You don't have to wait until you feel perfect to answer God's call, because His grace is sufficient for you right where you are. Trust that He meets you in your weakness and empowers you to walk out your purpose step by step. Keep your eyes on Jesus as He restores you and leads you into the future He has prepared.
You're a church that honors well. Lord Jesus, we honor you, and we give you glory for who you are. Lord Jesus, you're the reason that we're here, and we get to run the race that you've called us to run. Oh, God, what a joy it is to to get to be the church together, the local body of Christ, which is pretty awesome. In Jesus' name, everybody said?
Amen. Amen. You can be seated. You know, it's it's crazy. Like, the church is so important to Jesus.
It's so so much more important than we realize. The in in the book of Acts, at Paul's Saul's Paul's conversion, this is not where the message is going, but just side note, bunny trail. The book of Acts, the church, the believers of Jesus are being persecuted and stoned and thrown in jail. And Paul is on his way to go and do that in Damascus, and Jesus appears to him in a dream and he says or not in a dream, sorry, in a vision. This bright white light.
Jesus appears and he says, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Saul wasn't persecuting Jesus, he was persecuting the church. But Jesus said, me. So he was persecuting Jesus. The body of Christ, the church is Christ.
You are Christ, the representation of Christ to the world. The church is a big deal, man. And, man, I I pray for the church of Pinellas County, every single body of Christ that is authentically following him and making disciples, that it would grow, that the churches would be filled and overflowing because people see it as so valuable, because they count themselves as a part of the body of Christ and invite everybody they can see to come and be a part of the body of Christ. Amen? Amen.
It's that important. Lord, make it that important to us, Or that we would value your body as you do. Or that it wouldn't just be something. It'd be something that we're born again into, and that we'd be glad to play the role God's called us to play, to run the race God's called us to run with perseverance. In Jesus' name, pray.
Amen. Yeah. I wasn't gonna tell you this either. I was just gonna tell the dream team, but since I've said race multiple times. I I preached a while back about God calling me in my prayer time a marathon runner.
And I thought, okay. You know, he's talking about the way that I do ministry. Like, it's a marathon running a church, you know, and and and doing doing that. Like, I believe God's called us to retire here. Like, we're in it to win it.
We're in it to shift Pinellas County, you know, for the rest of our lives. And and that's an ultra marathon. You you finish the race or you die in faith, trusting that spiritual sons and daughters and those will will take it, make it better than you did and run forward, you know. It's just the way that Abraham lived. Or maybe God was talking about, you know, the ministry we have in Pakistan or what the Bible college God has us doing, what whatever he was.
But then he's a lot of times what you do in 1 area of your life, it overflows to other areas. And so I kind of felt led. He was actually telling me to start running marathons. I'm like, I was a soccer player, not a marathon runner. I sprint after a ball, and then I stop and walk.
But anyway, as you know, in your relationship with Jesus, we live this thing by **grace through faith**. His word to you is wrapped in all of the grace necessary for you to accomplish it. Grace is God's power empowering you to be who you can't be on your own and to do what you can't do on your own. That's what grace is. Grace is God's we'll say it again so you catch it.
*Grace* is God's power *empowering* you to be what you can't be on your own and to do what you can't do on your own. We live this life by grace through faith. So we hear that word and we have to receive it. And the word gets and we believe it, it gets implanted in our heart and begins to transform us. And then like Paul said in Philippians-2, we work out what he put in.
How? Through obedience. The completion of faith is obedience. How do you know somebody was really changed? They actually did the thing.
You know? So when God called me a marathon runner, I was changed instantaneously into a marathon runner. But you would have never known it because I didn't look like 1. I could only run 3 miles or 4 miles at a time. And I started working it out.
You know, from the time he told me that, almost 2 years, almost 2 years, injuries, about 6 to 8 months of not really believing he was talking about running a marathon, And then about a year, a little over a year of building up running and different things. And then I even tried a marathon race in December, and I bonked out at 16 miles. Didn't make it. Does that mean I'm not a marathon runner? No.
God called me 1. So I was 1 when he said it. You just didn't know it yet because I hadn't done it. But I was transformed by his word. And now the rest of my my time was learning to be obedient and walk out what he said by faith, which demonstrates that I actually believed him.
Makes sense? I didn't earn being a marathon runner. He gave it to me by his word. Now I'm demonstrating that I've actually been changed by doing it. Amen?
Amen. By grace through faith. That's salvation. You're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. When you're born again, when you give your life to Jesus, he credits that, imputes that onto your life.
It's grace to you on the inside, and now the rest of your life is believing it enough to actually walk it out. And the more you do it, the more you're transformed, your life looks like what he says that you are, and other people around you say, oh, man, When I see your life, I see Jesus. It makes me wanna glorify God and know him too. So yesterday, I'm actually training for a marathon in 2 weeks, but I just felt like it. So I ran a marathon yesterday morning.
Amen. Praise the Lord. Keith's a great coach. Seriously. If you wanna run a marathon, call Keith.
And then and pray. And fall forward. And if you don't make it the first time, try again, if that's your calling. Okay? You'll have the grace for what he tells you to do.
Don't try to run somebody else's race. It's a whole another message. Anyway, so praise the Lord. This is a lifestyle that he's called me to, so I'm gonna continue because I believe him and I take him at his word by grace through faith. Whatever he's called you to, It may seem out of your league.
It probably is because if he called you to it, it's gonna require his supernatural power for you to do it. Otherwise, it's probably not your calling. You got many callings, not just 1. Don't run around thinking, oh, I I can't do anything because I don't know what God's called. Yeah, you do.
You're you're called to be a disciple maker. You're called to be a part of the body of Christ. You're called to be a Jesus follower. Do that and run that race well. And watch as he leads you 1 step at a time to the little things like running a marathon, starting a church, maybe starting a business, or being a father, husband, whatever it is.
And he'll give you the grace for what he calls you to do, and he'll grow you into maturity so that you can take the steps 1 step at a time to love him back by obeying. Amen? Amen. Which I'm excited about this series that we're diving into today because it is a series. It's a 3 month series.
We're going through this this book doctor Leon wrote called Rooted in Purpose. Rooted in the Bible. Okay? This is I would encourage you to buy the book. Maybe do it as part of your bible study daily.
If you're going to the small groups, every chapter will be a different week. In here, every chapter, the message will be based on that chapter, which is all based on the Bible. Okay? And the principles of the book are the I mean, the the chapters of the book are the core principles of the faith in Christ, followed by the developmental stages of a believer. So the first section is the principles, deep principles of our faith in Christ.
Each chapter has a different principle that we'll be diving into for the Sunday. And then the second the second part of it is the developmental stages of a believer as we mature, which is gonna be beautiful. You're gonna be so rooted in purpose at the end of it. And I would encourage you to dive in. Take notes.
If you don't take notes, buy the book or maybe take notes and buy the book. And just whatever you do, don't let this just be a Sunday morning thing where you say, great message, and walk away and don't put it into practice. Amen? Amen. Because chapter 1, the title of the the chapter, the core principle, is love God.
Love God. As Christians, our love for God is the source of all we do. It's the reason why we do everything we do. It must be as a Christian. Why do I love my wife the way that I do?
Because I love God. My love for God is the source of my love for my wife. Why do I love my children, the church, the things that I I do? Why did I why did I run a marathon? It was an act of worship.
He told me to. I ended up loving it because he created me for it. That's the thing. When you live your life as an act of worship, as as an overflow of your love for God, you're created for this. It's fulfilling.
It's the way that we were created to run the race God's called us to run. And what's the other option if we call ourselves a Christian? It's not good. I mean, Mark-7. And I want to believe that this is none of you guys.
*Mark-7*. Jesus is talking to the pharisees. Verse 6 he said, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites. As it as it is written, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain.
Their teachings are merely human rules. What's the other option of being a Christian and not having the love, your love for God as the source of all you do? Is that. Is pretending you love God by your outward actions and coming to church every now and then, but him not being the source because you really love yourself? That's called a hypocrite, man.
And I don't want that for me, and I definitely don't want that for you. So we gotta learn what it looks like to love God, how to do that, what the bible says about it, and put it in a practice in our in our daily life. And I think the best place to start with that is knowing that **God is love**. God is love. He doesn't just express love.
He's the very essence of love, which means that his every action, his every command, every relationship, everything that he does, it flows from his essence and his nature of love. A lot of times we get stuck in the, but why did this happen to me? Why did you let why did this happen? Why how could you let them do this to me? Why?
You know what you're doing? You're questioning the character and nature of God based on circumstance and based on what you don't understand. And the reason for that is a lack of trust. When you trust, you don't have to understand. And you can have peace that passes understanding.
When you don't trust, you have to understand. Otherwise, you feel out of control. Right? So any any area where you're constantly questioning the character of God because you don't understand why a circumstance happened, that's an area you're probably doubting his love and his goodness. But when you trust his love and his goodness and all things work together for good You know, side note, God's will doesn't always happen.
That's where people get a lot of things messed up. The Bible says it's not God's will that anybody would perish, but people perish all the time. It's God's will that everybody would come to repentance, but not everybody comes to repentance. Why? Because he gives people a choice.
There's sin in the world. He's giving people a choice. So we you might not understand everything, but you don't have to understand everything, but what you do, have to, in order to be able to love God well, is you have to trust him. You have to trust him because you're never gonna follow a leader. You're never gonna love someone you don't trust.
Right? So those areas of trust, you have to surrender your need to understand in order to be able to love him in those areas. So you have to trust that he actually is love, that that's his nature and that's his essence. So even the things that you don't understand, why this and that happened, You don't have to, but you can know that he's gonna work it out for good because he is love, and he is good. Some Old Testament scriptures to demonstrate the nature of his love.
Psalm 86 verse 15. But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. *Jeremiah-31:3*, the Lord appeared to us in the past saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. *Lamentations-3:22* 23, because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for His *compassions* never fail.
They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. These are Old Testament descriptions of God's love. They don't explicitly say he is love, but you can see the expressions of his love by the way he treats his covenant people. In the New Testament, it's a bit more explicit.
Pretty much straight up says, God is love. But that makes sense. Right? Because the Old Testament is Jesus concealed. The New Testament is Jesus revealed.
Jesus is the exact representation of the Father in bodily form. You wanna see what love looks like walking around? Look at Jesus. Oh, wait a second. The church is the body of Christ, so we should be what the world looks to to see what love looks like walking around.
That's kinda cool. Lord, transform us so we're an accurate reflection of the love of Jesus. Amen? So New Testament scriptures that are a little bit more explicit about God is love. 1 John-4:8, whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.
To love him, I mean, to know him is to love him. And to love him is to obey him, and to obey him is to love others. *1 John-4:16*. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.
There it is, explicitly again. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. *1 John-3:1*. See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. God is love, and out of that love, he made us his children, as demonstrated in scripture.
So loving God, it's kind of important because if we're his children, then we should be able to reflect his nature, which is love. Right? Amen? You guys with me? I'm not lulling you to sleep today, am I?
I'm kind of talking softer. Maybe because I'm tired from yesterday. Long run. Anyway. So *Matthew-22:37*.
Jesus is talking with the Pharisees, and they want to come and they want to test him hardcore, you know? They're looking to trap him so that they have a reason to put him in jail or to kill him, get rid of the nuisance that he is because he just keeps saying truth and making him feel guilty. If they just surrendered to the truth, they could have been set free. So anyway, so they asked, they, you know, an expert expert in the law to come to Jesus and trap him with this this question. And so, and this is something they, a lot of times, discussed and thought about.
He said, teacher, Jesus, which is the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus replied, "love the Lord" your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it, "love your neighbor" as yourself. All of the law and prophets hang on these 2 commandments.
Side note, you know, my family got to go on our yearly vacation a couple weeks ago, and we went and visit a church of that's in the same network of churches that we are, the Destiny Network. And the pastor was preaching on this very passage, which was cool because it's coming up. And his whole point was, man, you gotta get your "vertical relationship" with God right first. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. And out of the overflow of your vertical relationship comes your "horizontal relationships", loving your neighbor as yourself.
The reason that all of our **horizontal relationships** are screwed up or constantly get screwed up is because we start putting our horizontal relationships first, and then God gets the leftovers. But instead, we gotta surrender here and make this our focus. Because in 1 John-5, it says that we love the brothers and sisters in Christ by obeying God's commands. And obeying God's commands is loving him. So the best way that I can love you is to have my focus on him and to do what he tells me to do.
And in having my focus on him and doing what he tells me to do, that's gonna be the most loving thing for you in any given situation, even if it hurts. Amen? The world just thinks love, sympathy, and empathy. No? That can be an aspect of it.
But love is giving somebody what they need, and God knows what they need. So if you're banging him and he is love, then you're gonna be giving the most loving thing in any situation. Amen? Okay. So love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
A lot of times we define your soul is really your mind, your will, and emotions. So man, I want to be the type of Christian, the biblical Christian that loves God with everything that I have. With all what does it mean to love him with all of my mind? All of it. There's not even a sliver of allotment for me to give a section of my mind to something else.
Love Him with all of my mind, which means all of those stupid thoughts that randomly come in at times. No. I take them captive, and I make them surrender to the truth of God's word, and I'm renewing my mind by washing it by the water of His word, so that my mind can be completely focused on loving him well. And shoot, if my life is transformed by the renewing of my mind, then my life will begin to look like what I've been thinking about, because that's the truth anyway. Whatever you think about the most is probably what you reflect in your life.
So what do you think about the most, man? I want it to be loving him. Because that's what the commandment is. Jesus said the first and the greatest 1. And then your mind, if your soul is your mind, your will and your emotions, you know, you're not what you feel, your emotions are actually the product of what you've been thinking about the most.
Your emotions shift when you shift what you think about over time. So you don't directly change your emotions, but you do change your feelings by changing what you think about over time. So if you're loving him with all your mind, guess what? Your feelings are going to start to line up with that. And if you have other feelings another way, your mind's probably been somewhere else for a while.
So Lord, I want to love you with my feelings too. I want my flesh to cry out for you, Lord Jesus, like David talks about in the Psalms. I love you with all my heart, with all my desires. Desires, remember, desire, d e, of, sire, means fathered. Every desire you have has been seeded by something you've been in communion with.
So, Lord, I only wanna be in communion with you, and so my desire is to line up with kingdom desires. And out of that cause will give me the ability to love my neighbor as myself. The problem is this command that God gave is impossible for mankind. This law is too weighty for us to be able to follow because the word that Jesus used when he said love was agape. And agape love doesn't originate with mankind.
So you can't muster up that kind of love. Let's talk about it. What are the the different types of love? So in Greek, there's 4 different words used for love. In English, we say I love french fries.
No, you don't. You like them. You know? But in in Greek, it's split in different different words to be more specific. So you have the eros type of love.
Eros is that sexual desire type of love, physical love. They use the romantic love that people have. That that is in our nature. That can be mustered up and cultivated and grown. It also can hold the the the type of love where you consider things very beautiful, aesthetically beautiful.
Eros love, when we can grow in our ability to love well as human beings. Yeah? Then the second type of love, Philia love. Philia is where you get Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Philia is like that sincere friendship.
People are better when they're good friends and learn to be good friends, and you can muster up that naturally and be a decent learn to be a decent friend. I think we should all have great friendships. And you got the next 1, storge love, which is that familial love. I think it's the closest probably to agape love. Learning to love someone, sacrifice yourself for them.
Like the love between a mother and a child, parents and their children, grandparents and their grandchildren, which I have no nothing about yet. Love between cousins, aunts, uncles. It's a familial love. It's a little deeper. It's a little bit more commitment, a lot more commitment a lot of times in this type of love, which is beautiful.
But this is also something that's natural in us that we can grow. But then, there's that fourth 1, which makes that commandment impossible for mankind. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. It's like, oh my gosh, like, I'm failing at this in different aspects of how is how is that possible? There's the agape type of love.
That's the love that he used for that. And agape love is God's kind of love. Its only origin is in Him. And Jesus commanded us to love with the love that we can't muster up ourselves, from ourselves. Not just that.
Jesus took it even higher. *John-13:38*. So not only are we supposed to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and love our neighbor as ourself, and that seems impossible for mankind, but also, Jesus, the very representation of love to mankind, Jesus, the representation of God, the God who is love in bodily form, **God in bodily form**, said a new command I give you, right before he goes to the cross, is love others as I have loved you. So he demonstrated it wasn't just this word, It was actually the action. And he used the same word, agape.
He's saying, hey, this God type of love is what I require of my followers. And it was impossible for them at the point, at that point, because they had been born of Adam. Born with a nature towards sin and selfishness, like we all are. Born with a heart that's bent towards what I want and what I need. Yeah, we experience eros love.
And yeah, we experience storge love, familial love. Yeah, we experience the phileal love. We get some good friends and stuff, but inevitably, they're going to fail us because of the selfishness in them, and then we're going get hurt and offended, and want and need, and look to fill that hole in our heart by the horizontal type of love instead of leaning into him, until we receive God's love for us and are transformed by it from the inside out. Amen? Many cannot understand or even begin to comprehend the type of love that God has because it has so many bad examples in their lives.
Fathers and mothers. I know we want to be the best father and mother we possibly can. We're doing pretty dang good at it. Doing a great job, I think, you know. I don't know.
But eventually, our kids are probably gonna have to forgive us for something. You know? And maybe you didn't have great parents. That was a terrible representation of a father to you growing up. Maybe.
Terrible representation of the phileo love, friends love, or the romantic love, maybe you've been ripped apart in multiple different relationships and it's caused all these wounds and caused you to doubt. God has a love that can heal all of that. *Agape* love. And it's impossible for you to agape him back, which is what he requires, without refer without first receiving his love for you. Born into Adam, born needing to be loved, born in sin with a nature of selfishness, trained to live for ourselves.
What is this agape type of love? Not only is it God's type of love, it's more there's there's more definition than just that. In 1 John-3:16, it says, this is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. That's agape love.
**sacrificing yourself** for the sake of another. And God demonstrated that love by Jesus sacrificing himself for us so that we can know agape love, be transformed by it, be born again, born of the heavenly father. So when we surrender to Jesus as the Lord of our life, not only does He forgive us of our sin, but He gives us a new heart that has the nature of our heavenly Father, and He puts the Holy Spirit in us to teach us how to live from agape love. To empower us to live supernaturally greater than we could do on our own. To begin to love and serve Him and grow in maturity on what it looks like to be a reflection of the love of God to the world by loving Him back.
And the only way we can love Him back is first receiving His love, and then imitating His love as empowered by Him. That's it. That's the only way. A microwave. You ever read the manufacturer label for a microwave?
The instructions for microwave? Probably have. But you know how they work. Right? Punch the button, microwaves go in, like, make the food vibrate on a cellular level, get real hot.
It's really awesome how it works. Cooks the food so we can take it out, eat it. Those of you that have studied microwaves more than I have, I might have said it wrong. Okay? But I'm close.
Atomic level, I don't know. But manufacturer label does say, this microwave will work if you follow it. But there's 1 thing that if you put in this microwave, it ain't going work. You put metal in a microwave. You ever accidentally put Yep.
Yep. Tinfoil in a microwave? You ever accidentally put a metal fork on a plate in a microwave? Turn it on. Nope.
That ain't how it's supposed to work. Something's off. You leave it in there, it'll mess up the microwave because it's not created to cook metal. If you read your manufacturer's instructions. You're not created for selfishness.
Sin is choosing yourself instead of God. You're created to love. You're created to sacrifice yourself for the sake of another. And if you live for me and mine, what I want and when I want it, is is as soon as you start getting selfish, as soon as you do, just like the microwave, your life starts to crumble. Oh, it might be okay for a second, for a little while.
But all the thing all of a sudden, things start to break down because you weren't born to live for you. You were born to know his love and to live from the place of his love. And if you get up every day to live your day for you and what you want, life probably sucks. I mean, don't get offended because pastor said that. I'm just being real.
You're probably depressed. You're probably trying to control relationships around you. You probably manipulating a little bit and blaming other people for being narcissistic because you are, because you're living for you. You maybe you got a victim mentality. Everybody's always hurting me.
And where's your focus? You. And that source of depression, anxiety constantly, and stress is because you got the wrong thing in the microwave. You need to surrender your life or actually believe the gospel that Jesus is Lord, then you've been transformed and put your eyes on back on him, and let the Holy Spirit begin to teach you how to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. And the only way you do that is not by trying harder.
It's by focusing on he first loved you. We love because he first loved us. You reflect what you focus on. Receive the love of God. Peter.
Oh, Peter. *John-21*. This is pretty amazing. At the last supper, Peter, you know, I'll die for you. I'll give my whole life for you.
I'll do it. But he wasn't capable because he hadn't been born again yet. He's still operating from a heart, had a nature towards selfishness. I'll do it. I'm committed.
Commitment is good, but love is better. Your commitment will ultimately fail, but love won't. And when you when you really love, you'll be committed. I'm committed. Jesus said, no, you're gonna deny me 3 times when it when the rubber meets the road.
Oh, you'll have the opportunity to follow me to the cross, but you won't. You'll deny me when it gets hard. And he did 3 times. He was asked, aren't you 1 of the disciples? Oh, I might get put in jail too.
No. And it hurt. He kinda stayed back for a little bit. Jesus appeared to him. He was born again, John-20.
Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit in him. Peter had confessed him as Lord along with the others. It was beautiful. He was transformed. He was new.
This is where a lot of us are today. Transformed and new, but still struggling with past mistakes, still feeling alienated from God who loves us more than we fathom right now. And Jesus reinstates Peter. Jesus goes, this miraculous catch of fish. Mean, Peter's doing the all in thing, like he's diving out of the boat, going to swim when he saw Jesus.
He's going after him, but he still feels the implication of scriptures. He still feels kind of distant. *John-21:15*, when they finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you, *agape*, do you love me more than these? Jesus asked him, do you love me the way that I love you? The way that I expect my followers to love me?
Love God. Do you love me more than these? And Peter said, little, veiled here, yes, Lord. You know that I *phileo* you phileo you. He didn't use agape, he used brotherly love.
You know that I'm a good friend. Jesus said, feed my feed my lambs. Again, Jesus said, second time, Simon, son of John, do you agape me? Do you love me the way that I'm requiring you to love me? The God type of love that only originates in me.
And Peter can't see himself there yet. He still feels distance. He doesn't know how it's possible. Remember, it's the grace of God that empowers us to be and to do what we can't be on our own, and we live by grace through faith. The only way we can love God that way is trusting in who he says that we are, and walking by faith 1 step at a time, maturing as a son or a daughter of God.
Do you agape me? He answered second time. Yes, Lord. You know that I phileo you. I friendship love you.
You're a sincere friend and my Lord. And I think there's a lot of Christians that feel like Peter. So what did Jesus do? Take care of my sheep. He still commissioned him even though Peter wasn't there yet.
Hey, you're still commissioned to go share the gospel, make disciples, run your purpose even though you don't feel like you're there yet. Guess what Jesus did the third time? He didn't say, well, I'm done with you. You can't love me the way I require. It's not what he did, but that's the way we ask.
We we act sometimes. Right? Third time. Simon, son of John. Jesus met him where he was.
Do you Phileo me? Jesus requires agape, but Jesus met him at Phileo. That's kinda cool. Peter was hurt because Jesus asked them the third time. Do you Phileo me?
And he said, Lord, you know all things. You know that I Phileo you. Jesus required higher love. Peter didn't have the faith to be able to say it. So Jesus met him where he was.
But not only did Jesus meet him where he was, he *prophesied* where he would be. See, Peter told Jesus that he was willing to lay his life down for him, agape, and he failed at it. He felt condemned by it. Jesus is now restoring him. Peter's being honest to where he sees he is.
I think I'm I'm just I can just love you like a friend. Jesus meets him at the friendship thing, and then he said, feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted. But then, when you're old, you'll stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not wanna go. Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.
Then he said, follow me. Jesus prophesied Peter's crucifixion. Peter was later crucified upside down because he didn't feel worthy to be crucified right side up like Jesus decades later. Peter, a babe in Christ at this point, newly born again, didn't know how he could love Jesus the way that Jesus required. Jesus met him where he was and said, hey, follow me and you'll be able to love me the way that I require because I'll empower you.
I'll teach you. I'll lead you. Keep your eyes on me. And he's meeting you there today. Follow me.
Jesus. That's what he's saying. Wherever you are, I'm meeting you where you are. And you will give your life fully for me in the areas that you have trouble loving me with all your heart, mind, and soul. Oh, you will.
But put your eyes on me because I gotta demonstrate my love to you so you'll have the capacity. You can trust me.