Detoured by Distractions
Detoured by Distractions
Sermon Summary:
In our journey of faith, we often find ourselves in seasons of rebuilding. This message explores the powerful story of Nehemiah, who faced numerous distractions while rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls. Through his example, we learn the importance of staying focused on God’s calling despite fear, frustration, and even failure. The scripture reminds us that rebuilding is rarely easy, but with faith and perseverance, we can overcome obstacles. Just as Nehemiah completed the wall in 52 days, we too can achieve great things when we keep our eyes fixed on our purpose. This story challenges us to examine our own lives – what areas are we rebuilding, and how can we remain steadfast in the face of distractions? By trusting in God’s expertise in restoration and keeping our gaze on Him, we can navigate the challenging but rewarding path of personal and spiritual reconstruction.
Sermon Points:
Lessons for Re-Building (or Building)
-Kneeology: We must begin with prayer!
-You Are Here: We must accept an honest assessment!
-Planning and Zoning: Make a plan and get to work!
-Overcoming Obstacles: Obstacles can be overcome!
CONTEXT: Nehemiah had led the people in the great re-building project of the reconstruction of the wall around Jerusalem and the installation of the gates in the wall. Nehemiah 6 records the potential distractions faced by Nehemiah and his dismissal of them to continue his tireless focus on the work. And —- the wall was finally completed!
DISTRACTIONS
-Fone
-Fear
-Focus
-Frustration
-Failure
-Faith
FEAR – The re-building journey is often fraught with fear. We can move past our fears!
FOCUS – It is easy to have our attention diverted when we are re-building. Sometimes, we have to intentionally re-focus our attention to the task at hand.
FRUSTRATION – Re-building is not easy! Sometimes we are frustrated by what we deem to be lack of progress. We must move past our frustrations to keep progressing.
FAILURE – There may be minor setbacks and “failures” along the way. We can’t be deterred by a less than perfect journey.
FAITH – God is an expert at renovation, re-construction, restoration, and re-building. Let’s keep our eyes on Him and trust Him for His provision as we keep re-building.
Download a copy of the “Together…for the Future” Devotional Book – HERE
By trusting in God’s expertise in restoration and keeping our gaze on Him, we can navigate the challenging but rewarding path of personal and spiritual reconstruction.
Key Takeaways:
- Rebuilding is often fraught with distractions and challenges
- Common distractions include phones, fear, loss of focus, frustration, failure, and even misplaced faith
- Nehemiah’s example shows the importance of staying focused on the task at hand
- Frustration and setbacks are normal parts of the rebuilding process
- Faith in God is crucial, but doubts can arise and need to be addressed
- God is an expert at renovation and restoration in our lives
Scripture References:
- Nehemiah 6:1-15
Stories:
- Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and facing distractions from enemies
- Jesus walking on water and Peter’s attempt to join him (Matthew 14)
- Thomas Edison’s perspective on failed attempts at inventing the light bulb
- Peter’s denial of Jesus and subsequent restoration (John 21)
Transcript
This morning we are going to continue in worship through the celebration of the Lord’s supper. I want to read this passage of scripture to us as we prepare for that. In Ephesians one, verse three, Paul writes these words. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adopion to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he’s freely given us in the one he loves.
In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment, to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. Well, today, as we will receive these elements of the Lord’s supper, we’re reminded of the grace of God. As Paul says, what has the Lord accomplished for us? Well, he has accomplished our redemption.
And that theme is woven throughout this passage in Ephesians. And how did we receive that redemption? Well, it came at a great cost. Paul says, we have forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus. He also points to that future fulfillment where the Lord will bring everything together in unity in heaven and earth under Christ.
It, all of that really is celebrated in the Lord’s supper. We’re reminded of the forgiveness of our sin and the common grace that God has made available to all of us, and the fact that it came at a great cost, his blood. And not only that, there’s a coming, as Jesus promised us, when he’ll celebrate all of this anew with him in his kingdom. So let’s reflect on those things today as we receive these elements through the celebration of the Lord’s supper. So I’m going to ask our deacons and our ministers to come and take their places.
And many of you have been with us before to celebrate the Lord’s supper. Some of you may be new, and so our deacons will be passing a tray in front of you, and you’ll find that there are two cups stacked on top of each other. Just take one of those stacks of cups, and one will have the bread, one will have the juice in it. And for those of you that need gluten free bread. It’s in the middle of each one of those trays.
You can get that as well. And if you know the Lord, you’ve been baptized and you’re a part of the church, you don’t have to be a member of our church. But if you’re part of his church, then you are welcome to participate with us in this celebration. It’s our belief that this bread symbolizes the body of Christ, and we believe that this juice symbolizes the blood Christ. So let me pray and ask God’s blessings over them, and then I’ll lead us all in partaking of the elements once they’re all distributed.
So let’s pray. Father, today we’re grateful to be a part of your church. And we know, Lord, that on the one hand, there’s freedom in that, that we’ve made a choice to respond to your grace. But we also know that it has come at such a great cost for us to exercise that freedom, being created in your image and then having to experience the reality of our own brokenness and respond to your grace. But it has come at a great cost to you, the very gift of your own son.
And so we’re mindful of that today. And this bread and this juice reminds us of his body and his blood, his body in which he lived a perfect life, an example for all of us, and paved the way for us to find our way to you. And through his blood and his death on the cross, the payment of our sin secured, and our atonement now made right. And now we can stand in your presence, forgiven and cleansed and filled with hope and life. We’re grateful.
So we ask your blessings upon these elements and upon us as we receive them, and we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well, this morning, as we gather around this table, you are grateful, aren’t you? I mean, aren’t you already? You know, one of the things that we’re going to be doing, starting in 2025, is we’re going to gather around the theme of what it means to flourish as a human being.
And one of the pathways to flourishing is gratitude. And this morning, we’re grateful, right? We’re grateful for what the Lord has done for us. And we come to a moment like this, we’re reminded of just what we need as human beings. We need forgiveness.
We need life. We need hope. And Jesus has made that possible for us. So, with a heart that’s full of gratitude, let me just remind you, the Bible says that on the night when Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, he broke it, he blessed it. He gave thanks, and he said, take and eat.
This is my body.
On that same night, he took the cup and he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Drink it.
And all God’s people said, amen. Amen. Amen. Well, as we continue our journey on Sunday morning in 2024, our theme is together, and we are learning this year about what that means to be together as the people of God and for the fall. Our theme is together for the future.
And we’ve been reading Ezra and Nehemiah and really focusing on rebuilding our lives. We’ve already learned some lessons on Sunday mornings about building or rebuilding. Let me remind you of what we’ve already learned. We began with a lesson about neologyy. We always start with prayer.
When you find yourself in a situation where it’s time to rebuild, and all kinds of things lead us to that, you can go through a divorce, and now you’ve got to rebuild your life on the other side of it. Maybe you’re rebuilding a relationship with adult children, or maybe you’re rebuilding a relationship with your parents. Maybe you’re rebuilding your life because of a job change. And everything now is. Maybe you’re rebuilding your life because of some kind of health crisis.
Maybe you’re rebuilding your life because you just sense that it’s time to do it. It’s just time for a change. And so we always start with prayer. We’ve learned that from Ezra and Nehemiah. We’ve also learned the second lesson.
You are here. We have to accept an honest assessment of where we are. You can’t start from where you wish you were. And then third, planning and zoning. You got to make a plan, get to work.
Last week, we discovered we have to overcome obstacles, and obstacles can be overay overcome. Praise God. Well, today I want to talk a little bit about something that’s kind of connected to obstacles, but just a little nuance, if I can, and that is, it’s easy to get detoured by distractions. Have y’all ever gotten distracted? It is just so easy.
Well, I want you to look at a story with me and Nehemiah. You know, we’ve been reading Nehemiah. We know that Nehemiah is back in Jerusalem, and he’s helping the children of Israel restore the security to that city. And it’s really the heart of the people. And the way they’re doing that is they’re rebuilding the wall around the city that had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.
And so Nehemiah has had to encounter all kinds of obstacles and challenges. Now the work is almost done and. And we pick up the story in Nehemiah six. So look at it with me. Verse one.
When word came to Sandballat, Tobiah, Geshem, the Arab and the rest of our enemies, that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it. Though up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates. San Bal and Geshem sent me this message. Come, let’s meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono. But they were scheming to harm me, so I sent messageers to them with this reply.
I’m carrying on a great project and I cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you? Four times they sent me the same message. And each time I gave them the same answer. Then the fifth time, San Bela sent his aid to me with the same message.
And in his hand was an unsealed letter that meant that they had read it to people along the way ‘kind of like hitting reply all in an email, so to speak. In which was written, it is reported among the nations. And Geshem says, and Geshem says, it’s true that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt and therefore you’re building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports, you’re about to become their king and even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem. There’s a king in Judah.
Now this report will get back to the king. So come, let us meet together. I sen him this reply. Nothing like what you’re saying is happening. You’re just making it up out of your head.
They were all trying to frighten us, thinking their hands will get too weak for the work and it will not be completed. But I prayed, now strengthen my hands. One day I went to the house of Shemiah, the son of Deliah, the son of Methab Mahedabel, who was shut up in his home. He said, let’s meet at the house of God inside the temple. Let’s close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you by night.
They’re coming to kill you. But I said, should a man like me run away, or should someone like me going to the temple to save his life? I would. I go. I realized that God had not sent him, but that he’prophesied against me because Tobia and Sandballad had hired him.
He had been hired to intimidate me so I would commit a sin. By doing this. And they would give me a bad name to discredit me. Remember Tobia and Sandbe and my God because of what they’ve done. Remember also the prophet Noahiah and how she notice that, how she and the rest of the prophets have been trying to intimidate me.
So the wall was completed on the 25th day of Elo, in 52 days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self confidence because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. Wow. Amen. Right.
So let’s set the context. Nehemiah had led the people in this great rebuilding project of the reconstruction of the alll around Jerusalem and the installation of the gates and the wall. And then Nehemiah six records the potential distractions faced by Nehemiah and his dismissal of them to continue his tireless focus on the work. And the wall was finally completed. Now, depending on how you date Nehemiah, a number of scholars say that the wall was completed on October 2, 445 BC.
That would be 2469 years ago last Wednesday.
Think about that. And they did it in 52 days. Pretty incredible, actually. The enemy in Nehemiah, he’s getting to the end of the project. He’s fac all these obstacles, and now they’re just trying to distract him.
They’ve tried to get in his way and hasn’t worked. Now they’re going to distract him from the work. And you notice what he says, do you think I’m going to come down from this to come deal with y’all? I’m not going to do it. I’m not even going to come meet you.
And then they hire somebody from the inside, a prophet and a prophetess, to see if they could somehow convince him to come down off of the work. And maybe they then could somehow find their way to all the workers and discourage them, kind of. If you, what is it they say? If you cut the head off a snake? Is that how they say it?
In other words, we get Nehemiah out of the way, then maybe we can get in there and disturb this thing and it really won’t get finished. And Nehemiah said, you know, I’m just not going to deal with it. I. Nothing you’re saying is true. We’re just going to keep working.
In other words, he managed his distractions a little bit different than obstacles, but connected. Right? So I want to talk to you’all about that this morning, because here’s what I want to make sure you know, if you are trying to read buildild your life and you’re in the journey. I can promise you, you’re going to have the temptation in front of you to just get distracted along the way. All kinds of things are going to clamor for your attention.
So I’ve just made a list of a few of them. Can I show you my list? Here’s the list. I would give you your phone. Fear, focus, frustration, failure, and faith.
Y’all. Like I did that, you know, I’m a preacher and we have to use alliteration. It’s just one of those things. And y’all already know, right? Maybe you could make up a different list.
But think about how things distract you, you know?
So hold on. I need to get this here real quick. Can y’hold on 1 second?
Yeah, let me. Well, while I’m at it, let me just look at this real quick. See, I had this dream yesterday that Alabama got beat by Vanderbilt. So I’m looking this up to see this can’t possibly be true. Anyway, so.
Okay. Okay. So where was I?
All day, all night? Every day, every night, right. It’s just. It’s just this. I was at Hardin Simmons, I guess it was last week, speaking to a group of pastors.
It was interesting. I was talking to Eric Brunyer. Eric is the president of Hardin Simmons. Eric and Elise, of course, are members of our church at one time. And he said they’re noticing an interesting phenomenon at lunch right now with the younger college kids.
They are sitting at tables talking to each other while they eat.
He said, it is the strangest thing for them because he said, it seems like what’s happened is on their own. These kids have decided they just want to talk to each other rather than sit at their table and just do this the whole time. Isn’t that fascinating? And he said, we haven’t issued any kind of edict. We haven’t told them, leave your phones out of the lunchroom.
It’s just happened. And they said, our lunchroom this year is the loudest place on this campus. Isn’t that awesome? Because y all know your phones. It’s not just your phone itself.
It’s just what’s there distracts us. And you could come up with another list, I’m sure. But let me just run you through the one I gave you. So I’ve done the phone already. And trust me, I’m from Alabama.
I do’t know how to spell it. I get teased all the time about my car tag. My tag is psalm one, but it’s spelled salm one. And I get, people stop me sometimes. That’s not how you spell psalm.
Really, it’s fascinating. I tried to spell it with a p and the licensed people wouldn’t let me haves one, so somebody must have it. So I did the best I could, but let me run through other, these others real quickly. What about fear? When you’re rebuilding your life?
The rebuilding journey is often fraught with fear, and we can move past our fears. I mean, when you read this story, it says a couple of times they were trying to frighten us. They were trying to scare us, make us think that there was just something out there, there was no way for us to keep rebuilding, and somehow that would draw us away from the project. Well, that’s just how it works. Fear sometimes just, it just leaks in.
When you’re trying to rebuild your life, you remember the story in Matthew 14 where Jesus is walking on the water and the disciples say, lord, if that’s real, you, will you let us do that? And so simon Peter steps out of the boat and starts walking on water. Do you remember that story? And then the next thing you know, what does he do? He starts looking around at all the wind and the storm, and he gets afraid.
I think that that’s one of the funniest stories in the Bible to me. As if he could walk on water if there wasn’t a storm. You know what I mean? Man, if it was calm out here, this would be no big deal. But I mean, the wind’s blowing, I mean, and all of a sudden he gets afraid.
And he says, lord, help me. Save me. That fear, sometimes it, sometimes it just finds its way into our lives and it can distract you from your rebuilding journey. And so I would just tell you, go ahead and get ready for it. It’s going to be a challenge.
And when you’re trying to rebuild your life, it’s going to have some fear to it. You’re going to be frightful sometimes about, can you really do this? Can you really make these steps? Can you make this progress? So don’t be surprised when you’re a little bit afraid.
I’d say second, focus. It is so easy to have our attention diverted when we’re rebuilding. You know, sometimes we’ve just got to intentionally refocus our attention to the task at hand. That’s why I love what Nehemiah says in this story. This is some of the most interesting reading in the Old Testament to me.
And I guess it’s, it’s like reading Nehemiah’s journal. In Ezra’s journal. Well, he said that and then I said this. Well, then they did that. And here’s what we did.
And they brought this letter and here’s what it said. Well, I wrote them back here. I mean, I love that. And Nehemiah says they’re, you know, they’re trying to distract me. So I told them, no, I’m not coming down off this just to talk to you.
I’m not doing it. I’m not losing my focus. I’m gonna stay connected to what I believe I’m supposed to be doing. I’m on a great project here, so I’m not going to let you just pull me away from it. I was reading this article the other day about distractions, and it says that the average american worker experiences 77 distractions a week.
On average. That averages out to one distraction every 31 minutes in the workplace. Responding to personal communication, online chats, text calls, check an email, meetings, browsing the Internet, having unplanned conversations, monitoring things that are happening at home. There’s another study where the University of California, Irvine has tried to determine how long does it take you to get back focused after you’ve lost your focus at work? It’s amazing how much time is wasted with people just trying to get focused again because they’ve lost focus for whatever reason.
Well, I can promise you, if you’re going to rebuild your life, you’re going to have times where it’s going to be so easy to gaze at the wrong things. So remember what the writer of Hebrews says. The writer of Hebrews in twelve says, fix your eyes on Jesus. Let your glance be on the things that are happening around you. But put your gaze on him.
Well, I would say if you’re in the process of rebuilding, put your gaze on that. It’s a journey for you. It’s going to be really easy to put your gaze in other places. Because here’s the thing y’all remember, we have an enemy at work. Our enemy is not named Sanballad or Tobayia.
Our enemy is Satan. And what Satan is going to do is try to constantly distract you. He does not want you to succeed in anything. CS Lewis said that every square inch of the universe has been claimed by God and counterclaimed by the devil. That means that he’s wanting to work against anything good in your life, no matter what it is.
And so if his obstacles he push in your path won’t destroy you, then sometimes he’ll just put little nuisances in your past to distract you. And here’s the thing. Even if you’re not destroyed, but if you’re distracted long enough, he wins. And so keeping your focus on what you’re trying to do when you’re rebuilding your life, it just a very practical thing. The third one is frustration.
Rebuilding is not easy. As I’ve said to y’all before in this series, if rebuilding was easy, everybody would do it. Nobody’s life would be a mess. Everybody would have it together. But it’s hard.
And sometimes we get frustrated by what just seems to be a lack of progress. We’ve got to move past our frustrations so that we can continue our journey and keep progressing. Nehemiah’s journey was an uneven one. They get started on the wall and everybody says, man, these rocks are too big. We can’t pick them up.
We’re hungry. We got to have something eat. We’ve got enemies. I mean, it is what, it’s a lesson in leadership. For Nehemiah, he had to keep addressing these frustrations so they could ease the level of frustration.
So let me just ask you, what’s your tolerance for frustration? Some people are just easily frustrated, right? They’re easy targets for the devil because just keeping frustrating. What’s your tolerance for frustration? Are you the kind of person, just the least little bit of thing.
I mean, just that right there can just throw you off kilter. Well, I’m just going to tell you, get ready for your rebuilding journey if that’s how you are, because it’s hard and frustration is just a part of the journey. We’ve got to learn how to build a tolerance for frustration because frustration can take you over. You know, you can find yourself yelling in the car at a train that you have no control over? You know what I mean?
You have, you have zero control over. You can even start saying, this thing needs to go. It will not reduce, I’ve tried it. It does not reduce the number of cars in the train. I’ve noticed that because I’ve tried it myself.
You know, frustration can get you. Can you imagine how Jesus must have felt? But do you know when the Bible tells a story about Jesus, here’s what Jesus was doing, at least partly. He’s rebuilding. He’s reraming these disciples view of the messiah and the kingdom of God because they have a certain view that they’re already predisposed to and Jesus is going to reorient them.
Have you ever noticed how many times along the way it must have been frustrating to Jesus where Jesus will say, I’ve been with you this long and this is what you still think? I mean, Peter pulls out a sword and tries to chop the head off the guys that come to arrest Jesus. You remember that story? And Jesus looks at Peter and says, seriously, you think we’re going to use swords to. I mean, is that how you think we’re going to do this?
James and John say, hey, when we get there, can we remember what they said? Can we? One on the right, one on the left. And Jesus said, seriously, is that really what I mean, is that what y’all think this is after he’s resurrected from the dead? They said, okay, so acts one, are we going to finally restore this thing to Israel?
And Jesus is like, can you imagine the frustration? Well, frustration is a part of the journey, y’all. And we’ve got to learn to move past our frustrations because we can get sidetracked and distracted by them. Also failure. Here’s what I’ve learned about rebuilding.
There are just some minor setbacks and failures along the way, and we just can’t be deterred by less than perfect journey. I think sometimes when we must up the gumption to rebuild our lives, when we look at our lives and like I said, maybe you’re on the other side of a divorce now and you’re trying to figure out, come out of the fog of it, or maybe you’re grieving and you’re dealing with the death of someone that you love, and now your life has completely changed, or your job has changed, and now you’re in a new place and you’re trying to figure it out, or maybe some health scare has come your way, and now you’ve got to refocus and do things a little bit differently and come to grips with it, or maybe a relationship that’s broken or whatever it might be, and as you start to live into it and it’s not perfect and you feel like a failure, you feel like I I’m just not. I’m not making it. I’m not moving forward like I thought I would. Well, don’t be shocked by that.
Think about it. Zerubabel and Joshua, when they get to Jerusalem in the book of Ezra, and they finally lay the foundation, you know, they get the altar repaired and they lay the foundation of the temple, and you’remember what happened. Some of the older people looked at the foundation and started weeping. Do you remember that story? Because they said it’ not like Solomon’s temple.
And then all of a sudden, the work stops for 16 years. So Zerubabel and Joshua every day had to continue whatever it was they were doing for 16 years. And look at the temple that still wasn’t being rebuilt and nobody was working on it. How do you think they felt? Don’t you think they felt like a failure?
It had to be a challenging time. I would just tell you, you’re going to experience some failures along the way. It’s okay. You’re not perfect. The journey of rebuilding your life is not an even journey.
It’s going to have ups and downs and crooks and crannies, a winding path. Don’t let failure stop you because it is inevitable in the journey, things may not work. You take some risks, you take some steps. Okay, that didn’t work. All right, got it.
Let me learn from that and we’ll move on. So s, what someone asked you. Remember that story about Thomas Edison? He tried over a thousand ways to make a light bulb work and somebody said, you know, man, that’s a lot of failure. He said, I hadn’t failed yet.
He said, I’ve just ruled out possibilities. It’s not failure. Well, you’re ruling out possibilities when you’re rebuilding. It’s okay. It’s not going to be even.
And then finally the last one’s kind of weird to put on the list. Why would I put faith on the list as a distraction? Well, what I mean by that is, is sometimes I feel like that we start doubting when we’re rebuilding. And God is an expert, y’all, at renovation, he is. He’s an expert at reconstruction, at restoration, at rebuilding.
Keep your eyes on him. Trust him for his prov vision. As we keep rebuilding. It’s so easy to doubt because rebuilding is hard. You’ll doubt yourself, you’doubt your ability, you’doubt your.
Maybe your sense about what God has told you. You may even doubt God himself. You may not even know how to do it. Remember that guy who said to Jesus, when Jesus said, do you believe? He said, yes, Lord, I believe.
Help me in my unbelief. Mean, I’m trying, but I’m being honest. I’m doubting. Well, along the way you may. And when you’re trying to rebuild those complex, complicated things in your life, be encouraged.
Don’t get discouraged. You know, again, Simon Peter, when he looked around and he saw the wind and the waves, all of a sudden he started sinking. You remember what Jesus said to him? Why do you have such little faith? That’s what he said.
Why such little faith? Believe in me. I’m out here walking the water you’re walking with me. I love that story. I wonder what it was like when Peter got back in the boat.
Were the guys making fun of him? Dude, you almost drowned. You know, had I been Simon Peter, I would say, well, where were y’all? I’m the only one who walked on water. You know, at least I tasted it a little bit.
And then I failed because I got scared. But I learned something from it. That’s the thing I love about Simon Peter’s story. Simon Peter’s story in the scripture is a story of rebuilding. It’s an uneven story, isn’t it?
He struggles with what he says. He’s out there sometimes before he should be. You know, Jesus says, you know, the son of man must die. And what does Peter say? Not on my watch.
I can tell that right now. I don’t know about the rest of these guys. I’m just going to tell you right now. I’ll be the last one. I’ll be the last one to deny you.
And Jesus says, you know, this very night, you’re goingna know what? Not me. And then how do you think he felt? How do you think he felt? Even after Jesus was raised from the dead, how do you think he felt?
His whole story is a story of rebuilding. You remember, he’s warming his hands around that fire, and that girl says, yep. Yeah, you sound like you’re from the north. You got that at you don’t talk like us. You see, all the disciples were from the north, except one.
Y’all remember that Judas is the only southerner. All the rest of them are from Galilee. And that girl at that fire said, I hear the accent. You from Galilee, Jesus. Peter said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Next time. The next time Peter encounters warm colds, you know where it is? It’s in John 21, after Jesus has been raised from the dead and they have that miraculous catch of fish. And all of a sudden, Peter walks up and watch’ Jesus doing he’standing by a warm fire. That words only used two times in the New Testament, when Peter denied Jesus and when Peter restored Jesus.
Do you think that’s an accident? You know what I told the men at Riverbend? That was the smell of failure, Simon Peter. And guess what it became? It became the smell of redemption.
And Jesus redeemed him, and he rebuilt his life. And he went on to become sa Peter. Right? Someone we admire today. You can do it, y’all.
It’s not going to be easy. And it’s so easy to get distracted. Don’t let the devil stop you. Let your life be a miracle of restoration. May it be so.
Let’s pray together. Father, we love you. We thank you. We thank you, Lord, that you love us enough to care about us and intervene in our lives, in real situations, in our everyday lives. And so right now, Lord, there are people within the sound of my voice that are trying to rebuild their lives in their everyday lives.
I ask you to give them wisdom to do it. Help them to move past these frustrations, Lord. Help them to find their way on the Jesus way which is the way of restoration, redemption, hope. And so, Lord, speak into their lives right now wherever they happen to be on the journey and give them the courage to live one more week in a journey of rebuilding and give you the chance to work as only you can. And we ask that in Jesus name.
Amen.