs a savior.
29:02
Speaker 1: Everybody needs someone who can do something about what's been
29:05
Speaker 1: done in the past. And listen how he finishes this
29:09
Speaker 1: up freely, freely. This is the differentiator between Christianity and
29:14
Speaker 1: everything else freely by His grace. That is, you don't
29:18
Speaker 1: earn it through the redemption, the buying back, the paying
29:21
Speaker 1: back that came by Christ Jesus, the birth of Jesus
29:26
Speaker 1: was good news of great joy for all people because
29:30
Speaker 1: we all share something in common. We all fall short,
29:38
Speaker 1: and we all have been invited. We all have been
29:41
Speaker 1: invited to embrace the same solution to our falling short.
29:51
Speaker 1: My favorite moment at the Billy Graham memorial service was
29:57
Speaker 1: when his daughter Ruth spoke. His Billy and Ruth had
30:01
Speaker 1: five kids. Their middle child was Ruth the daughter, and
30:05
Speaker 1: all the kids spoke and it was wonderful and great.
30:08
Speaker 1: And then Ruth gets up and Ruth's kind of the
30:11
Speaker 1: hippie of the five Graham kids, which is kind of
30:14
Speaker 1: a strange thing to say. And if I ever meet
30:15
Speaker 1: or I'll apologize. But you sort of got that sense.
30:19
Speaker 1: And here's what she said. I want to read you
30:21
Speaker 1: her story. You can find this, It's easy. It's all
30:24
Speaker 1: over the internet. She said. I have learned this week
30:28
Speaker 1: as never before, that everybody has a Billy Graham story.
30:32
Speaker 1: And I have my own Billy Graham story. So I'm
30:34
Speaker 1: going to tell you that one after twenty one years,
30:38
Speaker 1: my marriage ended in divorce and I was devastated. I floundered,
30:45
Speaker 1: I did wrong. The rug was pulled out from underneath me.
30:49
Speaker 1: My family thought it would be a good idea if
30:52
Speaker 1: I moved far away and get a fresh start somewhere else.
30:55
Speaker 1: So I decided to live near my older sister and
30:58
Speaker 1: her family and near a really good church. And the
31:00
Speaker 1: pastor of that church introduced me to a handsome widower
31:04
Speaker 1: and we began to date fast and furiously. My children
31:09
Speaker 1: didn't like him, but I thought, you know, they're almost
31:12
Speaker 1: grown and they don't know. They couldn't tell me what
31:15
Speaker 1: to do. I mean, I know what's best for my life.
31:17
Speaker 1: My mother called me from Seattle, my father called me
31:20
Speaker 1: from Tokyo, and they said, honey, why don't you slow
31:23
Speaker 1: this down. Let us wait to get to know this man.
31:26
Speaker 1: But they had never been single, and they'd never been
31:29
Speaker 1: a single parent, and they'd never been divorced. What did
31:33
Speaker 1: they know? So, being stubborn, willful and sinful, I married
31:41
Speaker 1: this man on New Year's Eve, and within twenty four
31:44
Speaker 1: hours I knew I had made a terrible mistake. After
31:50
Speaker 1: five weeks, I fled because I was afraid of him.
31:55
Speaker 1: And now what was I going to do? I wanted
31:57
Speaker 1: to talk to my father. I wanted to talk to
32:00
Speaker 1: my mother. It was a two day drive to their home,
32:04
Speaker 1: and questions swirled in my mind. What was I going
32:09
Speaker 1: to say to my daddy? What was I going to
32:13
Speaker 1: say to my mother? What was I going to say
32:18
Speaker 1: to my children? I had been such a failure? And
32:23
Speaker 1: what were they going to say to me? We're tired
32:29
Speaker 1: fooling with you. We told you not to do it.
32:34
Speaker 1: You've embarrassed us. Then she said this. Let me tell
32:38
Speaker 1: you you, women will understand. You don't want to embarrass
32:42
Speaker 1: your father. You really don't want to embarrass Billy Graham.
32:51
Speaker 1: She continued, many of you know we live on the
32:53
Speaker 1: side of a mountain, and I was wound. As I
32:55
Speaker 1: wound myself up the mountain, I rounded that last bend
32:58
Speaker 1: in my father's driveway. In my father was standing there
33:02
Speaker 1: waiting for me. As I got out of the car,
33:07
Speaker 1: he wrapped his arms around me, and he simply said,
33:12
Speaker 1: welcome home. No shame, no blame, no condemnation, just unconditional love.
33:24
Speaker 1: And you know, my father was not God, but he
33:27
Speaker 1: showed me what God was like that day. When we
33:34
Speaker 1: come to God with our sin, our brokenness and our failure,
33:37
Speaker 1: our pain and our hurt, God says, welcome home. And
33:43
Speaker 1: then she said this, and that invitation is open to
33:48
Speaker 1: all of you, no blame, no condemnation, just uncon aditional love,