Don't you love the commands of
our gracious Saviour? No wonder John says they're not
burdensome. It's not burdensome, is it? What
a delight to have the Lord God Almighty come and speak to us
and say to us, follow me. He leads his sheep like a shepherd. In Psalm 107 it says, He led
them forth by the right way, by the righteous way, by the
straight way. You know there's a broad way
and there's a straight way. He led them by the straight way
that they might go to a city of habitation. Where's He lead
His people? Heaven. Heaven's where he leads
them to. That's what he came here for,
didn't he? He came to redeem a bride for himself. He reveals himself, as we saw
in John chapter 21, he reveals himself to his people, and he
reveals himself as the one who comes, commands, and provides. I'm just praying that the Lord
would allow us the grace of just simply following Him. Follow Him. He says it twice
to Peter. Turn back in your Bibles to John chapter 21 with me. He spoke of the death of Peter,
signifying what death he should glorify God. And when he had
spoken this, he said unto him, follow me. And Peter, as I said last week,
you have to, I just love Peter. I love the impetuousness of him.
I love the reality of the humanity of Peter. Peter's been asked
to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ,
bearing the scars of Calvary, and he can hardly step along
the journey of following the Lord. Then he turns around and
he looks and says, what's going to happen with John? And the Lord says to him, that's
none of your business, Peter. How often do we need to have
the Lord come to us and say, just follow me? When you look
around and we look at other people, and he's saying, you follow me. There are multitudes who will
be told by the Lord to depart from me. I never knew you, but
here he's commanding us. I pray he's commanding us to
follow him. I pray that we like Jacob would
wrestle with the Lord and say, I'm not going to let you go unless
you bless me. Genesis 32, you can read the
story. I'm not going to let you go unless you bless me. May the
Lord cause us to call upon him today. To follow me is obviously
to follow the resurrected Lord, the Lord who came as the Redeemer,
the Lord who came And here with his resurrected body and his
wounds and his scars, he's declaring to all of his people, it's finished. And I want us to remember that
in the book of God, the Lord Jesus Christ never appeared to
any except his sheep. What a remarkable opportunity
to proclaim a great victory over Herod and Pilate and all of the
Pharisees. What an amazing opportunity he
had to go back into Jerusalem and say, here I am, king of king
and lord of lords, and he wouldn't be telling a lie at all. And
he didn't do it. He didn't do it, and he still
doesn't do it. This Jesus, this resurrected
Jesus, is the Lord Jesus Christ who came and purposefully and
successfully redeemed his own. And here he is, bearing in his
body the marks of a great, great victory over sin and Satan, and
a victory that he won in union with all of his people. You read
John chapter 17, the Lord Jesus Christ prays about this particular
union. But it is the resurrected Lord
that calls us to follow him. We are married to, you children
of God, we are married to the resurrected Lord. Turn with me
in Romans 7 for a minute. And if we're going to bear fruit
to God, we're going to bear fruit in union with the resurrected
Lord Jesus Christ. Let's start in verse 4, but I
should start earlier. He says, Wherefore, my brethren,
you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that
you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from
the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Fruit unto
God? How? in union with him. So he calls
us to himself. He calls us into fellowship with
him. Him resurrected, the law being
perfectly fulfilled. And this resurrected Lord wonderfully
comes to his own. Were they out there on the sea
that night looking for the Lord Jesus Christ? Was Adam looking
for the Lord Jesus Christ when he was in the garden? He comes
to us and he comes to his own where they are. When he calls
them to follow, he'll find them where they are. He'll find them
doing what they want to do. And he calls them to follow him
away from that life to him. He says to Peter, do you love
me more than these? And I don't think the Lord is
going to be instigating anything that makes us compare ourselves
with one another. He's talking about that amazing
catch of fish and that life that Peter had in his boats and in
this world. He calls us to himself away from
the things of this world. They're not going to last, brothers
and sisters. They are destined for the burning. The call is to come. Come to Him. And when they're
called, like Peter, They cast themselves into the sea. I just
love that. It's a beautiful picture, isn't it? He cast himself into
that which was dangerous. It must have been extraordinarily
dangerous for those people out in that Sea of Galilee. It had
the most ferocious weather. It's below sea level and it's
surrounded by mountains on one side and the Dead Sea and deserts
on the other side. And the waves and the wind came
up there so quickly. There must have been thousands
of skeletons of people died in that sea and Peter just casts
himself into that sea and he swims to the Lord Jesus Christ
and then he has to be humbled. We'll look at that a bit later
on. He comes to his own and he calls and says, follow me. Turn
with me back in your Bibles to John chapter 10. Let's see this
shepherd calling his sheep to himself. Has he called me? Have I heard him call me? Have I heard his voice calling? One of the great accusations
that's made against the religious world in the days of Paul the
religious world of the New Testament, the religious world of these
apostles that were sent out to proclaim others. He says in verse
27 of Acts 13, for they that dwell at Jerusalem and their
rulers, all of the religious world, the best of the religious
world had on offer at the time, because they knew him not, nor
yet the voices of the prophets. which are read every Sabbath
day. They heard the words read. Multitudes hear the words read,
but there's a voice. There's a voice that they didn't
hear. And in their not hearing, they
are fulfilling the very word that they're reading out all
the time. Let's read some of John chapter 10. It's a glorious
picture, isn't it? He speaks of him. This is the
one that comes and calls and follows. Verily, verily, John
10, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold,
but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the
door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and
the sheep, listen to it, the sheep hear his voice, and he
calleth his own sheep by name. Have you heard his voice? And
he leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his
own sheep, he goeth before them. That's what the shepherds did.
They went before and the sheep followed. And the sheep follow
him. Why do they follow him? For they
know his voice. They know his voice. Have I heard his voice? Or I had heard a voice that sounds
and speaks his words, but I haven't actually heard his voice. Oh
Lord, cause us to hear your voice. They know his voice, and a stranger
will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know
not the voice of strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto
them, but they understood not what things were which he spake
unto them. They didn't understand. They're
just like us. They need divine intervention. They need the Lord revealing
himself in his words, so that we'll see what he's saying in
his word. Listen to what he goes on to say. Then Jesus said unto
them again, Verily, verily, truly, truly, amen, amen. I say unto
you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me
are thieves and robber. Anything that comes before the
Lord Jesus Christ in our affections or in our attentions is a thief
and a robber. Anything that comes before him,
nothing can come before him. To follow him is to follow him
regardless of what goes on around us. thieves and robbers, but
the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. By me, if any
man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find
pasture. The thief cometh not but for
to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they
might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. The Lord Jesus Christ is calling
Peter and calling us into a life of abundance. Life of abundance. I am the good shepherd, and the
good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is
an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not,
seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the
wolf catches them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth,
because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. We
witnessed a highling here, didn't we? Some years ago there was
this church that turned up here and used to meet in the building
next door to us here and it rose like a comet in the sky and it
was very, very big and flash and they had these international
people coming and they had lots of people telling us, you ought
to join with these people because this is where it's really happening.
This is where it's really happening. And it looked amazing and it
grew like a mushroom and was very fancy. And they did lots
of amazing things. Then after about three years,
the pastor left because he wasn't earning enough money. He went
back to New Zealand. And sadly, he went back and he
left his family. It's really sad, isn't it? We
don't rejoice over those things at all. The thing that's extraordinary
is that every single person who was involved in that church and
thought it was wonderful would never ever acknowledge that they
were caught up. Beware, the Lord says the false
shepherds, to follow him is to follow this resurrected Lord
and not to follow the hirelings because they don't care for the
sheep and they flee. And the wolf catches them and
scattered them. He says in verse 14, I am the
good shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine. This is eternal life, that you
know him. How do you know him? He says
at the beginning of John chapter 21, he revealed himself to them
again. This is the shepherd that I trust
we are following. I trust that he works in our
hearts to follow. I'm no one of mine. As the Father
knoweth me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my life
for the sheep. And I love this next verse. Other
sheep I have. When did he have them? If you
read John 17, he had them from before the foundation of the
world. They're the fathers given into his hands. They were his
eternally. They were his in union with him.
They were his by creation. They're his by redemption. And
they're his by calling. And he's speaking of this shepherd's
voice going out into all the world, which are not of this
fold, not of this Jewish fold. Listen to his powerful words,
them also I must bring. And they, listen to how he brings
them, they shall hear my voice. And there shall be one fold and
one shepherd. This is the shepherd that we're
following, isn't it? This is the shepherd that I want
to follow. This is the shepherd that I want you to follow. Do
you love that shepherd? Do you love that shepherd? That's
what he's asking, Peter. Do you love this shepherd? I
love this shepherd. This shepherd that's revealed
in his book. Go down to verse 25. The Jews continually didn't see
him for who he was. He wasn't revealed to them. He
says, if you be the Christ, tell us plainly, verse 25, Jesus answered
them, I told you and you believe not the works that I do in my
Father's name. They bear witness of me, but
you believe not because you are not of my sheep. People would love to invert that
verse, but God won't have it inverted. It's just as it is.
You believe not because you're not of my sheep. Lord, make me
a sheep. Make me a sheep. Make me to hear
your voice. My sheep, hear my voice, and
I know them, and they follow me. How far do they follow him?
And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. How secure are
the sheep! They're going to hear the voice
of this shepherd and they're going to rejoice in the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're going to rejoice in the
gift of eternal life, not something they've earned, it's a gift of
eternal life. They're going to rejoice in the
fact that they'll never perish. They'll never perish. What a
shocking word perish is. They'll never perish. Neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Neither shall any
pluck them out of my hand. Not even us can pluck ourselves
out of his hand. Not Satan. Nothing can pluck
us out of his hand. My father which gave them me
is greater than all. No man is able to pluck them
out of my father's. How secure are the sheep? They're
in the Lord Jesus Christ and in God, seated in the heavenly
realms. How secure, how secure. What a shepherd, what a shepherd. And he just simply says, follow
me. What a simple command, what a
sweet command. What else would you want to do
than follow Him? Oh may Lord be gracious to us
and we would find our delight in following Him. Just this Jesus,
this resurrected Jesus, this one whose voice comes with power. That power, he said, cast net
on the other side of the boat, and 153 fish immediately obeyed,
and the nets immediately obeyed, and the fishermen immediately
obeyed. I don't know about you, but I don't like being told what
to do. I feel like the hackles go up, and I've seen it thousands
of times throughout my life. Someone tells me what to do,
and immediately, immediately the rebellion that's just part
of my nature raises up. How dare you tell me what to
do? These are professional fishermen, been fishing all night, and the
nets were big. They had stones around the rim
of the net. So they had to pick up this net
with all of these stones, and they had to throw it into the
sea, and throw it in such a way that the stones took the net
in a great big circle. And then they had to drag it
all back in, drag all those stones back in over the sea, the bottom
of the... the Lake of Galilee and bring
it back in and get it all ready and then throw it out again.
They did it all night long. And then someone standing on
the shore says to those people, throw it on the other side of
the boat. Throw it on the right side of the boat. And like lambs, they obeyed. That's the power of the voice
of God when he says, follow me. That's his power. You follow
him. They, Psalm 910, I just love,
they that know thy name will put their trust in thee, for
thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek me. We follow the Lord Jesus Christ,
the revealed Lord Jesus Christ. In his revelation it's him that
is coming. His coming is the vital matter. And when he comes, he comes repeatedly
as he showed himself again. And when he reveals himself,
he finds us like these men in darkness and he brings light.
He finds them empty and he brings them plenty. He comes and he
reveals himself. This is the Christ we follow.
He reveals himself. And his I wills and they shalls
are perfectly fulfilled all the time. Every time we open this
book and we see the Lord saying I will and they shall, we know
exactly what's gonna happen. They will because he shall. What a glorious, glorious Lord
we have. And when he says to them, when
he calls them to himself, They bring their emptiness, their
weariness, their failure, their no fish, their hunger, their
tiredness, their shame, possibly their embarrassment at having
not been at what they should have been. And then what's they
find? Why wouldn't this following him
is to come to a banquet of mercy served by one host? Our Lord planned it, He prepared
it, He invites the guests and He feeds them, and then having
done all that, that's when He says, follow Me. Follow Me. To follow Him is to trust that
God will provide, no matter what the circumstances you see around
yourself are. he of his fullness in first in
john chapter one of his fullness listen to it of his fullness have all we received
grace for grace of his fullness we receive he says come and dine to follow him. is to take the
lowliest and the simplest of tasks. To follow Him is to be
obedient in the little things. So often we spend our lives thinking
about all the big things that are around us when God has given
us so many little things to do. The little things done in faith
and in love and in following Him. are the delight of God's
people. It's a privilege, isn't it? What
a privilege God has given that we might be able to serve one
another. We might be able to follow him and serve one another. He said it's more blessed to
give than receive. It's blessed to be a giver. To be a follower is to be a giver
and not a taker. It's to receive from His bounty
and to give of the grace of His bounty. Grace is a gift and the
recipients of grace are givers. the recipients of free and sovereign
love. What love the Lord had for Peter.
The recipients of free and sovereign love love other people and they
love the brethren. To follow him is to love them. We follow him when we hear a
voice, we follow him when we receive a command. We follow
him in his word. And we looked at it last week.
Diminishing nothing. Is there anything about the character
of this One you follow that you'd ever want to change? We must
delight like the Psalmist in 145. We delight to magnify all
the character of God. He's much more magnificent than
we can possibly make Him. There's sin mixed up with all
the light, everything that we do. Preparing this message is
falling short of the glory of God. Delivering this message
is falling short of the glory of God. far more glorious than
we can possibly imagine, but we follow him in his word. To follow him is to follow him
as his word says, as he said it. And John corrects everyone
when there's this. This story that goes out in verse
23 of John 21, there's a story that goes out that this disciple
should not die. And John corrects them and says,
what did the Lord actually say? That's the issue, isn't it? What
did God say? To follow him is to follow his
word. There was a saying that went
abroad among the brethren that this disciple should not die.
Yet, listen to John, yet Jesus said not unto him, he shall not
die. But if I will, he tarry till
I come. What is that to thee? You follow
me. You follow me in my words. changing
nothing, praying that we must honour them. To follow Him is
to leave all others, we've just read it, to leave all others
in His hands. To follow Him is to look to Him
I'm old enough to have been read in the old days of farming down
in our part of the world, and one of the signals of someone
being a good farmer was the fact that when they planted rows of
corn or beans or other things, the rows were dead straight.
And if anyone dared have crooked rows, it was a reflection on
their character and their care for what they were doing. And
my grandfather was old when I was young learning to do these things
and he used to sort of line up with a stick and he'd be watching
out the window and I was so nervous about trying to get the rows
straight where he was sitting there and not only do you have
to watch them when they're done, but you have to watch them crooked
when they come up and then you have to watch them crooked while
they're growing. They're there for months, crooked. Anyway, the only way
I found I could ever get them straight. was to look, I just
looked at the hills, and then I looked at a tree on the hills,
those mountains out here. And if I looked at a tree on
the hill, I would bump into the other fence at the other end
of the paddock, and it would be just beautifully straight.
And you had to keep doing it, because if you started wandering
off again, you'd still end up in trouble. So we leave all others. This world, God has given the
Lord Jesus Christ power over all flesh. That was he prayed
in John 17. Thou has given him power over
all flesh. Is he exercising that power right
now? All flesh. What a God to follow! What a saviour to look to! everything
around us all the time, he has power over all flesh. He has
power over the flesh of the politicians. We live in a world which is so
profoundly, profoundly evil that it's shocking to relate the things
that are going on in the name of our government. When we go
down and buy our wheat picks, we are supporting the most despicable
crimes that you could possibly imagine. And we're supporting
those despicable crimes by people who are liars to us. And I pray that it's not that
case, but our task here as believers is to fix our eyes on him. We
leave all things in his hands. Is God going to sort it? Will
there be a day of absolute justice, perfect justice? May the Lord have mercy on those
that we struggle with so, so deeply and profoundly. To follow
him is to leave all others in his hands. What if I will, if
he tarry till I come? If I want to keep John alive
for 2,000 years or 3,000 years, I can do that without any problem
at all. You follow me. To follow him,
as we saw earlier, is to know that he supplies, and he supplies
abundantly by grace. To follow him is to follow him
to the cross. He says, you take up your cross
and follow me. Take up your cross and follow
me. Peter was commanded to follow, having been told that he was
going to be crucified. We hate the thought of horrible
things happening to our brothers and sisters. But it's promised
by God that his people will suffer persecution in this world. He
said in John 15, if the world hate you, know that it hated
me before it hated you. And you're not of the world. If you're of the world, the world
would love. you, but you're not of the world. I've chosen you
out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." John was exiled
on the Isle of Patmos. All of the disciples suffered
enormously. I think four or five of them
were crucified. Follow him. And I love how the fact that
John's Gospel finishes in a sense where it so delightfully began
in the Lord's interaction with the people. He says, follow me. To all of these he walks by this
same shore, and he says to them, he finds them, and he says, follow
me. They heard John speak, and they
followed the Lord Jesus Christ. They heard the messenger, and
they followed the Lord Jesus Christ. Have I followed Him? Have I truly followed the Lord
Jesus Christ? Have I? Have I met the Lord or
has the Lord met me? Is the Lord meeting with us?
We are challenged about that very thing continually. And it's
a good challenge because all of the challenges and all of
the trials drive us back to the Word of God and drive us to the
throne of grace and drive us to Him and saying, Lord, I just
want to follow you. I just want to follow you no
matter what. How do we know? Who's the one
that's being asked to follow him? Peter. What's happened to Peter? Do
you love me? Do you love me? Peter follows
as one who has been humbled. I think it might have been Luther
who said there are three great graces that God gives to his
children. Humility, Humility and humility. To follow is to be humbled. It's
the starting point. Lord, you know all things. To
follow him is to acknowledge that all of my work is vanity.
To acknowledge that this is the Lord who said, without me you
can do nothing. People want to say, all that's
done for the Lord will last. Rubbish. Rubbish. All that's done by the Lord will
last. That's the truth of the gospel.
To follow him is to be reminded, as Peter did, that love is the
essence. is love. It's where life begins. If any man loved not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, let him be accursed. He's worthy
of being loved, he's worthy of being followed. Love motivates
our activities. Why did Peter get out of that
boat and swim to the shore? He loved the Lord Jesus Christ,
even though he was fallen and restored and fallen and restored
and fallen and restored. Anything not motivated by love
for Christ is not accepted. God won't have it. That's what motivates all of
our spiritual activities. We do it all for Christ's sake.
What keeps a man active and faithful and persevering? Love for Christ. You can't love the Lord Jesus
Christ and leave Him. He leads and we follow. Men can love their religion,
they can love their knowledge, they can love all of those things,
and you can read about it in 1 Corinthians 13. But love conquers
all. And let's finish by looking at
some marks by which love is known. These are not mine, but I've
found them and I've found them really helpful. If you love a
person, you like to think about him. You think about what it
was for you to have that first love for your bride. I've missed
my bride for the last three weeks. We think about them, to think
about him. He dwells in our hearts. To love
someone, is to love being with them. To love someone is to love
to talk about them. You know what it's like when
you love someone. You want to steer the conversation about
them all the time. You want to hear about them.
You love for them to be made known. You love to read about
him. You love to read from him. How precious are love letters?
We don't have them much these days. What a shocking day it
is when it's all messages and screens and other things. You
love someone, you love to please them. I don't want anything I
do to interrupt fellowship with him. If I love someone, I love
their friends. To love him is to love the brethren.
really love the brethren. To love someone is to be jealous,
to promote and protect their name and their honour. To love
someone is to hate something said about them which is patently
untrue and denigrates their character. Now abideth faith, hope and love,
but the greatest of these is love. Follow me and feed my sheep. Follow me and look only to me. Follow me and love me and be
loved by me. A love that gives, a love that
nourishes, a love that strengthens. To follow him is simply to believe
on him as he declares himself to be. To follow him is to cast
the net of life on the right side. Cast the net on the right
side. We know, some people know, the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he is rich, yet for
your sakes he became poor, that you, through his rich, through
his poverty, might be made rich. To follow him is to feed his
sheep. And that involves the work of the shepherd, but it
involves the work of all the people who are with the shepherd,
because we all feed together. We all need each other to be
fed. I need you to feed me, feed my
sheep. What an extraordinary charge
is given to someone who follows him. The most precious things
in this world to the Lord Jesus Christ is all of his bride. And
don't you love the fact that with all the commands of God
come the power to obey. When he says, let there be light,
there's light. When God's voice comes, when
this Lord Jesus Christ reveals himself, he speaks with power. My sheep, Hear my voice, and
they follow me. Speak, Lord, for your servant
heareth.