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Fear, Denial, and Redemption through God's Grace
Dive deep with us as Alan Smith explores Peter's falter, fear, and ultimate redemption. What can we learn from Peter's denial and his path back to faith?
About Springhouse
If you’re looking for a church in Smyrna, TN that is focused on Loving Big, Living Truth, and Healthy Family, we’d love to connect with you. We are home to a vibrant children’s ministry, powerful middle school and youth ministries, and incredible ministries for men and women of all ages. Our local and global outreaches include partnerships with missionaries in the US and abroad, Isaiah 117 House, local retirement communities, and more.
Additionally, we are home to Springhouse Theatre, an award-winning theatre in the Nashville area. Through the theatre, we serve both the greater Nashville theatre community, and thousands of patrons each year, and we are expanding our vision to impact the culture through the arts into additional mediums and through an expanding network of relationships.
We would love it if you would consider joining us in person for one of our Sunday gatherings.
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Gathering Times
- Sundays, 9:00 AM
- Sundays, 10:30 AM
Contact Info
Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
Transcript
I'll do this.
Speaker:I've been in Ephesians the last probably
Speaker:three or four weeks, specifically chapter two.
Speaker:I've just been so convicted in my life.
Speaker:(sobs)
Speaker:Because I let him be too small in my eyes.
Speaker:God is so much greater.
Speaker:So much greater.
Speaker:Words are words in semantics.
Speaker:But when we say God is greater,
Speaker:when we say God is great,
Speaker:do we truly understand
Speaker:the magnitude of his greatness
Speaker:in our lives,
Speaker:in the day-to-day living?
Speaker:We were talking about miracles the other Sunday.
Speaker:And you know,
Speaker:we see miracles take place in people's lives
Speaker:or in our own lives sometimes.
Speaker:And we tend to think miracles are these monstrous,
Speaker:massive events are happening.
Speaker:So we look at the feeding of the four and the 5,000,
Speaker:the healing of blind eyes
Speaker:and the things that we see in scripture
Speaker:that we classify as miracles.
Speaker:But he does miracles in our lives every single day.
Speaker:And we fail to recognize the greatness of God.
Speaker:In that chapter, in chapter two,
Speaker:it talks about because of his great mercy.
Speaker:This is not the lesson, but we're going to get the Bible.
Speaker:There's answers to fill in your blanks.
Speaker:You can do that later.
Speaker:And Barbie will have to shoot me
Speaker:or never let me teach again because I didn't do the lesson.
Speaker:(chuckles)
Speaker:Okay, girls eat potato chips.
Speaker:Some of y'all got that.
Speaker:Can you keep playing?
Speaker:(laughs)
Speaker:Find you something.
Speaker:(breathes deeply)
Speaker:And you were dead in your trespasses and sins
Speaker:in which you formerly walked
Speaker:according to the course of this world,
Speaker:according to the prince of the power of the air,
Speaker:the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Speaker:Among them, we too, he's talking to believers,
Speaker:we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh,
Speaker:indulging the desires of the flesh and of our minds,
Speaker:and where by nature we were children of wrath,
Speaker:even as the rest.
Speaker:We've got to stop going us and them.
Speaker:We were them before we became us.
Speaker:And we look at people, we get upset
Speaker:because of sin in people's lives
Speaker:and they're just doing what comes by nature,
Speaker:which we did of our own course before we came to him.
Speaker:There is no us and them.
Speaker:God so loved the world and we were part of it.
Speaker:But God, but God being rich in mercy
Speaker:because of his great love, which he loved us.
Speaker:Even when we were dead in our transgressions,
Speaker:made us alive together with Christ.
Speaker:By grace you have been saved
Speaker:and raised up with him and seated us with him
Speaker:in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Speaker:We forget what our position is.
Speaker:We are in this world, but we are not of this world.
Speaker:We have been made.
Speaker:Past tense, the work was accomplished.
Speaker:We have been made more than conquerors.
Speaker:And we walk around sometimes with a defeated mindset,
Speaker:not realizing our position by nothing that we have done
Speaker:except for accepting who he is
Speaker:because it's by his great love.
Speaker:In order that in the ages to come,
Speaker:he might show the surpassing riches
Speaker:of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Speaker:How does he do that?
Speaker:Through us.
Speaker:When Jesus says, it says greater works than these,
Speaker:it's through us.
Speaker:We're the agent, the Holy Spirit operating in us.
Speaker:We are the ones.
Speaker:Pastor Wayne was just sharing before the thing,
Speaker:he's wearing a silly little banana pin
Speaker:made of tin, gold looking plated.
Speaker:And he's in a restaurant in Nashville waiting on somebody.
Speaker:And a young girl comes and goes,
Speaker:oh, I love your pin, I love bananas.
Speaker:And it triggers a conversation that leads back to,
Speaker:well, do you know where Smyrna is?
Speaker:And it gets through all this
Speaker:because it comes back to the fact that
Speaker:they let the lady know they were pastors.
Speaker:It wasn't, oh, you're pastors?
Speaker:It was more of you're pastors?
Speaker:And it led to a conversation about Smyrna,
Speaker:where the church was.
Speaker:She may never walk in this building.
Speaker:I made a joke, wouldn't it be just crazy
Speaker:one Sunday for you to walk out and her walk in
Speaker:and see each other.
Speaker:But what if she goes to church somewhere today?
Speaker:'Cause she mentioned her boyfriend just bought a house
Speaker:and she hasn't seen it.
Speaker:The implication there is that
Speaker:they could or could not be living together.
Speaker:Who cares, that's irrelevant to the point.
Speaker:The point is that everybody, everybody needs Jesus.
Speaker:And we're the filter which the Holy Spirit
Speaker:should flow through.
Speaker:I paid $5 yesterday for a bottle that big of filtered water
Speaker:and it's got all these things in it
Speaker:because I was thirsty at the gym.
Speaker:If I'd known it was $5 when I got it from the cooler,
Speaker:I wouldn't have paid for it.
Speaker:But the water went through a process of filtering
Speaker:so it would be pure and all these things.
Speaker:It was pH 7.4 and all these things.
Speaker:The Holy Spirit is the filter that flows through us
Speaker:to purify us because it says that out of our bellies
Speaker:flow living water.
Speaker:And I have to believe that that young lady
Speaker:that served Wayne and Nathan yesterday
Speaker:or the other day needed living water
Speaker:and maybe, just maybe,
Speaker:her life got disturbed a little bit
Speaker:to where now she has a mental thought
Speaker:about her relationship with Christ
Speaker:'cause she met a pastor that didn't come out and say,
Speaker:"Hey, I'm a preacher."
Speaker:And he was just being Wayne.
Speaker:And the Holy Spirit through him led it to a conversation.
Speaker:We forget how great God is.
Speaker:It is in the simple things.
Speaker:Kevin said it, the ordinary everyday things.
Speaker:There are so many miracles that take place.
Speaker:I met somebody at the gym Friday.
Speaker:They came to me 'cause I sweat a lot.
Speaker:And when I work out, I sweat a whole lot
Speaker:and it starts to smell like bacon.
Speaker:But the brother, he was African American,
Speaker:he came to me, he said, "I just wanna encourage you.
Speaker:"I've been watching you for the last few months."
Speaker:And I said, "Thank you, man, I appreciate it."
Speaker:I said, "I got a long way to go."
Speaker:He said, "Yeah, but I see you in here a lot.
Speaker:"You're faithful."
Speaker:I'm faithful taking an out of shape body to a gym
Speaker:to get it better, but how faithful am I in the day to day
Speaker:working out of my own salvation
Speaker:to be mindful of somebody in need,
Speaker:to see it and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to me.
Speaker:'Cause God is great.
Speaker:And he has these moments in time for us,
Speaker:these curious moments in time.
Speaker:We're on a chronological clock,
Speaker:but God has those moments in time
Speaker:that he wants us to listen a little softer,
Speaker:speak a little gentler, look a little deeper
Speaker:to see what really is going on in the life of that server
Speaker:or that clerk or that person flipping me off
Speaker:in the lane beside me or the people
Speaker:that walk into this house.
Speaker:We pray in staff for whosoever wills to come in here,
Speaker:they're not gonna smell, look and act like we do.
Speaker:They may not be the same nationality.
Speaker:Are we gonna turn an eye or are we gonna be
Speaker:who we say we're gonna be?
Speaker:And I'm not talking about us as a church,
Speaker:I'm talking about individually.
Speaker:Individually we make up the church.
Speaker:He is so great, "For by grace you have been saved
Speaker:"through faith and that not of yourself.
Speaker:"It is the gift of God, that in itself is a miracle,
Speaker:"not as a result of works that no one should boast.
Speaker:"For we are his craftsmanship,
Speaker:"created in Christ Jesus for good works."
Speaker:We forget what the word good means.
Speaker:Good is such a fine, good.
Speaker:"No one is good except for him," he said.
Speaker:If we forget what good really is,
Speaker:he has created us for good works
Speaker:that he, the Father, prepared beforehand
Speaker:that we should walk in them.
Speaker:I just wanna encourage us myself.
Speaker:I'm telling you, I've been eating this for a month
Speaker:and I get so convicted when I think
Speaker:I'm getting a little better at it.
Speaker:And then I see that I'm not,
Speaker:let's not lose sight of how great God is.
Speaker:Let's quit dumbing down words.
Speaker:Let's grab a thesaurus every once in a while.
Speaker:Let's look it up in Strong's and let's just see
Speaker:how great and mighty and awesome we use
Speaker:words, I have felt convicted of this from years ago
Speaker:from Pastor Wayne 'cause I says, "Oh, it was awesome."
Speaker:And Pastor Wayne said, "Was it really?"
Speaker:No, I remember the conversation in the room,
Speaker:third section, four rows down.
Speaker:'Cause I was talking about a sporting event
Speaker:and I said, "It was awesome."
Speaker:And Pastor Wayne, in Pastor Wayne Ninjeness walking by
Speaker:and said, "Was it really?"
Speaker:And you kept on walking.
Speaker:And I said, "Yeah."
Speaker:And then he circled back around and he said,
Speaker:"Can you define the word awesome?"
Speaker:And then we had a 30 minute monologue.
Speaker:But we do, we dumb down words.
Speaker:And then when we bring it into the church,
Speaker:it lessens our God.
Speaker:That's why be magnified stirred in my heart
Speaker:because it doesn't say that he became too small.
Speaker:He didn't.
Speaker:He became too small and I were us.
Speaker:And I think that's part of now let's see if I can do
Speaker:what they taught you in hermeneutics and all that.
Speaker:Can I pull it back into the lesson?
Speaker:That's what happened to Peter.
Speaker:The answers are on your sheet.
Speaker:We'll fly over it now.
Speaker:Peter lost focus on his purpose.
Speaker:We're talking about Peter's denial
Speaker:and you read it in the scriptures.
Speaker:Let me grab your sheet.
Speaker:Can somebody look up Matthew 16, 13 through 19?
Speaker:Let me know when you have it.
Speaker:Can somebody look up John 15, one through eight?
Speaker:Can somebody look up, thank you, Will.
Speaker:(laughing)
Speaker:Who's got Matthew 16, 13 through 19?
Speaker:Yes, this is a read out loud class, sorry.
Speaker:I think we tend to make characters
Speaker:in the Bible superheroes.
Speaker:We treat them as if they're Marvel or greasy,
Speaker:superheroes and we forget they were men and women
Speaker:just like us.
Speaker:There was nothing different about them
Speaker:than there is about us.
Speaker:We go through the incident where Peter has just come out
Speaker:of the garden and he thought he was doing
Speaker:what he was supposed to do.
Speaker:He was protecting Jesus.
Speaker:He cuts off Malchus' ear and Jesus kind of rebukes him
Speaker:and corrects him in that.
Speaker:And then Jesus is arrested and we get to the high priest's
Speaker:house and we see Peter kind of at a distance
Speaker:in the first denial, a little servant girl.
Speaker:He's intimidated by a keeper of a door.
Speaker:Hey, aren't you one of the wise?
Speaker:And he, I am not.
Speaker:He denies him.
Speaker:Peter allowed the stress of the situation to distract him
Speaker:from the purpose that Jesus had spoken over him
Speaker:in Matthew 16.
Speaker:When we lose focus on our purpose, we put ourselves
Speaker:in a place to deny what we know to be true.
Speaker:Who has that passage that can read it for us?
Speaker:Go ahead, Eric.
Speaker:13 through 19.
Speaker:(muffled speaking)
Speaker:- Matthew 16, he will say that (muffled speaking)
Speaker:John the Baptist, others Elijah,
Speaker:still others Jeremiah, but you, you said not.
Speaker:(muffled speaking)
Speaker:- I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven
Speaker:and whatever you find on earth.
Speaker:(muffled speaking)
Speaker:I will not be your, and on this rock,
Speaker:I will build my church and the gates of Hades
Speaker:will not overpower it.
Speaker:I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven
Speaker:and whatever you find on earth,
Speaker:(muffled speaking)
Speaker:- So there's a duality there.
Speaker:When you suss all that out, homiletically, hermeneutically,
Speaker:all those fancy theological words,
Speaker:when you break it all down,
Speaker:and he said upon that rock,
Speaker:yes, he's talking twofold, actually.
Speaker:He's talking about the rock of the revelation.
Speaker:Yes, what you just said,
Speaker:that's what I'm building my church on.
Speaker:I am that.
Speaker:But he is also talking to Peter
Speaker:because he changed his name.
Speaker:He went from Cephas and he called him Petra, Peter, a rock.
Speaker:And when we get to Acts, you see that it is Peter
Speaker:who we all give him a hard time.
Speaker:You deny Jesus three,
Speaker:how in the world could you deny him three times?
Speaker:We give him so much garbage,
Speaker:but we just see over in Acts where Matthew takes place
Speaker:what he told him.
Speaker:Peter was given a purpose.
Speaker:Jesus declared it over him and spoke it over him.
Speaker:But in that moment of fear, he forgot his purpose
Speaker:and he forgot the focus of his purpose.
Speaker:And he allowed that little servant girl
Speaker:to cause fear in him to deny Christ.
Speaker:Then it goes on to the presence.
Speaker:I love a teaching that Pastor Wayne did recently
Speaker:in upstairs with the aim.
Speaker:Proximity does not necessarily equal presence.
Speaker:When you look at the account in Luke,
Speaker:it says that he saw Jesus from a distance.
Speaker:He's in the courtyard.
Speaker:He goes and he tries to,
Speaker:after being caught up by the little girl,
Speaker:he goes to kind of blend in 'cause there's a fire over here.
Speaker:So I'll huddle with these six or seven people
Speaker:and maybe I won't stand out
Speaker:and I can just blend into the crowd.
Speaker:I'll meld into what's happening.
Speaker:And it says that he sees Jesus from a distance.
Speaker:He can almost hear what's going on
Speaker:in the high priest's house.
Speaker:He was in proximity,
Speaker:but he wasn't in his presence.
Speaker:And when we get out of the presence of God,
Speaker:we allow fear to overtake us in the situations
Speaker:and it becomes easy to deny Christ.
Speaker:Somebody read John 15, one through eight, please.
Speaker:I am the true body and my Father is the body of Christ.
Speaker:Every point in me is just not there.
Speaker:(muffled speaking)
Speaker:Yes, ma'am, thank you.
Speaker:We have to remain in him.
Speaker:We can't know of him, we can't know about him.
Speaker:We have to know him.
Speaker:You see, there's so many incidences in scripture
Speaker:in the gospels where it says Christ's disciples,
Speaker:his followers.
Speaker:There were lots of followers.
Speaker:There were fewer disciples.
Speaker:We get spoken of routinely about 12
Speaker:and then of the 12, there were really three
Speaker:that seemed to press in a little more.
Speaker:Peter was considered one of the three,
Speaker:but yet he was at a distance from Christ in that.
Speaker:And again, it comes to the third part of this, his power.
Speaker:We wanna give Peter such a hard time.
Speaker:Man, he should have been right there,
Speaker:but I can't believe he wasn't.
Speaker:He was flesh and blood.
Speaker:He was a Jew.
Speaker:They were under Roman occupation.
Speaker:He knew about crucifixions.
Speaker:He knew about Roman torture and how they handled things.
Speaker:And he knew what happens to zealots
Speaker:when they uprise against the Roman authority.
Speaker:He, once all this, it started getting a little messy now
Speaker:from the garden incident.
Speaker:And he's gotta be like us.
Speaker:He's gotta start thinking, uh-oh, man.
Speaker:And if I get tied in, fear is a real thing.
Speaker:It's a real thing.
Speaker:And I'm sure he was acting out of his flesh,
Speaker:but yet so many scholars,
Speaker:everybody through church history wants to give Peter
Speaker:down the road, foot and mouth disease.
Speaker:He left Jesus.
Speaker:He denied him.
Speaker:What would you do?
Speaker:I think I'm probably just like Peter.
Speaker:You probably could have inserted Alan there,
Speaker:and Alan denied Christ.
Speaker:And Alan said, "I don't know him.
Speaker:"I've seen him.
Speaker:"I heard him, but I don't know him."
Speaker:But then we see a change in Peter's life in Acts.
Speaker:And it's lengthy, so I'm not gonna ask somebody
Speaker:to read it out loud, but it says,
Speaker:"Peter was operating from a position without power.
Speaker:"He had not yet been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Speaker:"So why is church history being so critical
Speaker:"of him in this scenario?
Speaker:"Any of us who have been more likely
Speaker:"would more than likely react it in the same way
Speaker:"that Peter did, given the circumstances."
Speaker:But when you get to Acts chapter two,
Speaker:and you see the baptism of the Holy Spirit take place
Speaker:in that scenario, and then who's the one?
Speaker:Matthew, the scripture in Matthew upon this rock,
Speaker:Peter's boldness kicks in through the anointing
Speaker:of the Holy Spirit, and he gets up
Speaker:and delivers a powerful message.
Speaker:And he's calling out the very ones
Speaker:that were giving him down the road too,
Speaker:but he was telling them, "We, us, all."
Speaker:And he's been changed, and he's speaking
Speaker:with a boldness and authority, and it says
Speaker:at the end of that passage, "That day alone,"
Speaker:and that, however long it took him to preach that,
Speaker:'cause I'm sure every little word wasn't written down,
Speaker:but whatever that dialogue that he had with the people,
Speaker:it says 3,000 that day alone were added,
Speaker:and then we start the journey through Acts,
Speaker:and we see everything about the church starting to grow.
Speaker:The purpose of Matthew, or was it 14?
Speaker:Matthew 16.
Speaker:The purpose that was declared over him in Matthew 16
Speaker:starts taking place and running off.
Speaker:But what I love that I didn't write in there is in John,
Speaker:we all talk about the denial, but it's that moment
Speaker:where he and Jesus, Peter and Jesus,
Speaker:have that scene on the beach.
Speaker:We're fishing, can't catch, we bring it all in,
Speaker:all of a sudden he recognizes, and he dives out
Speaker:and swims up, and they come up there to eat,
Speaker:and Jesus, being who God is, brings restoration
Speaker:and redemption to the situation,
Speaker:and that is what is so encouraging.
Speaker:It doesn't matter where we are, where we've been,
Speaker:what we've done, God is a God of redemption and restoration.
Speaker:If we will choose to walk in it,
Speaker:he will give us that opportunity.
Speaker:We have to be willing and choose to step into it
Speaker:and walk on it, and Peter almost blows it again,
Speaker:being Peter.
Speaker:Yeah, but you have just had this amazing encounter
Speaker:with Jesus who has risen from the dead,
Speaker:who has just literally performed another miracle
Speaker:in front of you.
Speaker:I always wondered, it says in one of the gospels,
Speaker:it says Jesus was there cooking fish on the fire.
Speaker:Where did Jesus get those fish?
Speaker:'Cause they hadn't caught anything.
Speaker:Did Jesus just manifest them, or did Jesus go out
Speaker:and catch a few on it?
Speaker:But it says he's on the shore, and he's cooking fish
Speaker:by the fire, and he has this intimate moment with Christ,
Speaker:and it's not even through, and he turns around,
Speaker:but what about him?
Speaker:We gotta quit comparing ourselves.
Speaker:We gotta quit worrying about him.
Speaker:What about him?
Speaker:Our relationship with Christ.
Speaker:It's not my mother's, it's not my father's.
Speaker:It's not my grandfather passed the year before I was born.
Speaker:He was a pastor.
Speaker:His father before him was a pastor.
Speaker:It was almost no-brainer that this was gonna happen to me,
Speaker:but I was as far from wanting to be a pastor
Speaker:as you could have ever imagined.
Speaker:But my relationship with Christ is not because
Speaker:John Hollingsworth, or Ernest Hollingsworth,
Speaker:it's because I had to have it.
Speaker:I had to have the relationship with him.
Speaker:Their relationship's not gonna save me.
Speaker:So don't be a Peter, pre-Holy Spirit.
Speaker:Be a Peter, post-Holy Spirit.
Speaker:There was something that I was gonna read to you that,
Speaker:I know this has been a different one.
Speaker:(
Speaker:Okay, here it is.
Speaker:Much is made about Judas' betrayal of Jesus
Speaker:as well as Peter's.
Speaker:Though the other disciples fled the scene in fear also,
Speaker:it is Peter and Judas whose actions are always highlighted.
Speaker:It is here that the Gospel writers
Speaker:offer a helpful contrast.
Speaker:Judas intentionally, willfully, and premeditatedly
Speaker:gave Jesus up to be arrested, Matthew 26, 14 through 16.
Speaker:As for the other 10 disciples,
Speaker:it's unclear whether they were questioned
Speaker:or otherwise held to account by the strangers
Speaker:the same way Peter was.
Speaker:From the way the Gospels describe it,
Speaker:they fled and hid together, which meant
Speaker:at least they had comfort in numbers.
Speaker:One, now this was kinda tricky to me.
Speaker:This is from
Speaker:Eric D. Huntsman, who was a theologian.
Speaker:He said, "One could argue that while Peter denied Jesus,
Speaker:"he also placed himself in a position physically close
Speaker:"to Jesus' trial to be near him in some way.
Speaker:"Though it may be a matter of semantics,
Speaker:"Peter didn't deny Jesus, he denied knowing Jesus
Speaker:"to three strangers, and his later repentance
Speaker:"would show that he never wanted to abandon Christ."
Speaker:I don't know how old the guy is.
Speaker:I should've looked him up.
Speaker:He may be deceased.
Speaker:And that's his viewpoint.
Speaker:I've been in a relationship with this man for almost 20,
Speaker:well, the first three years it was more me and Ronnie,
Speaker:so probably 21 years of the 24 years we've been here.
Speaker:I've had a close relationship with Pastor Wayne.
Speaker:If I'm out in public and somebody confronts me,
Speaker:"Oh, you're a friend of Wayne Barry.
Speaker:"You know Wayne Barry."
Speaker:And I go, "Nah."
Speaker:- That'd be safe.
Speaker:(audience laughs)
Speaker:- Might be the circles I'm in.
Speaker:Am I denying Wayne Barry in my life,
Speaker:or am I denying knowing him?
Speaker:(audience laughs)
Speaker:It's a matter of semantics.
Speaker:I'm denying Wayne Barry.
Speaker:It's not just saying I don't know him.
Speaker:I'm denying 21 years of relationship
Speaker:that he has had in my life.
Speaker:He's been a father figure in my life.
Speaker:So has this man.
Speaker:Bruce Kobel and Wayne and Ronnie and Gary
Speaker:have been father figures in my life.
Speaker:If I were to go out and deny knowing them,
Speaker:to me, I'm denying them.
Speaker:So I just encourage us.
Speaker:One, let's not be so hard on Peter anymore.
Speaker:(laughs)
Speaker:If we didn't have the example of Peter,
Speaker:we wouldn't know so much about our own self.
Speaker:But two, recognize the fact that even
Speaker:in Peter's worst moments,
Speaker:God never gave up.
Speaker:God never gave up on him.
Speaker:And we see the results of that from the back end
Speaker:after the power of the Holy Spirit comes into his life.
Speaker:The first sermon bringing in 3,000,
Speaker:we've got the two epistles,
Speaker:and we see everything of Peter's life
Speaker:to help establish the church,
Speaker:the first century church that was God's idea.
Speaker:So Peter's not so much a bad guy.
Speaker:Give him a break.
Speaker:And remember this, the next time that you do something dumb,
Speaker:say something ignorant that would make somebody think
Speaker:you don't know who Christ is in your life,
Speaker:just remember he ain't giving up on you either.
Speaker:If there's hope for Peter, there's hope for us.
Speaker:Trust me.
Speaker:And the biggest thing is
Speaker:remember how great God is.
Speaker:That had nothing to do with the lesson,
Speaker:but I just, I don't wanna,
Speaker:we know what's happening in the world.
Speaker:And I'm not just talking about politics,
Speaker:I'm talking about everything, the filth, the vulgarity.
Speaker:Why are we surprised?
Speaker:Have you read the book?
Speaker:It tells us that's coming.
Speaker:It tells us it's probably gonna get worse.
Speaker:But in that moment, we have to remember
Speaker:♪ How great is our God ♪
Speaker:♪ Sing with me how great ♪
Speaker:That's a clue to sing.
Speaker:♪ Our God ♪
Speaker:♪ And all will see how great ♪
Speaker:♪ How great is our God ♪
Speaker:Sing it again.
Speaker:♪ How great is our God ♪
Speaker:♪ How great is our God ♪
Speaker:♪ Sing with me how great ♪
Speaker:♪ Is our God ♪
Speaker:♪ And all will see how great ♪
Speaker:♪ How great is our God ♪
Speaker:Father, you are great.
Speaker:You are mighty.
Speaker:Forgive us God, forgive me.
Speaker:For making you too small in my eyes.
Speaker:There is nothing hidden from you, God.
Speaker:There is nothing that you don't know,
Speaker:that you don't control, that doesn't pass through your hands.
Speaker:So Lord, we trust you, God.
Speaker:Even, Lord, I pray the prayer, help my unbelief, God.
Speaker:In those moments of flesh and frailty
Speaker:when I'm not pursuing the Holy Spirit,
Speaker:where I'm not leaning in, Lord, help my unbelief.
Speaker:Help me never to lose sight
Speaker:that the same God that parted the waters,
Speaker:the same God that let the people free from Egypt,
Speaker:the same God that healed the blind, raised the dead,
Speaker:the same God that fed the 5,000,
Speaker:the same God who created and breathed the stars,
Speaker:is the same God that reigns and rules today.
Speaker:You are great, you are mighty, you are holy, you are good.
Speaker:You are a good, good Father.
Speaker:So Lord, let us never lose sight of how vast,
Speaker:how mighty, how awesome you truly are, God.
Speaker:Lord, let us never make you too small in our eyes, Lord.
Speaker:We know the outcome.
Speaker:We have read the book, "Lord, Let Our Faith Increase."
Speaker:Let us trust in you, God.
Speaker:Lord, we pray for the service today
Speaker:as we go into the next room.
Speaker:Lord, I pray over Pastor Jonathan, Lord,
Speaker:that you anoint him and speak through him
Speaker:in the things that you have given him.
Speaker:Holy Spirit, do as only you can do in our lives.
Speaker:You go with us from this place in Christ's name, amen.
Speaker:And we have time to talk, so I'll get rid of this.
Speaker:That's a lot.
