John Chapter 21. John Chapter 21. A searching question. That's the title. Do you love me? Answer that question. That will
answer everything else. Do you love me? Now the Lord
is going to ascend back to glory shortly. He's going to give his
disciples a commission to go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. And they're going to meet with
great opposition. And the one thing that will keep
them together as a family, as brethren, and keep them in the
hottest battle is a genuine love for the Lord Jesus Christ and
His sheep." It's a genuine love for the Lord and His sheep. You know, to love the sheep is
to love the Lord. It's His body. And the Lord is going to direct
His attention here Remember, they came ashore, he told them
where to cast the net, they bring all these fish ashore, and they
bring all these fish, but he's already got dinner cooked. There it is. And he says, come
and dine. And they do. And he focuses his
attention on Peter. And in doing so, Those who are
sitting there listening are going to learn a lesson. And we who
sit this morning and listen to this conversation, I don't know
if you ever read the Bible like this or not, I do. Like when
I'm reading this, I feel like I'm sitting right there with
them and I'm listening to the Lord's conversation going on.
I'm sitting there. It's not something that happened
2000 years ago. For me, when I'm reading like this, it's happening
right now. Read the word now. Read it in its present tense.
Apply it presently. And so they're sitting there
and they're listening to this conversation. And they're going to learn some
things. And our Lord, as I said, He's going to focus His attention
on Peter because Peter's the one here that needs to be dealt
with. Peter denied Him. And so the Lord knows that He
needs to deal with Peter. Peter denied Him publicly. And
here before his disciples, he's gonna make Peter confess his
love to him. That's what he's gonna do. You know, remember over in Mark
14, 29, when the Lord said that he was gonna die, or someone
was gonna deny him, and Peter says this, Peter said unto him,
although all shall be offended, all these disciples right here, I will not be offended. Yet this is something else. Although
all shall be offended, yet will not I. I know I won't be offended. Boy, that's cocky is what that
is. That's arrogance. That's not realizing your weakness. Although these sitting here,
I wonder if they were offended at Peter when he said that. Although
they didn't, they, I'm not gonna deny you, they will before I
do. Peter needed this fall. You know, sometimes God in preparing
his preachers, he's gotta take them down into a deep valley.
And they've gotta get a real good look at themselves. I think
of Job. You know, Job, at the end of
it, Job said, by the hearing of the ear, I've heard of thee.
And I've heard a lot of preachers that preach by just a hearing
of the ear, the reading of a commentary. But now mine eye seeth thee. There's some whom God takes down
in the deep waters and they see God's ways. They have a deeper
understanding of God. So Peter here, Peter's the one that's in focus,
and the Lord is going to make him feel his own weakness, his
own need, and that he's not above these other disciples, his brethren. Now he asks here a searching
question, and we need to apply this to ourselves all the time.
So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon son
of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? And of course he says, yay, Lord,
thou knowest that I love thee. He said, feed my lambs. But I
like this. This jumped out at me. I've never
seen this before. I like that the Lord let Peter eat first
before putting him on the seat. This is so much compassion here.
He allowed him to sit down there and just eat. You ever see somebody
get at the table, and then they ask a hard question right off
the bat, and then it just ruins dinner. It just runs it. It's over with. I don't care
how good the meal is cooked. But the Lord waited. I mean,
this is real compassion. He waited till they had dined. Then He talks to Peter. Then
He brings it out. He deals with him so tenderly. Our Lord is so tender to us.
He's so tender. And He says, Simon, son of Jonas,
lovest thou Me more than these? The Lord addresses Peter as Simon,
son of Jonas. Remember he gave his name to
him as Peter, the tower of stone, and upon this rock shall I build
my church? Well, the stone had become dust for a little bit.
He had to bring him into the dust. It seems to me that the
Lord is reminding him of who he is. He didn't call him Peter. He said, Simon, son of Jonas. A sinner, the son of a sinner. That's what he's doing. You're
a sinner. You're the son of a sinner. Let us never forget who we are
and where the Lord has brought us from, no matter how gifted
we are. I remember Henry telling Todd one
time, Todd Nyberg, I'm not going to mention the other guy's name,
but the other man, the other gentleman was in a preacher school
together back in our twenties, in our 23-er. And this one gentleman was so
good looking. I mean, he was a handsome man,
very talented. I mean, could sing. He'd sit
over at the piano and sing and play that piano so pretty. And Henry told Todd, he said,
well, he said, you're going to have a more difficult time. You
don't have that kind of talent. You don't have that kind of talent.
He's gonna struggle because he's got, and he did. He did, I know they're both through
ministries. We gotta be careful that we don't
get taken away with someone's, what we call natural talent.
You know, God gives a gift, that gift's for the ministry, for
preaching. If that's the only gift you got,
it's a great gift. But he points out here to Simon,
he says, you're a sinner, you're the son of a sinner, and don't
ever forget that. But he asked this question, and
it caused Peter to search his own heart, but I think it took
the third time before it really, really hit Peter. It took the
third time. Peter denied him three times,
and the Lord asked him this question three times. And when he asked
him this question the third time, he really began to search his
heart, Love to Christ is the heart of the matter, isn't it?
It's the heart of the matter. No one perishes who loves Jesus
Christ. And I don't want to hear anyone
preach the gospel who does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, because
they'll never preach the gospel in love. They won't do it. Now in saying, Lovest thou me
more than these, the Lord may mean, and I think he does mean,
the other disciples. Peter, you said all may deny
you, but not me. Now Peter, do you love me more
than these disciples sitting here? Boy, he made him really
face it. John, do you really love me more
than the people sitting out here listening to you? If I was to say yes, that would
be very arrogant, wouldn't it? That would be very arrogant of
me to say that. Only God knows your heart and
my heart. But I think he also meant this, Lovest thou me more
than these? Do you love me more than the
fishnets? That's his occupation. Do you love me more than your
occupation? I've seen some people take a job and a promotion and
leave the gospel. That was a trial. That wasn't
a promotion. That's a trial. And they failed
it. Anything that takes you away
from the gospel, let it go. I don't care if you get double your salary,
triple your salary, don't take it. Don't leave the gospel for
any reason whatsoever. If I had an opportunity to make
$300,000 a year, or if I had the opportunity to stay under
the gospel and dig a ditch, dig the ditch. Dig the ditch. I'm telling you the truth. This
is over with sooner or later. I mean, very soon too. I'd rather
dig a ditch and know Christ than make a lot of money and not know
Him. Ask that rich man in hell what he'd rather do now. He's
still thirsty. He's still crying out for thirst.
And that'll never end. This life compared to eternity
is like a grain of sand. Just one grain of sand. It's
that short. But it means here the fish nets,
his occupation, or family. You love me more than mother,
father, sister, brothers. Luke 9, chapter 9, verse 62. And Jesus said to him, no man
having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the
kingdom of God. Everybody knows this one. Remember Lot's wife. Remember when she left Sodom,
they dragged her out of Sodom? And she turned around and looked
back. It wasn't the fact that she looked at the smoke rising
up from the city and all of it on fire. Her heart was yearning
for that place. Her heart looked back to that
place. That's where she wanted to be. How many times did the
children of Israel say, I wish we'd never left Egypt? Well,
they died in the wilderness. Those who meant that, said that,
died in the wilderness. They never saw the Promised Land.
They never saw it. Yea, Lord, thou knowest that
I love thee. Yes, He does know that. He knows
my heart, your heart. He knows who and what we love.
But do you know it? Have you ever really faced it?
The first time I heard Henry on television preaching the gospel,
and I heard it in power, but one of the statements he made,
and I'd never considered it, and I'd made a profession when
I was 20 years old, I was 23, I heard the gospel, 22, 23. He
made this one statement and it just hit me. He said this, do
you love Jesus Christ? I never even thought about that.
I never really thought about loving him. I always thought
about, well, you believe and accept Jesus as your personal
savior? No. Do you love me? See, that's a
relationship. That is a relationship. When you love, you know this,
you've been married, you know that's a relationship. You love
your children, that's a relationship. If you don't love somebody, you
have no relationship with them. Really, there's no heart connection.
You don't care what happened to them, it doesn't matter. It
doesn't matter if you ever see them again or not. But boy, when
you love somebody, they write you a letter. I still got letters,
several letters that Henry wrote me When I first began to hear
him, I began to write him immediately about the gospel. And I began
to write him immediately about preaching. It just hit me, it's
basically about the same time. And I still got those letters.
I'd go out to the mailbox and look to see if he'd sent one
yet. I tell you what, if your son
or daughter over in a foreign land and they write home, I bet
you'll read that letter more than once. You love Christ, you'll
read this letter more than once. I guarantee you. This Bible won't
collect dust. Not if you love the one who wrote
it. We use the word love for many
things, don't we? I love to go fishing. I love
to hunt. I love a good meal. I love my
wife and I love my dog. Is that the same love that you
love Christ with? That's cheap love, isn't it?
When you use it like that. Christ loves everybody. He just
wants to save everybody. That's cheap love. I hope my wife doesn't love everybody
like she loves me. I'm telling you the truth. It's a special love. That's the
only kind of love there is, really. Peter said, or the Lord said,
Peter, do you love me? And when he says more than these,
I'm not talking about do you love me like you love to go fishing? Do you love me more than going
fishing? Do you love me more than your family, more than your
occupation? Do you love me more? Because Peter's got a family.
Peter had a wife. We got a supply. He's the head
of the house. Believe me, in that day and time
especially, they were the breadwinner. The man was. That's the way it
was in that day. But he said, now you follow me.
You follow me. Nobody else is before me, Peter.
No way I'll provide. And he said, And then he saith unto him, after
Peter said, yea, Lord, you know I love you. He saith unto him,
feed my lambs. It's interesting how the Lord
mentions lambs first, isn't it? This is compassion. This is the
tender love of our Lord. He thinks of the weak ones. He
thinks of the babes in Christ. Don't get so intellectual. that the lambs can't get any
food. Don't get so high above them
that you got to have a dictionary to follow them instead of the
Bible. Our Lord, listen, if anyone could
have spoken in such high language, he could have, but no one has
ever spoken in the most simple language and used the most simple
examples as the Lord Jesus Christ, who's the wisdom of God. And it would do well for us who
preach to always remember to speak as our Lord spoke. Use
examples as our Lord used. But he says, feed my lambs. Don't
overlook the lambs. Don't overlook the lambs. Don't
become a theologian. Don't become a theologian in
a pulpit and people out there don't get it. I'm not trying to impress anybody
here. I'm just trying to preach Christ and feed the sheep. And
our love to Christ is expressed by our love and service to His
sheep. That's how it's expressed. It's not expressed in, Oh, how
I love Jesus. It's expressed in the way we
take care of one another, look after one another. That's how it's expressed. As an example, how do I show
my love to my wife? I do so by giving myself to taking
care of her. That's how I show my love to
my wife, my family, boys when they're growing up, going to
work, taking care of them. That's how you show your love.
How did God the Father show His love? He said, for God so loved
the world, Jew and Gentiles, that He sent His only begotten
Son into the world. That's how God showed His love.
How did Christ show His love? Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. That's
great love. That's how love is shown. And
then he saith, verse 16, he saith to him again the second time,
Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, yea, Lord,
thou knowest that I love thee. He says unto him, feed my sheep,
feed my lambs, feed my sheep. There should be something in
every message for the lambs and for the young youth in Christ,
middle-aged in Christ, and the older in Christ, the elders in
Christ. The message should feed the whole
group, the whole flock. Now each time Our Lord asked
this question to Peter. Peter felt more and more of his
weakness, and it made him search more and more. Just like if I
was to ask, or if Vicki was to ask me, do you love me? Yeah. Well, I hope I don't say it that
way. That's not convincing. But the second time, I would
be thinking, yes, I do. Boy, that third time, it hurts.
It should've hurt the first time. But Peter felt this, every time
he's asked, he felt his own weakness, and he's felt a need, listen,
we need to feel it. We need to feel this. Let's not completely divorce
our feelings. I mean, we stand on God's word, because I know
our feelings are up and down, but now we do have feelings.
And I'll tell you what, you cannot love someone and not have any
feelings. That's not even possible. That's
not possible. The way we are made up, it's
not possible. This time though, the Lord asked
this question was more in reference to Himself than in relationship
to these things. It's like when He said, do you
love me more than these things? I can see Peter looking, you
know, you're looking around. Now He's saying, do you love me?
You see, the focus is now Come into Him. Just come to Him. In verse 17, He saith to him
the third time, Peter denied him three times, and the Lord
asked him three times, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
Peter was grieved, because he said unto him the third time,
Lovest thou me? And he saith unto him, Lord,
thou knowest all things here is a recognition of his deity
you know all nothing's hid from you remember Psalm 139 we looked
at Thursday you know my down city my uprising my thought my
the words on my tongue you know you know it you know it and Peter
says thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee
Jesus said to him See, I think the first response
was, I'm going to say natural, but the first response was, yes,
I love you. Lord, you know, I love you. The
second time, the response was thoughtful. It's thoughtful. Yes, Lord. Yes, I love you. The
third response was felt in the heart. The Lord reached into
his heart. He got to the bottom of it. He
got to the very root of it. Because of what he's going to
say to him after this. He said, feed my sheep. Don't get caught
up fighting those Pharisees. False religion. Remember this.
False religion is going to be false always at the end. God
has some children in false religion. He's going to bring them out
of it. But you're not going to change false religion. I'm not going
to stand up here each week and just try to fight false religion.
I'm going to preach the truth. As Henry said one time, lay the
straight stick down beside the crooked one. Just lay the straight
stick down. Then when you hear the crooked
one, you'll know what's straight. You'll know what the gospel is.
I'm not going to waste my time on preaching against something
people that are not here. I want to feed the sheep that
are here. And the way I feed the sheep is to exalt the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now this word here, he said,
feed my sheep. I got this from J.C. Ryle. Listen
to this. There's two different words that are used to express
our one word, our one English word, FEED. One means simply
PROVIDE FOOD AND PASTURE, is what it means, and is used in
verse 15 and 17. The other means Not only provide
food, but govern, lead, direct, and generally to do the work
of a shepherd. That's the last one he's saying.
You govern and guide and direct the sheep and do the work of
a pastor. You provide the food, right here, open the word of
God. Open the word of God. My mother
says she went to a place once and the man stepped in a pulpit
and never had a Bible or anything. Talked about what was in the
newspaper. I said, I don't go back to listen to him. I told
her, I said, don't go here, go back there. Charles Spurgeon
said this, he said, if I go someplace and that man does not preach
the gospel, that's to his condemnation. If I go back the second time,
that's to my condemnation. That's to my condemnation. Feed my sheep. Love to Christ is expressed by
feeding the sheep. And listen, Also the spirit in
which we feed the sheep is expressed if we really love Christ. Paul
said this in Ephesians 4.15, but speaking the truth in love,
in love. And I want you to notice something
else here. Note the grace of God here, the grace of our Lord
to Peter and how he's handling Peter. Peter was not cast aside
after the Lord denied him three times. He's more useful now than
ever. He is. You reckon Peter knew and felt
that he did not deserve to be an apostle? You reckon he felt that? I have
no doubt that he never forgot. I think in his own heart, he
felt like he stood side by side with Judas that day. Judas betrayed
him and I denied him. And the only difference is grace
of God. It's the only difference. Here's what grace will do. Here's
what it does and will do. Paul said this in 1 Corinthians
15 9, for I am the least of the apostles. There was a time when
Paul did not feel he was the least of anything. He felt like
he was at the head of everything. I'm the least of the apostles
that am not me to be called an apostle. I'm not fit to be called
an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. I'm the least
of the apostles. In Ephesians 3, 8, Unto me who
am less than the least of the saints. See, he was the least
of the apostles, now he says, I'm the least of the saints of
God. I'm the least believer in this room. And he was the one doing all
the preaching. Now that's the preacher you want to listen to.
The one who feels he's himself, I mean truly feels himself, not
false humility, but truly feels himself to be the least person
in a room. Why am I doing this? Why, Lord, why me? Why would
you use me to stand up here and preach the gospel? Why, why?
Well, that's his business. As we'll see here in a minute. But how do we feed the sheep?
I thought about this. I questioned this. Because I
do this every week. How am I to feed the sheep? We feed the sheep in the green
pastures of God's word. Leave our opinions out of it.
Take the word of God and feed the sheep. Because it's in the
green pastures of God's word that we find the living word.
This is where we feed on Christ, the Living Word. We don't feed
on Christ apart from His Word. This is where He's revealed Himself
to us and speaks to us by His Spirit through His Word. And
my one business is to feed the sheep. Remember over in Acts
when Paul said it's not right, or Peter, one of the apostles,
said it's not right to serve tables, for us to be serving
tables, you know, taking care of the widows, and there was
a dispute going on. He said, you choose some qualified
men to do this while we give ourselves to prayer and the study
of God's words. That's my number one business
here. is prayer and the study of God's
Word and to preach to you week after week the unsearchable riches
of Christ. I am to feed the sheep and not
myself. Ezekiel 34.2 Son of man, prophesy
against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say unto them, Thus
saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, Woe be to the shepherds of Israel
that do feed themselves. Should not the shepherds feed
the flocks? Not themselves. Not to serve myself, get you
to serve me and get into your pocketbook. That's not it. It's to serve
the Lord and feed the sheep. Now Peter's going to have an
opportunity to glorify Christ because our Lord says, do you
love me, Peter? He says, you know I love you. Love me? You
know I love you. Love me? Lord you know all things,
you know I love you. Well here's how you're going
to show it. Here's how you're going to show
it in the way you die, in your death. Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and you
walked wherever you wanted to, wherever you would. But when
you're old, Thou shalt stretch forth thy hand, and another shall
gird thee, and carry thee, whether thou wiltest not. This spake
he, signifying by what death he should glorify God." He didn't
say this, this spake he signifying by what death he should die,
but what death he should glorify God. Our death is a death that
glorifies God. And when he had spoken this,
he said to him, follow me. It is said that Peter was crucified
upside down. He didn't want to be, he thought
it was too much. He didn't want to be crucified right side up.
That's why his Lord, he said, do crucify me upside down. I'm not worthy to be crucified
right side up. That's my Lord. And I tell you this, he didn't
deny the Lord that time. He needed it the first time that
he would not deny him his last time when he was ready to die.
But his death would be a glorification of God. Then Peter, turning about,
seeing the disciple whom Jesus loved, John, following, there's
following, which also leaned on his breast at supper and said,
Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter, seeing him, saith
to Jesus, Lord, he never quit being Peter. You know, the Lord,
we do grow in grace and knowledge of Christ, but there's still
a core personality about us that just doesn't change. I mean,
it's just, it's us. It's who we are. You know, the
Lord doesn't have a bunch of clones. He saves sinners. He saves sinners. And He saves
them where they are and who they are. And Peter said to him, said to
Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do? First of all, it seems
to me like he's trying to take the focus off of him now. You
ever see anybody do that? You're talking about something,
you're talking to him about something, about doing something, and so,
well, what about so-and-so? Well, we're not talking about
so-and-so, we're talking about you. That's a diversion. That's just a diversion. And
I think Peter was probably doing that. Well, what about John?
It may be also that Peter wants to know what kind of death John's
going to die, since this is the kind of death I'm going to die,
what kind of death is John going to die? That's none of your business. This is one of the times the
Lord basically said, that's none of your business. Jesus said to him, if I will
that he tarry till I come, what's that to you? If it's my will
that John be alive till I come that's none of your business
Here's your business is my will for you Quit looking around at
the other sheep and just look at yourself. I There's a Lord,
the Lord has a purpose for you in the kingdom of God, in the
body of Christ, and don't look at another one and say, well,
I really, what about the right hand? I know what the left hand's
gonna do, now what about the right? It's none of your business.
I mean, you say, well, that sounds rude. Sometimes you gotta be. Sometimes you just have to be. The Lord's will for us is individual,
you know that? What He would have you to do
and me to do, that's our business, that's our business. And here's the danger, now listen,
here's the danger of twisting the Word of God and starting
a rumor. And next thing you know the rumor
becomes a doctrine, free willism. Then went this saying abroad
among the brethren, that that disciple should not die. The
Lord didn't say that. That's twisting the Word of God.
He didn't say that, but it was rumored for years. Hard to say
how long. It was rumored for years, probably
until John died. When he finally died, they said,
well, that's not what he meant. No, be careful. Handle the Word
of God carefully. Handle the Word of God. See what
rumors do, taking the Word of God and you twisted it. It said,
Yet Jesus said not unto him he shall not die, but if I will
that he tarry. What's that your business? That's
my business. Gotta be careful when we handle
the Word of God. I tell you what, there's no more responsibility
on anybody on the top side of this earth than what I've got
right now. THAT'S THE TRUTH! I HAVE THE GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY
EVERY WEEK STANDING HERE HANDLING THE WORD OF GOD! THIS IS GOD'S
WORD! I DON'T WANT TO TWIST WHAT HE
SAID AND WHAT HE'S SAYING! And I'm going to close here.
This is the disciple which testifies of these things. and wrote these
things, and we know that his testimony is true." This is John.
John's testimony is absolutely true. All that we have looked
at now, we've come to the end of that Gospel of John. Everything
John's had to say is true. It's true. And there are also
many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should
be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could
not contain the books that should be written. Amen. We don't need anything else written.
Just believe what is written. There are 66 books in this Bible. There's one book, the Bible,
but there are 66 books in the Bible. We don't need any more written.
We don't need to read about any more miracles. Is that going
to be any better? How many times did the Jews say
to our Lord, show us a sign? How many times did they see one?
And the next time they say, show us a sign. It never produces
faith. We have all that we need right
here in the Word of God. That's all we need. A searching question. Do you
love me more than these? All right.