You can be seated. Let's ask the Lord to open his
word to us. Father, we pray that you would,
by your mercy in Christ Jesus our Lord, because of his righteousness,
because of his blood, You would bless us for His sake, and open
Your Word to us today, and make Him known to us. In Jesus' name
we pray. Amen. I've entitled this message, Strength
Against Denial. Strength Against Denial. In Matthew
chapter 10, verse 32 and 33, Jesus says this, Whosoever, therefore, shall confess
Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is
in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before
men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven.
Now, I don't know how many times those words have either explicitly
given me cause for concern, or in the background of my conscience
have been a nagging cause for concern. Maybe you haven't found
that to be the case, but this word of the Lord here in this
verse is that whoever confesses Him before men, he will confess
before his Father, and whoever denies him before men, he will
deny before his Father which is in heaven." There is no greater
honor imaginable than that the Lord Jesus Christ would confess
me, or you, before his Father in heaven. It's one thing for
a disciple like Philip to bring another like Nathanael to the
Lord Jesus Christ, or Andrew to bring his brother Peter, and
to introduce him to the Lord Jesus Christ. But it's another
thing entirely for the Lord of glory, the King of heaven, the
one who is his Father's delight and pleasure in all things, to
bring a guilty sinner washed in His blood, perfected by His
one offering, and clothed in His righteousness before His
Father, His Eternal Father, and present Him to His Father, and
say, look, this is one. I'm confessing Him to you. There's
no greater honor. And yet, no matter how high the
honor held out to us, and no matter how great... The punishment
threatened to us for failing to confess and even denying the
Lord Jesus Christ. I know that within me there is
this tendency to do the opposite of what the Lord Jesus has told
us here. Confess me before men, I'll confess you before my Father.
Deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father which is
in heaven. Now if we look at any command
of the gospel or the law itself in this light as something we
must do in order to have the reward, we become fixated on
our performance. We become fixated on the thing
instead of finding the strength we need to actually fulfill what
the Lord sets out for us here. And then of course there's also
understanding really what the Lord Jesus means when He says,
if you deny me before men, I'll deny you before my Father. To
understand that helps us to see what He really truly means here.
So this in itself should give us motivation to understand what
the Lord Jesus Christ means here. And we're going to see this,
and I've written an article in our bulletin for you to consider
later today that talks to some of these things and summarizes
some of the things that I've thought about here. First, let
me ask you a general question. What do you think is, what would
you consider to be the greatest commandment in all of Scripture
that we must fulfill? Well, Jesus was asked that question
by a scribe one time that came to him and said, Lord, which
is the first commandment? And Jesus said, how do you read? And he said, Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with
all thy mind, with all thy strength. And the second is like it. He
said, and love thy neighbor as thyself. And Jesus said, you've
answered right. You've answered right. He says,
there's no greater commandment than this. And yet, as you think
about it yourself, when have you ever, in your own person,
been consciously aware of the fact that you have loved the
Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, all your
mind, and all your strength. Can you ever think of one time
you've even come close to doing that? And if that's the greatest
commandment, then isn't it the greatest sin to fail to keep
the greatest commandment? And yet, don't we find in ourselves
that there's this constant falling short of keeping the one thing
that the law commands as the very first and foremost commandment?
And yet the word itself, commandment, it carries with it a connotation
of enforcing a requirement upon you that you would not otherwise
be inclined to do. Doesn't it? That's a commandment.
You need to fulfill it. And how many times have you felt
inclined out of your heart to love anyone who sets out to command
you to love them? Don't you find that those two
things seem to be in conflict with one another in your conscience?
I know it's wrong. I know it's wrong. Is there anything
wrong with loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?
Of course not. And is the law holy? Absolutely.
And don't you want to do that? Yes, you do. And yet you find
yourself falling short and you find this conflict, don't you?
Paul found that conflict, as we know and are familiar with
in Romans 7. He says, the good that I would,
I do not. But the evil, which I would not,
that I do. The things that I do, he says,
I don't even approve of myself. He says, that which I would,
I allow not. I don't approve of my own behavior. That's what he's saying in Romans
7. I find myself at odds with what I want to be. And there's
this conflict, this warfare going on inside of him. And so we also
find this and we encounter this with no matter what the commandment
is. Here the Lord says, if you confess
me before men, I'll confess you before my Father which is in
heaven. And if we view that as a raw commandment, You better
confess me, if you back down, even once, and fail to confess
me before men, I'm not going to confess you before my father."
And we become fearful and tremble. We think, I'm going to end up
in hell after all, because I failed to keep this one commandment,
to confess Christ. And yet how many times have we,
do we have to admit that in ourselves we have failed to confess the
Lord Jesus Christ? And then you might think, well
I've already failed to do what I must do, and so I have no other
hope but to face this prospect of being denied by the Lord Jesus
Christ, even in the presence of His Father. Banished from
Him forever, hear Him say to me, I never knew you. And so
we tremble, we tremble, we think, if that's what it means, there's
no hope for me. And so we begin to get very fearful,
don't we? Because we naturally, I find
this in myself, perhaps you don't, but I naturally read things like
this, and I see the requirement imposed upon me, and I see my
own sinfulness, and my own helplessness to keep it, and I immediately
tremble. And it sobers me up, and yet
I don't know what to do. And so, what do you do? And I
was thinking about that this week, and I thought, what would
you do if the Lord Jesus Christ himself, with you, one-on-one,
looked you in the eye and said, you are a lost man. What would
you do? What would you say to him if
he looked at you and he says, you're lost. You're lost. I know what I would do. I would
immediately run to him and cry to him and say, Lord, have mercy,
save me for your name's sake. Find the cause in yourself. I'm nothing but a sinner, just
like you said, deserving of wrath, deserving of your just punishment.
And yet, find mercy and cause in yourself and in your own name.
to save me, make me a trophy of your saving grace." And we
would come to him that way, wouldn't you? By the Spirit of God, you
would be led to do that. Otherwise, you'd be like the
rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said, Lord, what good
thing must I do to have eternal life? And he tells him to keep
the commandments. And the rich young ruler says,
I've done that from my youth. And he says, OK, one more thing,
one thing you lack, go sell all that you have and give it to
the poor. And he went away sorrowful. Sorrowful. Because he couldn't
do it. Because he didn't come to Christ
as a sinner. Right? He came as one capable
of doing whatever was necessary to have eternal life. And there's
only one way to come to Christ, and that is as a sinner. So I
say all that by way of introduction because those are the things
that disturb me in my conscience and compel me to seek the Lord
in Scripture not only for my sake but for yours. Because I
think that these words are meant to give us great comfort and
not meant to drive us away from the Lord. But the law has a way
of doing something for us, doesn't it? The law does several things
to us. When requirements are imposed
upon us, and we understand that we need to do something, then
we immediately, A, become guilty, B, find ourselves helpless to
fulfill what the law requires, C, we're also stirred up in our
opposition to the very thing that's required. The one thing
that I'm supposed to do, I find myself immediately failing to
do. So, the sin seems to abound that we would actually like to
get rid of. And the last thing that the law does in all these
things, it summarizes them in this, it drives us to Christ,
because it drives us to the Lord Jesus Christ and leaves us there
helpless and hopeless as a sinner, crying out to the Savior, Lord,
save me, because I have nowhere else to go. but to a sovereign
Savior whose life and death has done all and is enough to save
this sinner." And so that's what we plead. So what is it to confess
the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, as I thought about this
and in the light of Scripture, I came up with these things that
I could find. First of all, every believer confesses the
Lord Jesus Christ. We confess the faith of Christ. That means we confess that the
Lord Jesus Christ, the doctrine of who the Lord Jesus is and
what He has done, and we confess the object of our faith, and
we confess that the source of our faith, all of it is in Him.
Everything is about Him. We confess our faith, the faith
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the source of faith. He's
the object of our faith. He's the one we look to. And
He's the one who fulfilled everything God requires for us. Every believer
confesses this. My hope, my only hope before
God, is that Christ has done everything God requires of me.
He has taken my case, bore my sins, fulfilled all my obedience,
risen from the dead, risen to glory, exalted, and now seated
in glory, intercedes for me, and in my name approaches the
Father, seeking grace for me to bring me to glory according
to the eternal will of God." That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
does. That's what we confess as believers. We confess the
faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, that what He has done And who
He is, is all my salvation. That's confessing Christ. Until
we confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is all my salvation, that
means from start to finish and everything in between, what God
thinks of me is entirely dependent and only dependent upon what
He thinks of His Son. Then we haven't confessed Christ.
We've confessed ourselves. as contributing something to
our salvation. But we haven't confessed Christ.
We've confessed works. We haven't confessed Christ.
Remember in Matthew chapter 7, when we were looking back there,
Matthew chapter 7, in verse 22 and 23, Jesus said, "...many
will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord!" Have we not prophesied
in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name
done many wonderful works?" They confessed that they even spoke
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that speaking his
name? But he will say, I'll say to them, I never knew you. Depart
from me, you that work iniquity. And the problem in that case,
as we learned when we went through that, was that they came with
who they were and what they had done. That was the total focus
of their coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. Sitting on His throne
of judgment and asking to be received on the basis of what
they had done for Him. But a sinner comes on the basis
of what Christ has done alone. And he knows, a sinner knows,
that if he's not received for Christ's sake alone, then there
is no hope. There's just cause to send me
to hell. And so a sinner confesses, Christ
is my all. He is everything in my salvation. Salvation is all of grace. Do
you understand that? Do you understand what it means
to confess Christ? Have you confessed the Lord Jesus
Christ in this way? Have you said in your heart to
God, Lord, I come to you, not of my own initiative, but because
you told me to come. You said, come unto me, all you
who are weary and are heavy laden. Lord, I'm weary, I'm heavy laden
by the guilt, the oppression of my sin, and I come to you.
You said, look unto me and be ye saved. All the ends of the
earth I'm calling, I'm looking, Lord save me. And not only that,
but he says to look to him who was cursed for his people to
find in his work, in his suffering, in his death, in his obedience
to God, in his rising again, that the Lord has received his
people in him. That's what we confess. That's
our hope. And this is testified throughout
scripture. I could give you 50 scriptures
just off the top of my head here that speaks to this. But this
is what we believe, isn't it? We confess the Lord Jesus Christ. We confess Him as our Savior. We confess Him as our God. We confess Him as the only mediator
between God and man. He is the man. He is God and
man. The man Christ Jesus. He's our
mediator. He's our only access to God. He's our only hope of glory.
And He's our sure hope. We look to Him and we don't look
to ourselves for anything. That's what we confess, isn't
it? We hang the weight of our eternal souls on Him. Horatius Bonar said this, upon
a life, I did not live. Upon a death, I did not die. I hang my whole eternity." And
that's what we confess. When the persecutors are ready
to unleash the lions, or let the guillotine down, or take
away all your finances, or steal your children, or whatever they're
about to do, and they ask you, what is your only hope? You as
a sinner, you know in your heart that God has saved me for Christ's
sake alone. And you're going to confess that.
You're going to confess that. Why? Because you fear going to
hell? Because if you don't confess it, you'll be damned? No. Because
it is in fact your only hope. God has put it in your heart.
That's what it means to confess Christ. It means to speak out
of a deep conviction of conscience. What God has put there. That's
what it means. to confess Him as Lord, to confess
Him as Savior, to confess Him as my all. And again, I could
take you to many Scriptures. We have no confidence in the
flesh. Our only hope is in Christ Jesus, Philippians 3.3. We rejoice
in Him. Isaiah 53. Everything in Scripture
teaches us this, doesn't it? that the Lord Jesus Christ is
everything to us. I wonder what I could say more
than has already been said. Who is the one who saves us from
our sins? His name is Jesus, isn't it?
What the law could not do, and that it was weak to the flesh,
God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us." Romans 8. So these things
are things we are confident of, that this is our confession.
And we look to the Scriptures. We look to 1 Peter 1, 18-20,
that says we're redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. We
look to Hebrews 13, 20 and 21 that says that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the great shepherd of the sheep whose blood fulfilled
the everlasting covenant and now will make us perfect in every
good work to do his will. We look to all these things.
We look to Romans 5 that describes Christ as the last Adam who fulfilled
all God requires for us and who has In fulfilling our righteousness
now is enabled grace to reign through His righteousness so
that we are delivered from sin. We look to those things. We hold
to those scriptures that teach us these things. And we come
often to them, don't we? We come often to them. We go
to John 6. Verse 37, it says, "...all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me." And we're confident that
the Lord has drawn us to himself because we're made to cry out
in our hearts, Lord save me, this sinner. With all my sin,
and I can do nothing about it, save me, deliver me for your
namesake. Cleanse me with your blood and give me your own righteousness
to clothe me. Receive me into glory, perfect
me by that one offering that you've given. We pray these things
in our heart and we confess them before men, don't we? That Christ
is everything. He's all. The other thing we
confess, besides that Christ is all, we confess that our only
hope is that when Jesus Christ cried from the cross, it is finished.
That He actually, He really, put away the sins of His people.
Don't we confess that? Don't we hold that to be true?
What does it say in Hebrews 1.3? When He had by Himself purged
our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on
high. That sums it all up. He finished the work. He purged
our sins and sat down and reigns on high because He did the will
of God from His heart. And He has given us everlasting
righteousness. Look at Hebrews chapter 10. I'll
take you to this verse. Because these are some of my
favorites. It's hard to give you everything
that supports this. But look at Hebrews chapter 10.
He says in verse 11, Every high priest standeth. Hebrews 10,
11. Every high priest standeth. Daily,
there's a standing and there's a daily activity. ministering
often, I'm sorry, ministering and offering often times the
same sacrifices which can never take away sins. You see them
there, there they are walking about, standing up, doing their
duty in the temple, offering sacrifices every day, day in,
day out, year in, year out. Why? Because they never took
away sins. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God. Having completed, having obtained the atonement, obtained
the redemption, he sat down from henceforth expecting till his
enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering, He hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy
Ghost also is a witness to us, for after that He had said before,
this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in
their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more." The Holy Spirit of God who cannot
not look upon sin, looks upon his people and he says, I will
remember their sins and iniquities no more. Why? Because by one
offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. He
sat down on the right hand of God because the work was finished.
Nothing left to do. Absolutely perfect. And so he
cries from the cross, I finished the work you gave me to do. I
finished it. And he cries in John 17, I've
finished it. I've finished it. And now glorify
your name, because I've finished it. And so his people are saved
that way. And we cry, we confess. When
the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, he finished my redemption. He obtained it. And he sat down
because I was purged of my sins and perfected before God. And
that is all my salvation. That's it. I have no other contribution
to make. How could I perfect what the
Lord Jesus Christ, in His coming in my nature, dying with my sins
on Him, rising again, perfected in Himself? Why would I think
to add to what eternal God has done in the human nature of the
Lord Jesus Christ? to fulfill His will, to save
His people. What an amazing grace, an amazing work. This is what
we confess. Christ has saved His people. And He has told them to look
to Him. And this is all my hope. I look
to Him. I find in looking to Him that
I find He's everything God requires of me. That's my hope. That's
what I confess. I don't have any other shelter,
no other recourse. It's everything. Christ is everything.
I'm complete in Him. I'm complete. "...to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly."
That's what I believe. I work not. I was ungodly. But
He's made me godly by His sacrifice. I rest in what He's done. That's
confessing Christ, is it not? I confess that He's the first
and the last, the beginning and the end, the author and finisher
of my faith. He's everything. All that I believe
is Him. He's the truth to me. I don't
know any other truth by which I can come to God. I find it
all in Christ. He's the way. The way by which
I come to God. I confess that He is God over
all, blessed forever. Emmanuel, God with us. The Son
of God who sits on the throne to whom God says, Thy throne,
O God, is forever and ever. And He's man. He took on my nature
and in my nature endured the wrath of God and rose again.
and sits on heaven's throne in my nature as a man." I confess
those things. He saved His people. He did what
He came to do, and He will not and cannot fail. I confess that. And I also confess this, that
sin shall not have dominion over me, because He promised, and
He who promised is able to fulfill His promise. He's able to do
it. I confess that, don't you? Don't
you confess that? If you're a believer, you confess
the Lord Jesus Christ like this. He's everything to me. All of
my life I have been wrestling with sin. All of my life I've
been listening to the false teaching of false prophets who have given
hope in nothing. that can deliver me from sin.
But God alone in the gospel has told me what Christ has done.
And shows me and lifts Him up to me. And says He's everything. Look to Him. Stop. Be done with
the introspection. Look away to Christ. And see
in Him everything God thinks of you is in Him. Do you confess
Him? Do you find in your heart a resonance
to the truth? Do you find in Him all that you
need before God. All that you have is Christ.
Is He all you have? And you have all. And you confess
Him. You confess Him. You're free.
You're free to say that. Even though, again, even though
in our sinful self, in the body of this death, we're constantly
at warfare. Thinking, how? How can I avoid
this fault of failing to confess Christ? And it troubles us, doesn't
it? It troubles us. So we cry out
to the Lord. Lord, save me. Save me. Hold
me by your grace. Keep me. Keep me in the way.
Don't let me fall. Now, there were many people in
Scripture who denied the Lord Jesus Christ. There were many. Look at Acts chapter 3, just
to take you to a few. Acts chapter 3, verse 13. In the sermon that Peter is preaching
there, he tells the Jews, the God of Abraham, And of Isaac,
and of Jacob, the God of our fathers hath glorified his son
Jesus, whom you delivered up, and denied him in the presence
of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go." The Jews denied
the Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of Pilate, and therefore
they did it with the motive to kill him. And Pilate had him
put to death. They denied Him. But notice the
grace of God. This sermon is being given by
the Lord Jesus Christ from His throne to the very ones who denied
Him. And yet He said, if you deny
Me before men, I'll deny you before My Father, which is in
heaven. They denied Him. But what does He do? He sends the
Gospel to them. And look at verse... Verse 19, we'll read to the end
of the chapter. For Moses truly said unto the
fathers a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of
your brethren like to me. Him shall you hear in all things
whatsoever he shall say to you. And it shall come to pass that
every soul that will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed
from among the people." He's speaking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is that prophet. Yea, and all the prophets from
Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken,
have likewise foretold of these days. You are the children of
the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers,
saying to Abraham, In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the
earth be blessed. Verse 26, Unto you first, God
having raised up his son Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning
away every one of you from his iniquities." You see the grace
of God? They denied Him, but Christ sent
the preachers to tell them that He sits on the throne, that He
has purged the sins of His people, and He tells them He's reigning
there to turn them from their iniquities, from their denying
Him. Remember the thief on the cross,
look at Luke chapter 23. Luke chapter 23, we see this
thief. In Matthew's account, both thieves
were casting the same in his teeth. They were speaking against
the Lord Jesus Christ. These thieves, hanging on the
cross on either side of the Lord Jesus, were speaking against
Him. And in Luke chapter 23, in verse 36, the soldiers also mocked him,
coming to him and offering him vinegar and saying, If thou be
the king of the Jews, save thyself. If you're a king, save yourself.
This mocking and jeering. And a superscription also was
written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This
is the king of the Jews. They meant it to mock him, but
it was the truth, wasn't it? Who is the king of the Jews?
Who is the king of God's people? The Lord Jesus Christ. What did
the king do? He hung on the cross in order
that he might destroy sin and death and the devil and overcome
the world. That's the kind of king we needed,
isn't it? Let these go their way if you
seek me, he says in John 18.8. But here he says in verse 39,
one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him saying,
If thou be the Christ, save us. Save thyself and us. Save all
of us. Verse 40. That's interesting,
I never thought of that before. Just save all of us. But the
other answering rebuked him. Now this one who had formerly
been speaking against Jesus said, Dost thou not fear God? He says
this to the other thief. Don't you fear God? Seeing that
thou art in the same condemnation, we, indeed justly, for we receive
the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing
amiss. He saw, he understood, and he
said to Jesus, Lord, Remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom." What a mercy. He cries out to him, Lord. Yes,
I was a denier. Just a moment ago, I was speaking
against you, but now he says, Lord, remember me. Remember me. And he was turned,
wasn't he? The Lord says, this day you'll
be with me in paradise. A lot of people denied the Lord
Jesus Christ. All the disciples forsook him
and fled at the cross. Peter himself denied the Lord
Jesus Christ. When did Peter deny him? Right
after he said, though all deny you, though all forsake you,
I will never, never forsake you. It was right then that Peter
denied Him. When he was most confident that
he would never deny the Lord, that's when he denied the Lord. And do you ever think that when
Jesus told His disciples as they were around Him at that last
supper on the table, and He says, one of you will betray Me, and
they all said, Lord, is it I? Do you ever wonder that you would
have been reluctant to say that, thinking in your heart that you
were the most likely one? Lord, is it I? I don't want to
be known, but Lord, is it me? I don't want to deny you. Don't
you find that in your heart of hearts? I don't want to deny
the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to confess. What else
do I have to confess? He's the one who saved me from
my sins. He died on the cross. Why would
the cross be a shame to me since it's the answer to God for all
my sins? Look at John chapter 20, 21 actually. John chapter 21. Remember what
Peter did? He denied Him. What happened
after Peter denied the Lord? That last time when he spoke,
three times he said, I do not know the man. And he swore to
add to it. He put a stamp of his cursing
on it. And then, at that last time,
the cock crew and Peter looked, and Jesus turned and looked at
Peter. And what happened then? Remember?
Peter went out and wept bitterly. Remember what he did? He went
out and wept bitterly. What is the one thing that you
fear most when Jesus says, whoever denies me, I will deny him? Do
you think I'm gonna go to hell if I deny the Lord? Well, yeah,
you think that. But what was the one thing that
gave Peter the greatest grief that was indescribable of his
life? I am sure this was the greatest moment of grief in his
entire life, when he denied his master. When his master looked
at him, and he saw those in his eyes,
The one he loved that he would deny his master. And now here
we find in chapter 21 of John. It says, after these things,
in verse 1, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the
Sea of Tiberias, and on this wise he showed himself. They
were together. There were together Simon Peter
and Thomas called Didymus and Nathanael of Cana and Galilee,
the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. Simon
Peter said to them, I go fishing. What a dumb thing to say. But
he didn't know what to do. He was like a boat in the water
without an oar just floating along. And they said to him,
we also go with thee. He was clearly the leader, wasn't
he? They went forth and entered into the ship immediately, and
that night they caught nothing. When the morning was now come,
Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples knew not that it
was Jesus. Then Jesus said to them, Children, have you any
meat? Now He's doing this, think of this, this is the Master.
All of creation at His disposal, and He's going to teach them
a lesson. through the events that follow
here. He says, do you have any meat?
They answered, no. And he said to them, cast the
net on the right side of the ship and you shall find. They cast therefore and now they
were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. Therefore
that disciple whom Jesus loved, you know that was John, he said
to Peter, it's the Lord. They were pretty Clueless, weren't
they? This is something Jesus did all
the time. Cast it on the other side! How
could they forget? Now when Simon Peter heard that
it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat to him, for he
was naked, and had cast himself into the sea. This is Peter now. He had denied Him. And here the
Lord Jesus... What happened when... What had
happened previously? All had forsook Him and fled.
Peter had denied Him. But what happened? Jesus came
to them. And He appeared to them in the room when they were there
by themselves. When the doors were shut. And He said to them,
Peace be unto you. Peace be unto us. We denied. We forsook you. Peace be unto
us. So Peter cast himself into the sea, and the other disciples
came in a little ship, for they were not far from the land, but
as it were two hundred cubits, dragging the net with the fishes.
As soon then as they were come to the land, they saw a fire
of coals there, and fish lay thereon, and bread. He had the
fish already. Jesus said to them, bring of
the fish which you have now caught. Peter went up and drew the net
to the land full of great fishes, 153. And for all there were so
many, yet was not the net broken. And I'm sure there was conversation
between them during this time. Here they are grunting and straining
at the net. Jesus is up the land. A fire,
perhaps some rocks around the fire, fish already laid on the
fire. He says, bring the fish. And they're talking, who knows
what they were talking about. But Jesus is going to teach them.
He's going to teach them a lesson. But He does it in the quiet,
in the intimacy of breaking bread. He says to them in verse 12,
Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst
ask him who art thou, knowing that it was the Lord. And Jesus
then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise.
And this is now the third time that Jesus showed himself to
his disciples after that he was risen from the dead. Now when
they had dined, he waits until they were all done eating. And
I'm sure it wasn't a conversation-less meal. They were talking. Who
knows what they were talking about. Did you see Peter jumping
in the sea when he saw the Lord? Did you see that? And it was
John who first recognized him. They might have talked about
these things. But Jesus had another purpose in mind. And all that
conversation isn't even recorded here by John. Because he wants
to get to what really was important. When they had dined, Jesus said
to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than
these? Now, if I was Peter, I would
have thought, this is the Lord. He's the master. He's going to
teach me something. He's asking me a question. I've
been through this a million times with him. Everything he always
starts out these questions with, he always brings it around to
something. And I learn something from it. He's asking me, do you
love me? And he touches a chord here. And I think he touches this same
chord in each one of us when we read these words of his. These
harsh words that say, if you deny me before men, I will deny
you before my Father which is in heaven. Because what is the
pain in our heart of denying the Lord? Is it our fear of hell? Is it not rather... that we would
lose the one who loved us and gave himself for us, whose heart
of compassion is so great that he would save us when we were
in the thicket of our sin. And he says to Peter, Simon,
do you love me more than these? And he said, yea, Lord, now knowest
that I love thee. And the Lord Jesus says to him,
feed my lambs. Feed my lambs. And then he said
to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou
me? He said to him, yea, Lord, thou
knowest that I love thee. And he saith to him, feed my
sheep. And he said to him the third
time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved. Because he
said to him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said to him,
Lord. Now he's gotten to the point
where Jesus is going to teach him something. He says, Lord,
thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee.
What is he doing here? Is he confessing the Lord Jesus
Christ? Isn't he confessing him, Lord? You know everything, if
you search my heart. I don't even know myself, but
you know that I love you. Yes, I'm a sinner. No, I don't
keep your commandments. I can't. That's not an excuse,
but it's an explanation. Because I got this old man, this
sinful nature. And I'm constantly warring with
it. The good that I would, I do not. The evil which I would not,
that I do. And yet the Lord comes to him
and he says, do you love me? And here the new nature in Peter
speaks in dominion over his sin. And he says, Lord, you know that
I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my
sheep. And this is what the Lord Jesus
wants us to understand, I believe, in this command to His people.
I'm not speaking to the lost here. I'm speaking to those who
want the Lord Jesus Christ. Whose hearts' desire is for Him.
Who know that in their hearts there's no hope for them, but
that He died for them. And they confess that. And they
say, Lord, if You're not my hope, I have none. And so they cry,
Lord, you know that I love you. I used to fear God, fear that
I was going to hell and that I couldn't do anything to get
out of it. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ came in His grace and
He saved me for His own purposes, out of the love of His heart,
not for anything He found in me. And how could I not but love
Him? How could I not but confess the
One who bore that shame on His cross? How could I not take up
my cross in triumph to bear the shame of owning His cross as
my salvation? Lord, give us this grace, enlarge
my heart, and I will run the way of Thy commandments. Let's
pray. Father, we pray that you would give to us a heart to love
you. That you would show us that Christ
Jesus is our salvation. He is our life. He is our righteousness. He poured out His heart's blood
and washed our sins from us. Let Him be all of our salvation. All of our life. all of our glory
and boast, and let us not fall into this sin. Lord, lead us
not into this temptation. Deliver us from this evil to
deny our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are saved by His grace. We are saved by the One who is
God and made Himself a servant of all. made Himself a man in
our nature and bore our sins in that nature and the indignation
and wrath of God that we might be delivered from it and be called
the sons of God. Give us your Spirit, Lord, to
know Him. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.