107. Are You Living Like Judas or Peter? Opening the Door to Jesus

This episode is a heartfelt narrative of Easter Sunday's profound impact, including my nephew's brave return to church and the sermon that laid bare the disparate destinies of Peter and Judas. It's a story of overcoming, of not allowing our past stumbles to chart our course, and of the redemptive power that enables us to rise, renewed and resilient.

Together, we examine the metaphor of an unbarred door to Jesus, a call to let His transformative love redefine our lives. I invite you to join us as we reflect on extending the light within us to fortify our connectedness and pursue our divine purpose.

Before we part, remember this: our journey doesn't end here. 

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"For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve." Mark 10:45

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Hey, I'm Lemon. I am just like you, sister friend. Talk about stepping into that overflow that God has for us by becoming those ultimate Proverbs 31 women. Hey, I'm Lemon. I am just like you, sister friend. I knew God had something more in store for me, but I couldn't see a way out of the laundry piles and, frankly, I resented that. Proverbs 31 woman. How was I going to live up to the hype? That is until I found out how to really step into becoming this Proverbs 31 woman through leadership development. In this podcast you're going to find financial freedom, leadership, growth and motivation so you'll be able to do all the things God has called you to do with ease and really step into that land of milk and honey. Happy Monday, friends. Welcome back to the Milk and Honey podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:02

I'm your host, lemon Price, and today's episode dropped a few hours later than I wanted to. But I had to sit with something kind of over the weekend and I was like I had something else scheduled. It's not how that always works. To be honest with me. I feel like I always have something else scheduled and then God will do something and I'm like let me push that episode back and I want to talk about this instead. And so yesterday was, of course, easter Sunday, and so we were at church, and first of all, my nephew came to church, which was amazing. He has not been in well over a decade. He had a really bad experience with the church and he was actually really on the fence about coming to church with us. He was here for just like 48 hours. He's an over-the-road truck driver, and so he was really on the fence about coming to church with us and he decided to give it a go, which was an incredible experience. It was honestly super cool to see him get over his fears of large crowds. He was active duty military, like my husband was, and so large crowds kind of make them really uncomfortable, and if you were at church yesterday then you know it was probably more packed than usual it always is at Christmas and Easter and so it was a hard experience and he did it, and so it was really cool to just be there for that with him while he was walking through that. And then I want to talk about what actually happened at church, the conversation I have with my husband after church, a movie we watched yesterday, like it all kind of like worked together, and how it applies to you, because I really, again, I had to sit with this for a while last night and that's why I had to change the episode and rerecord something today.

Speaker 1: 2:44

So, naturally, anytime Christmas and Easter fall, I think every pastor is going to take that opportunity to preach the gospel and present the gospel to people. Because for some people, like my nephew, it may be the first time they go to church, maybe it's the first time they've been to church in a long time, maybe it's the last ditch effort at church. And so you're going to go and present the gospel. And what I appreciated about church yesterday shout out to you Pastor Sam Martin at Gateway because we do things, I think, a little unconventionally, but our theology is conservative. That's what they say. The theology is conservative but the methodology is progressive, right, so we're having fun at church, like it's an enjoyable experience. Not that traditional churches are not fun, but we have a fun time. We do things a little unorthodox, church-wise in terms of like I don't know music or whatever, like that's all a fun experience. But then the theology is very conservative and it's full Bible believing. I don't know why. I felt like I had to explain that. I think some people get a little stressed when they hear that. So, anyway, so we, he didn't just go and like preach, you know, this is how Jesus fulfilled prophecy. Like that's not necessarily what happened.

Speaker 1: 4:03

What he did talk about, though, was Peter and Judas and the difference in Peter and Judas, and obviously there's a lot of contrast between Peter and Judas, but basically, he pointed at the point of the story. Right, so Peter and Judas both sin against Jesus in the last days. Right, judas goes and he sells them out to church leaders, and then, when he realizes the mistake that he has made, right, he goes back to the church elders, he gives the money back. He's like, basically, can we undo this? Can we trade it back? And he says I've sinned against the Lord, I've sinned, and of course, the church is like not my responsibility, this is on you, bro. And Judas goes and he hangs himself because he feels such a disconnection from the Lord because he has sinned against God, because his transgression, he feels like it's so big that he cannot go and reconcile with the Lord.

Speaker 1: 5:01

At the same time, peter denies even knowing Jesus three different times. And so Peter when, after Jesus is crucified, even though Jesus prepared him for this and told him what was going to happen. Peter's like I'm just going to go back to fishing, like I'm going to go back. He basically decides he's going to go back to his old life. So now he's denied Jesus three times. He watches, you know Jesus is crucified, and he's like I mean less than three days, my guy like less than three days.

Speaker 1: 5:30

Peter is back out on the boat and he's like I'm just gonna like go back to what I know. He walks back into his old life. He walks back into bondage. He walks back into because that's what he had to do under Roman rule when that was his thing. He just had to fish. He's always like all right, I guess this is what I do now, I'm just going to go back to what I was doing. And so I thought that was just so profound.

Speaker 1: 5:56

And then of course, jesus is. You know they didn't catch anything. So then Jesus is standing there on the edge of the shoreline and calls out to Peter and he's like cast your net. You know, on the other side they catch a bunch of fish and Peter realizes oh my gosh, it's Jesus. He literally like drops his you know his cloak or whatever he had on and he swims to shore, like he can't even wait for the boat to turn around. He's immediately got to go and meet with Jesus.

Speaker 1: 6:24

I'm like summarizing Sam's pastor or his sermon from yesterday, because I think it's important what happened and where. I want to get to Peter immediately, like swims to Jesus. And Jesus isn't sitting there like all right, peter, like we have to have a come to Jesus here right. Isn't sitting there like all right, peter, we have to have a come to Jesus here right now. He's like no, come and eat with me. It's like let's have breakfast, let's chat, and so they go and they eat together. They're in relationship, they're fellowshipping again. And that's when Jesus asks Peter do you love me? And he asked him three times. And what I think is so interesting is the third time that he asks him like do you love me? It is when Peter's basically like, he's like hurt that Jesus would ask him this three times, but isn't that the amount of times that he denied him? And he's like yeah, of course. And he's like so then do what you were meant to do feed my sheep.

Speaker 1: 7:19

And I think I thought that was so profound is that they both sinned against the Lord, judas and Peter. They both did something that betrayed Jesus, and only one of them waited for like. As soon as the opportunity for reconciliation like presented itself, peter took it. Judas didn't even wait. This is what I find so fascinating about this whole thing is that Peter immediately goes back to his old life and Judas commits suicide in less than three days, and so it's so easy A to be sucked back into the bondage that Jesus has freed ourselves from if we do not stay in constant relationship with him. And then the other thing that I took from this and this was a big part of the passage of the sermon yesterday is basically no matter what you've done, nothing is too big for the Lord.

Speaker 1: 8:14

And so Sam went and he flipped over to Revelation, where Jesus basically says like I'm knocking, you just have to let me in and then you can eat with me. Like I'll eat with you, you eat with me, which is exactly what happened with Peter. Right, he was like hey, come and eat with me. And they do, and they reconcile the relationship and they repair the relationship, and Jesus reminds them of, reminds Peter of who he is and what he is called to do, and then he goes out with such a boldness.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Later on, when he gets arrested and asked for healing a man who couldn't walk, the elders are like, hey, by whose name are you doing this? And it's like a get out of jail free card. They're like Peter, like do you really want to say Jesus's name? Like is this what you want to do? And Peter claps back basically and he's like are you sure you want me to answer this? He was like because I'm going to do it. And he's like it's by Jesus, you know the one that you crucified. He's like that's where I get my power to do these things. So it's your fault. Remember, you crucified him, not me. So I think it's interesting to see how Peter immediately goes from basically like I'm just going to go back to my old life, I'm going to walk back into what I knew before, into I'm actually really bold and I'm going to speak boldly about Jesus and I'm going to talk about what he's done for me because of that relationship.

Speaker 1: 9:39

And so what I thought was really cool about what Sam did yesterday and again, it's so crazy how this all happened so Sam had a door up on, you know, up on stage, and it had a close sign on it and he flipped it around and he was like look at all these locks that we put on it. You know. Like there was one of those like combination locks and things on it. And he's like we put all of these barriers. Like we hear Jesus knocking, but we're like I don't know the combination, I don't know how to open a deadbolt, I don't know how to do these things. Like I hear you, jesus, but I don't know how to let you in. I hear you You're at the door, but I don't. And then he was like what I realized is the combo lock was already unlocked. I just had to take it off the hook. The deadbolt actually wasn't closed, those little chain hooks, it actually wasn't latched. I was the one preventing myself from opening the door and I was like, oh, that's so good.

Speaker 1: 10:46

And the whole message was that nothing we've done can actually separate us. Like nothing there's no sin, there's no transgression you've done that is big enough to separate you from God. All you have to do is open the door and let him into those places. And so then we come home. I dropped my nephew off, he went on his merry way and then we were looking for a movie and I had actually never seen any of the Left Behind movies I don't know if you guys have, but I have not seen any of them and there was one that came out in 2023.

Speaker 1: 11:19

It popped up on Amazon because, of course, amazon was promoting all Jesus-related material yesterday, which I was like okay, interesting. And so we watched the latest Left Behind movie, which is the Rise of the Antichrist, and how funny that Kevin Sorbo in that movie he literally references the exact same passage that my pastor, sam, said about Jesus knocking at the door and how we place these obstacles in front of ourselves and we deny ourselves access to Jesus. It's not that Jesus is inaccessible, it's that we choose to sever ourselves from him, and when we sever ourselves from him, we cannot walk fully in the purpose that he has for us. We can't reconcile if we don't open the door, and so that is. I know that was like a really long thing and I want you to kind of sit with that, like what have you? Maybe you've opened the door a little bit right. Maybe you're like poking your head out and you're like, okay, Jesus, you know what you can come into, like this part of my life you could come into my marriage or into my parenting or whatever habit I want to work on, or maybe we could just talk a little bit about business, but, like I'm still going to do things my way Maybe you've done that I want you to open the door today. Open the door fully. What is Jesus calling you into? How does he want to partner with you in all aspects of your life? What is he looking to do in your life today, right now? That's what I want to encourage you to do today. Open the door all the way, right, like let's take the deadbolt off, let's get the combo lock off, like let's throw away the key. I don't know, you can take the door, handle out, I don't really care what you do. Open the door all the way and let him in. What you do. Open the door all the way and let him in, let him work in and through you, let him reconcile with you. That's what I want for you today.

Speaker 1: 13:15

This is a short episode. I just felt like it was so funny how, you know, I have this message at church and I'm like, oh, so good, such a hot take, and I loved it. And then we come home and we watch a movie with the exact same message and I was like that is so funny, word for word, using the same scriptures and everything, and I'm like this is so fascinating. And so I want to ask you like are you in a place right now where you feel like the Judas, where you're like I've sinned and there's no coming back from it? Or are you Peter? Have you sinned? Have you done something? Have you done something that feels scary, like you can't reconcile, but you're willing to do it, you're willing to reconcile, you want to open that door. You want to be feasting with Jesus. That's what I want to leave you with today. I hope you have an incredible week.

Speaker 1: 14:09

I have an amazing guest coming up for you on Wednesday Debbie Sluice. She's going to talk about partnering with God in the vision that he has for your life and how to really partner with Him in that vision. So I am excited for you to listen to that. I hope you sit with this one today. I had to sit with it yesterday and just really think about how am I letting God in? Am I only cracking the door a little bit, or is the door fully open? Are there things that I haven't let him come completely into yet that he wants to come into that, he wants to heal, that he wants to redeem. That's what I want to leave you with is go and sit and take that to the Lord. Ask him, because I promise he'll show you if you ask him. I hope you have an amazing Monday. I hope this is an incredible week for you and I will see you on Wednesday. Bye, friend.

Speaker 1: 15:06

Hey friend, what a joy it has been to share today's journey with you. If you found a spark of inspiration or a nugget of wisdom that resonated, would you bless someone else by sharing this episode with them? It could be the encouragement they need to step into their purpose and calling. Also, if you could spare a moment to leave a review, it would mean the world to me. I really appreciate your feedback and it really helps our community grow. Remember, the road to discovering God's call for you isn't one you have to walk alone. So join me again next Monday for another episode where we'll continue to explore the depths of leadership and the heights of our heavenly calling. Until then, keep seeking, keep growing and keep trusting in His plan. God bless you and I'll catch you on the flip side. Bye, friend.