Let's read starting in verse
15 through the end of the chapter. When they had finished breakfast,
Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more
than these? And he said, you know that I
love you. And he said to him, feed my lambs. He, Jesus, said a second time,
Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord,
you know that I love you. And he said to him, tend my sheep.
He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love
me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time,
do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know everything.
You know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my
sheep. Jesus says, truly, truly, I say
to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and
walk wherever you wanted. But when you were old, you will
stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you
where you do not want to go. This, he said, to show by what
kind of death he was to glorify God. And after saying this to
me, after saying this, he said to him, follow me. Peter turned
and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one
who also had leaned back against him during the supper, and had
said, Lord, who is it that is going to betray you? When Peter
saw him, he said to Jesus, what about this man? And Jesus said
to him, if it is my will that he remain until I come, what
is it to you? You follow me. So the same spread among the
brothers that this disciple was not to die. Yet Jesus did not
say to him that he was not to die. But if it is my will that
he remain until I come, what is that to you? This is the disciple
who is bearing witness about these things and who has written
these things. And we know that this testimony
is true. Now there are also many other
things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be
written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the
books that would be written. When we think of the closing
of this gospel, we need to keep the whole thing in mind. Do not lose sight of what we've
learned. Now, for those of you who are
familiar with narratives, It's very difficult to preach them
in a way that shows you exactly what's supposed to be taught.
But if I go to Galatians, it's pretty simple. Paul says this,
then he says this, then he says therefore, therefore, therefore,
and he teaches something, then he says therefore, and he goes
right on. But to hear Jesus like an observer, talk to a few disciples,
and then ask yourself, what is it that I'm supposed to glean
from this? How am I supposed to understand what to do? That very question is almost
the answer. We're not supposed to do anything. We're not supposed to see Peter's
calling and emulate Peter's calling. We're not supposed to see Peter's
zeal and emulate Peter's zeal. We're not supposed to even see
Jesus and what he says and does and emulate what he says and
does. We're supposed to hear the instruction that's given
to us and follow it. And we're supposed to see what
was done and observe it. And through the observation of
what Jesus reveals to us in the narrative of this gospel, we
are to know Christ to know He is who He says He is, He accomplished
what He said He came to accomplish, and He saved the people for whom
He came. And we, counted in that number,
rejoice. We rejoice. And that is the ultimate
foundation of being a Christian in the world. that we see the
gospel, we see the teachings of Christ as he is and who he
is and what he accomplished, and we just have joy in it. And
from that joy, then we have the therefores of scripture that
we see in the letters, we see in the didactics, we see in the
teaching, the instructions or the commandments of the New Testament.
And in these commandments, then, like some people have said to
me before, you know, I've only thought that Ephesians had three
chapters. The gospel, the gospel, the gospel, therefore, now live
like this, act like this, walk like this, talk like this, know
this, treat each other this way, boom. We don't want to hear those
things. But the gospel in and of itself, as Jesus prayed in
John 17, he prayed and the Father answered these prayers that the
sheep of his fold would be one body and of one accord. And that
starts with the foundation of doctrinal purity. milk. And then it moves to the meat,
as we will learn some more this next Wednesday, it moves to the
meat of gospel living amongst the saints. It moves to the reality because
of who Christ is, because of what he's done, out of our joy
we share life together. That's the point. There's not
one instruction given in the New Testament epistles. Don't
you think about this? Not one command that has been
given to the individual isolated. There's not one letter written
to the individual isolated. There's not one sentence ever
written by an apostle to an individual isolated. It's always for the
body intimately together in a region or for the person, like the pastoral
letters, like Timothy, in order for him to teach the body to
live together. So without living together as
the body, we miss 90% of Christian life. And all we are able to
do is divide over doctrine. Because it's the only relationship
we have. But when the doctrine is pure, when the gospel is granted,
when repentance and saving faith is gifted to the sheep of God,
then we're able to come together as the saints and live in a manner
that's worthy of our calling. And God is glorified in that
because our love for one another is a symbol, is a presence of
God's love for us in Jesus Christ. And so if we were to ever say,
what is the mark of a true Christian? It is gospel intimacy and loving
sacrifice with God's people. That's a Christian who has an
active and lively faith. And as we move into 1 John, you'll
see it. It's like John was like, man,
I got this gospel. Now the Lord prompted him to
write that epistle. And then the Lord prompted him
to write that revelation that he gave him. And you can't divide
them out. You can't strip out the instruction. You can't strip out the therefores
of scripture and say, well, these aren't necessary. That's stupid. It's stupid. It doesn't make
any sense. I've never been one to argue
and want to make a public display of my differences or disagreements
with folks, but I did it indirectly. Let me tell you how I did it.
I would use words like idiot. I would use words like moron.
And I would do it very emphatically. You moron! I mean, you know,
doesn't that sound funny? And I would say things that even
if somebody disagreed with me, they're like, well, I'm not going
to say anything otherwise because I don't want to be a moron. I
don't want to be dumb. I don't want to be stupid. I
don't want to be an idiot. And so it was a, it was a way, it
was a passive aggressive way of fighting, setting up the straw
man that if you think different than what I just said, you're
an idiot. Nobody wants to be that idiot. So I'm not going
to say anything. And so it was really a lording over God's people
in a way that I didn't even recognize. I was immature. Yes, it's tour,
not sure. However you want to say it. We
got in that argument this weekend. But some well-meaning brother
came to me one day as I was teaching through the apocalypse. And according
to him, it was well done. And it was just verse by verse
and just seeing the pictures. And after about six weeks in,
he says, you know what? I've been filming this, but I
can't use it anymore because of the way you're so, you're
so rude. Because what you're saying is
directly opposing how you're saying it. So he just turned
the camera off. He said, you need to stop saying
idiot. You need to stop calling people morons just because they
believe in moronic stuff. Because the Lord will use your
teaching if you're gentle and loving and kind. And your primary
purpose in life change is to shepherd the sheep, not tick
off the dogs, not stomp on the snakes, not aggravate the goats. But it's always easier to do
the other end. And I'm not going to get into that today, but I
mean, we can see that on social media. All of us have experienced
in the last few weeks, which is like, what the world? And
sadly, sometimes we lose focus of what God and what Christ has
called us to do. So in that sense that John in this gospel is not
giving us some directives, we do have those directives in his
epistle that we'll get to in two weeks. We do have those directives
that we've already learned in Paul's teaching. We do have those
directives that we're going to see after the gospel is, I mean,
like a Mack truck running through a power plant, exploding and
leaving a crater that's gospel-sized, there's a piece of sand in that
crater that is a therefore. And we can't ignore it, even
though it's really, really small. Matter of fact, put a piece of sand
in some collard greens, you find it. It's amazing what you can
feel. But we can learn by the life of Peter. And this
is why I believe that John closes with Peter's restoration. I think
John closes with Peter's restoration because for all intents and purposes,
Peter was the model disciple. Peter was the guy who spoke.
Peter was the guy who had spunk. Peter was a moron, you see. But he loved Jesus and no one
could deny that he loved Jesus. He was willing to lay down everything.
He was willing to die, kill, maim, starve, go anywhere. And he had a positive attitude
about it too. As long as I'm with Jesus, that
man is not going to die. You know, that kind of stuff,
that kind of attitude. This is something that everybody wants
a Peter in his entourage. Because he's got your back. He's
got your front. He's got your bottom and your
top. He's under your feet. He's making sure you're not stepping
on a plop of dog mess. I mean, he's got you. Oh, watch
out, James. Don't step on a plop of dog mess.
I mean, you know. He'll throw himself over a mud
puddle for Jesus. That kind of thing. But when
we Step away from the narrative and when we see Peter deny Jesus
that Christ had told him that he would do, and we see the elephant
in the room that's not dealt with, Jesus deals with the uncertainty
and the doubt for him. And that's what last week's sermon
was about. Jesus responds in mercy and restores Peter. Why? Because Peter belonged to him.
Before the foundations of the world, Peter was given to Jesus
Christ. And when Jesus, the God of creation
said, let there be light, Peter was a redeemed object of mercy. I don't hear what I'm not saying
here, what I am saying, and that is how that's how Paul exemplifies
his testimony. When did when was Peter justified
at the cross of Christ by faith? before the foundation of the
world. You see how those arguments can become divisive? It's not when, it's in whom. That's where we have to be careful.
And we're not going to get that from John. John refuses to go
into the details of words. John refuses to argue over the
timing of justification. John refuses because God refuses. You see? But yet, we in our flesh,
boy, we make a mountain out of everything that's important to
us. Even if it falls on the head of the person that we're supposed
to be dying for. Jesus illustrates this principle
with Peter. So he restores Peter. And if
those of you who have not read Peter's epistles You're missing
out. I don't have time to go through
them all. But beloved, Peter's epistles, although I love John,
Peter's epistles are breath to my lungs. Peter's writing gives
me the zeal and the passion and the comfort and the purpose and
the teaching and the power of the gospel with great wisdom
and not emotion. sort of hit me this morning,
that when we lead our lives by emotion instead of wisdom, we
hurt people. When we walk into the ministry
in the context of God's called me, hallelujah, kick away, get
out of my way, I mean, we're kicking the very people that
God's called us to minister to. We're tearing down the walls
of the very place that God wants us to minister. We're destroying
the very fabric of the pavement that leads us to where God wants
us to go because in our humanity, we and our zeal lead us through
our emotional drive to a point that we actually burn everything
up. Paul deals with this in 1 Corinthians. When they were arguing, debating
over, well, I am part of Apollo's ministry. Well, I'm part of Paul. Well, I'm part of Barnabas. And
Paul says, I don't give a rat's behind. Who? I am a nothing. You are a nothing. We are a nothing.
Jesus became nothing. He is our wisdom. He's our sanctification. He is our righteousness. How
dare you parse me over Christ? I'm so glad I didn't baptize
any of you knuckleheads, dummies. I mean, you see, and I get that
and think, you know what? I can talk like that to somebody.
Stupid. But I'm not an apostle. But I am a pastor, so God doesn't
give me permission to treat sheep that way. Even aggravating sheep. And God doesn't give the sheep
permission to treat each other that way. So, they have that
division, and Paul deals with it. He says, you're not going
to be like this, because what you're doing is you're forgetting that
God has sovereignly built His church. God has equipped the
church. God has gathered His sheep together. And there's some
people over there that you don't think have any gifts. They can't
talk, they can't act, they can't see, they can't hear, they can't
do anything. And I'm concerned that y'all don't understand that
they're more important than you are. They're more important than
all of you because they're special. They have a greater sensitivity. And God has established the church
as He sees fit for the sake of mutual benefit. And so everybody
has a purpose, even though we don't know it. And we may not
know what it is. All of us have a purpose. All of us have a calling. And it is in and for the body
of Christ. Above all things. And the same thing was happening
here. This is how Peter and Paul and John, the other apostles,
this is how they learned it. Jesus showed it to them. Because
amongst these 12, and one was a devil, here are these 11 men
who have come to see the risen Savior, and they're doing all
that they can do to just maintain life and to eat and to function,
wondering what the next step's going to be. And then Jesus commissions
them and sends them out to become pastor elders and to train other
pastor elders. I've got a question on the table
on that, don't I? And put into place elders in
order to put in order what remains and train and teach and train
and teach to teach others, to train and to teach, to train,
to teach, to teach others so that they can keep in order what
remains. And that order always pushes
to train someone in righteousness, the gospel, so that they may
know what it means to live together sacrificially. As Jesus came
and did the will of the Father to lay down his life for the
sheep, so we also should lay down our lives. for one another. Husbands. Ephesians 5. Wives. Children. Obey your parents. Church. Submit to one another. Slave. Submit to your slave owner
as if he were Jesus. Onesimus. Remember? What does Paul say to Philemon?
You treat Onesimus like he's me coming to your house. This is the practical life of
the church. Because of the strong root of
Christ and the gospel of free grace and the gospel of sovereign
grace and the gospel of powerful grace, the gospel of grace alone,
period, end of story. So we think, OK, these disciples,
you know how long Peter ministered? Don't you think about it for
a second? How long did Peter pastor the church of Jerusalem? 32 years. How many letters did
he write? Two. How many weeks did he preach
sermons? About three months outside. We got two of them in the book
of Acts. I'm thinking, man, I've written
more than Peter. I've preached more than Peter. I got an archive. Burn that junk to the ground,
y'all. When I die, put it where it goes, in the ground with me. Let Christ be exalted. Sometimes
I think it's demonic to worship dead men who preach the same
Christ. When the apostles are the only
ones who authoritatively speak for him. So we must preach the
apostles. But Peter, all that pastoring,
all that teaching, all that stuff, yet he didn't do a whole lot
out here because he had already written what he needed to in
here, and 99% of his life was dedicated to the people there. That's what we need to be as
Christians. Dedicated to the people here. To our brothers
and sisters here. To our family with which we live. And what was Peter thinking?
I know what Peter was thinking. I know what Peter was thinking.
Peter was thinking the same thing he's always been thinking. Now, Jesus has
restored me. And remember, he's there with
these 11. They're listening to the conversation. And I don't
want to get in all the high criticism and all the stuff and how people,
oh, that's, you know, and then he saw this and then John did that.
And it's not really John. It's a spiritual blah, blah, blah about the ideal
follower. You know, see, that man's following
me. If you haven't ever heard of that, good is silliness. Let's just read the, it's a narrative.
John does not mix it. You want imagery? Go to the Apocalypse. That's written in imagery. It's
written in apocalyptic style. It's not a narrative at all,
anywhere, at all. It's a vision with instant revelation,
instant understanding. So here's Peter, the disciple
of zeal and passion who for three and a half to four years, let's
just say four years, for four years has been living with Jesus
and serving Jesus and preaching Jesus and doing great things.
And he was the guy. When people saw the 13 men out
there, Peter was noticed. Peter was known. That's why he
was recognized. Weren't you with Jesus? Not me.
Yeah, I've seen you before. See, if you're guilty of a crime
and you're in a courtroom and somebody goes, don't I know you?
Weren't you sitting in the audience? You just leave. Makes you nervous. That's what Peter did. He was
about to be guilty with Jesus because he was guilty of following
Christ. And oftentimes we want to be
that type of person. But here's Peter being restored
and Jesus says the same thing that he said to him over in chapter
one. What's he say when he sees Peter for the first time? Follow
me. Just follow me. Come on after
me. And he commands it. It's not
a request. Like I heard many, many years
ago, this Bible study that was going around with a lot of men
who they were trying to become followers instead of fans of
Jesus. It's hogwash stuff. You can't become a follower of
Jesus. And he doesn't need any fans.
Christ commands you to come and follow and he empowers you to
believe which is following and then he empowers you through
the gospel that he grants you salvation in. And he grants you
the eyes to see and apprehend as you live together with the
saints and as you grow and as you mature and as you fall in
holes and other brothers and sisters help get you out. As
you mature in that way, you learn what it means to follow Christ,
and it is a sometimes very dark and lonely place. But he told
Peter, he says, follow me. Follow me. Calls the first disciples
over in chapter one. And he says to him. Follow me. We found the Messiah, and he
brought him to Jesus, and Jesus says, follow me. Now he says, follow me. You know
what? You know how some people interpret
this? He wanted to get up and have a private conversation,
so Jesus looked around and said, hey, follow me for a second. Don't believe that stuff, y'all.
Read the Bible in its context as God is immutable. He's not
going to change the way he operates through the writing of the apostles
from one thing to another. He's just reaffirming the very
first day that he told Peter to follow him. Abide in me, Peter. Then Peter
turned and saw somebody. So here we are in chapter 21,
verse 20. Peter turned and saw. Who did
he see? He saw John. Now, we'll revisit
this for about 20 seconds. Why did John not put his name
in this letter? Because as Peter was famous for
his zeal, John was famous for being the one closest to Jesus.
And I believe all the other 12 were extremely jealous of John
in some way in their flesh. Because Jesus spent more time
with the Apostle John than any other person on earth. any other
person. They had conversations that nobody
are privy to. John didn't write them down.
That is why God established him to be the last one alive. That
is why God established him to receive revelation. John, out
of that inner three, John was the most precious person in Jesus'
life. And that is, he was known as
the disciple whom Jesus loved. So to put his name on this, to
sign his name to this, it would have taken precedence over the
other gospel narratives, it would have taken precedence over other
letters, it would have taken all sorts of things, because
we already see that later in the very end of this. It's interesting
that John puts this in here. He talks about sort of the myth
that was happening there, and I'll show you as we get to it.
But here are these disciples all sitting there on the beach
eating with Jesus. He's tending to them. He's restoring Peter
in front of them. And then however they are seated or what have
you, Peter notices John. He looks and sees John because
he wants to make reference to John. Why? Because he knows Jesus
loves John. And he knows John loves Jesus.
So in my mind, I'm thinking Peter is Peter is thinking about the
question that Jesus asked him. Do you love me more than these
people love me? I want to glorify you, Jesus.
You know I love you. Then do what you were called
to do. Feed the sheep. Tend to the sheep. You notice
he didn't say go out and save the world. No, that's Jesus'
job. Tend the sheep. Preach the gospel
that the sheep may hear. But see, we have culturally,
from the Scofieldism to the Darbyism and all this other stuff, we
culturally have put an emphasis on an unbiblical expression of
what we call evangelism to such a degree that we make that the
mission of the church. And if you think about it, it
is the mission of the cults. to proselytize as many people
as they can to convert them through persuasion, through evidence,
through sword, so that they may come to convert to their way
of thinking and their way of living, so they may establish
a sense of righteousness that may tip the scales in their favor
at the day of judgment. Sound familiar? It's a dominant change and a
shift in the paradigm of evangelicalism. It's there and you gotta see
it, folks. You gotta see it. That's not what Jesus commissioned
them to. Be a pastor, Peter. You know I love you. I can't
say that I love you more than John, he's thinking, but he knew
that John loved Jesus and he knew that Jesus loved John, so
I think that's why he, in the same conversation, looks over
there to John and says these words. He looks at the disciple whom
Jesus loved, following them. The one who also had leaned back
against him during the supper and said, so obviously they were
probably taking a walk or whatever, following the conversation.
Lord, who is it that is going to betray you? Now I find that interesting. Because the betrayer has already
done his work. And then Peter has already denied
Christ. So what's the focus there? Who is it that is going to betray
you? So in Peter's mind, I believe
that he's still worried that there's going to be a complete
falling away. from somebody else. Is somebody else going to, is
it going to be me? Is it going to be John? Who is
it going to be? Who else is there going to fall
away? How many of us are there going
to be in the end? Is it just going to be me? Is
it just going to be five of us? You see what I'm saying? It's
a normal question. How much of us are going to remain? and thinking about the history
of the church, and thinking about when we started, and how the
Lord planted us as a family, and got us invested in one another's
lives, and my plans had been laid out so perfectly, and it
was such a perfect timeline, and God accelerated that. I mean,
immediately, first day, boom. Informational meeting, boom,
and Dave Barnes goes, teach some Bible, man. I get through, okay,
we'll be in touch, write your names, and how about next week,
he says. Same time, same channel, same scripture. Sounds good to
me, and we've never stopped. God did what he was going to
do. And I think about that, and I
look back on that room that day and those first month or six
weeks, and I don't see 90% of the people who were there here
anymore. Some of them, of course, have been called off by God to
do other things. But most of them, they're just checking it
out. They're just seeing what a new church plant looked like.
Some of them have some career issues that came up they had
to go. But look at that. I go through my list of people
and I see the 360 something people who have been part of Grace Truth
Church over the eight and a half year period. And I think to myself,
where are the other 200 and something people? And I look and I think, well,
they come, they inquire, they get out. They come, they inquire,
they get out. And you know what the bottom
line problem is? Not wanting to be shepherded. I love this preaching, man, but
when the pulpits close and we're together, oh, it's a little uncomfortable. Because now I've got to love
somebody, I've got to live with somebody, I've got to learn from somebody.
Well, I don't want to learn from them, I want to learn from you.
Well, brothers and sisters, I'm not the only teacher in the church. You all should be teaching too,
just not from here. So it's very natural for Peter
to be concerned about that. And then he thinks, he asks a
question, who's it gonna be true? And Peter saw him, he said to
Jesus, what about John? So instead of the pronoun, I'm
gonna use his name from now on. What about John? Is John? What's
John gonna do? But now go back up to verse 19.
Go back up to verse 18 and 19. What's in the context of this
conversation? If you don't see this, you're going to get confused.
Is there something else being said here? And that's how commentators
do it. It's like they put a black box
over everything except what they're looking at. They don't think.
Peter was restored, and the furthest thing from his mind is dying.
He's thinking, I've got to live for the Lord Jesus, and he has
no idea that 30 years later he's going to die. And of course,
Eusebius and other historians wrote accounts of people being
crucified upside down, but there is absolutely zero evidence that
Peter was crucified upside down. I've looked for it. So Peter
was a scribe to this because of his zeal for the Lord Jesus.
It doesn't mean that he wasn't, but there's no evidence that
he was, so why do we make it a big, Jesus, Peter loved Jesus
so much he refused to be crucified right side up. It doesn't say that. Matter of
fact, the non-biblical evidences and narratives and historical
data about the crucifixion of Peter just says that he's crucified
and that he was taken down and buried. The very thing that Jesus
says, you're going to do what you want to do, you dress yourself
and go where you want to, but when you're old you'll stretch
out your hands and somebody else is going to carry you where you
do not want to go and they're going to dress you for burial. And that's
what Jesus, John says there, this he said to show by what
kind of death he was going to have in his glorification of
Jesus Christ. That means that Peter's life
ultimately culminated in glorifying the Lord Jesus because he suffered
and died in the same way. So that means that Peter was
found guilty of being a usurper just like Jesus was. He was put
to death for being a traitor to Rome because he was found
in Christ. So the very thing that he was
scared of experiencing on the day of Jesus' arrest was the
very thing that God gave him as a blessing to glorify him
through 30 years later. so that in the flesh of Peter
there was no escape even when Peter in his own mind tried to
get away from it. And in a 30 year life of honoring
the Lord Jesus by shepherding God's people, he died a most
glorious death. Now if you don't know the context
of Peter's letters, that ought to just break your heart with
joy. The suffering, as Peter would
say, it is a glory to suffer as my Savior suffered. Jesus,
who when he was reviled, did not return revile with revile.
So now all of a sudden, Peter has grown to understand the mind
of Christ and the purpose of life, and that he was to give
his life as a ransom as Jesus was to give His life as a ransom
for His people, so then as we are in Christ, we give our life
for the sake of His people, so that Peter did not fight with
a sword on the day he was killed. He submitted passively to the
government, though it was illegal and wrong, for the sake of Christ. And that's not a proof text of
anything that has to do currently with anything going on in the
culture. Please don't think I'm preaching that crud. I'm not an idiot. No, I'm playing.
There's a joke there. If you just listen to that, go
back to the beginning. Now here's Peter. And now Peter is all of a sudden
worried about John. What about John? What's John
going to do? I'm going to die on the cross. What about John?
What's John going to do? What's going to happen to him?
What kind of ministry is he going to have? What kind of situation
is he going to face? Are we going to be together?
What's going to be happening? And Jesus says, let me paraphrase,
it's none your business. It's none of your business, Peter,
what I do with John. It's none of John's business
what I do with you. It's none of your business what I do with
John. John is your business. He's your
brother. And as long as you have breath
in your body, you serve him and you love him and you teach him.
And you teach the other brothers in the faith, and you teach the
other sisters in the faith, and you continue to serve them. And
when it's your time, you're gone. When it's his time, he's gone.
And here's how Jesus says that. If it is my will that he remain
until I come, what is that of yours? What business is that
of yours? What if I let John live till
I return? He didn't. See what I'm saying? That's a
narrative, that's a conversation of Jesus expressing his sovereignty
over their lives. Jesus is like, listen, if I'd
left you for your, in your circumstances, you would be rejected by me right
now because you've rejected me. But this is sovereignty. My grace
is effectual for you. My grace is sufficient for you. You don't have a say in this,
Peter. The immature mind is frustrated
with that. Talking with a friend yesterday
and he he wasn't frustrated, but he was somewhat just absolutely
bewildered in the context of God's sovereignty. Just. He actually said, I just can't
get my mind around that, that God. Not just permits, but purposes,
and it's the power behind all these circumstances. I just can't
see it. And what do I do? I give him
scripture and let the Lord work in it. And I pray that God will
save him. I told him that. That's sufficient
if he belongs to Christ. Christ will give him faith. So if I want to have John live
forever, that's none of your business. you follow me? Think about that for a second. How often do we look at each
other and instead of being. And this is not new. I introduced
this two weeks ago. Who God has made us to be in
the path that God has established for us. There are similarities
and foundational realities concerning how we live life as believers.
But God calls each of us differently. God calls all of us through the
gospel by the Spirit to salvation, but the circumstances surrounding
that are always different. Some people, when they're four
years old, sitting in the middle of a VBS, hears the scripture. When there's no gospel really
being taught sometimes, somebody reads the Bible and God brings
to faith that child and they learn to understand the grace
of God. Other people are in seminary.
lost as a ball in the middle of a wood and don't know their
left hand from their right, couldn't recognize their own face from
a photograph in a spiritual sense. They've got all knowledge and
all understanding and can do research and can quote things
that nobody else could ever even fathom understanding, much less
remembering. And then in the midst of it all,
as they're driving down the road, the scripture that they've been
studying for 10 years for their thesis, all of a sudden becomes
the words of life. We can't manipulate the Spirit
of God and say, well, God will save somebody in these environments.
God saves His people in the context of granting them repentance to
believe. He saves His people as He wishes,
when He wishes, with no specific occasion. And you can hear the Word of
God today and 10 years from now in that hearing, God may bring
you to life. But He will not bring you to
life without hearing. Because you can't hear what you've never
heard. You can't believe what you've never heard. You can't
have faith in what you've never heard. And that's why it's so
imperative that we understand that the gospel must be taught
rightly. And it must be taught to the church. And it must be
equipping the church to live a life of ministry for one another.
Because of the gospel. See, it's not two things. It's
the natural outflow. Otherwise, when we got saved,
we'd just vanish. That would have been nice, huh?
Just poof. But look at verse 23. I find
this very interesting and I love the candor of the Spirit of God
and the personality of John to say, so the saying, what saying?
The saying, if it is my will that you remain until I come,
what is it to you? That saying spread amongst the brothers. And here's how they twisted it.
that this disciple was not to die. You see? So even amongst
the disciples, they took what Jesus said. It wasn't a deep
doctrine. It was just telling Peter that
Jesus was sovereign over their lives and that it was none of
their business as to how each one was going to die or live
or serve. He wasn't giving that. He was
showing Peter that his life had purpose in Him. period and that
he was going to glorify him and that there was no way that he
needed to overcompensate for the problems and the sins of
his past. You don't need to be the zealous
idiot, Peter. You need to just maintain the
course. And the day when you're done,
when I am done with you here, I will bring you to me and you
will die the same death I died. And you will live the same life
I've lived. And you will glorify me in that. I mean, that's a
sense of peace for Peter. I don't have to earn anything
back. I don't have to. Because that would have always
been something crawling at Peter, clawing at his soul. So now he's
thinking of John and Jesus didn't say anything about John not dying.
And it says that Jesus did not say to him that he was not to
die, but if it was my will, he wouldn't. What is that to you? Now think
about this for a second. I want to put myself in the place of
John as he writes this as an old man. And yes, he was alive.
He wrote this gospel. Peter was dead. to see it and then to put it
down for you to hear it. For him to have already witnessed
all of this, heard this conversation, written all these things, served
and seen Peter's ministry, seen the power of God and the glory
of Christ and the teaching and the preaching and the shepherding
and the suffering of Peter. And then to see Peter die on
the cross and to hear of that news, whether he was there in
person or not, to be reminded of all the details of his youth
when he followed and sat in the bosom of Jesus his Lord and leaned
upon his chest. and knew that He was the eternal
life that was manifest to them that He had touched and felt
and heard with His ears and seen with His eyes that He now proclaims
to you. I want you to get this because
this is a segue into 1 John. John's not full stop, next, next
plot, listen and action. This is not how people experience
life. Peter was dead when he pens these
words. So all of the flowing of joy
coming through just a simple little sentence. If it is my will that he remain
until I come, what is it to you? Not only could John rejoice in
the finished work of Christ, he could rejoice in the work
of Christ and Peter's finished work. And he could rejoice that
he was writing this letter as the last living apostle in exile. waiting to die in his flesh. And then he stamps it. You might
think, now where's there another? I got one more week in here. Where is it? Well, it's in these
next few verses that we'll talk about this morning and then we'll
illustrate next week. He signs it. This is the disciple
who was bearing witness about these things and who has written
these things. And we know that his testimony
is true. Now, there is also many other
things that Jesus did, were every one of them to be written, I
suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that
could be written. And both of these verses has everything to
do about Jesus. just like the conversation that
Peter had with Jesus, had everything to do about Jesus, had everything
to do concerning his work and his promises. But how often do we think that
our lives are going to function and establish
their purposes based on Our discipline. It's important to have discipline.
And our plans. It's important to have plans.
And our purposes. And it's important to have purposes.
But how stupid do we get sometimes by thinking that if I do all
this, then this will be the case? A few months ago, as I was boasting,
and I wasn't even boasting, I'm not bragging, but I was saying,
okay, this'll happen, then we'll do this, and then we'll do that,
and then this'll be the outcome. I think this is the way this'll
work. And it's all of a sudden like the words of James just
came barreling through my face. If the Lord wills, dummy, you
know? Because that's what we do. We
take all the fire and the zeal like Peter, and we push out,
okay, I'm going to do this and then that, and then when I do
this, then this will be the outcome. And we do it in every aspect
of our life, but as believers, we cannot divorce ourselves from
the sovereignty of Christ, and it may not be the will of God
that we do any of that. It may not be the will of God
that we do anything the way we want to do it. I see it a lot
of times in young people when they're starting their careers,
or they're starting their families, and they're starting their college
education. Well, I'm gonna do this, then I'm gonna do this,
then I'm gonna do this. No, you're not. It's never gonna work out that way.
I mean, I've asked this question before, and I don't wanna be
shown a fool, but in my experience, if I've ever asked this question,
how many of you have ever had a plan from the beginning of
your adult life that has worked out exactly the way you thought
it would? That doesn't mean you're not in the same place with the
plan. And I've never had anybody raise their hands. And as Christians, we need to
recognize, if the Lord wills, I will do this. And when it comes
to the work of the gospel ministry and living in the faith, we should
never sit down and say, okay, these are the conditions that
must be met in order for me to answer the call of God. These
are the things I must get my life right with in order for
God to use me. That's baloney. But we can go to the scriptures
and say, what are the disciplines that are required of me? There
is a set of major disciplines required for an elder. And you
know where they come from? From the disciplines that are
required of all of you. So that the elders of a congregation
must be the model member of the church. and have all the active
attributes of living life as the church has been commanded
to do by the Lord Jesus Christ because of their joy and love
for Him, because of His love for them. Sometimes people hold pastors
to a higher standard. There's no higher standard. It's the
same standard for all of us. But in order for you to be qualified
as an elder, you must have these things clearly under control. You know, as I said, under control.
It's like hydroplaning. You can be under control while
you're not in control. It is a controlled chaos. Ministry
is. Life is ministry. Talking with
a brother yesterday about parenting. It's like if we knew what we
knew now, we were like never have kids. Right. But the joy of children in certain
little spots of life and certain little elements of life and certain
little, you know, seasons of life are so far outweigh the
constant drudgery. That it's worth it. Our plans are not our own. If
the Lord wills, we will remain. Christ is sovereign over our
lives. And where we are right now, beloved,
is the will of God. And if we're in the middle of
turmoil, it's the will of God. If we're in the middle of peace,
it's the will of God. If we're in the middle of strife,
it's the will of God. And here we go, if we're in the
middle of sin, it's the will of God. And God will either establish
in that will, in that purpose, for the brothers and sisters
to bring us out of that, or he will establish to kick us out
of the fellowship to bring us back. And so on and so forth. But even
in our sins sometimes we bemoan, oh, if I had just done the will
of God. Yes, the will of God is that
you do not sin in the sense that he's commanded that. These things
are written. John will say that you may not
sin, but if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous, who is our propitiation and not
ours alone, but all the sheep of the world. Yeah, I add that
for clarity. That's some knuckleheads, I'd
twist that. We are in God's will for he has
purposed and planned all these things. When Abraham lied, it
was in the plan of God. When Adam and Eve fail, it was
in the plan, the purpose of God. He had decreed these things before
the foundations of the world. And in his sovereignty, he will
bring his people through them to their, to their joy and to
the praise. How does Paul put it of his glorious
grace? And so when John writes these
things, it's not James Tipton's opinion. It's not my imagination. It's not my pastoral heart and
where I want to twist it to make it work for all of you. It is
literally God speaking to the pen of this man, the one whom
Jesus loved. And so above all things, recognize
that it is because of Christ's love for John that you can know
Christ's love for you. I want you to hear that. And
yet we like to go to Paul and Paul is perfectly sovereignly
written as God has instructed him. But Paul's relationship
with Jesus was not like John's. It was different on earth. But now because of this writing,
because of Christ's glorious manifestation of himself and
revealing himself through these men, we now can embrace the very
nature of John's relationship with Jesus and the very nature
of Paul's relationship with Jesus. And we all have it also. Think
about it. Well, how does that work? You
never watched the movie and felt like you didn't want to get out
of it? Watch an epic film about the
hero at the end and feel like you're about ready to go join
the Navy? Or go to Mars and save the world from an asteroid? Or load up and kill all the zombies?
Or run away with the cute guy, ladies, on the beach? I mean,
we just we fall into the fantasy of entertainment of the story.
This isn't fantasy. This is glory. This is literal. This is revelation. So let yourself
be instructed by the word of God beyond just the shoelace
tying and the bow tie tying and the hat wearing. Learn the intimacy
of Christ through the apostles so that you can live the intimacy
of Christ with the saints. There, I should have said that
from the beginning, prayed and left. That's the point of this sermon.
That's the point of this narrative. And Christ is sovereign over
it. So, here's your route. Well, I'm just not serving. Nobody's
serving right now the way they can. None of us. We've got coronavirus
out there. It's the craziest thing I've
ever seen. Unprecedented. What do we do? Serve as we can.
And the teaching of the scripture is not to empower you with great
guilt so that you could be encouraged to stand up against guilt. The
whole point of this narrative here is to overcome the guilt
of someone who denied Christ. To hear Christ say, your life
will be mine and you will glory, you will glorify me. Not just
in your life, but also in your death, you will glorify me. So
this is a way of encouraging you that God will work in you,
maybe through this teaching to empower you to not worry about
the emotion of getting it all done, but have the wisdom of
knowing that Christ will get you ready and get you in as he
sees fit. Rest in that. You're not in a
hurry. You might say, well, I'm 98 years
old. It doesn't matter. Don't be in a hurry. Don't be
in a hurry. You may have 30 years left, you
may have 80 years left, you may have one day left, you may not
make it out of this service, but either way, Christ is glorified
in your salvation. And when the time is right, through
the teaching of the word, we will encourage you and equip
you to do the work of the ministry, which is exactly what he's telling
these apostles about here. Let's pray. Father, thank you for protecting
my mind, to keeping me on task. For my journey in this text,
Lord, is not simplistic and oftentimes I overthink and I dive into areas
that are unnecessary with my own romance with the Bible. But Lord, from that your text
can speak clearly to us and see the implications found there.
So I pray that what I've said this morning, Lord, would be
glorifying to you and honoring to you. And edifying to us as
a body. And I pray you would help us
all hear the truth of the gospel. and that he would teach us that
we are not to stand in fear and live in condemnation, that we
are able to truly be motivated and compelled by the love of
Christ, witnessed for us and testified to us through this
very narrative. Father, help us to not become
dull of hearing. Help us to become slow to speak
and to judgment, quick to listen and love and patient with one
another. Father, you are doing things
that we do not understand. You are establishing us in ways
that we cannot fathom. And Lord, you are equipping us,
as your scripture has taught us, for the day that you have
appointed for us to minister to one another. And so, Lord,
protect us in that, that we do not run on that which we feel,
but that we operate in that which we know. That wisdom would rule
the day, not emotion. That if we are to be like Peter,
let us give 30 years with very little observation from the world
to a people that you have called for yourself. And may we replicate
our lives in one another, that wherever we are in this world,
that we would be doing the work of Christ for each other. Never to be famous, never to
be known. And Lord, if you shut off all means of communication,
let us huddle together in tight knit community in a way of glorifying
you and rejoicing in your purposes for us. And we pray these things
in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you, Church.