Again, Believe
- May 17
- 28 min read
Updated: May 19
Pastor Stan Mons
Sermon Transcription:
We’re going into the word of God today, and the title that the Lord has given me for you is, again, Believe. Again, believe. It may surprise you, because it’s so easy to assume this, but the devil is not very concerned with making you sin. Every single one of us has been perfectly capable of doing that all by ourselves. And ever since Jesus paid for the sins of the world and you believed that he is the Son of God, sin can no longer send you to hell. No matter how much the devil may try, and maybe even convince you to sin, it still cannot send you to hell. So it is not necessarily his goal to make you very sinful now that you have heard that Jesus has come and Jesus is the Son of God. Now that you’ve heard that, it’s not necessarily his goal to make you sinful, because only now unbelief can separate you from God. Now, at times, he may want to use sin to sew unbelief into your heart, and he may very well tempt you into some stuff. But ultimately, the devil wants your faith to slow down, to get brittle and fragile and easily break apart until it eventually stops.
Not faith that God is real. The devil can care less whether or not you believe God is real.
Even the word tells us, “You believe God is real, you do well. So do the demons, and they tremble.” Every person that was practicing Judaism while they yelled, “Crucify, crucify him,” and they wanted to see Jesus nailed to the cross, every single one of them believed in God with all of their heart. Now, the devil wants, ultimately, your faith in Jesus to stop. The faith that says, “I know that I am perfectly forgiven before the Father because of Jesus. I could never be more sanctified, more pure, more clean, more loved, more wanted, more approved than I am today.”
That’s what Jesus has done. That faith, the devil wants to stop it. He wants to damage it. He wants to calm it down and, if possible, rob it out of your life. And for good reason. The devil doesn’t necessarily try to get you to engage in the grossest of sins all the time when you have heard about Jesus and you began to believe that he is the Son of God, because every time he tried that, you ran right back to God.
Every time you found yourself doing dumb stuff, or choosing wrong, or hurting someone, or speaking out of your flesh and anger and hurting someone’s feelings, or you’re choosing sin, every time, because of God’s goodness and his love for you, when you go to sin, what does he take away? He takes away your peace. And all of a sudden, you’re kind of alarmed, and you run right back to God because he doesn’t want you to build a love life with sin. He wants you to build a love relationship with him. So God has that covered. And the devil knows every time that I pull him or her into a gross, or an unintended, or a wrong, horrible sin, every time they run back to God. I don’t want them running back to God. Every time, they have a mini revival when they come back to the Lord. I don’t want that for the believer. If sinning more makes you run more to the foot of the cross, the enemy starts to look for other ways of getting you to stop pursuing the things of God and the things of faith. That becomes his goal.
I was just talking to the team before the service about how patient the devil is. The devil doesn’t really get any satisfaction out of getting you tripped up into sin on a Friday afternoon. But he wants to see you at the end of your days, when you may just be 70 years old. That’s where he wants to see you insecure about whether or not you are perfectly clean standing before the Father. That’s his goal today. He starts with very small, simple, almost unnoticeable steps that you will agree to and you will accept so that, by the end of your life, he can have you where he wants you. That’s his goal. That’s what he tries to do. And all kinds of things can be a part of that, as long as he gets you to stop pursuing, stop trying, stop making room for what God wants to grow in your life. There’s things God wants to grow in your life. And if we don’t let God have his way throughout our days, then other things grow in our lives.
There’s the parable of the sower that explains it very clearly: things choking the word out of the heart. And the explanation of that parable tells us that the things and the concerns of this world, not necessarily sinful stuff, just paying the bills at the end of the month, not necessarily sinful stuff, just raising the kids, just concerns that we have in this world, the enemy will somehow seek to shift your focus to those things to such an extent. Things that you cannot really call sin, and you wouldn’t really run to an altar for; things that you cannot really call wrong at first glance. He wants to get you so committed, and so obsessed, and so given to those things that the very things that God designed in your life for you to be shining strong and pure in faith at the end of your days, for those things to start going down on the priority list.
That’s the enemy’s goal. And the writer of the book of Hebrews is addressing this very issue because it’s growing in the church that he writes to. And I believe with all my heart that it is equally growing in the churches in America today. And Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, gives us the danger sign. Here it is. Let’s start in verse 11 of Hebrews chapter 5: “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.”
When someone is cooling down in their love towards Jesus, and love is often expressed in time, in giving their time to come and talk to Jesus in the morning, sometimes throughout your day, to take your time and to say, “I want to know. I want to try and understand what the Bible says about the issues that I’m facing in life.” “I want to try and understand what God has to say and what I can expect from God in all these situations. I want to try and understand how God wants me to run my business. I want to try and understand what God wants me to do, or how he wants me to behave, when I go to high school or college. I want to understand what God wants me to do with sports in my life. I’m trying to understand what God wants to do with my free time. I’m trying to understand.” The word says, “You no longer try to understand.” There’s one thing, and not everybody has to raise their kids the way I do. This is how I see the Lord raise me, so I try to copy that in the way that I raise my kids.
There’s very few things I have very little patience for as much as when they stop trying. I don’t care if they fail. I don’t care if they make a mess. I don’t care if they butcher it. I don’t care if they get everything wrong. But to see them try, oh, it just fills my heart. And God has never expected anything more or less from me. Just get up. The Bible says the righteous falls seven times. And that number, in the Jewish culture, is the number of fullness. That means the righteous falls all the time. The righteous will be falling, but they get back up. They never stop trying. They never give up. We’re not a giving-up kind of people. I always tell my kids, “You’re a Mons. We don’t give up.” Like the chest comes up. But we try. It’s fine if you fail. Fail a million times, but we don’t stop trying. And here the writer of Hebrews begins to address an issue where something gets into the heart where a believer, somebody that has a love for Jesus, it may have cooled down a little bit, but they have something of a belief that Jesus is the reason they can now run to God.
Something can happen in the life of a person like that where they’re no longer trying to understand the things of God. They’re no longer putting in the work, so to speak, to focus and to use the God-given mind we have, the God-given intellect we have, the God-given time we have every day. They no longer try to use that to see Jesus, to learn more of Jesus, to learn how to follow him, to show up at a prayer meeting, to learn how to pray for one another, to show up at discipleship where we learn how to carry everything God has given us into other people’s lives so we can be a blessing to them. Maybe you say, “I don’t even really read my Bible at home anymore. I’ve stopped trying. It got hard. I read a couple of times. It made no sense to me. And eventually, I don’t know how it happened, but I stopped trying.” That’s where these people were that the book of Hebrews is written to. “It’s hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.” Verse 12: “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers.” In other words, by this time you should be understanding it so well that you’re able to very clearly explain it to others, and they get it too. That’s a teacher. “By this time you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food.” What does that mean? Who’s been to elementary school?
You know what that means. If you need elementary truth again, you can’t really start math with a kid. They first have to learn to count 1 through 10, then 1 through 20. Well, that’s very basic, but you need to do it or else math will never make sense to you.
They first have to start to memorize their ABCs or else learning, and beginning to learn the short little words, does not make any sense. You’ve got to start with the beginnings first. And that’s what he’s saying. You still need to work on those beginning works so that eventually, when you have all of that clear, now you can put it all together and begin to actually understand what God wants to do with your life so that your life amounts to something. He says, “You still need the milk, and you need it again, not solid food,” using little kid language, elementary school. Then he goes to verse 13: “Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant,” again, a little child reference, “being still an infant,” not grown up, not able to take care of themselves. Think about that for a minute. Not able to take care of yourself in your spiritual condition. “That person is not acquainted with the teachings about righteousness.” “But solid food is for the mature, those who have grown up, who by constant use…”
See, one stops trying; one is constantly using it. One stops pursuing and trying; one is constantly using it. He says this is how they did it. This is how they grew up. They constantly used it. “Who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Not just understanding sin. You could just grab some scriptures. You could even grab the things Jesus teaches about, “If you look at a woman, you’ve already sinned.” You can find all of these scriptures and say, “Well, this is clearly sin. This is clearly sin. This is clearly sin.” Just memorize it. Now you know. That’s not what the scripture here is talking about. By constant use of getting to know Jesus, constantly using the relationship with him, constantly using the scriptures, constantly using the place of prayer that he bought for us, constantly using the promises of God to fight our battles, not our own strength, by constant use, they’ve trained themselves.
In other words, God doesn’t do this for you. They’ve trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
In other words, they know what to do and they know what not to do. Not talking about sin. They know what decisions to make in life and which decisions are not going to contribute to their spiritual growth. The people that the book of Hebrews would have been written to, they were no longer trying to understand. In other words, they were making decisions that they probably thought were good decisions for their life, except these decisions were not helping their spiritual growth. They were evil decisions. They were not good decisions according to God. But I believe with all my heart some of these people, they loved Jesus, and they thought they were just doing what was right. But because they weren’t constantly using the word, they weren’t constantly stretching out to know Jesus better every day, they weren’t constantly pursuing spiritual growth in their life, because of that, their ability to decide what is good for me and what is not good for me, they lost it. And they ended up in a place where now the writer says, “You’re now in a place in your life where you’re not even trying anymore.”
Then in chapter 6, he continues in verse 4 because there’s a progression to this. He starts to talk about those that fall away from believing in Jesus, exactly what the enemy tries to do: to get people to a point where they may still believe in God, but they no longer believe they are forgiven because of Jesus. They no longer believe that they are heard by the Father the moment they pray. They no longer believe that all of the giftings of the Spirit are available to them and they can ask, and God can give at his own timing and his own will. They begin to doubt those things instead of believe them. There’s a progression here. Verse 4: “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss, they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”
In other words, this is the person that gladly took the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and then kept on living their life as if Jesus will just keep on paying for it and I just get away with living however I want to live. We see it right here in verse 7 and 8. A parable is briefly brought to our attention. Verse 7: “Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed, receives the blessing of God.”
Seems logical. Verse 8: “But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed, and in the end it will be burned.” So here we see this parable, and clearly he’s speaking about different people in the church. And he says the rain comes on every heart, and the ground of the heart receives what God is giving from heaven. The word is being preached. You can learn to pray. You can learn to follow Jesus. You can learn what the Bible says. The rain from God, the living water from God, is constantly coming upon your life. But one person, with that same rain, that same input from heaven, the word says if they produce crop, if they produce fruit, exactly what those that are supposed to reap it have intended, what the Lord has intended for that rain to produce in your life, blessing comes on your life. Growth is on your life.
But if that same land, someone else receives all that same rain, but their life produces stuff that has the ability to hurt people, to poke people, to wound people, and nothing good is growing in that place, that person is in danger of being cursed. That word “cursed” in the Bible is not some witch-crafty thing. That word “cursed” in the Bible means separated from God.
Danger of being separated from God, and in the end it will be burned. Not good news. Now, the writer of Hebrews knew and believed with all of his heart, I believe this, that the people he was writing to could still see and hear something in their heart from the voice of God. Because this is what he says in verse 9: “Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case, the things that have to do with salvation.”
In other words, he says, “I believe you can still hear. You need this warning. You need this wake-up call, but I believe you can still hear.” And today, the title of our message is, again, Believe.
And I want to look with you at a story of somebody that could have just, right there, been the perfect fit in the Hebrew church. He would have fit right in. He was such a failure, it’s unbelievable. We’re going to look at Peter. Luke 22:31–33. We’re going to read it from the New King James Version, and then we’re going to read it also from the Amplified Version right afterwards. Verse 31: “And the Lord said, ‘Simon, Simon! Indeed Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail. And when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren.’” But he said to him, “Lord, I’m ready to go with you both to prison and to death. Don’t worry, Jesus.” And then in the Amplified Version, this is how it reads: “Simon, Simon (Peter), listen. Satan has demanded permission to sift all of you like grain. But I have prayed especially for you, Peter, that your faith and confidence in me may not fail. And you, once you have turned back again to me, strengthen and support your brothers in the faith.” And Peter said to him, “Lord, I’m ready to go with you both to prison and to death.”
So here we see that in the original text, which the Amplified brings out a lot clearer, Jesus wasn’t just saying to Peter, “Satan has desired to mess with you.” No, Jesus is telling all of his disciples right there, “Satan has desired to mess with all of you. You’ve walked with me for three years personally. You have personally walked with Jesus. You have personally learned from Jesus. You’ve personally received stuff from Jesus. Now the devil’s come. He’s asked for all of you.” “By the way, Peter, I prayed for you. You’re pretty rough. I prayed for you that your faith and confidence in me may not fail.” Jesus was pretty confident the others were going to do fine. But he looked at Peter and said, “I especially prayed for you, Peter, that your faith and confidence in me may not fail.” And Peter goes, “Lord, honestly, I’m ready to go with you to prison. I’m ready to go with you to death. It’s okay, Jesus. Don’t worry so much.” “It’s going to be fine.” And that little Peter attitude fits into every person’s life that ever ends up right there in Hebrews, where they find themselves at a place where they’ve kind of stopped trying.
Things that were birthed into your life when Jesus came to knock on your heart, new things started. You made new commitments. You started doing other things. And those things, if you find yourself in a place where you stopped trying to do those things that Jesus birthed in your life, you’ve had that little Peter moment. “Jesus, don’t worry so much today. I don’t need to read. I got other things to do. I’m pretty busy today. I got to run.” But you should be in the, “Jesus, don’t worry so much. I’m ready to follow you. I’m ready to serve you. I love your people. I can see you with the eyes of my heart. It’s okay, Jesus. I got stuff to do.” And it starts with that little Peter attitude that says, “Jesus, it doesn’t have to be that exaggerated. I’m okay. I’m going to be fine. It’s going to be okay. I’ll be back tomorrow.” And Jesus prays this very specific thing. He doesn’t say, “I prayed that the devil will not be able to touch you.” No, he says, “I kind of gave the devil permission to mess with y’all. You’re going to be fine, but you, Peter, I needed to really pray for you that your faith and your confidence in me may not fail.”
Peter, your confidence in yourself is going to be shredded to pieces, but I pray that your faith and confidence in me may not fail. And sometimes believers in the very church of the living God can really end up in that guilty slot right there described in Hebrews 5 and Hebrews 6.
“You ought to have been a teacher by now.” How many years you’ve been saved, how many years you walked with Jesus, the way he delivered you, you ought to have been a teacher by now. But here you are still running to Jesus because your forgiveness is not always clear to your heart. Still running to Jesus for the milk. Still running to Jesus: “Lord, teach me to pray. Lord, teach me how to find the courage to lay hands on somebody and pray for their healing. Lord, teach me to find somebody to tell about you. And maybe I’ll even get to baptize somebody one day.” You’re still stuck in the elementary stuff, the very beginning stuff of getting to know what God is really doing in his kingdom right here on earth.
You can find yourself right there fitting in in that Hebrew church. And if you fit in right there, which I know I have many times, what the devil’s really trying to convince you of, and I mean he is so crafty, he massages that thing in. He takes his time. He does it slowly. He does it crafty. He makes sure it doesn’t hurt. He makes sure it doesn’t really stand out like sin. He massages that thing gently into your life so that it’s easier for you to accept it. He’s trying to convince you that your identity is not in Christ, and it’s really your fault. “You ought to have been a teacher by now. You know the things, the choices you were going to make and how you went back on them. You know how you said, ‘Lord, I’m going to be at church now. I’m going to invest in my spiritual growth. God, I know you’re calling me. I’m going.’” And you didn’t. You’ve made all the choices. And the enemy begins to try to convince you that your identity is not in Christ. Your identity is in your failures, your shortcomings, your wrongs, your lack of commitment.
He begins to try to make you feel that you carry all of that stuff with you every day, and God probably sees all of those bad decisions or those wrong decisions every day that he looks at you. And slowly but surely, it becomes a little harder to go to prayer at home and to come before the Lord excited because you know he’s going to listen to you. Now you come before him and you’re kind of worried about your sin, and you’re kind of worried about your decisions, and kind of worried about whether or not God will answer my prayer and whether or not he will open the word specially by his Spirit to my heart that I may understand it. Because on your mind you think, “Man, I haven’t read my Bible for three days, and now here I am, and I only have seven minutes.” “What can I expect from God?” The enemy tries to make you believe that your identity is not in Christ, but that it is still in the things that you do not do so well. And then he goes, “But it’s really your fault that we’re here. You made the wrong choices.” And then, when he gets you a little convinced of that, he takes a turn because the goal of massaging all of those lies into your heart and into your mind is to eventually make you believe that you are going to end up, and maybe you already are, a second-grade Christian, a second-tier Christian.
That you will be part of that group that is not really committed, that is not really all in. Man still goes to church, still believes in God, but they’re not going to be used in the miraculous workings of God. They’re not going to be used in furthering the kingdom. They’re not going to be used by God to bring hope and redemption and raise kids that are absolutely in love with Jesus. “You’re not in that group. And it’s because of your choices that you are not in that group. In this group, you’re going to be accepted. You’re going to fit right in.” That’s what the enemy wants to massage into the heart. And the reason he does it is to get your faith and your confidence in Jesus to begin to shift. The word tells us that because of Jesus, we are forgiven. And the enemy wants to break your confidence in that. Are you confident, boastful, that you are forgiven? See, the word tells us that we boast in Christ, not in our own strength, not in our own abilities, but by what Jesus has done for us, like we can be really proud of, we can be really grateful for, we can be really confident in.
It’s never going to be shaken. It’s never going to be taken. Are you confident that you are forgiven? Do you tell somebody? Do you say it in the mirror? “Thank God I’m forgiven today.”
Are you confident that you have been forgiven because of Jesus? Or has the enemy been messing with you, trying to shift and break your confidence so that you become quiet and insecure and doubtful and you begin to feel like a second-grade Christian? “I’m just glad that I’m allowed to come.” The word tells us you’re justified. You’re right with the Father. You’re right with God when you stand before the Father. Even today, if you would imagine standing before him, you are justified. There’s nothing different when we’re talking about how right God is and how right you are. There is no difference. That’s what Jesus did. There is nothing wrong with you. That’s what Jesus did. He justified you. There’s not a wrong you’ve committed in your life that is still yours. When you stand before God, you are just as right as he is.
That’s what that means. Are you confident of that? Or do you doubt that? Are you a little insecure in that? The word says that you are sanctified. “Well, I don’t always behave like it.”
That’s true. But God has sanctified us in Christ. Now, what he would like to do is he would like for you to listen to him, not to get saved, but because you are saved. And as we listen to him, I still have no idea how he does it, I just know he does. As we listen to God, he does a miracle.
The sanctification that he already sees on the inside, he slowly works it towards our outside, and our actions begin to change. The way we talk begins to change. It’s not us trying to be better, or trying to be good, or trying to change ourselves at all. As we seek Jesus, and he asks us little things and tells us little things, and we just say, “Lord, I just want to do whatever you say,” and we begin to listen to him, he begins to do a miracle. All those things in our life that are not really like him, he just begins to somehow miraculously change them. He begins to bring the sanctification that is on the inside toward our outside.
But you have been sanctified. In other words, you have been made clean. There’s nothing dirty about you. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’ve been made clean before the Father.
Are you confident of that? “You’ve been regenerated.” What that means is you’ve been taken out of one generation. In other words, your father, your mother, your grandparents, you’ve been taken out of that generation. You’re no longer spiritually their kid or their grandkid, and you’ve been taken out of that family, and God literally made you a part of his own family. So the wrongs of your dad, the wrongs of your mom, the wrongs of your grandparents, or anybody in that generation, have no effect on you anymore. The benefits of their good actions have no effect on you anymore. You now get to be a part of God’s family that knows no flaws. There’s nothing wrong with the Father. There’s nothing wrong with the Son. There’s nothing wrong with the Spirit. And you get to have all the benefits of being part of that family. Are you confident of that?
The devil wants you to lose confidence toward the very things that Jesus has gifted to you.
He’s gifted them to you. He paid the price to purchase them, and then he has gifted all of them to you for free. And somehow the devil wants to get you to a place where your confidence that all these things were gifted to you, and that you can lean on them, he wants that confidence to break apart. He wants to weaken your faith. He wants to weaken your confidence as a sinner saved by grace. He wants you to feel like a sinner again that believes in God and tries to figure it out. He doesn’t want you to feel like a sinner saved by grace, full of joy, party every day. He doesn’t want it. And even in this moment, online or here in person, the enemy will seek to play on your mind and play on your emotions and give you every reason as to why you will not be used like the Apostle Paul in your generation, or why you will not be used to bring people in your family to Christ Jesus, why you will not be able to speak up on the job and help people believe on Christ Jesus and receive eternal salvation.
Even at this moment, the enemy can be attacking you and explaining to you why you will always be a second-tier Christian, why you will not be used for miracles and salvation in other people’s lives. And he won’t only be bringing up obvious sins. He may do it, but the enemy will bring thoughts to your mind like, “Your path in life is already set. You’re too far in. You’re already too committed. You’re already committed to so much in your life. You can’t go back now. This is the road you’re on. You can’t turn all of that around.” And when the warning comes forth, and the warning is for you, that you ought to have been a teacher by now, if you’re getting that warning, you have already given the devil a lot to work with. If this warning is for you, you’ve already given the devil a lot to work with against your faith and against your confidence in Christ Jesus. And that is the man, that is the woman, that God has a word for this morning. It’s very simple: Again, believe. One more time, choose to believe as you once did when you first came to Jesus. One more time, choose to place all of your confidence in me. Luke 22:31 and the first part of verse 32, I will read it to you again: “And the Lord said, ‘Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I prayed for you that your faith should not fail.’”
That you continue to believe, that again and again you choose to believe. In the original text, this is what that word “sift” means. Literally, it means to shake a sieve, a tool to separate the chaff from the wheat. But the implication is very clear in the original text: By inward… Think about this for a moment. “By inward agitation to try one’s faith to the verge of overthrow.”
That’s what he’s telling Peter the devil has asked to do: to agitate things on the inside to the point where the faith that is there feels like it’s going to be overthrown. That’s what he’s seeking to do. And Peter had given the devil so much to work with. So much to work with.
He had lied to Jesus to his face. He had lied to Jesus. He told Jesus face to face, “I will never forsake you. Others may deny you. I will not.” He had lied to Jesus’ face, just like some in the body of Christ have done. “Jesus, you can have all of my life.” “Jesus, I’m not going back.”
“Jesus, I don’t want to ever do that sin again.” Lying to the face of Jesus. And the devil is taking those kinds of things to begin to convince Peter, and to convince believers in the churches today, that they are second-grade Christians now. They will not be part of those that never denied him, never lied to him.
Peter was promising, making promises to Jesus, one of the foolish things that a Christian could ever do, making promises to Jesus. Jesus, he said, “Jesus, you will never wash my feet.” Jesus had come together with his disciples, his friends, and Jesus had taken the towel of a servant and was going on his knees and would wash the feet of his disciples and dry them off, taking the lowest place of the lowest servant in the house. And the disciples must have all been pretty confused and pretty worried. But it was Peter who spoke up and said, “Jesus, you will never wash my feet. I promise you, Jesus, you will never wash my feet.” In other words, “Jesus, you will not have to be a humble servant in my life. I know who you are. I’m going to walk better than that. I will take the servant place. You won’t have to do it. I can do it better now, Jesus. You will not have to go on your knees for me. You won’t have to be cleaning me. I promise you, I’m going to be better. You’ll never wash my feet.”
So many people say, “Lord, I’ll never do that sin again. Lord, I never ever want to look at that stuff again. Lord, I never want to use words like that again. Lord, I’m never going to watch an R-rated movie ever again. I’ll never sin, Lord Jesus.” Making promises and breaking every single one of them. Peter had been hurting people that Jesus died for to such an extent that he drew the sword on a young man that Jesus was going to go on the cross for, and Jesus was going to die for his sins. And Peter is completely out of touch with the heart of God. He draws the sword, cuts off his ear. Thank God he didn’t have good aim. But he was hurting people that Jesus died for. Talking about people and talking them into the ground, or talking negatively about them. They may not be saved yet, and to you they may look like real enemies and real mean people, and you just forget that Jesus told you to love your enemies. And you’re able to just say and do hurtful things to people that Jesus died for, just like Peter did. And Peter denied Jesus. “Well, I haven’t done that.” Maybe you say, “See what Peter did.” If you read the story, depending on the people he was around, he behaved different.
When he was around the crowd that were not really following Jesus, and they weren’t excited about Jesus, as a matter of fact they may have even been a little against Jesus, Peter was toning down, didn’t talk about the Lord, didn’t honor him, didn’t praise him, didn’t speak up about him, even went as far as to start using cuss words just to fit in with that crowd. And then when he was with the disciples, obviously he was walking like Peter and how Peter does. And when he was talking face to face with Jesus, he was saying, “Listen, I’ll go and die with you. I’ll go to prison with you.” He was just adjusting to whatever company he was around. He was behaving according to the people that he was around. And in doing so, he was denying Jesus.
Peter was even told by Jesus that he was inspired by the devil. When Jesus told him, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” he wasn’t calling Peter the devil, but he was telling him, “Listen, what you are hearing in your mind now, what you think is good that you’re speaking now, it’s coming straight from the mind of Satan.” But Jesus doesn’t tell him any of it.
He says, “Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat, but I’ve prayed for you that your faith should not fail.” Jesus does not bring any of these pretty substantial failures up. And Jesus doesn’t sit him down and say, “Peter, we’re going to have to really do some changing now in your life.” You understand that, right, Peter? He doesn’t say, “Peter, this behavior needs to stop.” No, Jesus doesn’t say that. None of it offended Jesus. None of it seemed to really be a worry to God. It doesn’t really worry him. He doesn’t bring it up. He doesn’t give Peter the battle plan of how all of these things need to be straightened out in his life. But here is what Jesus did say: “I pray that you may stay confident and that your faith may keep going, that it won’t stop, and that you may always choose to again believe when the devil has so much against you that it feels like he can just overthrow your faith, and he’s right in doing so. He has every reason to do so because I made all the bad decisions.” That you may say, “No, I’m going to just go to God believing that because of Jesus, I am perfect in his sight.”
That’s what Jesus said to Peter.
He didn’t try to fix broken Peter. He told him, “You keep believing. Watch what happens. You keep believing that Jesus is Messiah. I’m forgiven because of him.” Do you say this daily? Do you remind your soul, church? Do you remind the Lord? Do you celebrate with the Lord daily?
“God, you’ve saved somebody like me. Can you believe it, Lord? Somebody like me, forgiven because of what Jesus did. Somebody like me going to be used in your kingdom because of what Jesus did. Can you believe it, God? That’s just crazy.” Do you tell him? Are you confident in your forgiveness? Do you choose to again believe every time you give the devil something to work with, instead of beginning to listen to the enemy that somehow your choices are beginning to form your identity? I’m perfect in the eyes of the Father because of Jesus.” Can you say that about yourself? “Because of Jesus, I’m spotless.” With every mistake you’ve made, every poor decision you’ve made: “I’m spotless because of Jesus.” Not saying it with your mind, but having a heart full of confidence.
Isaiah 61:10. The prophet says this: “I delight greatly in the Lord. My soul rejoices in my God.”
There’s a reason. Here it comes: “For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” Church, you may be just as messed up as Peter was. You may have a similar list to what Peter had. You may be a poor example of a Christian. You may have failed every commitment you’ve ever made to God. You may have done it all wrong.
But I want you to understand that Jesus knew this before you did it. And he knew the devil wanted to use it against you. And he knew that the enemy wants you to be giving up and stop trying to press forward into the things of God. But Jesus does not expect you to be any better than Peter. No. All Jesus desires from you is that you don’t let your faith stop and that you will choose to again believe that because of Jesus, you are perfect in the eyes of the Father. “I delight greatly in the Lord. My soul rejoices in my God, for he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.”
It’s you and I saying, “I believe that I am absolutely ready for the wedding feast of the Lamb. If the Lord calls me home tonight, if the Lord comes and calls us up into the clouds today, I’m so ready.” It’s like a groom and a bride that prepare for their wedding day. Everything else is on hold, and they prepare for this one special day. That’s what God sees me like. That’s what Jesus has done in my life. I’m perfectly ready. Confidence and faith is a choice constantly, church. It’s not something that happens to you. Confidence and faith in Jesus is a choice we make daily, to place our confidence, our expectation that things will go well, to place that confidence in Jesus. To say, “If Jesus took care of my eternity, he’ll surely take care of my today. I’m confident in him. I believe he is good. I believe he will keep his word.” And some of you here, some of you online, you somehow got to that place in life where you’re not trying to understand anymore.
You’re not trying daily anymore to make those choices of confidence, consciously to make those choices of faith in all of the situations of your life constantly. You’ve kind of stopped trying to understand along the way. It got a little hard. The enemy got away with some abuse and some stuff, some lying in your life. And somehow, someway, you are here, and you’re not trying as you once were. This morning, I have good news for you. This morning, you have a choice. You have a choice to get back in the race with Jesus, to choose daily to grow in faith and confidence. You’re not stuck. You don’t need to get somehow resaved. You’re not a problem case. You’re not a second-tier Christian. God is waiting for you to choose again, for your faith to grow. God is waiting for you to choose again, for you to take your confidence and to put it back on Jesus and to get in the race and run it, to start trying again.
If you would stand with me for a moment. If you want to say to the Lord today, “Lord, today I choose again to believe.” I want to ask you, if the Lord has stirred your heart at all this morning, throughout this service, the Holy Spirit’s been touching your heart, trying to get your attention. You may not even really know exactly what for, but He’s doing something in your heart. If that is you, I want to invite you to come forward here to the altar so that we can pray together, and we’re going to pray very specifically that the work the Holy Spirit is beginning to do in your heart may be sealed so that the enemy cannot touch it, he cannot rob it, he cannot take it away from you. But God is going to get you back on track. If you have something that you think the Holy Spirit is trying to do in your heart, would you come and join me at this time right here at the altar? Hallelujah.
-Pastor Stan Mons
