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The word I've got is very powerful.
Basically, you know when you study it, you cannot be the
same. It has to.
It will change us. Basically, it will change us.
So let's look into Galatians chapter 6 and verse one.
Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual
should restore him gently, but watch yourself or you also may
be tempted. And that verse was very, very
powerful because as I was meditating on it, it was just
coming alive. So it is talking about if
someone is caught in a sin, now it is what?
How is someone caught in a sin? It is like, you know, imagine
you are running away from the tiger or a lion, but lion is
faster, it catches you. Similarly, you are aware of the
sin and you are running, trying to run away from the sin.
You do not want to be caught by the sin.
You are running away from it, but it is faster, it catches
you. It can also mean somebody who is
caught red handed. You know the word used there
caught in a sin is basically caught in a sin red handed.
And that kind of a thing, thing you find in where is it?
John chapter 8 verses 3 to 5. In that scripture we see the
teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman
caught in adultery. They made her stand before the
group and said to Jesus, teacher, this woman was caught
in the act of adultery in the law, Moses in in the law of
Moses. Moses commanded us to stone such
women. Now what do you say?
You know this. You have to imagine when you
read that portion again in the next verse, it says they kept on
asking him, the kept on pestering him.
What is your response? What is your response like?
Let us imagine some leaders of Sadducees and Pharisees.
They bring a lady, say this lady is caught in the very act.
We found her red handed and Moses, the law of Moses says we
should stone her. But what do you say?
They want to test him and see if he says yes, we have to do it.
Then He is being very ruthless, but he says no, He is
contradicting the law of Moses. They wanted to find fault with
him. That was the main purpose.
But what did? And imagine like Jesus was
sitting there and he put his head down and he was writing on
the ground with his finger. He was writing on the ground
with his finger. And many people have preached.
There are thousands of sermons about what must be Jesus writing
on the ground. You know, it is a big question
mark. So every preacher will try to
understand what was he writing. So I did my part little bit.
So I see that initially there was a time I preached saying he
wrote on a stone because it was in the temple precincts.
I thought it must be floor is already there with stones and he
was writing on the stone. But this time when I was reading
the scripture, my attention came cord that he was writing on the
ground. So ground is soil, basically it
is soil, it is mud there, dust there.
He is writing into the dust. Remember this, Jesus is Yahweh,
the one who wrote with his finger the law of God and gave 2
stone tablets to Moses. That Yahweh is now in the flesh
and here he has come as a saviour.
He wrote once with the finger so that the whole world can be held
accountable when they sin. The 10 commandments is the basis
of every countries law system you can have even Russia.
They can tell there are no morals when there is no God.
ACC country has no morals and still they enforce moral law.
Why? What is the basis?
Recently I heard a story of a man and a woman.
Man was a Christian, now he doesn't believe in Crash anymore
and the woman is atheist. And they didn't want to marry in
the church, they had a civil marriage.
And then now that man was in touch with another lady texting,
and this lady caught him and she was insisting that what you are
doing is not right and started beating him every day or once or
twice in a week. My question is, you don't
believe in God, then what do you, how do you enforce A moral
law? What is the basis for your moral
law? You cannot tell somebody, you
cannot tell lie because that comes from the book of Exodus.
You cannot tell somebody, you cannot commit adultery because
that comes from the law. So that Yahweh has written with
his own finger on the stone tablet and gave it to Moses, and
that has become the moral law for the whole world, every
country. But now that Yahweh is in the
flesh, in the beating was the Word, and the Word was God, and
the Word was God, and Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And now He is bedding down and writing on the dust.
What was He writing on the dust? It is a message of mercy,
because we see that in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 17, verse
13. The Lord, the hope of Israel,
all who abandoned you will be put to shame.
All who turn away will be written in the dust.
But they abandoned the Lord, the fountain of living water.
When you abandon God, your name will be written on the dust.
That means you will be erased, forgotten.
If you write on the stone, it will not be forgotten.
In the town where I am, there are some hills around.
People will go and write something on it.
You take some chalk or some kind of a lime, whatever.
Somebody will write the word love, somebody will write some
his girlfriend's name, or you know, something like that.
But after years and years, it still stays.
It is never erased. It stays on what?
Because written on the stone. I tell you, God to convict us,
writes the law on the stone. But when he wants to deal with
you, he wants to deal with you in mercy.
So write it on the ground. He is a God of mercy.
Not he did not come to judge. He came to say that's why he
bent down and started writing on the dust.
So even though he's caught, things can happen in the church
also in the family. We are like a big family.
Church is a big family.
So someone is caught in a sin. Is it possible to for someone to
commit sin? Yeah, it's possible.
If you are a man, if you are a woman, you share in the flesh
and blood. It is possible to commit sin
because we have two natures. We already saw in chapter 5,
sometimes the old nature, the sinful nature takes over and we
commit sin. So here he is giving you a an
example how to deal with sin in the in the church.
So he says if someone is caught in a sin, someone is caught in a
sin, how to deal with it? You who are spiritual should
restore him gently. What is the qualification?
One must be spiritual. What did he say about it in
chapter 5 was 16, he says So I say live by the Spirit and you
will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
You have to learn to live by the Spirit.
If you are not living by the Spirit, we cannot correct
somebody. We must be first, right before
we can go and tell somebody, hey, you are doing wrong with
Jesus himself gives another example.
In the summer of the mortgages, before you look at the speck in
your brother's eye, remove the log from your own eye.
What is he trying to say? What is he trying to say?
Let's just dramatize it a little bit.
Let's say I have this book in my eye.
The whole Bible is there inside my eye and I am looking at
somebody and say, hey, this small speck in your eye, can I
remove it? What will you say?
First take off that Bible from your face before you can spot,
spot the small speck in my eye. You cannot see the small mistake
in somebody when we have a big mistake in our own life.
So it disqualifies us basically to correct somebody.
But we are all fallen vessels. We all need some kind of an
input and in the body there has to be a place for correction and
there has to be a place for receiving correction.
Otherwise we will not grow together.
It is not about criticism, it is not about putting down somebody,
but we have to do it gently. So the word restore in the
Greek, the word restore is Qatar, Qatar tizo.
Qatar Tizo, It is the Greek word.
It means two different things. Restoring is like a broken bone
being set. Let's say if my hand is broken
here, does the whole body feel the pain?
Only hand feels the pain. Why there is no response in the
church when you have one person who is unhappy, one person who
is hurt, It is like a broken bone and the whole body suffers.
Whole body suffers. I can break my leg, but I cannot
say ah, just my leg, I am happy. Who who let me sing and dance.
You can't do that because a broken bone will make you aware
that you are in pain. So the body is like the church
is like a small family and a body and that pain will be
there. But is it easy or a pleasant
experience to set the bone these days?
You know it is most of the we have got systematized hospitals.
You go there into emergency, they will take an X-ray and see
where it is broken and put it and put the caste.
But in the olden days it was not.
So you go to the person who sets the bone.
You know he sits in a shop and you go to him.
He will pull and push until he knows that it is sitting in the
right place. It is a painful experience.
No anesthesia, no anesthetics were given.
And then he will put some ointment and then put some
splinters and then bandage it so it does not move until it heals.
A very painful experience. So in the church, when there is
hurt, it is a painful experience for the church, Not for one
person, it's for everybody because that one person will
talk to somebody. You know, Ramana, don't believe
him. He stands there and preaches,
but he's not a Goodman. He said this to me.
So it goes on and there's a lot of things going on in the
church. So what is he trying to say?
Paul is when we have a similar situation.
Now second uses mending the Nets.
The same word restore is used for mending the Nets.
Suppose you are a fisherman and you got a huge net, you go cast
it and then bring in the fish. But if there is a some place
where is cut, there is a big hole, what will happen?
Fish will escape from it. So what the fisherman does after
the job of fishing is done is you look for any that is torn
areas and mend it. That is the word restore,
Katarziso. So we have to restore in love
and we have to do it spiritual should do it gently.
It has to be done gently. But no correction is gentle.
No correction is gentle. If somebody wants to tell me
your message is not good, how am I going to say you are done?
You has an excellent observation, will try to change
it. Thank you very much.
Am I going to do that? I am going to.
Why is this man saying that to me?
You know, there will be some kind of unpleasantness with
correction. Always.
It is there. There is no person who can say I
am so on the top of the world because you are correcting me.
It's not that easy. But Paul says we have to do it
gently. And yeah, coming back to the
story of Jesus, he bend down and was writing and then they kept
on asking, what do you say? Somebody else in this corner?
What do you say from that corner?
What do you say Jesus? Jesus was ultimately said, stood
up and straightened up and everybody is now going to He
wanted to, they wanted to he. He lifted up his head,
straightened up and said he who has no sin through the first
stone, whoever has no sin through the first stone.
And then I started bringing down, writing down on the ground
again in the soil. Probably he was writing about
the verse in Hosea chapter 6 where it says I desire mercy,
not sacrifice. He may be writing down on the
ground. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
Or he might be writing the very command, very commandment that
she broke. Do not commit adultery.
But then he must be talking about.
Do not bear false witness. Do not tell lies.
Whatever commandments they must be breaking, he must be writing
down on the ground. Probably it's just only guess
work, but people can look on the ground.
What is his finger is doing? And one by one they left, until
only the lady was left before standing before Jesus.
So where are your accusers? Has no one accused you?
No one to do the first tone? Say no, my Lord, neither I want
to condemn you. Go in peace and do not sin.
Forgiveness comes with a chance not to sin again, not to do it
again. It's not a license to keep on
doing wrong. Saying sorry.
Yesterday I felt sorry, I said sorry.
Today again I do same thing and say sorry.
For 10 years I said the same thing and say sorry.
That sorry has no value. We had to change.
There has to be a change if somebody is living in sin.
And one of the main problems in the church is holiness is not
important for many people. They just come to church and
they want to do everything possible in the church.
They want to be in this choir, they want to be in the service,
they want to be in cleaning roster.
They want to be in taking care of the car park or whatever is a
large church helping in the car park.
And they want to do Bible study, they want to do prayer, lead the
prayer, you know. But nobody thinks of holiness.
If that particular ingredient called holiness is missing,
whatever you do carries no value.
Holiness is more important. God will have look at you with
favor when you pursue holiness and do something for Him.
And that is what is missing in the church.
When I say church, not just Omega, it is all over the world,
whole of the church. People want to live in sin and
still want to do the ministry. Pastors are caught in sexual
sins and they still want to preach and healers.
People who do healing ministry, they are caught in the sin and
they still stand on the pulpit and are praying for healing to
happen. So if we do that, how can we
bring God's Kingdom into the world?
It is not about how big a church is.
I know some churches are in India, 80,000 people, 100,000
people go to each service, 100,000 people and you have
volunteers. The volunteers, you will have
about 4000 or 10,000 volunteers to facilitate everything.
And on top of it, some of the churches where they have 40,000
or 80,000 people, they give you lunch after your service and it
is a huge mass event. It does not require holiness to
run a thing like that. Does it require holiness?
But God cares for 10 people who are holy and worship Him.
He is present in their midst, not among the 100,000 who are
not pursuing holiness. So that is very important.
What is ministry? Definition of ministry in our
own mind, That's very important. But every time I pray about
Omega, God strengthens me. The last week also I prayed God,
what is happening? Show me what is happening and I
see a very you know, when you see a train here, you've got 54
coaches, 4 coaches taking people in the morning, come back in the
evening, one train goes, one train comes in Christchurch.
But in India, not like that. Every 5-10 minutes you've got a
big train, 20 coaches, it's like 1 kilometer.
So in the prayer I see a big train came and just stood there.
I said, Lord, this is just your mercy.
I don't see anything now. At the moment I hardly treat
2040 people, but you are showing me this big train and I know you
will do it because you are able to do it.
You are capable, you have a plan, you have purpose.
Your timing may not be, may be different, but you will do it
because you're telling me you're going to do it.
So I praise you. I receive it by faith.
So that is how we have to live our life.
Next, let's keep on going. Whenever he talks, whenever
Jesus talks about the ground, he talks about the human heart.
The ground he talks about human heart.
Was he doing that in the parallel of sower at the seat?
There was a man who went sowing the seat and it fell among rocky
soil and it fell into, There is no depth there, but quickly the
spring, I mean the seeds sprouts and then it dies because there
is no ground underneath. There is rock and you have got a
bushes, town bushes and then you have got well prepared soil,
four kinds of and they all have a different kind of outcome.
So the soil is very, very important.
When Jesus writes on the ground, He is writing on somebody's
heart. He is writing on somebody's
heart and we should be able to say yes, Jesus, I am yielding
myself to you. Put that finger right on my
heart. And when he puts his finger,
your life will not be the same. Life will not be the same.
It is going to completely change how I plead in his presence so
many times. I see you read the Book of
Revelation where John, when he sees this risen Lord Jesus
Christ head and head, what does no eyes like blazing fire fires
better than my big day son. I fell down like one who is dead
and he reached out his right hand and put it on me and lifted
me up. I said, God, can you please do
that for me? Touch me now, touch me now, lift
me up. And when you have hunger, God
knows how to meet that hunger, because the one who created the
bread also is the one who created the hunger.
And when you have hunger and He knows how to give you the bread,
he will not leave you without being, without satisfying you,
because he is God, the Lord, the merciful, compassionate one
covenant keeping God. He will not let you go just like
that. And then we have this.
So the mending process is also is a painful process, but we
have to do it gently so that people can be restored.
It's not easy job, a difficult job.
And then it in verse 2, he says carry each other's burdens.
And in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
How do we have to live a lifestyle of carrying each
other's burdens? So there is a comic strips in in
newspapers you have got a three or four pictures and then they
will very funny, sometimes very witty, sometimes very
intelligent ways of communicating.
SO1 character is asking another character what is the purpose of
my life? So the other one answers to
serve others. So the the second character says
to the first one, what are the others supposed to do?
What is their purpose of life? Basically you are trying to put
the blame on, OK, if my purpose is to serve others, their
purpose also serve me. But the Bible says serve each
other, serve each other. You know one of the things that
you cannot do is scratch your own back.
You need someone else to scratch your back when you feel itchy.
So you, you help somebody and somebody else will help you.
That's why you have a back. Cool.
So if anyone thinks he's something when he's nothing, he
deceives himself. Now this is a very important
one. This is self importance.
We evaluate ourselves more than what we are sometimes, and so
many times we also undervalue ourselves.
Or I am nothing, I do not know anything, I am not good, I
cannot do it. You cannot be living like that
undervaluing yourself, or you cannot be living overvaluing
yourself. You cannot say I am the best
because we do not know. Only God knows us as we are, so
it is better to have a good look at ourselves and say, God, show
me who am I? One of the things I want to tell
you, one secret thing I want to tell you, I do pray for everyone
of you and God shows sometimes who the particular person is,
but I don't tell them. I don't come and say God showed
me you are like this. I don't do that.
It's not right for me to do it also, but we, the pastor has to
pray. And when the time comes, because
God has shown me something that helps me to serve, that helps me
to serve the person because that is how you know what is their
need. Because God has shown you you
can minister. God has not shown you cannot
minister. It is good.
It is good that we must be having this heart of right
perspective of ourselves. It is very important.
So verse 3 many problems come because of that.
If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives
himself. Problems come because of this in
the in the in the fellowship, somebody thinks I am better than
so. And so this comparison is what
the what is going to bring problem.
Comparing yourself with somebody is the main root cause and Paul
says what is the best way to address it and how to fix the
problem was 4. Each one should test his own
actions. Then he can take pride in
himself without comparing himself to somebody else.
You don't compare yourself to somebody and feel good about it.
You must feel good in yourself. You, your reference should be
yourself, not someone else. So many times you know God has
made us all not equal. Somebody short, somebody is
tall. Somebody is more strong,
somebody is weak. Why this is not to make us feel
ah, that person is short. When when I stand beside Alex, I
may had oh, he is taller than me.
I had to feel It's not about it. God accepts us all equal.
There's no favoritism with God. So we should also have that kind
of a mindset. But the moment I say I am tall,
I am creating problem because somebody taller than me will
come, then I'll have to say I am short, isn't it?
So that's the reason why God has created us all, not equal, not
the same. He didn't put in the same mould.
Everybody looks same, all black, all white, all tall.
No, it's not like that. This is to give us a perspective
how he looks at each one of us. He looks at each one of us as
unique, bearing his image, and that is what we should adopt as
a guide to appreciate the other person.
So Paul gives these two things in verse three and four.
He says don't think of yourself more than what you should think
and let each one test his own actions.
Then he can take pride in himself without comparing
himself to somebody else. The word their pride take pride
in himself can be used positively or negatively taking
pride. But the word Greek word used
there is different kind of a word.
This cow ke ma kokema is boasting, always positive in the
Lord, negative and based on self.
When you look at things from God's perspective, that boasting
will be good because God is agreeing with you.
But when it is self-centered, when you want to make yourself
the centre of everything, then that becomes selfish and sinful.
So if you know rightly who you are, it is good.
Rejoice in it. There's another English word
called exaltation. Exalt.
Exalt is you celebrate something because it is good.
You celebrate your kindness. You celebrate your goodness.
You celebrate your generosity. You celebrate your being mindful
of other people. That is good because that is for
the glory of God. Cool.
So now I don't know why I don't finish one, one thought at a
time, coming back to again the soil and the rock.
You know, Jesus is very, very when he talks, you know, he
talks something that you can never do better than that.
So he talks about the long Sermon on the Mount, chapter 5-6
and seven of Matthew. But Chapter 7 ends with what?
A man who listens to me and obeys and builds his life on my
teaching. He's like a man who built his
house on the rock, but a man who listens to me and doesn't build
his life on my teaching. He's like a man who built his
house on the sand. So when Jesus puts down putting
his head down and writing on the sand, he is writing your end
already, because our life is not based on the rock.
So what is Jesus writing about you?
That's my question. I do not want you to answer it
today, right now, but when you go home, sit comfortably and
imagine Jesus is just sitting in front of you or standing in
front of you, whatever is comfortable to you, and ask Him
the same question. What are you writing, bending
down about me? You know scripture.
You have different ways of learning scripture.
One of the things is visualization.
You enter into the scripture, you enter the scripture, place
yourself in that place of that Lady who was accused by a mob of
people. She she's caught red handed,
stand in her place. So what do you write on the
ground? Stand in the place of the
accusers. Who are we accusing pointing
finger and what is just saying to the mob they had to leave
because they saw him writing something on the ground about
them? So you can be a mop one day, you
can be in the place of the lady another day.
But I want us to know what he thinks about us.
And that is not up to me to tell you.
It's up to you to know what he's saying about you.
If he says well done, my faithful servant, rejoice,
exult, you can feel proud about it because that certification
has to come from Jesus. Well done my son, well done my
daughter. And when he says that to you,
you have everything to rejoice in the whole world.
He can dance about it, sing about it and tell you can share
your testimony. This is what Jesus told me.
But if he is writing on the sand, he is writing on the
ground and he's going to be erased, it is going to be end of
our life. So let's just focus on that.
I was thinking about it a lot. You know, some, some scripture
gets into my mind. I don't leave it like that.
One was the whole day. Only one was 6.
Chapter 6 was one. It took me whole day of
meditating. I said, God, how am I going to
please tomorrow? You know, I need to study the
rest of the book as well. So that is how it is.
You have to give yourself to understand the Word and then the
Spirit that is behind the Word is the Holy Spirit and He comes
into you as you meditate upon the Word.
Am I making sense here? You make a way where there is no
way. When you meditate upon the
Scripture, when you study the Scripture, allow the Scripture
to speak to your Spirit. Then everything that has to be
blown away will be blown away like a wind blows away that dry
leaves and bares the ground. Let the Word of God blow away
what has to be blown away, and let your inner self be made bare
so that you can see yourself in His light through the eyes of
Jesus. Look at yourself through the
eyes of Jesus. Things will change, your life
will change, you will not do the same thing again and again.
Now to make things little more dramatic or more to communicate
more in a way you won't forget the sermon.
You know, this is every preacher's dream is to preach
and people should remember it forever.
That's every preacher's dream. But I wonder it doesn't happen
that easily because if I ask you what you heard last Sunday and
you even ask me what I preach sometimes I will be oh what did
I preach? You know our minds are very
having a very short span of memory sometimes, but sometimes
people are very good. Once I went to Auckland for into
a fellowship and said few things, 3 or 5 minutes but one
man came to me. The last time you came you said
this. Wow, you still remember it.
So some people can remember it. Now imagine a household, family
and there are different things in the house.
There is a flower vase. Now you put flower in it, put
some water in it, so flower does not fade away quickly, but it
does not move from there. It sits on the table or any
place you choose and you got a pitcher.
No one uses pitcher anymore. This is a old time story.
So it is a pot and the pot you carry every day to bring fetch
the water from wherever it is well bore well or whatever you
are bringing the water. And one day that pot fell from
the hand of the person was using it and broke into pieces.
So was was watching it and jumped up and said, Hooray,
that's the end of your life. You made a big mistake.
You're never going to recover from it.
It was just celebrating the fall of the pot.
But the owner, what does he think of the walls and what does
he think of the picture? Owner has sympathy, compassion
for the pot that is broken into pieces because it served them
every day. Every day the pitcher was
useful. That pot was useful to bring the
water and it feels for the broken pot.
The walls did not break. It's sitting there.
So which will have more value? Pitcher.
So in in the fellowship, sometimes somebody may fall,
somebody can make a mistake, but how do we react to that fall?
We need to have the gentleness, that compassion, that mercy.
That is what is going to bring beauty and harmony to that, to
restore that broken part. Nothing else will do.
And I will give you one more example of Peter the apostle.
What did he do? Three times?
Not once. He denied.
And the denial is the highest degree of denial.
And Jesus was arrested. He was being questioned and he
was taken inside the courts, Kaifa's house.
And this servant girl looks at him at the door.
Hey, I know you. You are one of them.
No, no, no, I am. I am not his disciple.
I don't belong to him. He goes inside and there is a
fire, and he is standing there in the light of the fire.
The lady says definitely you are one of his disciples.
What are you talking? I don't know him at all.
One more time, one more says, your accent gives away.
You are a Galilean and you have come all the way from there, for
you are his follower. I don't know him, who he is, I
don't know what you're talking about.
He cursed himself with a curse and he said, I don't know Jesus.
And from there, far away, Jesus looked at Peter and it went
straight into the heart because he already warned him.
You're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows
two times. Life is finished there for
Peter. All practical purposes, if Peter
is living in a church today, he, his whole fate is finished.
He will never be used again in the church.
He will never be used again in the church because you made a
big blunder. You deny the master.
You cannot be useful in any way. Sometimes, you know, it happens
in the church, somebody make a mistake and the police catches
them on the road driving, speeding, that they get a
speeding ticket and they tell somebody, oh, I got a speeding
ticket. And every you know, you got a
speeding ticket, you know he got a speeding ticket.
And everywhere talks about speeding ticket.
Anybody can get a spring ticket if you are not careful,
particularly with a 40 kilometer 1, you go at 5552, you get a
spring ticket. So we need to be gentle.
But suppose let's there one mistake, that one mistake one
man made and then he was criticized so much he criticized
and he started doing more bad things.
Today he told a lie. He's caught.
And tomorrow he tells a lie and he does something more.
He steals because he was not having the value or he were not
valued. And then he kept on committing
sin. One day he landed in the jail.
How did he end in end up in the jail?
Because people did not allow him to change his lifestyle and they
kept on putting him down for the mistake he made.
Simple thing, maybe a small lie, but it drove him to the jail one
day in the future because he was not accepted.
So maybe not do that kind of too much of criticism so that he
will not end up into that kind of a thing.
So what did Jesus do for restoring Peter after his
resurrection? Actually Peter says to the rest
of them, I want to go fishing. Basically what is he saying is I
want to quit my life, I don't want to follow Jesus anymore, I
want to go back to my fishing. Jesus said you are a fisherman,
I will make you fishes. Are men not fish?
But he says I am going back to fishing.
Why he does not want to follow Jesus anymore?
He has denied him three times. He has got no hope of regaining
his life back again, so he wants to go back.
It is basically emotional suicide for Peter.
And Jesus is standing on the shore.
Yes. Have you got any fish?
No, we worked all night. OK, cast your net on this side.
They get 153 fish. And then when they came on the
show, he already had kept some fish and bread on fire.
So bring the fish that you caught.
In case you think this is not real, you eat this also bring
what you caught, it is real. So he spoke to him tenderly and
they restored him gently, saying, Do you love me, Peter,
More than these? This net, this fish, other
people? Do you love me more than this,
Lord? You know I have denied it three
times, but you also know I love you.
Take care of my sheep, Peter. Yes, Sir.
Do you love me more than this? Again a second Time.
Lord, you know I love you. I cannot prove it anymore
because I had denied you 3 times.
There is no way I can prove it to you that I love you.
I have failed miserably, but I know I love you.
Take care of my sheep 1/3 time. Peter, do you love me more than
this? Follow me when you are restored.
So the point here is, he made him food, He cooked for him
breakfast. He has drawn him close and
restored him gently and gives him responsibility again.
That is restoration. You have to give the job to
somebody again. There's a sign that you're
trusting them again. You don't give them the job.
You're not not trusting them. There's no restoration
happening. And then calls him back into
ministry. He gives him the ministry back
and tells him, feed my sheep. Peter had fallen into a serious
sin. Jesus restores him with
gentleness, humility, love and responsibility.
Exactly what Galatians 61 to 6 is telling us to do.
I hope you will not forget the sermon now.
I only hope. What does Galatians 61 to six
talk about? Restoration?
How to do it gently. Who can do it?
One who is spiritual, and the word spiritual is elsewhere
talked about in Hebrews. It says someone who is not a
child feeding on the milk, but one who is mature to handle
things. So spiritual growth is
important. One who is spiritual only can
correct somebody. A newborn Christian may not be
able to go and correct somebody who is already in a high
position of rank or service or whatever it is.
So we have to know how to correct, whom to correct, how to
do it. Gentleness, mercy, love,
tenderness. Restoration is a hard job, not
easy job. But the question now want to
finish it is, are we able to face Jesus again and say, here
am I, I bring the broken parts of my life.
I missed it, but I wanted to restore it.
I want that nail, Pierre's hand, to put on that broken pot again
and bring the pieces to him. And he wants to restore it to
the original glory. To the original glory.
Shall we bow our heads in prayer?
Father, we thank you again for your word.
Thank you, Jesus, for your word. I pray now, Father, that the
Spirit of compassion, the Spirit of mercy, Spirit of love will
touch everyone of our hearts. I did not choose this passage.
It's just coming in the way as we finish chapter 5.
We went to chapter 6. But Lord, we believe that you
are speaking to us through this world to bring restoration into
our hearts and into others. And we believe, Father, that you
are doing something in this church as well.
Holy Spirit, I pray that you use this word to heal the hearts of
everyone, heal the heart of everyone, heal the heart of
everyone. Everybody who is in pain, who is
in shame, who is in criticize, who belittled or put down.
My Father, I pray that you lift up their face now and tell them
that you love them and restore them to the glory of your name,
that they will love understanding in this church in
the fellowship to the glory of your name.
Rasta Sarani maharano Kara sanda bashiro RA mahaseke Sandandarano
rono kori bashe makarose bandrano hasta corono
Rohanamanda sestak reni Risha rabhasta corono Rohasta koroni.
The Lord says if you forgive, also forget.
That is part of restoration is to forget.
We cannot keep on digging what happened 10 years ago or 20
years ago. We have to let it go.
That is how healing comes. Father, I pray put that nail
patience of your son right now on the hearts of everyone of us.
I need it and everybody here needs it.
So I pray touch us and heal us the glory of your name.
Thank you again for your word in Jesus mighty name.
We have asked and everybody says Amen, Amen.
Thanks for joining us at Omega. If you need prayer for healing
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