BE CAREFUL WHOSE SEAT YOU'RE SITTING IN!!!

Psalms 1; "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

I had the opportunity to attend the home-going celebration and in their passing, I saw a lot of different emotions from family, friends, and loved ones. As everyone talked about their memories of him and who he was and what YAHWEH had done for him throughout his life, there were still some things that he was planning for his family but would not be able to fulfill. However, he was at peace because he knew that his legacy would live on because he had built a foundation of faith in Yeshua through his family and I pray that this message would move to stir your faith!

So today, I want you to think about your life, and where you are in your personal relationship with Yeshua, and I came to tell you to be careful of whose seat you’re sitting in. Each of us goes through stages in our lives. We have good days and we have bad days, happy and sad times. There are days when our faith is so strong that we can handle anything, then there are times when only the Grace of YAHWEH gets us through. As we look at one week in the life of Peter, think about your situation and see if the chair that you are currently sitting in is the one you want to be in. As Believers, we sit in one of three chairs:

1. Commitment: To entrust, to give charge to, a costly chair; YAHWEH’s favorite chair.

2. Compromise: Concession, giving in, lowering your standards; A chair without character or boundaries; the Chair of “Maybe Just Once.”

3. Conflict: Self-satisfied or self-satisfaction, the chair of self, the chair of comfort, and the chair of a lukewarm life.

• Chair #1: Commitment: Matthew 16:16-18; “Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living GOD.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Blessed are you Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

The first chair is the chair of commitment. The definition of commitment is “to bind as by a promise.”

This is the chair that Peter was sitting in when he confessed that Yeshua was the Son of YAHWEH.

Yeshua had asked the disciples who were people saying that He was, and the disciples gave Him what they were hearing. Then Yeshua asked who they thought He was, and Peter quickly answered that He was the Son of the living GOD.

Peter was committed. He had been personally recruited by Yeshua and had sat and listened to all of His teachings. He had witnessed the miracles and had actually done a few of them himself when Yeshua sent them out as witnesses. Peter had witnessed Yeshua feeding the multitudes, calming a storm, and walking on water. Peter himself had taken a few steps on the water before he realized what he was doing and started to sink. Yes, he was fully committed to Yeshua. Everything was good and he was doing things with Yeshua that he had never considered doing. Things were going well for Peter. It is very easy to sit in the chair of commitment when things are going well when everything falls into place and is going smoothly. You can look around and see the results of your handiwork and know that you are doing something good, and as long as things flow smoothly, we can be committed. If you are sitting in the chair of commitment, hold on tight. Do not let the storms of life blow you out of that chair. Do not let anyone pull you out of the chair. Hold on. You will know how strong your commitment is when trouble rises. Let’s read a little further and examine the next chair, the chair that Peter also sat in when things started going downhill (according to how he was interpreting his circumstances).

• Chair #2: Conflict: Matthew 16:21-23; “From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him saying, “GOD forbid it, LORD! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on GOD’s interests, but man’s.”

• Luke 22:31-34; “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan, has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

At this point in Peter’s life, conflict arose. His world was about to change, in his mind, for the worse. Peter could not imagine Jesus being killed, He had not even established His kingdom and He was talking of being killed. I believe that Peter also wondered what would happen to them if Yeshua were killed?

This newfound life that he now had, would be over. With all the things he had done, would he now have to go back to his old occupation?

Although scripture does not tell us what he may have been thinking, these would be the normal thoughts of a person in Peter’s condition. If this was not bad enough, look at what Luke records in Luke 22. Yeshua told Peter that Satan had demanded permission to test Peter; I believe because he saw that Peter was now in conflict with what Yeshua had shared with the disciples. But Yeshua told him that He had prayed for him that his faith would not fail. Satan saw that this was his chance to add more turmoil to Peter’s life in the hope of making him lose his faith. When we have conflict in our lives, often our faith is shaken. We forget about what GOD has spoken to us in His word just as Peter forgot about what Yeshua had said to him. During our weak moments is when Satan really attacks in the hope of shaking us up so badly that we fall away in despair. But there is hope. Just as Yeshua prayed for Peter, He is interceding for us. If anyone can get a prayer answered, Yeshua can; do you understand what I am saying?

Are you sitting in the chair of a conflict today?

Is your faith wavering because of your situation?

Are you struggling to understand why things are happening the way that they are?

Do not lose faith. Yeshua is interceding for you.

• Chair #3: Compromise: Luke 22:54-55; “Having arrested Him, they led Him and brought Him into the high priest’s house. But Peter followed at a distance. Now when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.”

We find Peter in a situation that is a direct result of the conflict that is going on within him, and he started off very committed but when issues started coming up, he went into conflict mode. Then enters Satan the picture and he begins to test Peter. In the first test, Peter fails because he compromises. In these verses Peter has the opportunity to be a witness for Yeshua, yet because of the internal conflict he was having and the fear of his life, he chose to compromise and denied Yeshua to save himself. When the soldiers arrested Yeshua, Peter immediately went into self-preservation mode. Although he loved Yeshua enough to follow Him to the house of the high priest, he was still very scared. While standing outside, he had 3 opportunities to admit that he was a Follower of Yeshua and he did not do it. It got so bad that Matthew records that Peter actually cursed and swore that he did not know Yeshua.

Yeshua had already told Peter that he would fail this test, but Yeshua did not lose faith in him. Again, when Satan had requested to test Peter, Yeshua told him that He had prayed for Him and that once he had turned back, to strengthen his brothers, the other disciples.

In other words, Yeshua told Peter to take his failure and use that to strengthen his brothers, but everyone in this room has had the opportunity to compromise what they believe and hold dear. We have been faced with situations where we felt that although we were compromising (giving in) that YAHWEH understood and would forgive us. Sometimes the compromise is small while there are other times that they are so bad that we would rather die than have them revealed to the public. The definition of compromise is “to make concessions, meet halfway.”

In our walk with Yeshua, we cannot compromise on what he has commanded us to do, and not all compromise is bad, it can be very useful in bringing about resolutions to problems.

However, when we compromise our beliefs and our faith in Yeshua that is where we cannot consistently go. Are you sitting in a chair of compromise today?

• Chair #4: Forgiveness - The definition of forgiveness is “to pardon.”

Before Peter had entered any of the chairs Yeshua had already forgiven him, but all of us must sit in this chair at some point in time. The other chairs do not matter if we never accept the full pardon that Yeshua offers us. This pardon includes all past sins and upon request with repentance, present and future sins. If you have never sat in this chair, you cannot understand the power that is available to you when you are tempted to sit in the other chairs. The reason we are all here today is that Yeshua died for our sins and was raised on the third day. His death and resurrection brought us into a harmonious relationship with YAHWEH the Father, which means that we are always allowed to sit in this chair. Which chair are you sitting in today?

Are your circumstances bringing you into conflict with your commitment to Yeshua?

Are you at the point of compromising in order to end the conflict?

Are you finding yourself always in the chair of forgiveness and never quite making it to the chair of commitment?

My desire is to sit in, remain in and never let go of the chair of commitment; so which chair are you sitting in?

How are you responding to your “Peter” situations?

I WOULD RATHER BE UNCOMFORTABLE IN YESHUA...THEN COMFORTABLE WITH SATAN!!

"IF YOU'RE NOT WINNING SOULS FOR YESHUA..YOU DON'T WORK FOR YAHWEH...YOU'RE SELF-EMPLOYED!!"