Have you ever gotten discouraged about something? I think we all have. Work can get discouraging sometimes. We turn on the TV or read about another war. We hear about another school shooting or how taxes are going up. We hear about the economy not doing so well, and we think to ourselves is this really a wonderful world like Louie Armstrong sung about? I got to say some of the most discouraging stuff that I encounter is working for others. It’s discouraging to love people and serve them and then have them return your good with hate. It gets really discouraging.
The average youth pastor stays at his job for only about 18 months. When Marika and I first came to Quartzsite in 2007 we hit the ground running. And we had a wonderful time. Our attendance from the start on an average Friday was about 30 teens. We had, at that time, a great Thursday night worship time. The youth ministry was electrifying and then came our 18 month mark. Within a couple weeks, we went from 30 on average to literally 2. No one was coming to our Thursday nights, so we moved them to Saturday for a little bit, but that didn’t work as well. Marika and I had spent so much time investing into teens and doing good work, and all of a sudden we hit a wall and we felt really discouraged.
It was at that point that we realized why so many youth pastors leave their jobs at the 18 month mark, because we wanted to leave too. Not only was there hardly any teens coming, but there were a couple of adults that felt like it was their responsibility to add to the discouragement. We were done, we felt like God dropped us off. We were so lost in our discouragement at the time we couldn’t figure out what was wrong with us; we thought that it was our style of ministry. We have a whole folder about how we do ministry and the reasons and purposes behind it. One of those reasons is that we are not people pleasers. We do ministry the way we feel God leading and we don’t change that because someone wants it differently.
In conversations with God there was a point where I began thinking that maybe we should change that. It was the lowest point that we’ve ever been in ministry.
It got to the point where I started thinking, “Why should I continue to work for the teens of Quartzsite when there is no response from them?”
Then as I read and prayed God brought me to the book of Galatians chapter 6 verse 9, where it says, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” I got to tell you I didn’t want to keep doing good and I wanted to give up. Because it is very difficult to do good, when that good isn’t repaid with good. When good is repaid with indifference or bad it becomes so easy to give up. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that, but for most of us I know we have a tendency to stop doing good to the people around us, especially when that good is repaid with bad.
This week God brought this verse back to my mind to share with you today, right now I’m not discouraged, I don’t want to give up. My ministry is doing better this summer than in almost all previous summers combined. Right now I am seeing the good that God promised in that verse, all based on God telling me to keep going on and not give up.
I think apart of it is because I realized back in that time of discouragement the fact that God never stopped working for good in my life, even when I would repaid his good with bad. In fact I think one of the reasons I like to pick on Peter in the Bible is because I’m so much like him. Peter was one of these guys that seemed to always repay Jesus’ good with bad.
Today we’re going to look at one of the greatest examples in Peter’s life where even in Peter’s bad, Jesus continued to give good to him. Turn with me if you will to John chapter 21 and we’ll start in verse 15.
As you are flipping in your Bibles to John 21:15, let me give you the background on how we’ve come to this place in Peter’s life.
Peter is one of these guys that doesn’t really know what to say, so he says whatever’s going through his mind at the time. When Jesus tells him at this last dinner that he was going to die, Peter didn’t believe him. When Jesus told his twelve disciples that one of them was going to betray him, Peter told him that it wasn’t going to be him. To this Jesus stopped everything and told Peter that not only would he deny knowing Jesus, but that he would do it three times.
That night, Jesus was betrayed by Judas, and as Jesus was taken from mid-night court to mid-night court Peter proceeded to deny that he knew Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times. Jesus had spent the last three years showing Peter the life that God had for him. Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, walked on water with him, showed him his transfigured form and showed the world what it meant to have God as your friend. Yet, in a sense, Peter denied those three years, with his three denials. Peter returned all the good that Jesus had done in his life, with three statements of rejection.
After he realized what he had done, Peter ran and hid as Jesus was crucified. Even after Jesus raised back from the dead, Peter was still in denial. Even when Peter saw Jesus alive he still shrunk away from him and returned to his previous life of fishing. The same life that Jesus had brought him out of so he could serve God.
And it’s here that we find ourselves today. Let’s Read.
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.
Peter did what Jesus said he was going to do, he denied knowing Jesus three times. Jesus could have easily turned his back on Peter, because Peter had turned his back on Jesus. But that’s not how God works. God does not return evil for evil, he returns evil with good. He does good even when everyone around him has given him bad. While on the cross Jesus didn’t return the evil that was happening to him with evil, instead he said, “Forgive them Father for they don’t know what they are doing.” Jesus gives forgiveness back to those that would give him evil.
To Peter Jesus was doing the same thing. Peter returned Jesus’ good with three denials. Jesus in turn asked Peter three times if he loved him. And with every response of Peter saying, “Yes I love you.” Jesus restored him back to a place where he could work for God’s kingdom. Peter’s evil action was repaid by Jesus with compassion, grace and forgiveness. Jesus repaid Peter with good.
Galatians 6:9 again says, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” In context this is what Paul, the writer of Galatians, is saying verse 7 through 10, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
It is easy for us to repay evil with evil. Our sinful human nature wants nothing better that to destroy those around us, especially those in the body of Christ. If I repaid the evil I faced five and half years ago with evil I know that God would not have blessed his ministry at this church. But even now we stand at a cross roads of what to do in our lives; it is easy to point to others and say, “Look what they have done” so that we can justify our own bad behavior, but the reality is we are to do good, no matter what anyone else does. We need to continue to forgive and give grace to the people around us.
There’s the old saying, “Once bitten twice shy.” People say this so that they can’t be hurt again by giving good to people. But with God that’s not the way we do things. We continue to do good not once, not twice but as many times as necessary to show the greatness of God. Jesus was once asked in Matthew 18:21 by Peter, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus replied with how we should respond to people’s evil to us. “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” That idea of 77 times was to show a number of innumerable size. Kind of like how we say a millions times or a trillions times.
So when we feel like someone has given to us evil how are we to respond? With good, not once, not twice, but every time until the Lord returns. That means we need to do good to everyone around us and as Paul says even more so to those who are in the Church. This week I would challenge you to pick one person that you don’t want to do good towards, single them out and do as much good as you can for them; all the while praying that they would be blessed by God.
It’s hard, and it goes against everything inside of us that doesn’t want to, but Jesus showed us, not only with Peter, but in our own lives how much good we need to give, in order to show that God is real and we are truly his followers. Again Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
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