Let's turn in our Bibles to John
Chapter 21. We've looked at this. I want
to look at a couple of things this morning. I want to look
at what the sheep feed on. But also I want to look at the
Lord's commissioning of Peter. Peter has been brought down very
low. Lovest thou me, lovest thou me?
Do you have any affection for me at all? The Lord said to him.
And three times the Lord says to him, you feed my sheep. Having
brought him down so low, now Peter is a fit shepherd for the
sheep of God. But verse 18, verily, verily,
amen, amen, truly, truly, I say unto thee, when thou wast young,
thou girded thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest. But when
thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thine hands, and
another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest
not. This spake he, signifying by
what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this,
he saith unto him, follow me. Then Peter turning about, saith
the disciple whom Jesus loved following, which also leaned
on his breast at his supper and said, Lord, "'Which is he,' said
the Lord, "'which is he that betrayeth thee?' "'Peter, seeing
him, saith to Jesus, "'Lord, what shall this man do?' "'Lord,'
said Jesus unto him, "'if I will that he tarry till I come, "'what
is that to thee? "'Follow thou me.'" I just love Peter. I just love
this scene by the shore of Galilee with these weary disciples there. Also, I just love Peter. I love thinking about Peter.
I love everything about his life. Obviously I don't love his sin,
but dear oh dear, all of us fall like Peter. It is amazing. You
get a private interview with the resurrected Lord of Glory
after he's fed you miraculously by the Sea of Galilee, and you're
walking along the shore with him, and immediately you want
to ask about someone else. What an extraordinary invitation
Peter got, and what an extraordinary distraction Peter had, and what
an extraordinary command Peter was given. You follow, you follow
me, you follow me. So over the next couple of this
week and next week I want us to look at several things. I want us to look at Peter and
this commissioning of him again for the ministry because he,
as we'll see, had an extraordinary prominent place in the early
church. This recommissioning in a sense is extraordinarily
significant for all of us and there are so many profound lessons
in it all that I think it bears looking at again and I want us
to spend a little bit of time looking at the shepherd's food.
The good shepherd feeds his sheep through under-shepherds, but
there is a food that he has designed for his sheep, and the goats
can't eat it. What nourishes the sheep offends
the goats. And so I want us to look over
this next little while at some of the ways in which the Lord
speaks in his word about feeding his sheep. And the wonderful
thing about the food that he feeds his sheep with is it's
food that sustains you now And the real food is food that sustains
you on your deathbed. Alan is feasting on this food
even now. Helen, his wife, did. June did. We've had the privilege,
the remarkable privilege, of being in the presence of the
Lord and his dealings with his saints at the end of their life,
and the food, The food that sustains God's sheep sustains them all
the way to the end. And Owen's very aware of the
fact that this is his last port of call on his journey home. And so if you have opportunity,
it's very hard to call him now, but if you have opportunity to
see him, it is for me a bit like it was with June, where you just
cherish the fact that he just has one hope. And it's got nothing
to do with him, and nothing to do with anything he ever did
or ever learned. And he's at rest, and he's at
peace, and he has what I believe is the joy and peace of believing. That's what I want for us to
have. When I come to church, I want to be fed. That's why
I've called it the shepherd's food. It's a good shepherd's
food. And if you're going to be fed,
I'm going to be fed too. And so I come to church to be
nourished yet again. I come to church a bit like Peter. I am made to, as Norm said some
little time ago, he said, there's no place on earth that you're
exposed as you are when you're standing behind a pulpit. And
there's no place where, from a human point of view, you are
made to be so humbled and feel so weak. And in the midst of
all of that, it just makes the Lord Jesus shine more brightly
and more amazingly. I want Him to feed us. I long
for Him to feed us personally, just as He did those men. Isn't
it remarkable when you think about it? They came to shore
and everything was ready. The bread was there, the fish
was there, it was all cooked. And then he took that and he
gave it to them. And he gave it to them with wounded
hands. What an extraordinary picture
of how the Lord does and must feed all of his sheep in this
world. So I'm praying that we'll be
fed. I'm praying that I'll be fed
this morning. If you're fed, we're all feeding. We all drink
from that one source, and we all feed, as all those people
in the desert, they all fed on one food that came from heaven,
and that one food needed to be fresh every day. Our mercies
are new every morning. What a great God we have. We're
gonna sing number 47, and then we'll go and look at our friend
Peter again. I need thee every hour. Most gracious Lord. Thank you. Number 47. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we do pray that you would cause us to be needy. You would cause
us to be so needy that only the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified
can satisfy us. Heavenly Father, we thank you.
that he is the manna from heaven, his body, his true food, and
his blood, his true drink, and we pray, Heavenly Father, that
we will be nurtured this morning yet again by just looking and
feeding upon the wonders of your dear and precious Son. Bless
us for his sake, our Father, and cause his name to be lifted
up and for you to be magnified in him, our gracious Father.
Amen. Okay. Peter. What a character. Let's read these verses again.
Verse 18 of John 21. Verily, verily, when I say unto
thee, when thou wast young, thou girdest thyself and walked, whither
thou wouldest. But when thou shalt be old, thou
shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee and
carry thee, whither thou wouldest not. This spake he signifying
by what death He should glorify God, and when he had spoken this,
he saith unto him, follow me. So the question is, that's been
on my mind, and I trust the scriptures might answer us for it, is why? Why does Peter have this said
to him? Why does the Lord have this to
say to him? He's already so humbled him,
hasn't he? Do you love me? Do you love me? Three times he was asked that.
And now, at the end of that, he's then told that this is what
your future shall be, Peter, isn't it? The Lord promises Peter
a long life. He says, when thou shalt be old, He talks of what will happen
to him. He had freedom in his life and
there'll come a time when he'll have no freedom at all. He'll
actually be bound by others. And they'll carry you whither
thou wouldest not. And he speaks of a death by crucifixion. Thou shalt stretch forth thy
hands. The Lord says this as a promise,
doesn't he? He says, Thou shalt be old. You're going to have a long life,
Peter. Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands. Another shall girdest
thee and carry thee. Don't you love the wills and
shalls of God? Don't you love that he knows
the end from the beginning, he declares the end from the beginning,
he's just declaring what was ordained for the life of Peter
from before the foundation of the world. Don't you love the
fact that everything that happens, happens because our God is a
God of absolute sovereignty and a God of absolute purpose. and
there cannot be any accidents. I cringe when I hear people say,
that was lucky. Absolute rubbish, there's no
such thing as luck. You can throw the dice up into
the air, you read it in Proverbs chapter 16, you throw the dice
up into the air when you're playing a board game, and they land on
a six and a five. God determined that from before
the foundation of the world. That's what he says. The lot
is cast into the lap and the determining thereof is of the
Lord. I love what we read in Psalm 34, I magnify the Lord. And this is the death that he's
going to die. By what death he should glorify
God. He's going to be kept faithful
to the end. You can read about it in 1 Peter
1. He's going to be kept by the
power of God until the end. And he is given a command. You follow me. You're gonna follow
me through this life. You're gonna proclaim me. In
all of these places, you're going to be the one that speaks on
the day of Pentecost. We read that a couple of weeks
ago. You're gonna be the one that stands. He's the first apostle. to proclaim the gospel on that
glorious day of Pentecost. He's the first of the apostles
to perform a noble miracle in Acts chapter 4. He's the first
to be involved in appointing deacons in the church. He's the
first to suffer persecution. You can read all this in the
early chapters of Acts. He's the first to confront apostasy
in the church and pronounce the death, the instant death of Ananias
and Sapphira. Not a moment did they have to
reconsider what they had done. They had lied to God. No wonder
great fear fell on all of the congregation at the deaths of
those two people. God is in the business at the
beginning of each of his activities that significantly
change the way he reveals His operations of grace and Ananias
and Sapphira was one of those that was incredible. If you go
to Leviticus 10 at the beginning of the priesthood, Nadab and Abihu take strange
fire into the holy place and God just kills them instantly
and tells Aaron. You can read it in Leviticus
10. He tells Aaron, don't you weep for them. God is serious about the holiness
of God. Peter is the first, but my point
is that that was something that wasn't like. Peter knew these
people and they would have rejoiced together. They would have been
among that number, the multitude of them that had seemingly one
heart and one soul. And they all were in communion
together. What a sweet and precious time
it was, and what an extraordinary and solitary warning. And Peter
was there. He was the one who had to make
that announcement to Sapphira when she came in. He was the
first one to be imprisoned, expecting execution the next morning. And
God miraculously intervened and the doors opened and Peter walked
free and did exactly what his Lord had commanded him to do.
You follow me. He went straight back to preaching
the gospel. He was the first to visit. the
Samaritans and bestow the gift of the Holy Spirit on them. It's
such a significant passage of scripture for those who believe
in these miraculous gifts and these apostolic gifts continuing
because there was a great revival down there in Samaria. Philip
and others were preaching, but it wasn't until Peter and John
came down And they prayed for them that they might receive
the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Holy Spirit,
in terms of those miraculous gifts in the early Church, were
in the hands of the Apostles. And so we have no reason to think
that when the Apostles finished their lives here that any of
those gifts were bestowed on anyone after that at all. You can read the story in Acts
Chapter 8. And I love, turn with me to Acts chapter 10. Just want
us to look at something of Peter's life and why this commissioning
is so significant because in a sense Peter is has a foundational
commission and Peter is laying foundational things in the church. His sermon in Acts chapter 2
is a foundational sermon. His declarations in the following
chapters are foundational. So when the Lord lays foundations,
extraordinarily significant things are built on those foundations
and if they're not built on those foundations, they have no foundation
in God. We obviously don't believe in
anything like the Catholic nonsense of Peter being the first Pope.
He was a long, long way from being a Pope, and if he'd been
here today, he would have decried all the nonsense that's gone
on in religion, as all of them would have. But I love in Acts
10, Cornelius had a vision, and it shows you how important the preaching of the gospel and
the ministry of the shepherds is. Now let's read these verses. There was a certain man in Caesarea
called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian
Band, a devout man and one that feared God with all his house
and gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. He
saw in a vision, evidently about the ninth hour of the day, an
angel of God coming to him and saying unto him, Cornelius. Isn't
that remarkable? An angel came and spoke to Cornelius. None of the nonsense that people
talk about these days. This is God's testimony of what
happened to him. And when he looked on him, he
was afraid and said, what is it, Lord? And he said unto him,
thy prayers and thine arms are come up "'for a memorial before
God. "'Now send men to Joppa and call
for one Simon, "'whose surname is Peter.'" And then he talks
about this, but I want us to go down to verse nine. "'And on the morrow they drew
an eye under the city. "'Peter went up onto the housetop
to pray, "'and he became very hungry.'" Sheep, my sheep. and would have eaten, but while
they made ready, he fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened,
and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great
sheet, knit at the four corners, and let down to earth. wherein
were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild
beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there
came a voice unto him, Rise, Peter, kill, and eat. And Peter said, Not so, Lord. For I have neither eaten anything
that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him
again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not
thou common. And this was done thrice. Everything has to be done with
Peter three times. He denied the Lord three times. He was
asked, do you love me, three times. And here, as he goes to
the Speak to this first message to the Gentiles. He actually
goes there with this remarkable picture of God's eternal purposes
for his people on this earth. Where do God's people have their
birth? Nicodemus? You've got to be born from above.
What do God's people do on this earth? They come down from heaven. The four represents all the four
corners of the earth. It's a picture, isn't it? It's
a beautiful picture, isn't it? That God's people are let down
from this earth, and what happens? They're declared clean by God,
and they're taken back up to heaven. It's a glorious picture
of the gospel, isn't it? And it's a glorious picture for
Peter as he goes on in his ministry. When God says something is clean,
you don't dare treat it as common. We're in the midst of God's people
here. They're not common. All of God's sheep are extraordinarily
special from him. They are birthed in heaven. They
come let down on this earth. They have this time on this earth,
and they're taken back up to heaven. That's what Peter is
being told, isn't it? You've been commissioned by me. You're going to be lifted up
from the earth. You're going to follow the Lord
in crucifixion, and you're going to be taken back up to heaven.
And Peter then preaches this great message. He went on his
way, and he speaks to Cornelius. One of the things that's extraordinary,
isn't it? Could the angel have preached the gospel in Cornelius'
house? He didn't. He didn't, did he? The gospel will come as news,
as good news from God to all of the sheep through someone
who is as frail and weak and fickle and in need of three times
being taught by God Almighty. You're not to consider these
Gentiles unclean. If you go over to the Next chapter
you'll see why Peter needed these questions and needed these reassurances
from God. This sheds so much light for
me anyway on why the Lord questioned Peter three times about his love.
Do you love me? at love is at the heart of feeding
the sheep. This sheds light on the gracious
answer that came from Peter's lips. What's Peter's comfort? Lord, you know all things. All
of his confidence, all is in the nature and the character
of the Lord he loves. He has to be stripped of all
of his self-confidence, all the self-evidence that he had, all
the self-assurance. How low must you go? To the feet of the Lord Jesus
Christ is how low you must go. And Peter's been brought down
there. But in Acts chapter 11, when
Peter goes back and declares what had happened with the Gentiles
and Cornelius, he has to challenge the apostles about what had gone
on. They challenged him about it.
When Peter was, verse 2 of chapter 11, when Peter was come up to
Jerusalem, they were of the circumcision contended with him. Thou wentest
in unto men uncircumcised and did eat with them. And Peter
rehearsed the matter from the beginning. And he then tells
the story, and he tells the story of Arise Peter. rise, slay and
eat, and he repeats God's word, now the fourth time, but in the
hearing of the others. He takes the words of God and
then he brings them to these other people who are questioning
what is going on. What God hath cleansed, that
call not thou common, verse 9. And this was done three times. And the Spirit, verse 12, bade
me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover, these six brethren
accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house. And he
spoke about his angel. He re-horses the story. And then
listen to what happens. An angel had been in Cornelius's
house. Listen to how Peter speaks. As
I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, us at the beginning. The Gentiles
had their Pentecost event. Then remembered I the word of
the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water, but
you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. You shall be immersed
in the Holy Ghost. For as much, listen to this declaration,
for as much then as God gave them the like gifts as he did
unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I, what
was I that I could withstand God? And when they heard these
things, they held their peace and glorified God, saying, and
listen to this, then hath God also to the Gentiles granted
repentance unto life. Repentance unto life is the gift
of God. The Gentiles had it. It's a public declaration from
our Lord who appoints Peter that he has a church. It's a public
declaration from our Lord. All of this is Peter being restored
to a place of prominence among the disciples. And he, if you
read his testimony of his his apostleship among the disciples. Listen to this, how he speaks
of himself in 1 Peter 5. Verse one, the elders which are
among you, I exhort, who am also an elder and a witness of the
sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that
shall be revealed, Feed the flock of God which is among you, which
you're in the midst of, taking the oversight thereof, and listen
to it, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre,
not for money, but of a ready mind, and listen to this description.
Neither as being lords over God's heritage. God's heritage, aren't
they? But being in samples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Peter had this authority, but
this authority was exercised with extraordinary humility.
Peter had known what it was to be humbled in the presence of
his great and glorious God. But Peter, like all of us, needs
continually to be reminded that God's salvation is a salvation
by grace alone, by covenant promise alone. And if God's salvation
is a salvation which is by grace alone, then it cannot be by works. So I want us to turn to Acts
chapter 15 and I want us to look at the last of Peter's great shepherding work in the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter 15, we have the
story of the Jerusalem council. And it is the only time that
the apostles gathered together in council that we have recorded. And they gathered together for
one purpose. And when the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ is gathered and has to contend, it will always
have to contend for what's in Acts chapter 15, the problem
in Acts chapter 15. That has been since Cain and
Abel went to church outside of the garden. It continues and
will continue to the very end. So let's read some of these verses.
I'll be skipping over bits of them, but I just want us to see
the way Peter plays such a significant role in all of this, and I want
us to see the glorious declarations of the Gospel. And certain men
which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said, except
ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. Unless you do something, you
cannot be saved. Salvation is not entirely of
God and not entirely of grace, and you have to put your hand
to the work. When therefore Paul and Barnabas
had no small dissension and disputation with him, they determined that
Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to
Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. and
being brought on their way by the church, they passed through
Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles,
and they caused great joy unto all the brethren. And when they
were come to Jerusalem, they were a receipt of the church
and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things
that God had done with them. But there arose certain of the
sect of the Pharisees which believed. They are still around today,
the sect of the Pharisees which believed. Notice the order that
God describes them in. They are a sect, That's a heresy, that's what
that word means. It means a choosing. They have chosen their way and
they're a sect of the Pharisees. The first thing about them is
that they're the ones that do the choosing. The second thing
about them is that they're the Pharisees. And then... We have very good reason to note
that their believing was not the true believing, but they
claimed to be believers, saying that it was needful to circumcise
them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles and elder came
together for to consider of this matter. And after there had been much
disputing, so these people were given the opportunity to speak.
They were given the opportunity to declare their case before
the church. Peter rose up. and said unto
them, Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God made
choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word
of the gospel and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts,
bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did
unto us. And I love what he says, and
put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts
by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God? That word tempt is the same word
that the Lord describes the work of Satan when he tempted the
Lord in the wilderness. Now why tempt ye God to put a
yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor
we were able to bear. What a great description of the
law. It's a yoke on the neck and no one, no man born of Adam
has ever been able to bear that yoke. No one has ever kept the
law. No one has ever kept the law.
All the law ever does is say guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. That's all the law ever says.
And I love what he goes on to say, no one's been able to bear
it, but, one of these glorious bucks of the gospel, but we believe
that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we Jews shall
be saved even as they. If you're gonna be saved, you're
gonna be saved exactly as the Gentiles were saved. You Jews,
any of you Jews are gonna be saved exactly the same way the
Gentiles were saved. Peter, Peter spoke, he spoke
wonderfully. I love how James spoke in verse
13. And after they had held their
peace, after they had held their peace,
what a great way to be in the presence of God's word. You just hold your peace. You
be still, you be quiet. James answers saying, Men and
brethren, hearkened unto me, Simeon hath declared how God
at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people
for his name. What's all this about the glory
of the name of God, the glory of God? And to this agree the
words of the prophets, as it is written, After this I will
return, and I will build again the tabernacle of David, which
is fallen down, and I will build again the ruins thereof, and
I will set it up, that the residue of men might seek after the Lord,
and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the
Lord, doeth all these things. And don't you love verse 18?
Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. One would have thought that that
might have put the end to the Galatian heresy and the heresy
which continues right up until this day. But somehow we have
to add something to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ
to be saved. So this is a glorious declaration,
isn't it? It's a public declaration before
many witnesses of the place that Peter was going to play. the
trials that Peter was going to go through, the fact that in
the midst of all of those trials, he was going to be upheld by
the Lord. It's a vital reminder, Peter's
commissioning, a vital reminder of the necessity for all shepherds. The first supreme importance
is, do you love me? Do you love me? That humility, Humility is the
work of God in the hearts of his shepherds. They don't see
anything of themselves in it, but they're looking to the Lord
all the time. It's a reminder that the Lord has both lambs
and sheep. They are his by covenant eternally,
they are his by creation, they are his by redemption, they are
his by recreation, they are his by preservation, and they're
here to glorify his name on this earth. And sheep, no matter what sort of a sheep
they are, they never rise above the need for being fed. And lambs need nurturing and
feeding. What a glorious life Peter had. What a glorious testimony the
Lord worked in the hearts of this man who had fallen so badly,
so often, and this wasn't the end of it. If you read Galatians
Chapter 2, Peter was going to fall all over again, publicly
deny the Gospel, and the Lord protected him and preserved him. May the Lord teach us his lessons
from all of this. His lessons about being a shepherd
and about how the shepherd are fed. God puts no difference between
us and them. You think about it all over this
world. God puts no difference between
us and them. Purifying their hearts by faith. What a glorious gospel we have.
And he gives the faith. And he gives the object of faith.
And he sustains the faith.