Faith Alive Church: Welcome to the Faith Alive Sermon Podcast. This is a replay of a past sermon from Faith Alive Church. Whether you missed it, want to hear it again, or share it with someone you know, we're glad you're here. This sermon is by Rich Casanova, Director of Church Operations. And I tell ya, was that some powerful portion? Man, listen to the words on that. Not just the song, not just the person in the front over here on the corner with big ears that was yelling out of tune. Right? Think about those words, what you're saying. Praise his name forever. He turns graves into gardens. All those things: redemption, change, rebirth, recovery, all those things. It's just so exciting. It's exciting to serve a God who is about redemption. That's what we want to talk about. Remember, on Sunday, we talked about messed up. I love the title of that: messed up. I got told one that once my first time I was on TV as a state trooper. I was sitting in a little chair and they were gonna interview me and I didn't know anything about the case. They just said, Hey, dummy, you're on TV, don't embarrass the state police, right? So I was sitting there in the chair and I was real nervous, so I started gently rocking at first. And by the end I was like a rodeo cowboy. I was all over the place in the chair. Woo! And at night I was all excited to see on television my debut. I was so poor on there. I did such a bad job. They never even showed me. They just showed pictures of the post in the car and they had my voice in the background. When I came in the next day, the sergeant goes, Well, you messed up. That's your one and only chance for TV. So hey, here I am. But think about that. We can be messed up, but still called. Thank God he uses fallible people. And I love that. So if we look at our scripture that we studied on John 21, verses 15 through 17, the big idea of that, and we're gonna dive into that, but the big idea of that is your failure, my failure may be part of our story, but it is not the end of our usefulness. It's not the end of our usefulness. So let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I just thank and praise you for what you're gonna do tonight here. I thank and praise you that you Are here amongst us. Lord, I thank you that you use fallible people for your glory and for your good. I thank you that you are the God of redemption, not because of what we have done to earn it, but because of what you do and your grace to give it. And Lord, I just hope that whoever's out here, whoever's online, whoever listens Sunday and needs to dive a little deeper. And be known, have it known in their heart that they are usable, that they are worthy. Lord, let this speak to them. In Jesus' name, amen. Hey, the moment you wish you could get back. I have these like all the time. Like I wrote this. Have you ever had a moment you wish you could get back? And then I'm thinking, yeah, like every day, like something, right? And I don't mean that to sound like I'm just like a loose canon or something, but we're human beings. And I thought about that. Not really like a season you could get back or a year. One day. One day. Maybe one time you said it wrong. The conversation you wish you could kind of redo. Maybe it was a decision you could just unmake. One sentence that you could just put back in your mouth. Right? We've all done that. Because the crazy thing about failure is that sometimes it only takes a few seconds to create something so big and so catastrophic. And, you know, we sometimes we, and look, I'm maybe you've never done this, but I know I've said things, I've outbursted things out of anger. And it's come out, and I've said it the wrong way. I've said it to someone that I care about, and I said it the wrong way, and hurt them. And it takes a long time to repair that. Damage. And I just want to say, you're not alone. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to create something that you'll think about for years. And I wonder if Peter ever heard that rooster in his head again. Because Peter hadn't just failed. He failed at the very thing he said he would never do. He told Jesus, even if everybody else walks away, I won't. He was basically saying, Jesus, you might. Have to worry about these other guys. But you don't have to worry about me. Then the pressure came. And the man who said, I'll die for you, couldn't even say, I know him. And you know, I'm not here to judge, I'm not here to condemn. I don't, that doesn't come from God. Conviction comes from the spirit, right? I should do this a little different. Shame, guilt, that comes from the enemy. We have all. There's not one person sitting here that hasn't done it wrong, said it wrong, or whatever, right? And and so I want to encourage you with this illustration, not make you feel like, geez, I've really done those same things. God gives us these illustrations to show us we are redeemable. Even Peter, once, twice, three times, and then the rooster crowed. But here's what I love about Jesus. He already knew Peter was gonna fail before he even called him. Let that settle in for just a moment. Peter's failure wasn't new information to Jesus. Jesus didn't get to the resurrection, look at Peter, and say, I didn't see that coming. He knew that was coming. He knew who Peter was when he called them. He knows who you are, who I am when he calls us. He knows our deepest, darkest failures. He knows what secret sins we might hold or secret. Testimonies we might hold. I don't want to say that. I might be embarrassed. We're going to talk about the power of sharing a testimony in a little bit because it ties in with Sunday. But I just want to remind you, Jesus knew all of that, knew all that what he was going to get denied, but he called them anyway. See, someone needs to hear that tonight because you've allowed the worst moment of your life to convince you that God can't possibly use you for the rest of your life. We've all got worse moments. Some of us have a few of them. But then we get to John 21. Jesus is resurrected, Peter's gone fishing, and Jesus shows up on the shoreline and cooks breakfast. After they eat, Jesus looks at the man who denied him three times and asks him one question. Simon, son of John, do you love me? Notice what Jesus doesn't ask. He doesn't ask Peter, what happened back there? He doesn't ask, how could you do that to me? How could you hurt me like that? He doesn't say, Peter, before we meet, move forward, I need an explanation. He just asks, You love me? And I think that's because Jesus isn't interested in leaving Peter trapped in the worst moment of his life. You were never meant to live in that. Jesus came to restore him. Jesus came to recommission him and remind him that his failure did not cancel his calling. And I want you to get a hold of that. And again, that's encouragement from somebody who has done the wrong things, right? And and, you know, not always in a great big way, sometimes in a subtle way. I say it wrong. I used to, people used to always ask me if I was mad all the time, right? You don't get to see that side of me too much because I'm always like this here. I wasn't always like that. People say, You mad? You mad? I say, you'll know when I'm mad. I'd like to keep them guessing. You know what mean? Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. But if you've ever messed up, fallen short, blown it, disappointed yourself, disappointed somebody else, or wonder whether God could possibly still use somebody like you, then this chapter has some very good news. Because I will tell you, you may have messed up, but you are not used up. Jesus meets you in your mess. You know, I heard it said before that your mess can become your message. And I like that. You know, I used to think that before I went to church, I'd have to have I gotta get things together. I gotta be a little more squared away before I go there. Let me do things a little better, then I'll start going there. And then I realized that was completely the wrong thought process. Jesus is there to meet me when I'm at my worst. So Jesus meets you in your mess. John 21, verse 15 says, When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Notice where this conversation happens. Jesus doesn't summon Peter to a courtroom, to his office. Sit down. If you've ever been summoned to an office, it is not very comfortable, right? Sometimes it is when they say, hey, Rich, could you stop by the office for a minute? Sure. I need to see you in the office now. Uh-oh, that's probably not good. Right? So he didn't say that to him. He invites him to breakfast. Jesus. Peter failed Jesus publicly, yet he res the resurrected Jesus intentionally comes looking for Peter. Jesus doesn't wait for Peter to get everything straightened out before approaching him. He meets Peter where he is. That's grace. Grace doesn't pretend the failure didn't happen. Grace says the failure doesn't get the final word. Look, we can't deny things that have happened in our past, but we don't have to live there. That isn't our identity. Our identity is a child child of God. Amen? So we get to We that's where he meets us. He already knows what I did. I can put my best foot forward here every Sunday, every Wednesday, every Monday through Thursday when I'm working here. But Jesus still knows what I did. Maybe, maybe he can still use me. And he has. And and it's unbelievable. So I want to encourage you with that. That's grace. Sometimes we try to believe we believe our that God will use us after we finally get ourselves together. But scripture is filled with people God used while he was still shaping them. Moses had anger issues. David experienced devastating moral failure. Jonah ran. Thomas doubted. Peter denied Jesus, yet God continued working in them. So understand this. God doesn't wait for perfect people. Sometimes I think when we sit, I used to sit out there and I would look up here and I think, man, pastors and People like that, they just got together. They don't have any troubles. They just they just really they must be really squared away. Then I got to know that they're just human beings like everybody else. They have fears, they have crisis, they have they have hurts. They have times when they say it wrong or do it wrong. Unintentionally, intentionally whatever, it happens. They're just human beings. But I love that God doesn't wait for perfect people. What he does is he restores willing people. See, it's not about being perfect, it's about being willing. I can't, Lord, I can't do this by myself. When I was praying up here just a few minutes ago, I was praying, Lord, I can't do this by myself. I can't. I need you to be with me. I need you to speak through me. Cause I don't have the words. Lord speak through me. I can't do this myself. I know I'm not perfect. I'm far from that. But I want to be willing. Because Peter's failure wasn't hidden from Jesus. Jesus knew exactly what he'd done, but he still came looking for him. That means you don't have to hide the broken pieces and the broken places from Jesus. So the question isn't, have I messed up? We all have. The question is: will I allow Jesus into the place where I messed up? Will I allow Jesus to fully message? Heal me? What am I gonna hang on to? You know, you guys have heard my testimony. I don't want to go on and on all the time about it, but when I was young, my home was out of control. And so as I got older, I began to control things, not necessarily like a controlling person like with my spouse or anything, but just whatever I could control. I I did not let things go. There's kind of a fear of that. I was not able to control things when I was young. So when I was older, I was in charge of what I was doing. And that cost me. That cost me relationships. That cost me friendships. That cost me lots of things. I wouldn't let Jesus have that part. I was afraid to let go of that control. Cause now I finally was in charge. I finally had to say so over what happened in my life. At least I thought. Right. And so when we do that, sometimes we're afraid to let that piece go. So here's what we're gonna do tonight, you know, and yeah, I wanna tell you something and and and Just bear with me a moment. On Sunday, sharing a testimony from here, from anywhere, sharing a testimony with someone you don't know. Man, that's vulnerability. That humanizes the person. So thank God we have a pastor who's willing to do that. Thank God we have been had pastors in the past who were willing to do that, to humanize themselves. So you understand we all come from the same place. We serve the same God in the same way. And I think that's important for us to understand that that gives us a little bit of familiarity. So that was really courageous when anybody shares their testimony, especially when it's not easy, especially in front of strangers or people you don't really have a great strong connection with yet. Or you're building relationships. You might feel like, man, if I tell them this, this might, this might. Put that relationship back a little bit, but it doesn't. It allows people to see you. And I just love that. So here's what we're gonna do. We all know that we have to let Jesus have that part. So here's our action step to take care of that. First of all, we're gonna name it, we're gonna bring it, and then we're gonna release it. So this week, I mean, starting right now, right? I'm not trying to boss you around. I'm kind of like that. Uh-huh. So she just went, Amen, right? my kids are always giving me a rough go about how hard of a dad I was and how easy of a grandfather I am, but whatever. But I think it's important that we all do this together. Okay. We're a family and we all gotta do this together. So first thing this week, today, tonight, identify one place where failure, regret, disappointment, or insecurity has been defining you. And that's not always easy to do. Be honest with yourself. Don't beat up on yourself. This isn't about going, well, I'm no good at this, I'm no good. It's not about that. You know a place where you failed, then do three things. Name it. Stop minimizing it. Stop hiding from it. We've done it. So we're gonna name it. Then we're gonna bring it. We're gonna pray honestly. Jesus, this is where I have failed. This is where I'm hurting. This is where I'm ashamed. This is where I'm in fear. This is where I stand right now. I bring it to you. This is where I'm struggling. This is where I hurt. This is where I'm not forgiving. You. I named it. Now I'm bringing it to you. And here's the most important part. Then release it. It's not yours to carry. Stop carrying what you've already surrendered to God. Quit picking it back up and carrying it around again. Lay it down and leave it. See, sometimes we don't want to do that because we we we almost become comfortable in our misery. Have we ever done that before? Well, at least. I'm I'm familiar with this, so I'll just live here for a while. Right. You know, I used to I used to really when I push someone, you know, in different ways, one of the things I would love to see is when they went from just like no esteem, no they're just gonna be like, I don't think I can do this, I know I can't, whatever. And then you push sometimes a little bit against their will, right? Push them a little harder, and then you see succeed at something. That they never thought they could do. That's the payoff. That's the payoff. I love that. And that's what Jesus is telling you. Put that stuff away. Don't carry it. You don't have to walk around carrying the shame of a failure. Name it, own it, take responsibility for your actions. Bring it to God. Lord, this is where I struggle. I can't do this alone. I'm giving it to you. And then release it. It's not that we pretend it never happened. It's not that we don't admit that it happened. We just don't live there anymore. We don't have to be that. We're not defined by that. That's why we release it. So I encourage you to do that. It's so freeing. Romans chapter 8, verse 1 says, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You may remember your failure. Other people may remember your failure. But your failure does not have authority over your future when Jesus has redeemed it. Your failure has no authority. And I'm so thankful for that. I'm so thankful for that. You know, we told all our kids, if you never fail at something, you've never tried nothing. Don't be ashamed of trying something and not being good at it. Try something. Step out. Do something different. You'll never get to be a better fighter fighting people that's easier than you, right? So step out. I'm not encouraging you to go fight people, don't say that hat. But what I'm saying is if you don't challenge yourself a little bit, right? Do we have a saying what we liked when we brought this here? Do today what others won't. So tomorrow you can do what others can't. Not about comparison. It's about improving a little bit day by day. I'll put it in the world type of a thing, right? If somebody tells me, Rich, I don't know, man. I I I'd like to get back into shape, but I've never I can't I can't think I could walk a mile. Super cool. Don't walk a mile. Walk a half a mile. Ooh, that's pretty far. Walk a quarter mile. I think I can do that. You're right, you can do that. But don't walk a quarter mile for a year, right? Walk a quarter mile, then the next time walk a quarter mile in two steps. Pretty soon you're walking a mile. Pretty soon I'm trying to jog and then embarrassing myself with that, and you're walking past me. What's up, Slowpope? Right? Awesome. Improve each day. So, same way spiritually. Let go of something each day. All right. Hey, Jesus restores your heart before he reassigns your hands. Isn't that nice? You don't have to go from this thing, and now I don't have the strength or the reserves to pull into this thing. Three times Jesus asks Peter, Do you love me? And three times. Peter responds, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Each time Jesus connects Peter's love with Peter's calling, feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep. Feed my sheep. See, Jesus is restoring something deeper than Peter's reputation. He's restoring Peter's relationship with him. Peter's greatest problem wasn't that he had failed at ministry. He needed his heart restored to Jesus. And don't miss the order. Jesus asked first, Do you love me? Before he says, Feed my sheep. What we do for Jesus should always flow from our relationship with Jesus. Because Jesus wants your heart before he wants your hands. It's possible to serve God while becoming distant from him. You can attend church, lead the ministry, serve on the dream team, teach, preach, volunteer, and help people while allowing your relationship with Jesus to become secondary. Because Peter's restoration begins with the simplest question Do you love me? Not, are you talented? Are you qualified? Not, did you get everything right? Jesus can work with an imperfect person whose heart is completely his. He sees things different than we do. Thank God that he does. So remember that. Not asking if you're talented or qualified, he's asking, do you love me? Something we can all easily miss. There are three denials in John 18 and three questions in John 21. Jesus takes Peter back through the place of his failure, but this time the outcome is restoration. Three times Peter denied him, and three times Jesus gives Peter the opportunity to affirm his love. Right? Jesus isn't rubbing Peter's face in the past. He's removing his past from the driver's seat of his future. Follow me on that? It's not rubbing it in. Right? Do you ever keep score in a relationship? You ever do that? You ever did? Well, I did this for you. What did you do for me? Right? My wife and I were joking. We joke about this because my my my wife is is there's no way I could do anything with I mean, I could barely get dressed, right? I have to ask her all the time. Does this match? Does this match? Right? And she doesn't mean she said, I mean, look, yes. And she know how she knows? Because she bought it all, right? Perfect, right? But we were joking. Got these herbal supplements, right? I don't know one from another. I just know that they're there. And they've always been there. I put my laundry in the little white basket and it comes back clean. Right? But Tina, Tina hasn't mowed the grass in 25 years, almost 26. That's not a big we don't act like, you know, your job is this, your job is that. I don't want the laundry job. I'm not good at the laundry job. She has seen what I did there. That's why I don't do it anymore. Cause I'm like, it'll hold this much more. Let's put it all in there. She doesn't want to do the other things, right? We work together. So sometimes we might joke about keeping score, the herbal supplements. I go, what do I how do I know what I got here? She said, You should do it one time. And I was like shocked. No, no, no, no, no. I don't want to do that. You do that part. Well, maybe you'll know more what you take. How many how many times have you done mine? I'm like, never. But we don't keep score. Don't keep score on every day. It's not like that. We we just are joking there. But understand Jesus isn't keeping score with you. It's not about that. When you surrender those things, it's a clean slate. It's a clean slate. Does it mean you're gonna never make a mistake again? Of course not. But I love it that Jesus says it over and over, Do you love me? He removes the past And then puts him in the driver's seat. See, there's another beautiful detail here. I love this part. Peter's denial happened while he was warming himself beside a charcoal fire. When Jesus restores Peter in John 21 9, see that was in John 18 18. John specifically tells us there's another charcoal fire burning on the beach. John uses a very specific Greek word anthrachia for that charcoal fire. It appears only twice in the New Testament. It appears at Peter's denial and at Peter's breakfast. And that's very interesting to me. That's the only time that Greek term for fire appears in the New Testament, and it appears both times at his denial and his restoration. I love that. Think about that the sight, the smell. We all love a campfire, the sound of the fire, the pops, the crackles. It's very comforting. Jesus brings Peter into a setting that echoes his failure, though. He remembers that. But this time, Jesus isn't there to condemn him. He underhe met him at the same place, the same kind of place that he failed at. And that might sound harsh at first, but if you think about it, he's saying, hey, every time you see this, I don't want you to think of your failure. I want you to remember when I restored you. And I love that about Jesus. Because I won't be able to to I couldn't get over those things on my own. He can bring me past that. And I I I thought about that a lot when I was when I was putting this all together in Thracha. He's there to restore them. Because I will tell you, sometimes we just can't erase the memory of where we failed. But Jesus meets us there and gives that place a new meaning. Whether that place is a relationship, a whatever, of restoration, a friendship, whether that place is anger or addiction or whatever it is, Jesus can meet you there and pull you away and restore you from that. So I'm going challenge you to reconnect before you recommit. Before adding another spiritual goal this week, I want you to spend intentional time reconnecting with Jesus. And I want you to ask yourself: where has my relationship with Jesus become routine? What has been competing with Jesus for the first place in my heart? What would loving Jesus look like practically this week? Ask yourself that. What's been competing? Right? I man, I I'm sure I'm the only one, but sometimes I get down to pray. All right, let's go. Here we go. Me and the Lord. Heavenly Father, man, I gotta make sure I get gas for the mower. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Whew, I got wood to cut. I should, you know what I mean? I should probably get out there and do it. All these things start to begin to compete, right? When really the most important thing is to reconnect. So I'm gonna challenge you to reconnect before you recommit. Choose one response. Maybe it's twenty uninterrupted minutes with God each morning. Maybe it's opening your Bible before opening your phone. Maybe it's worship on your drive instead of filling every quiet moment. Maybe it's good to have some quiet time. God will speak to you if you listen. But if you're doing all the talking, if you've got constant noise, we're a society that has to be entertained constantly. Constantly. I find myself doing it. We don't watch a lot of television, but we're watching television, a commercial comes on and I'm right on my phone looking at news, looking at something else, right? Like, what am I doing? I can't even sit through a commercial for two minutes, right? We get so, I mean, you know, we used to drive. When I went on a road trip when I was a kid, we didn't have iPads and we had sit there and be quiet. If your father ever played the quiet game with you, you're from my generation, right? Let's play the quiet game. What's that, Dad? Let's see who can be the quiet the longest. Okay. Right. I lost most of the time, just so you're aware. So I want you to think about this. Don't begin with Jesus. What do you want me to do? Begin with Jesus, I want to be close to you. I want to be close to you. I want to listen to you. I want to hear from you. I want to lean into you. I want to depend on you. So that's your action step. I want you to think about testimonies when we think about this next point, because Jesus redeems your failure by giving you something to do. Here's what I love about this passage. Jesus doesn't say, Peter, you're forgiven. Now go sit down. Right? That's something I would say. Sit down. He says, feed my lambs, take care of my sheep, feed my sheep. He doesn't just restore Peter's relationship, he restores his responsibility. We have a responsibility to have a relationship with God, so our earthly relationships are where they should be. I say this to men oftentimes. Because we are a fatherless society this way and this way. And as spiritual leaders in our community, we need to be just that, spiritual leaders. But we can't do it by faking it. We can't do it by putting on a face. We have to have the right heart set. It's not just a mindset, it's a heart set. And that's important for all of us. Think about the weight of what Jesus is doing. He's entrusting people he calls my sheep to the man who recently failed them. That's grace. That is put there so you can see grace in action. Jesus knows Peter isn't perfect, but he also knows what Peter is becoming. Aren't you glad that we're becoming something different than we were? See, be walking with Christ is about transition. It's about movement. That's why it's called walking with Christ. It's not called standing. In one place with Christ. We walk with Christ. We move. We gotta move. It's it's movement, it's forward movement. Your windshield is big, your rear view mirror is small. Use that analogy. What you see before you is big, it's broad, it's wide, it's wide open. What you see behind you is still there, but it's small, insignificant. It reminds us, but we don't have to live there. I love that a short time later, after all this denial, restoration, on the day of Pentecost, the man who denied knowing Jesus stands publicly and boldly proclaims Jesus. The man who was afraid to identify himself with Jesus before a servant girl becomes the man who announces Jesus to a crowd. What changed? Well, Peter discovered that failure wasn't the end of his story. See, your mess doesn't have to disqualify you. It become it can become the place God develops you. You know, I listen to testimonies and I I and I hear that people say, you know, I was broken, I was so down, and this happened. And I'm just so thankful that God met them at that broken spot. You know, I've told you before, mine is different. Mine is over time. But you know what that means? That means I had lots of broken spots along the way. That means I got I got busted down many times. But I was too stubborn to surrender that. So I had to deal with whatever that was on my own. So I never fully engaged in in getting rid of all that until I surrendered it all to Christ. Peter discovered this failure wasn't the end of the story. I just love that, right? Sometimes God uses the places where we've been broken to help us recognize brokenness in somebody else. You know, you've heard me say many times, your testimony isn't just for you. You weren't delivered just for you, or you're delivered so you could help somebody else with the same thing. I haven't walked the same walk you had, but somebody here has. Or you've walked the walk that somebody's going through right now, and you can speak into them. You can honestly say, I know where you're at. Here's how God delivered me. That's good news. Not everybody always is receptive to that. That's okay. That's not up to you. But be willing to share. The person who has experienced grief notices a grieving person. The person who has battled fear recognizes fear in somebody else's eyes. The person whose marriage has been restored can encourage another struggling marriage. The person who once felt far from God understands the person sitting in church wondering whether they belong. I gotta tell you, I've asked myself that many questions that question many, many times. God, where do I belong? What what am I what what is my real purpose here? Am I fulfilling that purpose? How can you use someone like me? And look, I don't say this to be false humility. I've been teaching a long time in different capacities. But to stand here before you and speak the word of the living God, that scares me. Cause I want to make sure that I'm being obedient. Because I've been where I shouldn't have been. I've done what I shouldn't have done. And God still met me in those broken places. And look how he surrounded me. Look who he surrounded me with. You. Surround me with people who accept me for who I am. I know not everybody is always gonna agree with everything I do or you know, I know hey, we're just people, right? But I can't believe God could use whoever he's using. That should encourage you. That should encourage you. You have it. You have what God needs. He needs your heart. Don't worry about being articulate. Don't worry about being charismatic. Worry about being available. Worry about being restored. Don't worry about what you've done. Worry about what you're doing. Don't worry about it. Just think about what you're doing. We've all got a backstory. There's not anybody here that doesn't. Remember that. The person who once felt far from God, which could be any one of us, understands that somebody's sitting out here today feeling far from God. And what a beautiful thing when you can pull them back in and show them grace. Your scars are not necessarily evidence that God can't use you. That's not true. Sometimes They're evidence of where God has already carried you. We all carry scars. Scars, both internal and external, are roadmaps of your battles, or battle maps. Scars on your heart. Not everybody can see. But somebody that has been scarred the same way can see them. And God sees them. And that's the thing I want you to get a hold of. Close to the brokenhearted, close to the crushed in spirit. Man, that should be encouraging. That should be exciting. That should be humbling. So here's what I challenge you with. Here's what I challenge me with. Turn your restoration into someone else's encouragement. This week identify one person. Don't try to a billion people, whatever, but one person you can feed, one person you can encourage, who can you call? Who can you pray with? Who can you invite? Who needs to hear part of your story? Who needs you to sit across the table and say, I've been through something very similar. Let me tell you how Jesus met me there. And that's a comforting thing to hear that. And sometimes when you hear from somebody you don't expect to hear from, you think, You? You were there too? I was. But Jesus delivered me. You heard that on Sunday. You heard that vulnerability. And there's a purpose behind that. And now you know that someone can sit across the table from you and say, I've been through something similar. Don't wait until you know everything. Don't wait until you've fixed everything. Don't wait until you feel completely qualified. Take what Jesus has done in you and use it to serve someone around you. Because restored people become restoring people. So the question is still the same. Imagine Peter sitting beside that charcoal fire. He remembers another fire. Beside that one, he said, I don't know him. But beside this one, Jesus asks, Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, then feed my sheep. Peter notably thought his failure had written the final chapter, but Jesus was already right in the next one. Maybe you have allowed one chapter of your life to define the entire book. An addiction, a bad decision. A some whatever it is. A season when you walked away from God. Something you said, something you did, something you didn't do. A failure that nobody here or nobody around you knows about. And maybe you've been asking, can God still use someone like me? Well, let me assure you, scripture tells you over and over again, but in John 21, that answer is that answer is yes. That answer is yes. Not because your failure doesn't matter, but because his grace is greater than your failure. Not because your decisions don't have impact, because they do. Sorry, Dennis. Hey, Jesus isn't asking tonight, have you ever messed up? He already knows the answer. He's asking, Do you love me? And if your answer is yes, Lord, you know I do, then hear the next words. Feed my sheep. There's still somebody to love, there's still somebody to serve, there's still somebody to encourage, there's still a calling to walk in, and there's still kingdom work to do. God is still using imperfect people. So this week, stop hiding from what Jesus wants to heal. Reconnect your heart to the one who called you. Use what God has restored in you to help somebody else. Your worst moment does not get to determine your next move. Jesus determines your next move. You may have messed up, but you are not used up. And if Jesus isn't finished with you, then you shouldn't be finished with you. Will you join me in prayer? Father, thank you. Thank you that you don't only meet us in our victories. Thank you, God, that you meet us in our failures. Thank you that you already know every mistake, every regret, every weakness, and every place where we didn't get it right. And still, Lord, thank you that you come looking for us. Jesus, bring back to the simple question do you love me? Restore the places in us that failure has wounded. Break the power of shame and condemnation. Help us stop looking backward at who we were and begin walking forward into who you are calling us to become. Lord, I pray that you take the places where we've been broken, restored, forgiven, and changed, and use them to help somebody else. Lord, I pray for everyone sitting out here, everyone online, everyone out there, hearing me or no. But give us somebody to encourage, somebody to serve, somebody to pray for, somebody to feed. Lord, we don't offer you perfect lives tonight, but we do offer you surrendered lives. Use us again, send us again. And when our past tells us we're disqualified, remind us that your grace gets the final word. You are the beginning. You are the end. Lord, thank you that the enemy can only suggest but you can command. Lord, thank you that you are the God of restoration. You are the God of redemption. Thank you, Lord. For the chances you've given us over and over again to serve you. Lord, it's so humbling to serve a God that would continue to do powerful works in the people who don't deserve it. Thank you, God, that you sent your one and only Son to die. Take on the sins of the whole world. For a sinner like me. Thank you, God. To meet us in the places we're broken, and you stretch your hand out to lift us from the pit. Even when we put ourselves there, you still reach down for us and offer us your healing hand and your healing heart. And I pray for anyone here tonight, anyone listening online, however they're hearing this message. that they would be able to take that failure, take that time that they messed up. Take responsibility for it. Bring it to the altar, leave it to you, and then release it so that they can better serve the kingdom of God and give all the glory of their testimony to you. And I pray all of this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, we all agreed together and said amen. Hey, you guys have a great night. Thanks for listening to the Faith Alive Sermon Podcast. We hope this message encouraged you. If it did, be sure to subscribe or share it with someone else who may need it. If you want to get connected or reach out to one of our pastors, go to our website at faithalive.church. We'll see you next time.