Say Yes to Jesus
Understanding What It Really Means To Say Yes To Jesus
Jim Johnson
Sep 12, 2021 49m
Join us in our message today as we dive into what it really means to say yes to Jesus. Saying “Yes” to Jesus for the first time means that you trust Him and are therefore willing to follow Him, learn from Him, think like Him, and live like Him. Video recorded at Frisco, Texas.
TranscriptionmessageRegarding Grammar:
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
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Everybody's a disciple in life. Yes, everyone. That might sound weird, but when we understand that disciple just means follower or student, it makes sense. We're all learning how to live from someone. So the question isn't, are you a disciple? But instead, who is discipling you? Maybe it's social media or cable news. Maybe it's a political ideology or a cultural movement, but make no mistake, whether you're pursuing it passively or passionately, you're being discipled every single day of your life. Choosing to follow Jesus means becoming his disciple. It means making practical, everyday decisions to model your life after his. It's simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. But choosing to become a disciple of Jesus is worth it. Because it's the only path to a rich and satisfying life.
Jim Johnson:
Good morning, everyone. And welcome to Preston Trail today. Whether you are with us here in the room or watching online, we are delighted that you’ve joined us, and I am indeed excited about this brand-new series. But this weekend, our nation has been commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 event. And we did not want to just pass over that because it has shaped so much of our history and our thinking and who we are. It did happen 20 years ago, it seems like it's in the distance now. Most of us probably didn't know anyone who died in the attacks and so sometimes it's hard to make a real connection to that. And I had an experience last night when I went to the Baylor game. During the game, they were commemorating that event, and they did something that was powerful. They gave students in the student section, a placard that had the name of every person who lost their life on 9/11. And this is what it looked like.
And that's essentially the whole bottom half of the students’ section. We see those 2977 names, and it just makes it more and more real. And as Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn with others." And so as an expression of our mourning and awareness of what many people experienced 20 years ago, and they are still impacted by it, and we are to some degree, we thought it'd be good for us to take a moment and remember and pray. Heavenly Father, it was a fateful day. Most of us can remember where we were, what we were doing when it happened. Many innocent lives were lost, lives of courageous men and women who were first responders doing what they were called to do. And Father, I pray that wherever their families are today, their children, their loved ones, that you will sustain them with your grace, even if they're not a believer, that your grace will abound in their life, even though they may not know where it comes from. And that you will lift them up and give them hope, and meaning and a purpose.
And Father, I do pray that we as a people will learn lessons from that experience, hard lessons that we need to learn. Not so we can simply protect ourselves from that kind of thing again, but so that we can be the kind of nation and people that are proactive. So those things do not affect the way we care for people, love them, relate to them around the world. Father, thank you that in moments like these, we can depend upon you, our gracious Father, Jesus name, amen.
All right, today we're beginning “Grow,” and to give you the context of that, about four weeks ago now, in our vision weekend, we talked about the fact that we're committed to our mission of helping people find and follow Jesus. But we are tweaking our strategy or way of accomplishing that mission, and we're calling it our “Grow and Go” strategy. There's a phrase that you'll be hearing a lot in the days to come that goes like this, "We want to grow as followers of Jesus so we can go wherever he leads us." And so today we begin a six-week series that's going to be focusing on the grow aspect. And then, when this series is done, there'll be another series that is based on what it means to “Go” as a follower of Jesus, where he leads us.
Now you might be asking the big picture question: how do I grow as a follower of Jesus? And so before we really delve down into the six things that are going to help us understand what it means to grow. I want to give you a big picture of how Christian growth really happens. And I borrowed this from Dallas Willard in his book The Divine Conspiracy. He called this the golden triangle of spiritual growth, I've tweaked it a little bit. I'll put it in a Venn diagram. But it is the interaction of these three things that creates growth inside of us. The first one is simply the work of the Spirit, God's Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, it is his life in each of us, working in us to will, and to empower us to obey him and to do his work in the world.
Galatians 5:22-23 reminds us that indeed, the Holy Spirit creates some gifts, some fruit in our lives. The fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And so, the Spirit is doing his work. But it also requires effort on our part and that is spiritual training. We often call these things spiritual disciplines or spiritual practices. But in 1 Timothy chapter four, verse eight, Paul says this, "Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better. It promises benefits, both in this life and the life to come.” And so, when we spend time praying, spend time in solitude, reading God's Word, serving, living out practices that really impact our body to shape it along with our spirit and mind, it has a significant impact on our growth. And then the third one is this, it is simply the application of God's Word in our life, that the Spirit is using to work in our lives, and that we are learning as we are training.
I love Hebrews 5:14, it says, "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use (that is constant application) have trained themselves to discern the difference between good and evil." And when you put these three things together, when you're involved in these three things, when you're saying yes to these things, this is how you position yourself so that the Spirit can do his best work in you and in me. So today, we're going to launch Grow, and we've identified six steps in the pathway of growth. And here they are:
1. Say yes to Jesus
2. Worship daily
3. Connect with a group
4. Serve the body
5. Learn God's Word
6. Invest in the mission.
Paul and I are going to be taking a week to talk with you about each one of those. Today, we're going to talk about saying “yes” to Jesus.
And I want to delve into saying yes to Jesus by taking a side route for just a few moments. I think we’d all say it is really a blessing to live in the computer age, right? There are incredible blessings that come because you and I are living at this particular time. The first one is this: Google. I mean, Google puts almost the entire knowledge of the world as close as a click. My older son who is a researcher, sometimes when I ask him a question, he'll go, "Oh, dad, that's egi." Then I go, "What's egi?" He goes, "It's eminently Googleable information." So that's what Google has done for us, things are now egi.
We also have an iPhone. And this iPhone allows us to be connected to the internet, to be connected to other people in ways that we never dreamed possible. And one of the things that just astounds me is that there is more computing power in your cell phone than there was in all of NASA when they landed a man on the moon in 1969. I want you to think about that, that is unbelievable. There are companies like SpaceX taking people into space. We're even talking about going to Mars. So there are incredible blessings that come along with the computer age, but there are also curses that come, like ransomware. Some of you may have already been hacked and had to pay ransom to get your database back. This has also created what's called fake news or disinformation that is impacting the way we see each other, the way we treat one another.
The computer age also brought with it new addictions. Algorithms are created to get us to keep going back, and we become addicted to it. It's impacting the way we do relationships now. I'm talking about this incredible computer world we live in, but here's what I want you to know: All the functions and operations of a computer can be reduced to a series of ones and zeros. Think about that. In fact, here's some binary code. For those of you who live in this world, do you know what this binary code says? It says Preston Trail. It's Preston Trail spelled out in binary code. So in a similar manner, the quality of our lives, the conditions of our lives, our blessings, our relationships, our achievements, our satisfaction with our life as well as our own curses, dysfunctions, pain and suffering, our brokenness can all be reduced to a series of yeses and nos, yeses and noes.
Here's a look at your life right here. It's a series of yeses and noes that you have said, day after day, through your entire life. And you are who you are today, where you are today, because of that series of yeses and noes. I came across this quote by Viktor Frankl that has really impacted me and if you're ever looking for a quote that you need to take a picture of this is an eminently picturable quote here. And here's what he says, "Between stimulus and response there is a space." Between when someone cuts you off on the tollway and how you respond, there is a space, right? When someone invites you to do something that's a little bit nefarious and questionable, there is a space before you respond. Before someone invites you to be part of something that's life changing, or world changing, there is a space. "And in the space, there is the power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom."
And in everything that has stimulated your thinking or your mind and heart before you responded, there was a space, and in that space, you said yes or no, you're free to do so. And when you say yes to the right things, and no to the right things, then you grow as a person. So today we're going to talk about this whole idea of saying yes to Jesus. And we're going to break it down in three different ways. We're going to talk about saying yes to Jesus for the first time, saying yes to Jesus each time we have an opportunity and saying yes to Jesus for a lifetime. Now to help us look at saying yes to Jesus, yes to following Jesus, we're going to look at that through the lens of Peter, that is one of Jesus’ disciples. It's really amazing, when you look at his story, that he became the de facto leader out of the original 12 disciples. And it all boils down to the yeses and noes that he responded with.
Now, in Luke 5:1-11, we read the story of Peter first saying yes to Jesus. And let me set that up for you. Jesus is speaking at the Sea of Galilee, the crowd is pushing in. Jesus “security team” is a little uncomfortable because so many people are there, and people are having a hard time hearing. Jesus looks over and there are a couple of empty boats right there on the shore. Peter owns the boats and Jesus goes to Peter and says, "Hey, Peter, can I borrow your boat?" Peter says, "Well, sure." So Jesus gets in Peter’s boat, they push out from the shore a little bit and Jesus sits down and finishes his message. And then as an expression of gratitude, Jesus says to Peter, "Hey, Peter, if you'll push out a little bit deeper into the lake and let down your nets, you'll catch some fish." I think Jesus was being gracious and nice, and paying it back. And Peter says, "Jesus, you're not much of a fisherman, you're a carpenter I hear. We fished all night, nothing's going to happen." But Jesus goes, "No, push out."
And so, he does. They let down their nets, and they have a haul that is unbelievable. And when they do, Peter's going, "I'm not worthy. I feel unworthy, Jesus." And this is how Jesus responds. He says, "Simon, don't be afraid, from now on you'll be fishing for people." And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus. Now, I don't know about you, but when I read that I think well, why in the world did Peter say yes. Why would he say yes and leave his vocation—the family business—and begin to follow Jesus?
There are four primary reasons that I thought of that Peter said yes to Jesus. First of all, Jesus is incredibly welcoming. Jesus welcomed people from different ethnic groups, slaves, centurions, sinful, reverent, Jewish followers. I mean, it didn't matter, lepers, everyone was welcome. He also welcomed Peter as a disciple. In that day, really prominent rabbis had young potential disciples who would show the potential rabbi their resume, and how much they've memorized the Torah, all that kind of stuff. And then they would select from the brightest and the best. Jesus flips that and he goes and chooses his own disciples—men who didn’t even know what a resume was. No other rabbi alive in Israel would have chosen Peter. So, Jesus is very welcoming.
He's also very wise. Peter was sitting there listening to Jesus teach and how he had an ability to connect the dots of life in ways that no other teacher ever had before. And Peter's hearing the people say, "Who is this guy, he teaches with authority. He's not like the other rabbis." There was something about the wisdom of Jesus.
Jesus is also, in Peter’s mind, a winner. The scuttlebutt was already out that he was the potential Messiah, and the Messiah was going to come and overthrow the Roman government, and restore Israel by a great victory to its prominence in world history. And Peter wanted to be a part of the winning team, he wanted to be a part of that winning movement.
And Jesus offered him a why. "Peter, follow me and I will make you a fisherman of people." And it changed his life. If Peter had not said yes to this, he would have lived and died fishing every day of his life and would never have left Galilee. And yet, because he said yes to following Jesus, he became the leader of the Jerusalem church for a while, he eventually would travel all throughout the Mediterranean and end up in Rome. He became a world traveler as a missionary for Christ. Because he said yes to Jesus, he had a why worth living for.
So now, let me ask you, if you've never followed Jesus, for the first time, you might be going, "Well, why should I follow Jesus?" That's a great question. If I were not a Christ follower, that's the question I would want answered. I think the four reasons Peter said yes to Jesus are just as good for you and me today. That is, Jesus is the full expression of who God is, and he is incredibly welcoming. In the earliest church, we have a beautiful picture of the diversity of the people. There were elite Roman citizens and Roman slaves. There were people from different countries, different languages and backgrounds, educated, uneducated, irreligious people, people with the worst reputations, and people who had been religious all their life and yet, Jesus welcomed them all.
Jesus was also wise, and he still is wise. Dallas Willard says that Jesus was the smartest and wisest person who ever lived. And I think he's exactly right. If he was God's Son, he had to be the wisest guy in every room that he ever was in. It's amazing how people who are not even followers of Jesus recognize his wisdom. Some of you are aware of a guy by the name of Kurt Vonnegut. He's a writer and author from the previous century. Slaughterhouse-Five was probably his best-known novel which became a movie. Vonnegut was an atheist and a humanist and yet in his autobiography, he says, "I am a Christ honoring agnostic." On another occasion, he said, "I'm a Christ loving atheist."
Speaker 2:
But here's what he said about Jesus, and I love what it reveals to us. He says, "Some of you may know that I'm neither Christian nor Jewish, nor Buddhist, nor a convincingly religious person. I am a humanist, which means in part that I've tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being." That is incredibly insightful. Here is a guy who is not a believer, not a Christian, who says, "Jesus’ teaching makes life worth living for me." Pretty amazing.
Also, Jesus is still a winner. Now Jesus didn't restore Israel to political prominence, he was never intended to be a political Messiah. He was to be a spiritual, holistic Messiah who would impact all of creation. And it wasn't through military means or power or coercion that he won a victory, but it was through his selfless death on the cross for your sin and my sin for the sin of all creation, and the fact that his father raised him on the third day. And as the Apostle Paul writes in Colossians 1, in that experience, something cosmologically happened, his death and resurrection defeated the powers of sin, death, and hell. We now have the capacity to live a life no longer in bondage to sin. Death no longer has the last word for any of us, and we have the opportunity to be with him both now and forever.
Jesus is still a winner and Jesus also offers you and me a why. He invites each of us to join him in his redeeming, life transforming work in the world to be everyday missionaries. We live, work and play sharing his grace, his love, his mercy, his wise teaching, his wise truth and through the quality of our lives as we follow him to see other people follow him as well.
So saying yes to Jesus for the first time is really, really important. And I don't know where you are, or what your pilgrimage has been. But today is one of those days that you could really experience Jesus calling you in a significant way. And here's something that is curious. Sometimes before you say yes to Jesus for the first time, there are some smaller yeses.
Saying yes to follow Jesus often begins with some small yeses that are really important. Peter had a couple of small yeses. His first small was, "Yeah, Jesus, you can borrow the boat. Come on in. I'd love to take you out." His second yes was, "Yes, I'll go out, and I'll put my nets down again. I'll do my best, I'll go through the motions." And yet those two yeses led him to make the big yes.
So, I want to ask you, where are you in the process? Where are you right now when it comes to saying yes? Maybe some small yeses are an order, maybe the big yes is ready. A small yes can be an honest conversation. It can be picking up a Bible and reading it on your own. It can be test driving some of Jesus teachings like loving your neighbor. It can begin to attend worship on a regular basis and get in the flow of what's going on. You see? It begins with small yeses.
Now what does it mean to follow Jesus? Well, it means you trust him, you believe he is who he says he is, that he is God's Son, but his life did something for you and your sinfulness and relationship with God. And because you believe who he is, and what he can do, then you're willing to follow him and learn from him, think like him and live for him. All right. So saying yes to Jesus, for the first time is incredibly important. But also, we have to think about what it means to say yes to him not just the first time but each succeeding time.
There is also a series of yeses. That is, saying yes to Jesus is saying yes to him each time we have the opportunity. And I do believe that this whole idea of a succession of yeses is really important. Some of you are sitting next to your best yes right now, perhaps your spouse, right? And here's the thing, when you got married, and you said the big yes, “I do,” that wasn't the last time you said “yes, I do” to your spouse. If it were you wouldn’t still be married today, right? Because when you said that yes for the first time, you were saying yes to a succession of yeses. And so, when you leave work and go home to your spouse, and not somewhere else, you're saying yes to your spouse. When you turn a blind eye to someone who's being flirtatious with you, you are saying yes to your spouse. When you listen with patience when there is a misunderstanding between the both of you, you are saying yes to your spouse. When you forgive your spouse after a lover's quarrel, you are saying yes.
And so, saying yes to Jesus, for the first time, is really going to lead to a succession of more yeses. And like Peter, when we say yes to Jesus for the first time, we have no idea where that journey will lead us, and how it will unfold, and what it will require of us.
This week I went back and skimmed through the Gospels again, at all the times Peter was called on to say yes to Jesus. He left his nets, he left the family business. He said yes when Jesus wanted to change his name from Simon to Peter and call him the rock. "Okay, yes, whatever you think, Jesus, that's fine, that's wonderful." He said yes to Jesus when Jesus early on said to the 12 disciples, "Hey, guys, I want you all to go into these neighboring towns, cast out demons, preach the good news that the Kingdom is here and heal people. And oh, by the way, you can't check a bag and you can't even take a carry on, not even a change of clothes and no money."
The disciples and Peter were going, yes, I guess. And they went out and did what Jesus said. Peter said yes to Jesus when Jesus said, "Hey, Peter, do you really want to come out on the water and walk with me? Then you got to get out of the boat." He said, "Yes." When Jesus said, "Hey, Peter, I want you and the other disciples to take pieces of these five loaves and two fish, and go feed 5000 people." "Sure, I guess, Lord." They said yes, and they started feeding the people. He said yes when Jesus wanted to wash his feet. He said no, initially, but Jesus said, "Look, Peter, if you want to be a part of who I am, I have to wash your feet." And so he said, "Yes." And so there are a lot of yeses that come along with our yes, for the first time.
I'm a lot like Warren who earlier said he became a Christian when he was eight years of age. I remember visiting with my pastor, Dr. L.L. Morris, in his office on Good Friday when I was seven. And I was baptized on Easter Sunday, I thought that was pretty cool. But here's the thing, when I was seven, you know how much I knew about life? Not much. But, as I grew, and as I continued to go to church and read my Bible, I began to understand that there were some succeeding or series of yeses I need to make. When I got into high school and started dating I needed to say yes to Jesus’ sexual ethic in my life.
And then when I was in college, and I was struggling with my sense of calling. I thought previously that God was calling me into the ministry, I was kind of fighting against that. When I went to Baylor, I actually enrolled as a pre-engineering major, to show you how stupid that was—and how I was running from God—Baylor didn't even have an engineering department at that time, you could be a pre-engineering major, then you'd have to transfer to A&M or Texas.
The semester I was pledging, I had a friend who was deeply following Jesus, and I just had this moment with Christ one night when I was lying in bed and I said, "Lord, yes, whatever you want, wherever you want me to go, whatever you want me to do, I'll do it." There's another really important yes. I was sitting in Robin's old brown Skylark that we called Scratch, because it was so beat up. We were in front of the student union building at Baylor on Fifth Street. We were engaged. And we were talking about the life of a pastor and I think she was wondering, what's that going to be like? And I said yes to her, and here's my yes, I said, "I will never put whatever church I’m pastoring or having the largest church or the fastest growing church before you or our kids." Big Yes. Big Yes.
I said yes to an invitation from Paul Bason for our families to go together on vacation. And we said yes to that invitation the next nine succeeding summers. And that was a huge yes in my life spiritually and vocationally. And about 20 years ago now, I said yes to moving to Frisco to plant a church. You see, , once you say yes for the first time, there's going to be a series of other yeses. In this grow and go effort that we're breaking out in these six steps, there are potential next yeses for each one of us. To say yes to worshiping daily, saying yes to connecting, serving the body or saying yes to inviting a friend to be a part of your group or joining you in church, or meeting a need—whatever the case is, we're going to be walking with you through saying yes to the things that will transform your life, and allow you to be everything God has called you to be.
And so, we say yes, not only for the first time, but we say yes each time, the next time that the opportunity comes.
We also say yes for a lifetime. Now there's a version of Christianity that asserts all that is needed is to say yes to Jesus for the first time. Just say yes to Jesus for the first time, and you've got it all done. You just approach this salvation prayer as something to check off of your to-do list, "Yes, I said it, I spoke it." It may not have any impact on your thinking about who God is or what he wants from you, but you've said this prayer, you've said yes, for the first time. But if that's all it is, it makes saying yes to Jesus nothing more than a transaction, a way to book one’s ticket to heaven.
A transaction like that makes following Jesus a nonessential. When we make that decision, it's really more about avoiding the bad place. “No one wants to go there, so I'll say the prayer. And I want to go the good place forever.” Many times when people think, I really want to go to the good place because my loved ones will to be there, my family is there. The fact that God is going to be there, and Jesus is going to be there is kind of ancillary. Jesus has something to say about the idea of just saying yes, for the first time, and that's all you need to do. Just say the prayer—one and done. In Matthew 7:21, he says, "Not everyone who calls out to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my father in heaven will enter."
Now, I want to be very clear here, Jesus is not saying that we work our way into heaven. What he's saying is that when you say yes to Jesus, for the first time, and you trust him, and you say, “Because I trust you, because you're God's Son, because you died for me, you love me, you want me to have the best life that I can as I serve you and follow you, whatever you want Lord, I'll do it. I will follow you, I’ll live like you, I'll I love like you.” Then your life changes. That's what Jesus is saying there, is that when you truly make him Lord, it changes the way you live and the way you act and respond then you're doing the will of God. When we say yes to Jesus over the course of a lifetime, the series of yeses validates the genuineness of our saying yes to him the first time. Let me say that again, when you and I say yes to Jesus over the course of our lifetime, that's not what saves us or allows us to be in relationship with God, but what it does is it validates the genuineness of our first yes to him, where we trusted him, where we were born again in him, when we were renewed in him.
Jesus has something to say about that too in Matthew 7:20. “Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” Meaning that if your first yes was genuine and real, then your life is going to demonstrate the fruit. If I'd said yes to Jesus the first time when I was seven, but never darkened the door of a church, never read my bible, prayed, or thought about following Jesus, but just thought, hey, when I die, I get to go to heaven, I would have gotten Matthew 7:21, “You can say, Lord, Lord, but you're not in because you don't know me.
Here's the difference between those two things: The person who says yes only one time, they would be really out of place in heaven, because they haven't been walking with God, they don't know him, they don't appreciate him, they haven’t lived with him. And so, they're kind of like a fish out of water.
But if you've been saying yes to Jesus, for the first time, and each time over the course of a lifetime, your relationship with
him is deep and meaningful, and you love him. You're like the apostle Paul, you can say, "For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain." Because you've been living with him and walking with him, when you die, you're fitted for heaven. You get to be with this one that you have followed and said yes to all your life. Now, here's the thing I know, saying yes to Jesus for a lifetime sounds like a long time, right? There will be times when we don't say yes to Jesus along the way.
Speaker 2:
And believe it or not, Peter said no to Jesus at some crucial times. As a matter of fact, on the eve of his death, he said, no, three times. And in fact, by saying no, he was denying that he even knew Jesus—first to the gatekeeper of the courtyard of Caiaphas, the high priest, where Jesus was involved in a kangaroo court. And then while Peter was waiting, standing around the fire warming himself, someone else asked him if he was a follower of Jesus, and he said, "No, not me. Wouldn't even think about that.” And then a slave girl comes along, who actually was related to the guard that Peter cut the ear off of in the garden of Gethsemane, and she says, "Aren't you one of his?" And Peter says, “No way,” and he curses and says, "I'm not one of his."
So, there will be times in our lives, of course, across the course of our lives, when we will say no to Jesus. And there are different ways, countless ways we can say no to him. We can say no to him when it comes to spending time with him in quiet prayer and reflection on a regular basis. We can say no to him when we are controlling, we're not willing to trust the outcomes of our lives to him. We can say no to him when we won't let go that grudge, and we won't forgive that person who has hurt us deeply. We can say no to him, when we hold tightly to things, and we're not generous with his purposes. We can say no to him when we don't know our story or his story well enough to be able to share it with others. And so there will be times in your life and in my life when I say no, even though I'm on this journey of the succession of yeses.
And that's why I want you to understand what I believe Jesus wants us to process and here it is: Jesus responds to our irresponsible noes with even more gracious yeses. That's what he does he, he takes our noes, he listens to them just like Peter, but he responds in ways that we wouldn't imagine. One of my favorite chapters in all the New Testament is in John 21. When, after Jesus has been resurrected, Peter, Andrew, James and John are fishing again, they don't know what else to do. And they see this guy starting a fire on the shoreline of the sea of Galilee, Peter recognizes it's Jesus. And so he jumps out of the boat and starts swimming to shore. It’s his first time to really interact with Jesus personally, after his unfortunate noes.
And after they eat breakfast, Jesus’ eyes lock on Peter. And he goes, "Peter, do you love me?" He responds, "Yes Lord, you know I love you." Jesus says, "Feed my lambs." And then he says that again, "Peter, do you love me?" Again, Peter says, "Yes, Lord, I love you," and Jesus says, "Feed my lambs." And then for a third time, "Peter, do you love me? And Peter's upset, he's frustrated, "Lord you know I love you." Then he says, "Feed my lambs." And here's what Jesus was doing. For every one of Peter's irresponsible noes, he is offering a gracious yes, again. "Get back on the journey. I still love you. We have people to reach, we have a mission to accomplish." And that's why I want you to grasp this whole thought here that following Jesus is not about being perfect. It's about simply being on the journey. It's being on the journey with Jesus. There will be detours, there'll be times we say no, but there's always a gracious yes, that invites us back.
And that's why your life can be reduced to a series of yeses and noes. And even though some noes are interspersed in there, it can still be this rich, satisfying, impactful life for the kingdom. So, where are you today on this journey? Have you said no to Jesus after he’s called to you for the very first time? Is he nudging you and leading you to say yes, this next time? I love the word “decision.” You know what the word decision means? Well, we know that the word incision means “to cut into.” The word decision means “to cut out.” And sometimes to say yes to Jesus, and to really live your life following him, that means we had to say no to some other things in our lives.
We have to say no to maybe being discipled by social media, or cable news, or some political ideology, or saying no to some cultural movement. It's saying yes to Jesus, first and foremost, so we have to make room in our lives so we can say yes to him. You know this, as you look back across your life, your greatest opportunities, your deepest joy has come when you've said yes to something bigger than you. Something more beautiful, more expansive in life. And you all know, we all know that saying no is what keeps us in the status quo, that things will always be the same. So today, I want to invite you wherever you are on this journey, to say yes to Jesus, and to be willing to make some room so you can say yes. The choir is going to come out and sing a song about making room for Jesus.
And as they come and sing, I want to invite you just wherever you're seated, to bow your head, close your eyes, and let God's Spirit, Jesus’ living spirit nudge you and speak to you about your next yes. And I hope and pray that as you hear from him, you'll be willing to make room for him so you can say yes.
Choir:
(singing).
God's Spirit has been stimulating your thoughts and moving in your heart, and there is a space right now. And in this space, you can say yes or no. You can say the yes that will lead to growth and abundance, effectiveness and significance and make an impact in Christ's kingdom. My hope and prayer is that you will say yes, in this space, right now.
Father, thank you for everyone in my hearing. Thank you for moving in our hearts and lives. Thank you for the power of the Spirit and the power of your Word that moves us. And Lord, I pray that you'll call and lead each of us on this journey of growing in you so that we can follow you. In Jesus name. Amen.
Recorded in Frisco, Texas.
Everybody's a disciple in life. Yes, everyone. That might sound weird, but when we understand that disciple just means follower or student, it makes sense. We're all learning how to live from someone. So the question isn't, are you a disciple? But instead, who is discipling you? Maybe it's social media or cable news. Maybe it's a political ideology or a cultural movement, but make no mistake, whether you're pursuing it passively or passionately, you're being discipled every single day of your life. Choosing to follow Jesus means becoming his disciple. It means making practical, everyday decisions to model your life after his. It's simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. But choosing to become a disciple of Jesus is worth it. Because it's the only path to a rich and satisfying life.
Jim Johnson:
Good morning, everyone. And welcome to Preston Trail today. Whether you are with us here in the room or watching online, we are delighted that you’ve joined us, and I am indeed excited about this brand-new series. But this weekend, our nation has been commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 event. And we did not want to just pass over that because it has shaped so much of our history and our thinking and who we are. It did happen 20 years ago, it seems like it's in the distance now. Most of us probably didn't know anyone who died in the attacks and so sometimes it's hard to make a real connection to that. And I had an experience last night when I went to the Baylor game. During the game, they were commemorating that event, and they did something that was powerful. They gave students in the student section, a placard that had the name of every person who lost their life on 9/11. And this is what it looked like.
And that's essentially the whole bottom half of the students’ section. We see those 2977 names, and it just makes it more and more real. And as Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn with others." And so as an expression of our mourning and awareness of what many people experienced 20 years ago, and they are still impacted by it, and we are to some degree, we thought it'd be good for us to take a moment and remember and pray. Heavenly Father, it was a fateful day. Most of us can remember where we were, what we were doing when it happened. Many innocent lives were lost, lives of courageous men and women who were first responders doing what they were called to do. And Father, I pray that wherever their families are today, their children, their loved ones, that you will sustain them with your grace, even if they're not a believer, that your grace will abound in their life, even though they may not know where it comes from. And that you will lift them up and give them hope, and meaning and a purpose.
And Father, I do pray that we as a people will learn lessons from that experience, hard lessons that we need to learn. Not so we can simply protect ourselves from that kind of thing again, but so that we can be the kind of nation and people that are proactive. So those things do not affect the way we care for people, love them, relate to them around the world. Father, thank you that in moments like these, we can depend upon you, our gracious Father, Jesus name, amen.
All right, today we're beginning “Grow,” and to give you the context of that, about four weeks ago now, in our vision weekend, we talked about the fact that we're committed to our mission of helping people find and follow Jesus. But we are tweaking our strategy or way of accomplishing that mission, and we're calling it our “Grow and Go” strategy. There's a phrase that you'll be hearing a lot in the days to come that goes like this, "We want to grow as followers of Jesus so we can go wherever he leads us." And so today we begin a six-week series that's going to be focusing on the grow aspect. And then, when this series is done, there'll be another series that is based on what it means to “Go” as a follower of Jesus, where he leads us.
Now you might be asking the big picture question: how do I grow as a follower of Jesus? And so before we really delve down into the six things that are going to help us understand what it means to grow. I want to give you a big picture of how Christian growth really happens. And I borrowed this from Dallas Willard in his book The Divine Conspiracy. He called this the golden triangle of spiritual growth, I've tweaked it a little bit. I'll put it in a Venn diagram. But it is the interaction of these three things that creates growth inside of us. The first one is simply the work of the Spirit, God's Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, it is his life in each of us, working in us to will, and to empower us to obey him and to do his work in the world.
Galatians 5:22-23 reminds us that indeed, the Holy Spirit creates some gifts, some fruit in our lives. The fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And so, the Spirit is doing his work. But it also requires effort on our part and that is spiritual training. We often call these things spiritual disciplines or spiritual practices. But in 1 Timothy chapter four, verse eight, Paul says this, "Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better. It promises benefits, both in this life and the life to come.” And so, when we spend time praying, spend time in solitude, reading God's Word, serving, living out practices that really impact our body to shape it along with our spirit and mind, it has a significant impact on our growth. And then the third one is this, it is simply the application of God's Word in our life, that the Spirit is using to work in our lives, and that we are learning as we are training.
I love Hebrews 5:14, it says, "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use (that is constant application) have trained themselves to discern the difference between good and evil." And when you put these three things together, when you're involved in these three things, when you're saying yes to these things, this is how you position yourself so that the Spirit can do his best work in you and in me. So today, we're going to launch Grow, and we've identified six steps in the pathway of growth. And here they are:
1. Say yes to Jesus
2. Worship daily
3. Connect with a group
4. Serve the body
5. Learn God's Word
6. Invest in the mission.
Paul and I are going to be taking a week to talk with you about each one of those. Today, we're going to talk about saying “yes” to Jesus.
And I want to delve into saying yes to Jesus by taking a side route for just a few moments. I think we’d all say it is really a blessing to live in the computer age, right? There are incredible blessings that come because you and I are living at this particular time. The first one is this: Google. I mean, Google puts almost the entire knowledge of the world as close as a click. My older son who is a researcher, sometimes when I ask him a question, he'll go, "Oh, dad, that's egi." Then I go, "What's egi?" He goes, "It's eminently Googleable information." So that's what Google has done for us, things are now egi.
We also have an iPhone. And this iPhone allows us to be connected to the internet, to be connected to other people in ways that we never dreamed possible. And one of the things that just astounds me is that there is more computing power in your cell phone than there was in all of NASA when they landed a man on the moon in 1969. I want you to think about that, that is unbelievable. There are companies like SpaceX taking people into space. We're even talking about going to Mars. So there are incredible blessings that come along with the computer age, but there are also curses that come, like ransomware. Some of you may have already been hacked and had to pay ransom to get your database back. This has also created what's called fake news or disinformation that is impacting the way we see each other, the way we treat one another.
The computer age also brought with it new addictions. Algorithms are created to get us to keep going back, and we become addicted to it. It's impacting the way we do relationships now. I'm talking about this incredible computer world we live in, but here's what I want you to know: All the functions and operations of a computer can be reduced to a series of ones and zeros. Think about that. In fact, here's some binary code. For those of you who live in this world, do you know what this binary code says? It says Preston Trail. It's Preston Trail spelled out in binary code. So in a similar manner, the quality of our lives, the conditions of our lives, our blessings, our relationships, our achievements, our satisfaction with our life as well as our own curses, dysfunctions, pain and suffering, our brokenness can all be reduced to a series of yeses and nos, yeses and noes.
Here's a look at your life right here. It's a series of yeses and noes that you have said, day after day, through your entire life. And you are who you are today, where you are today, because of that series of yeses and noes. I came across this quote by Viktor Frankl that has really impacted me and if you're ever looking for a quote that you need to take a picture of this is an eminently picturable quote here. And here's what he says, "Between stimulus and response there is a space." Between when someone cuts you off on the tollway and how you respond, there is a space, right? When someone invites you to do something that's a little bit nefarious and questionable, there is a space before you respond. Before someone invites you to be part of something that's life changing, or world changing, there is a space. "And in the space, there is the power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom."
And in everything that has stimulated your thinking or your mind and heart before you responded, there was a space, and in that space, you said yes or no, you're free to do so. And when you say yes to the right things, and no to the right things, then you grow as a person. So today we're going to talk about this whole idea of saying yes to Jesus. And we're going to break it down in three different ways. We're going to talk about saying yes to Jesus for the first time, saying yes to Jesus each time we have an opportunity and saying yes to Jesus for a lifetime. Now to help us look at saying yes to Jesus, yes to following Jesus, we're going to look at that through the lens of Peter, that is one of Jesus’ disciples. It's really amazing, when you look at his story, that he became the de facto leader out of the original 12 disciples. And it all boils down to the yeses and noes that he responded with.
Now, in Luke 5:1-11, we read the story of Peter first saying yes to Jesus. And let me set that up for you. Jesus is speaking at the Sea of Galilee, the crowd is pushing in. Jesus “security team” is a little uncomfortable because so many people are there, and people are having a hard time hearing. Jesus looks over and there are a couple of empty boats right there on the shore. Peter owns the boats and Jesus goes to Peter and says, "Hey, Peter, can I borrow your boat?" Peter says, "Well, sure." So Jesus gets in Peter’s boat, they push out from the shore a little bit and Jesus sits down and finishes his message. And then as an expression of gratitude, Jesus says to Peter, "Hey, Peter, if you'll push out a little bit deeper into the lake and let down your nets, you'll catch some fish." I think Jesus was being gracious and nice, and paying it back. And Peter says, "Jesus, you're not much of a fisherman, you're a carpenter I hear. We fished all night, nothing's going to happen." But Jesus goes, "No, push out."
And so, he does. They let down their nets, and they have a haul that is unbelievable. And when they do, Peter's going, "I'm not worthy. I feel unworthy, Jesus." And this is how Jesus responds. He says, "Simon, don't be afraid, from now on you'll be fishing for people." And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus. Now, I don't know about you, but when I read that I think well, why in the world did Peter say yes. Why would he say yes and leave his vocation—the family business—and begin to follow Jesus?
There are four primary reasons that I thought of that Peter said yes to Jesus. First of all, Jesus is incredibly welcoming. Jesus welcomed people from different ethnic groups, slaves, centurions, sinful, reverent, Jewish followers. I mean, it didn't matter, lepers, everyone was welcome. He also welcomed Peter as a disciple. In that day, really prominent rabbis had young potential disciples who would show the potential rabbi their resume, and how much they've memorized the Torah, all that kind of stuff. And then they would select from the brightest and the best. Jesus flips that and he goes and chooses his own disciples—men who didn’t even know what a resume was. No other rabbi alive in Israel would have chosen Peter. So, Jesus is very welcoming.
He's also very wise. Peter was sitting there listening to Jesus teach and how he had an ability to connect the dots of life in ways that no other teacher ever had before. And Peter's hearing the people say, "Who is this guy, he teaches with authority. He's not like the other rabbis." There was something about the wisdom of Jesus.
Jesus is also, in Peter’s mind, a winner. The scuttlebutt was already out that he was the potential Messiah, and the Messiah was going to come and overthrow the Roman government, and restore Israel by a great victory to its prominence in world history. And Peter wanted to be a part of the winning team, he wanted to be a part of that winning movement.
And Jesus offered him a why. "Peter, follow me and I will make you a fisherman of people." And it changed his life. If Peter had not said yes to this, he would have lived and died fishing every day of his life and would never have left Galilee. And yet, because he said yes to following Jesus, he became the leader of the Jerusalem church for a while, he eventually would travel all throughout the Mediterranean and end up in Rome. He became a world traveler as a missionary for Christ. Because he said yes to Jesus, he had a why worth living for.
So now, let me ask you, if you've never followed Jesus, for the first time, you might be going, "Well, why should I follow Jesus?" That's a great question. If I were not a Christ follower, that's the question I would want answered. I think the four reasons Peter said yes to Jesus are just as good for you and me today. That is, Jesus is the full expression of who God is, and he is incredibly welcoming. In the earliest church, we have a beautiful picture of the diversity of the people. There were elite Roman citizens and Roman slaves. There were people from different countries, different languages and backgrounds, educated, uneducated, irreligious people, people with the worst reputations, and people who had been religious all their life and yet, Jesus welcomed them all.
Jesus was also wise, and he still is wise. Dallas Willard says that Jesus was the smartest and wisest person who ever lived. And I think he's exactly right. If he was God's Son, he had to be the wisest guy in every room that he ever was in. It's amazing how people who are not even followers of Jesus recognize his wisdom. Some of you are aware of a guy by the name of Kurt Vonnegut. He's a writer and author from the previous century. Slaughterhouse-Five was probably his best-known novel which became a movie. Vonnegut was an atheist and a humanist and yet in his autobiography, he says, "I am a Christ honoring agnostic." On another occasion, he said, "I'm a Christ loving atheist."
Speaker 2:
But here's what he said about Jesus, and I love what it reveals to us. He says, "Some of you may know that I'm neither Christian nor Jewish, nor Buddhist, nor a convincingly religious person. I am a humanist, which means in part that I've tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being." That is incredibly insightful. Here is a guy who is not a believer, not a Christian, who says, "Jesus’ teaching makes life worth living for me." Pretty amazing.
Also, Jesus is still a winner. Now Jesus didn't restore Israel to political prominence, he was never intended to be a political Messiah. He was to be a spiritual, holistic Messiah who would impact all of creation. And it wasn't through military means or power or coercion that he won a victory, but it was through his selfless death on the cross for your sin and my sin for the sin of all creation, and the fact that his father raised him on the third day. And as the Apostle Paul writes in Colossians 1, in that experience, something cosmologically happened, his death and resurrection defeated the powers of sin, death, and hell. We now have the capacity to live a life no longer in bondage to sin. Death no longer has the last word for any of us, and we have the opportunity to be with him both now and forever.
Jesus is still a winner and Jesus also offers you and me a why. He invites each of us to join him in his redeeming, life transforming work in the world to be everyday missionaries. We live, work and play sharing his grace, his love, his mercy, his wise teaching, his wise truth and through the quality of our lives as we follow him to see other people follow him as well.
So saying yes to Jesus for the first time is really, really important. And I don't know where you are, or what your pilgrimage has been. But today is one of those days that you could really experience Jesus calling you in a significant way. And here's something that is curious. Sometimes before you say yes to Jesus for the first time, there are some smaller yeses.
Saying yes to follow Jesus often begins with some small yeses that are really important. Peter had a couple of small yeses. His first small was, "Yeah, Jesus, you can borrow the boat. Come on in. I'd love to take you out." His second yes was, "Yes, I'll go out, and I'll put my nets down again. I'll do my best, I'll go through the motions." And yet those two yeses led him to make the big yes.
So, I want to ask you, where are you in the process? Where are you right now when it comes to saying yes? Maybe some small yeses are an order, maybe the big yes is ready. A small yes can be an honest conversation. It can be picking up a Bible and reading it on your own. It can be test driving some of Jesus teachings like loving your neighbor. It can begin to attend worship on a regular basis and get in the flow of what's going on. You see? It begins with small yeses.
Now what does it mean to follow Jesus? Well, it means you trust him, you believe he is who he says he is, that he is God's Son, but his life did something for you and your sinfulness and relationship with God. And because you believe who he is, and what he can do, then you're willing to follow him and learn from him, think like him and live for him. All right. So saying yes to Jesus, for the first time is incredibly important. But also, we have to think about what it means to say yes to him not just the first time but each succeeding time.
There is also a series of yeses. That is, saying yes to Jesus is saying yes to him each time we have the opportunity. And I do believe that this whole idea of a succession of yeses is really important. Some of you are sitting next to your best yes right now, perhaps your spouse, right? And here's the thing, when you got married, and you said the big yes, “I do,” that wasn't the last time you said “yes, I do” to your spouse. If it were you wouldn’t still be married today, right? Because when you said that yes for the first time, you were saying yes to a succession of yeses. And so, when you leave work and go home to your spouse, and not somewhere else, you're saying yes to your spouse. When you turn a blind eye to someone who's being flirtatious with you, you are saying yes to your spouse. When you listen with patience when there is a misunderstanding between the both of you, you are saying yes to your spouse. When you forgive your spouse after a lover's quarrel, you are saying yes.
And so, saying yes to Jesus, for the first time, is really going to lead to a succession of more yeses. And like Peter, when we say yes to Jesus for the first time, we have no idea where that journey will lead us, and how it will unfold, and what it will require of us.
This week I went back and skimmed through the Gospels again, at all the times Peter was called on to say yes to Jesus. He left his nets, he left the family business. He said yes when Jesus wanted to change his name from Simon to Peter and call him the rock. "Okay, yes, whatever you think, Jesus, that's fine, that's wonderful." He said yes to Jesus when Jesus early on said to the 12 disciples, "Hey, guys, I want you all to go into these neighboring towns, cast out demons, preach the good news that the Kingdom is here and heal people. And oh, by the way, you can't check a bag and you can't even take a carry on, not even a change of clothes and no money."
The disciples and Peter were going, yes, I guess. And they went out and did what Jesus said. Peter said yes to Jesus when Jesus said, "Hey, Peter, do you really want to come out on the water and walk with me? Then you got to get out of the boat." He said, "Yes." When Jesus said, "Hey, Peter, I want you and the other disciples to take pieces of these five loaves and two fish, and go feed 5000 people." "Sure, I guess, Lord." They said yes, and they started feeding the people. He said yes when Jesus wanted to wash his feet. He said no, initially, but Jesus said, "Look, Peter, if you want to be a part of who I am, I have to wash your feet." And so he said, "Yes." And so there are a lot of yeses that come along with our yes, for the first time.
I'm a lot like Warren who earlier said he became a Christian when he was eight years of age. I remember visiting with my pastor, Dr. L.L. Morris, in his office on Good Friday when I was seven. And I was baptized on Easter Sunday, I thought that was pretty cool. But here's the thing, when I was seven, you know how much I knew about life? Not much. But, as I grew, and as I continued to go to church and read my Bible, I began to understand that there were some succeeding or series of yeses I need to make. When I got into high school and started dating I needed to say yes to Jesus’ sexual ethic in my life.
And then when I was in college, and I was struggling with my sense of calling. I thought previously that God was calling me into the ministry, I was kind of fighting against that. When I went to Baylor, I actually enrolled as a pre-engineering major, to show you how stupid that was—and how I was running from God—Baylor didn't even have an engineering department at that time, you could be a pre-engineering major, then you'd have to transfer to A&M or Texas.
The semester I was pledging, I had a friend who was deeply following Jesus, and I just had this moment with Christ one night when I was lying in bed and I said, "Lord, yes, whatever you want, wherever you want me to go, whatever you want me to do, I'll do it." There's another really important yes. I was sitting in Robin's old brown Skylark that we called Scratch, because it was so beat up. We were in front of the student union building at Baylor on Fifth Street. We were engaged. And we were talking about the life of a pastor and I think she was wondering, what's that going to be like? And I said yes to her, and here's my yes, I said, "I will never put whatever church I’m pastoring or having the largest church or the fastest growing church before you or our kids." Big Yes. Big Yes.
I said yes to an invitation from Paul Bason for our families to go together on vacation. And we said yes to that invitation the next nine succeeding summers. And that was a huge yes in my life spiritually and vocationally. And about 20 years ago now, I said yes to moving to Frisco to plant a church. You see, , once you say yes for the first time, there's going to be a series of other yeses. In this grow and go effort that we're breaking out in these six steps, there are potential next yeses for each one of us. To say yes to worshiping daily, saying yes to connecting, serving the body or saying yes to inviting a friend to be a part of your group or joining you in church, or meeting a need—whatever the case is, we're going to be walking with you through saying yes to the things that will transform your life, and allow you to be everything God has called you to be.
And so, we say yes, not only for the first time, but we say yes each time, the next time that the opportunity comes.
We also say yes for a lifetime. Now there's a version of Christianity that asserts all that is needed is to say yes to Jesus for the first time. Just say yes to Jesus for the first time, and you've got it all done. You just approach this salvation prayer as something to check off of your to-do list, "Yes, I said it, I spoke it." It may not have any impact on your thinking about who God is or what he wants from you, but you've said this prayer, you've said yes, for the first time. But if that's all it is, it makes saying yes to Jesus nothing more than a transaction, a way to book one’s ticket to heaven.
A transaction like that makes following Jesus a nonessential. When we make that decision, it's really more about avoiding the bad place. “No one wants to go there, so I'll say the prayer. And I want to go the good place forever.” Many times when people think, I really want to go to the good place because my loved ones will to be there, my family is there. The fact that God is going to be there, and Jesus is going to be there is kind of ancillary. Jesus has something to say about the idea of just saying yes, for the first time, and that's all you need to do. Just say the prayer—one and done. In Matthew 7:21, he says, "Not everyone who calls out to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my father in heaven will enter."
Now, I want to be very clear here, Jesus is not saying that we work our way into heaven. What he's saying is that when you say yes to Jesus, for the first time, and you trust him, and you say, “Because I trust you, because you're God's Son, because you died for me, you love me, you want me to have the best life that I can as I serve you and follow you, whatever you want Lord, I'll do it. I will follow you, I’ll live like you, I'll I love like you.” Then your life changes. That's what Jesus is saying there, is that when you truly make him Lord, it changes the way you live and the way you act and respond then you're doing the will of God. When we say yes to Jesus over the course of a lifetime, the series of yeses validates the genuineness of our saying yes to him the first time. Let me say that again, when you and I say yes to Jesus over the course of our lifetime, that's not what saves us or allows us to be in relationship with God, but what it does is it validates the genuineness of our first yes to him, where we trusted him, where we were born again in him, when we were renewed in him.
Jesus has something to say about that too in Matthew 7:20. “Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” Meaning that if your first yes was genuine and real, then your life is going to demonstrate the fruit. If I'd said yes to Jesus the first time when I was seven, but never darkened the door of a church, never read my bible, prayed, or thought about following Jesus, but just thought, hey, when I die, I get to go to heaven, I would have gotten Matthew 7:21, “You can say, Lord, Lord, but you're not in because you don't know me.
Here's the difference between those two things: The person who says yes only one time, they would be really out of place in heaven, because they haven't been walking with God, they don't know him, they don't appreciate him, they haven’t lived with him. And so, they're kind of like a fish out of water.
But if you've been saying yes to Jesus, for the first time, and each time over the course of a lifetime, your relationship with
him is deep and meaningful, and you love him. You're like the apostle Paul, you can say, "For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain." Because you've been living with him and walking with him, when you die, you're fitted for heaven. You get to be with this one that you have followed and said yes to all your life. Now, here's the thing I know, saying yes to Jesus for a lifetime sounds like a long time, right? There will be times when we don't say yes to Jesus along the way.
Speaker 2:
And believe it or not, Peter said no to Jesus at some crucial times. As a matter of fact, on the eve of his death, he said, no, three times. And in fact, by saying no, he was denying that he even knew Jesus—first to the gatekeeper of the courtyard of Caiaphas, the high priest, where Jesus was involved in a kangaroo court. And then while Peter was waiting, standing around the fire warming himself, someone else asked him if he was a follower of Jesus, and he said, "No, not me. Wouldn't even think about that.” And then a slave girl comes along, who actually was related to the guard that Peter cut the ear off of in the garden of Gethsemane, and she says, "Aren't you one of his?" And Peter says, “No way,” and he curses and says, "I'm not one of his."
So, there will be times in our lives, of course, across the course of our lives, when we will say no to Jesus. And there are different ways, countless ways we can say no to him. We can say no to him when it comes to spending time with him in quiet prayer and reflection on a regular basis. We can say no to him when we are controlling, we're not willing to trust the outcomes of our lives to him. We can say no to him when we won't let go that grudge, and we won't forgive that person who has hurt us deeply. We can say no to him, when we hold tightly to things, and we're not generous with his purposes. We can say no to him when we don't know our story or his story well enough to be able to share it with others. And so there will be times in your life and in my life when I say no, even though I'm on this journey of the succession of yeses.
And that's why I want you to understand what I believe Jesus wants us to process and here it is: Jesus responds to our irresponsible noes with even more gracious yeses. That's what he does he, he takes our noes, he listens to them just like Peter, but he responds in ways that we wouldn't imagine. One of my favorite chapters in all the New Testament is in John 21. When, after Jesus has been resurrected, Peter, Andrew, James and John are fishing again, they don't know what else to do. And they see this guy starting a fire on the shoreline of the sea of Galilee, Peter recognizes it's Jesus. And so he jumps out of the boat and starts swimming to shore. It’s his first time to really interact with Jesus personally, after his unfortunate noes.
And after they eat breakfast, Jesus’ eyes lock on Peter. And he goes, "Peter, do you love me?" He responds, "Yes Lord, you know I love you." Jesus says, "Feed my lambs." And then he says that again, "Peter, do you love me?" Again, Peter says, "Yes, Lord, I love you," and Jesus says, "Feed my lambs." And then for a third time, "Peter, do you love me? And Peter's upset, he's frustrated, "Lord you know I love you." Then he says, "Feed my lambs." And here's what Jesus was doing. For every one of Peter's irresponsible noes, he is offering a gracious yes, again. "Get back on the journey. I still love you. We have people to reach, we have a mission to accomplish." And that's why I want you to grasp this whole thought here that following Jesus is not about being perfect. It's about simply being on the journey. It's being on the journey with Jesus. There will be detours, there'll be times we say no, but there's always a gracious yes, that invites us back.
And that's why your life can be reduced to a series of yeses and noes. And even though some noes are interspersed in there, it can still be this rich, satisfying, impactful life for the kingdom. So, where are you today on this journey? Have you said no to Jesus after he’s called to you for the very first time? Is he nudging you and leading you to say yes, this next time? I love the word “decision.” You know what the word decision means? Well, we know that the word incision means “to cut into.” The word decision means “to cut out.” And sometimes to say yes to Jesus, and to really live your life following him, that means we had to say no to some other things in our lives.
We have to say no to maybe being discipled by social media, or cable news, or some political ideology, or saying no to some cultural movement. It's saying yes to Jesus, first and foremost, so we have to make room in our lives so we can say yes to him. You know this, as you look back across your life, your greatest opportunities, your deepest joy has come when you've said yes to something bigger than you. Something more beautiful, more expansive in life. And you all know, we all know that saying no is what keeps us in the status quo, that things will always be the same. So today, I want to invite you wherever you are on this journey, to say yes to Jesus, and to be willing to make some room so you can say yes. The choir is going to come out and sing a song about making room for Jesus.
And as they come and sing, I want to invite you just wherever you're seated, to bow your head, close your eyes, and let God's Spirit, Jesus’ living spirit nudge you and speak to you about your next yes. And I hope and pray that as you hear from him, you'll be willing to make room for him so you can say yes.
Choir:
(singing).
God's Spirit has been stimulating your thoughts and moving in your heart, and there is a space right now. And in this space, you can say yes or no. You can say the yes that will lead to growth and abundance, effectiveness and significance and make an impact in Christ's kingdom. My hope and prayer is that you will say yes, in this space, right now.
Father, thank you for everyone in my hearing. Thank you for moving in our hearts and lives. Thank you for the power of the Spirit and the power of your Word that moves us. And Lord, I pray that you'll call and lead each of us on this journey of growing in you so that we can follow you. In Jesus name. Amen.
Recorded in Frisco, Texas.
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