Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon,
son of John, do you love me more than these? And he said to him,
yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, feed my
lambs. Jesus said to him 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 had said to him the third time, do you love me? And he
said to him, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love
you. And Jesus says, feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when
you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you
wanted. But when you are 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, he
said to him, follow me. We have a couple of more Sundays
left in John's gospel. It will probably be close to
150 weeks. Today is 146. I remember when
I proposed this preaching plan, if you will, in my mind, I thought,
how long would it take me? And I figured 150 sermons. It could have been more. It really
could have. There's a lot here. And I pray
that you understand, beloved, that we're not ever done with
a piece of scripture. Just because we're not going
to continue to exposit the same thing over and over again does
not mean we're done with it. John's gospel must be a pulse
in your heart. It must be. And then after this,
we will be looking at the first epistle of John. There is probably no one in this
room or under the sound of my voice who has not had some type
of epiphany in their lives to where they would think to themselves,
I want to be used by God. I want my life to be marked for
his glory. I want my words to be set apart
for his purpose. I want to do everything that
I can for the sake of his name. Just like we've sung this morning.
May my life give glory to your name. It is not just the example
of scripture, it is the command of our Lord that we should do
all things, even small things, as Paul would say to the Corinthians.
Whatever we eat or whatever we drink, we should do unto the
name of Christ. So that everything that we are
should exude some sense of worship. So we've all had these moments,
we've all had these thoughts, but yet when we look in the mirror,
we often grade ourselves unworthy. and it would be a good grade.
For any man that could look into the mirror and say, you know
what, Jesus needs me. He'd be doing pretty good if
I was on the team, is probably deceived. I'll say probably,
because there could be a joke in that. But most likely deceived. God does not need us. God uses
us as he sees fit for his purpose. And he is good in that. He is
loving in that. He is wise in that. And I want
you to understand that the reason John, this evangelist, finishes
this text with Peter's restoration is because it unpacks the reality
of what he set out to do in this gospel narrative, which is to
show you the glory of the Father in the face of Jesus Christ.
through all that He is and all that He accomplished and all
that He taught and everything that He did on the cross and
His resurrection from the dead. This is the fullness of all that
God is revealed. And Jesus Christ has revealed
this to us and only to us. Intellectualism cannot fathom
this message. Only the Spirit of God opening
the hearts of His people will be able to embrace the truth
of the gospel of free and sovereign grace. And we look in our lives
sometimes and we think, well, I've got to go now. I've got
to preach now. I've got to serve now. I've got
to do more. I've got to have more opportunity. I've got to give myself away
to a greater degree. And I'm not saying that that's
not a noble desire. But what happens is we say we
trust in the sovereignty of God and His purposes and His power,
but yet we are so impatient to have everything we want to see
happen, happen now. And it's not just in the Lord's
work. It's fast food. It's television. It's the internet. Let your phone
drag while you're trying to look at something and just spin. I
mean, we get irritated. We're just like, I'll crush this
thing if it didn't cost 50 billion dollars. I mean, you know, you
just, we are impatient people. Yet the narrative of Scripture,
all the 40 plus years of the Apostles' work is confined in
something you can read in just a couple of hours. And we see
all of these stories. We see the Gospel of John, which
is nearly four years. Yet half of it is one week. And we see these people and we
think, I want to be like Peter. No, you don't. And you don't
want to be like Paul either. And you don't want to be like
James. You don't want to be like John. You really don't, because
if that was offered to us, we might in our zeal go, yes, count
me in, just like Peter did. You see where I'm going with
this? Count me in. I'll go there with you. I will
stand. I will never, ever forsake your
name. I will never doubt you. I will
never fail you. Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. And
we're not even intentionally trying to lie. It's just impossible
for us to do that which we think we could do. And moreover, most
of the time when we have this type of zeal, we're operating
in our own power to begin with. We're operating in our own affection
to begin with. We're operating in some type
of really strange naivete that comes from expounding in a poetic
way this laying our lives over the template of scripture and
thinking I'm just gonna fit right in here. Not gonna happen. That's why John closes this gospel
with this message. John is a little different. John
likes to mix words up. He likes to use synonyms as much
as he can. It's throughout his gospel in
his Greek. He uses different words that
mean the same thing just because he likes variety in his pen.
He just likes to use synonyms. They have no theological meaning,
and I'll get to that as we get to the text. And I know that
that particular situation caused some people some frustration
last week But I will tell you, beloved, you cannot become one
of these people who believe there are things in the Bible that
has not been revealed to God's people, and that you must have
some extra biblical key in order to understand it. That you have
to have some spiritualized mission or experience in order to grasp
the clear meaning of the text. And I'll show you what I'm talking
about in a moment. But here is Peter. John opens his gospel
with the idea, and I read it last week, we saw it, we've been
looking at it for several years. Jesus Christ, who is the beginning,
who is the word, who is God, who was with God, came to earth
and tabernacled among us. He dwelt among us, and we have
seen His glory. Glory as the only Son from the
Father, full of grace and truth. And from that fullness, we all
receive grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon
grace. I don't know what sermon that
is in the beginning year of this text, but it would do us all
well to go back and think about that text. And then we see the calling of
the disciples, and we see, oh, I'm over an ax now. And then
we see the calling of the disciples, and we see Peter and his zeal,
and we see Peter going and getting folks, and we see all this excitement,
and we see Thomas. Let's just go die. Remember the
Eeyore of the group, the melancholy of the group, that he's in, but
it's bad. Peter's like, it's great, it's
never gonna be bad. Thomas probably sat up there when they tried
to convince him, as we saw in the narrative a couple of weeks
ago, Thomas probably tried to sit out there and tell, I told
y'all he was gonna die. And y'all didn't believe, Peter,
you never believe me. Anything bad I try to tell you,
you're like, no, not me, I won't allow it. There's gonna be a
hurricane, not if I'm here. I mean, you know, he's gonna
blow it away. Some of these fruitcakes we see on social media these
days, blowing the virus away. zeal, passion, affection. Why did we see last week, why
did we see Peter jump into the water? Simple! That's who Peter
is! And Peter swore that he would
never ever leave Christ. And Jesus told him. Jesus knew
him. Jesus loved him with an everlasting love. He belonged
to Christ before the world began. and everything that Christ came
to do, Peter received the benefit of it. He was counted in Christ
before the foundations of the world. And he was able to see
the Lord. And Peter jumps into the water
and swims a hundred. Just give it a minute, Peter.
Now you're wet. Now you're so zealous to see
the Lord, who asked if you had some fish, you've got a whole
net full of fish, 153 fish to be exact, because they counted
it. And with all the other six of
the disciples who were there, who are rowing the boat to shore,
he's swimming ahead of them, and when they get up there, he
grabs the net full of fish and brings it by himself to the Lord
Jesus. I got your fish, Jesus. Do you
see that? This is what John wants you to
see. This is the revelation of the mystery of God to you. That
on the sea, and on the shore of the sea, Peter in all of his
zeal was the same old man he was when he said, I never knew
him. Same fella. And that's what he's here for.
And remember the elephant in the room? Imagine Peter, his
nerves as he peeked into the tomb and he saw the same thing
John saw and God permitted John to believe that Jesus had been
raised with the same evidence that Peter saw and didn't believe,
with the same evidence plus angelic presence that Mary Magdalene
couldn't see. And so all the different narratives
that we see Jesus in, the sheep will hear my voice, they'll know
my name, I'll call them by name. And that's how Mary saw. When Jesus from the shore says,
throw your nets over there. It's not odd. Go fish on that
side for a minute. I find it odd because I'm not
a fisherman. I'm not a fisherman like that. So I don't understand.
I had to think about it for a minute. The point is the narrative speaks
for itself. Jesus says to throw your nets over there. They did.
And then John remembered. What did he remember? John remembered.
I remember when the Lord did this. I remember when this happened
years ago. And he goes, it's the Lord! And Peter jumps in. Peter, what
is wrong with you? Maybe Peter thought he was gonna
walk again on the water, you know? I don't know, we don't
know what Peter was thinking, but all Peter was thinking is
here's the Lord that I've denied, he's shown up, he's appeared,
he's manifested himself to us in the upper room, he's manifested
and revealed himself spiritually, revealed himself to Thomas, and
now he's revealed himself to us. He's helped us to see who
he is. But there is something in me,
Peter would say, that has to deal with what I did. And not only for my sake, but
for the sake of the disciples. Because you understand, when
Jesus left the gathering in the upper room for the Last Supper,
and he went out into the garden to pray, And He taught the disciples
between that room and that garden. And He told them and He prayed
for them. And He prayed His high priestly
prayer in John 17. And He prayed that they would be one as the
Father and He are one. And that they would love Him
by loving one another. And that He would send the paraclete. He would send God the Spirit
to work in them. It wasn't that God the Spirit
wasn't there, but as Jesus was sent, so now the Spirit is sent
to do something. So the work of God the Spirit
was to bring these disciples into unity. Well let me ask you
this, if you've got one who's a traitor, who's dead, and then
you got Peter who was the guy who held it all together. I mean,
look at the narratives of the Gospels. Peter was the one who
spoke for everybody. Peter was the one who did everything
first. He was always the one there.
I guarantee you he had a little bit of jealousy with John. John, you're in my way, man.
I'm going to stand on this side, you stand on that side. Stay
over here. Jesus keeps calling you. Why is he calling you, man?
I'm going to come. I'm going to come with you. You
see that inner three of those three disciples out of the 12,
you see Peter as the one who shines. He's always opening mouth,
inserting foot. Maybe he's opening foot too,
I don't know. But he's always speaking too quickly. He's already
confessed. Jesus has already told Peter
that God the Father has revealed to him the divine nature of him
as Messiah and that all that he would be doing would be for
the sake of his elect. And so we've got to deal with
this. Now he's known as the guy who
denied Jesus. I mean, that's his label. That's
his name tag. That's what these other disciples
are thinking. Well, if Peter denies Christ,
what hope do we have? If Peter denies Christ and Jesus
just sweeps it under the rug, I mean, what would you think?
What does daddy do when daddy gets home and some kid has done
something really wrong and broken something they shouldn't have
been playing with to start with? All the other kids in the house are
waiting. What are they waiting for? For dad to pick the kid
up and love it and say, it's okay son, watch, I'm gonna break
something too. No, for the paddle to come out
and for retribution to come from some kind of giving an answer
for yourself. That's what we smile about as
siblings. We hate it when our siblings are being disciplined,
but we sort of like it. And I'm not imposing this type
of feeling on these disciples, but I'm telling you, the human
nature has never changed. Adam's nature, when Eve bit that
fruit, and he took it with her, is the same nature you and I
have, that we know better, We know what's good for us, but
there's something in us that just cannot do what's required
in order to live. I mean, my Lord, in America we
have a pandemic that's not a virus, it's called poor health. And
yet we know what we should be doing, we know what we should
be eating, we know where we should be going, but yet we just for
the sake of convenience do everything else. So if we can't figure out
how to eat the right foods, Why in the world do we think we're
gonna be able to come to a place where we can understand and faithfully
believe and trust and serve and glorify the Lord Jesus? That's why it's a divine work.
He came to his own and his own did not receive him, but all
who did receive him, he gave them the right to become the
children of God, not by the will of the flesh, not by the decision
of the mind, nor by blood, but by the will of God. He gave them
the right to become a child by his own will. In John 3, how
did that happen? By the Spirit, as He wishes,
with no occasion but His own decision, causing someone to
see what Christ is and what Christ did concerning salvation and
redemption. We all should want to glorify
the Lord Jesus. But we need to put our perspective
in the context of scripture. And I've seen it. It's true of
my own life. It's true of your life. We get
up some days and we go, today's the day that I'm going to launch
my life into the service of Christ. More than I did yesterday. And
for a few hours or maybe a week, we're sharing the gospel, we're
printing tracts, we're writing our own version of the New Testament.
I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on here. We're social media
warriors. We're defenders of the faith.
We've got a torch outside of Kingdom Hall going, Jesus is
God! I mean, you know, we're just doing it well. We order
signs. We've got it all. We're just
got to go. I mean, that was my story as
a teenager. I didn't have anywhere to open air preach because nobody
walks around town, so I went to the laundromats. He's you know single guys like
cash sitting there with his clothes and hearing me talk about the
Bible going this guy's crazy That didn't work go outside the
pool halls Next thing you know two or three months later. I'm
an expert on the bigger table Not so much in evangelism anymore.
I mean, you know just But I wanted to do it all for Jesus. Don't
you? Nothing wrong with that How do
we get? to the understanding of what's
required in order for us to be able to do it all for Jesus.
First we need to see that it is all by the will of Jesus.
And Peter, Peter denied Christ. He denied Christ after swearing
on his own name that he never would. And I, remember, have friends
who were not at Columbine, but the school down the street. And I remember how much buzz
was around the Bernal kid, where these two murderers would walk
in and, do you believe in God? And this girl says, yes. And
they killed her. And her marketing team made millions
of dollars on her name. And that was the mantra that
was pushed into the youth evangelistically for a decade of, you gotta believe
in God, you gotta stand and die. Well that was Thomas' faith.
Let's go to Jerusalem and die with him. And we think that that is what
we're supposed to do. We're supposed to have the buzz.
We're supposed to see what's famous in the world and the ones
who are brazen and bold and what they do then we do. God doesn't
call us all to do the same stuff. God has not gifted us all with
the same personality, with the same voice, with the same timbre,
with the same abilities. Because how horrible would life
be if you were all the same, if we were all the same person?
We'd all be standing up in line. I'd preach for two minutes and
the next one would come up. Or we'd just walk around in a circle
like this, preaching three minutes at a time to one another. Because
you'd be the same person, you'd have the same call, you gotta
do the same thing. It'd be worthless. We don't need examples in life
about boldness. and then emulate boldness. That's
fleshly. I want you to hear this. This
is totally anti-American. It's anti-freedom. It's anti-everything
in the context of successful minded people. But we don't need
to emulate successful people in ministry. We don't need to
emulate anyone. We need to be who God's made
us to be. And we need to be patient. When I was thrown into the gospel
ministry in my youth, I should not have been in the ministry.
But the people who put me there had no idea what the requirements
for ministry were. And so they said, well, you're
funny, you got zeal, and you're not scared to tell the truth.
There you go, you're a preacher now. Not a pastor, a preacher. Big difference. Buddy did I learn the hard way?
Had no love for the Saints had no love for people who disagreed
had no love for anything I just I wanted just to be heard Want
you to hear what I know is right about what is wrong about the
Bible. Yeah, never been there And that was short-lived But
when you look back on it and you see the mercies of God to
sustain you through these things, and you realize that the first
mistake was thinking that you were ready when you weren't ready.
And the second mistake was thinking that it was about your zeal,
passion, and power and gifts. God can take your gifts away
like that. And a friend of mine in ministry
one day, he woke up with a little bit of a runny nose. He lost
his voice for a year. He could not be. preacher. And God took it, just
like that. Why? To show him that it's in
the hand of God. We serve by the mercy of God,
by the purposes of God. Peter was too full of himself
so often. His zeal, I don't think Peter
ever changed, I think Peter grew. And that rejection of the Lord
Jesus Christ was difficult for him. What are we to do? What would we do? I'll tell you
what we would do in our social circles, as a culture, not as
Grace Truth, as a family. We would say, brothers and sisters,
we have a problem. We're gonna have a business meeting
tonight concerning Peter, Peter who has denied the Lord Jesus
and now he's coming back wanting to hang around. Don't think we
need him here. I'm not talking about denying the gospel, brothers
and sisters. This is different. This was God's
intention to prove something to us. We're gonna have a meeting
and we probably should take him out of a Sunday school class.
Probably should take his license away so he can't preach anymore.
It's funny how that piece of paper lets you free. Hallelujah, I got a license. License to kill, I guess. And
we need to probably bring him under discipline, and maybe after
seven or eight, nine years, we might think he might be fit enough
to go back out and do what he needs to do. That isn't how the
Lord did it with Peter. Now, this is not an issue of
how we deal with discipline. That's a whole nother conversation,
isn't it? We don't conflate the gospel and God's calling and
God's, what's the word I'm looking for? God's sending the apostles
into the world to preach the gospel. This is different. That
doesn't happen anymore. Christ has never sent another
apostle after Paul. Christ has never commissioned
another apostle. Christ has never called another
apostle. There is no apostle after Paul. As a matter of fact, John was
the oldest one when he died. After John died in isolation
on Patmos, there was no other apostles. The apostles' work
is done, the apostles' conversion is complete, and now God does
what he wishes with his people through the transmission of their
story. their story, not our story, not our zeal, their zeal. And
so what we learn about Peter today is that Peter in everything
that he was loved the Lord Jesus and he was passionate about ministering
to others and teaching and defending Christ, good things, but he always
did it within his own time and his own words and his own power
and the Lord Jesus had to show him who he really was. The Lord
did not make Peter deny Jesus, Peter's zeal for his own life
denied Jesus. fear caused him to deny Jesus. And though he wasn't avoiding
the conversation, he definitely was trying to compensate for
it, I believe, as he jumps into the water and swims to the shore
and carries the net from the boat to Jesus because Jesus just
says, do y'all have some fish? I got fish for you, Jesus. It's
like when our cat brings a squirrel and puts it right on the door
post. Right on the door mat, not the post. That'd be neat,
wouldn't it? There's a squirrel hanging up
there. Or a rabbit, or whatever. It's a gift. I just want to know
I'm thinking about you. I want you to know I love you.
Here's a gift. How about you leave a note, cat?
That's nasty. Now here's Peter. So they ate. This is the narrative. This is where we are. It's literally
this simple. They ate and after they finished
breakfast. See who's here? These seven disciples
and Jesus eating breakfast. around a little circle of a fire
on the beach, and as they get through finishing breakfast,
they're all laid down on the ground like they eat. They eat
on their hips with their feet tucked out and their toes near
the food, which is why they wash their feet before they ate. Jesus says, Simon, son of John,
do you love me more than these men love me? Now why would he ask that question?
Because it's common for Peter, isn't it? Not I. They might. Not me. I wouldn't. They would. It won't be me. I'll never do
it. No way. I love you more than
all these. Does that sound like Peter? Yeah,
it sounds like Peter, doesn't it? So now in the front of all these
disciples, Jesus is dealing with the elephant on the beach. He's
saying, do you love me, Peter, more than these people love me?
Because you know what the inflection there entails, right? You know
what that rhetorically does in the mind of Peter. What does
it do in you? If I say yes, it's easy for John or Nathaniel
or any of these other men to go, we didn't deny him. Or John
to look at everybody, I was the only one there. Y'all live, I
was at the cross, dummies. I love him more than you do.
And you get into this Of course, that's human nature. They were
wise. They knew better to argue and
to deal with these things and to inquire. They didn't even
want to really solidify the truth that that was the Lord Jesus.
They didn't want to ask him, is it really you? They took it
and they understood and they believed it because they did
not want to seem weak. And so even then they put on
the show, in John chapter four they put on the show, no one
dared ask him what he meant because they thought somebody else had
given him food. But John was honest. We got together
after Jesus disappeared that night, wherever he goes, and
we're like, who gave him food? Did you give him food? Did you
give him food? Who gave him something to eat? I had no idea. Maybe that woman
gave him some food. Why would he take that food from
a Samaritan woman? That's nasty. I mean, that's
the attitude. But they wouldn't ask Jesus,
because they didn't want to disrespect him. They didn't want to ask
a dumb question. because they wanted, in their
own minds, they wanted Jesus to see them as, you know, we
get you, we with you, we following, we know what you're saying. What's
he saying? Oh yeah, we got that parable. What's he mean? Oh,
we know you're the way. And what does Thomas do? Show
us the way, Jesus. Goodness gracious. Can we just be honest? Are you
the way? Are you the truth? Are you the
life? Are you going to the Father? Nobody comes to the Father? Okay, where
are you going? Show us how to get there. Jesus
says, I am the way. If you've seen me, you've seen
the Father. No one comes to the Father except through me. I mean,
Thomas Pauly walked outside and said, I can't take this. I mean,
we think this is just this passive, weird, sitcom-esque type situation
that these men just sat around. No, they're human. They're human
beings. They're dealing with the same
temptations that we're dealing with. They're dealing with the
same frustrations that we're dealing with. Except in our culture,
we're not being hunted down for our faith. Media nasties is not persecution. It's not. When somebody has a
sword and takes your child from you and dismembers it, Then we
can say we're persecuted. When somebody puts you in jail
because you privately continue to worship the Lord Jesus, then
we can say we're persecuted. And I'm not diminishing the persecution
that we do have, but let's put it in perspective. Here is Peter,
who had he said, yes, I am one of the disciples of Christ, would
have very well possibly been hanging next to him. But yet, in the Americanized
reality of so-called Christianity, we would have called Peter unworthy to serve the Lord. Having
just the day before cut off the ear of the fella, see that Peter,
that's the guy we need on our team right there. Go find him,
let's get him on our team. He'd be a good evangelism director.
We go door knocking with a sword, I bet we'll see some converts. Do you love me more than these
love me? Now, I've seen commentators say,
do you love me more than the fish? Let's be real, guys. That's why I gave all these little
phrases of Peter so you understand the context. And Peter's response Peter's response is very to the
point and humble. You know that I love you. Yes, I love you and you know
that I love you. And before I get into this and
lose myself in poetry, let me deal with the technical aspects
of the butchery of this. When the scripture talks about
Demas, remember Paul read about Demas? Who was in love with this
present world. He uses the word agapeo. Many times in scripture we see
in the same context, the same sentences, the word phileo and
agape interchangeably. There is no difference in the
word in the first century. We have created that. Jesus, John, uses three different
words, three different circumstances, in two different words, in three
different times, in this little narrative, and here how they
look. I won't give you the Greek or
the grammar. It doesn't matter about the tense or all of that kind
of stuff. I just want you to see it. When Jesus says love,
he uses love, love, love and there's two different words that
he uses in the context of love. They have no meaning individually. He's just saying love. When he says lambs and sheep
etc. He's using different words for
the same thing interchangeably. When Peter says no, he uses three
different words for the word no and beloved that's how John
wrote. John loved to interchange and
use synonyms. This is not a hidden meaning. that you have to go and dive
into Greek to understand. Jesus, specifically and simply,
because if you think that I'm wrong, you're missing the point
of the gospel. Let me tell you why. If you think
the essence of Peter's love is in play, with the calling of
Christ and redemption, you don't understand grace. And it's reading into the text.
It's not exegesis. You see what I'm saying? But
yet we're taught otherwise, aren't we? We're taught otherwise. You
gotta love me greatly. You gotta love me deeply. But
you know what? In the first century, there are historical writings
where the word agapeo, an agape or whatever remnant of that is,
was used in a way that was worldly and fleshly and sort of trashy.
Phileo has always been an intense intimacy of brotherhood. You
see? So we don't do that with the
text. The words mean nothing out of
context. So now with that, let's unpack
this. Do you love me more than these
love me? Peter, don't you love me more
than all the rest of these guys love me? And Peter responds submitting
to the fact that Jesus in his omniscience knows the truth of
Peter's heart. Jesus has already shown him that
which Peter could not see. Jesus told Peter he would deny
him and refuse him and run from him. And Peter with everything
in his countenance said, never, never, never. And he did it three
times. Do you love me more than these?
You know that I love you. Master, you know my love for
you. I can't prove it. I can't swim to the shore. I
can't drag you some fish. I can't chop off some ears. I
can't confess you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I
can't do anything to prove my love for you because the only
thing that matters is that you know me. You know me. We can't hide from the Lord.
In Hebrews 4 and 5 last week, in Hebrews 4 two weeks ago, you
know in midweek, we talked about that. Jesus is the Word of God
that is living and breathing, sharper than any two-edged sword,
cutting bones and marrow and mind and soul and spirit and
all of these things. No one can hide from Him. There's a pronoun there. personal
pronoun. Jesus is the Word of God. You cannot hide from Christ. You cannot put on airs of passion
and zeal and thus make God think you love Him. You cannot prove
to yourself and give yourself confidence because of all the
massive amounts of work and defense and preaching and teaching and
ministry and benevolence that you do. You cannot trick the
Lord though you may trick yourself. And this isn't about salvation,
this is about simple grace. Grace upon grace upon grace upon
grace has been the river flowing through the soul of this gospel
narrative from the very beginning and it is going to end on the
very same thing and Jesus is going to show Peter exactly what
it's going to cost him and how much his love for Christ is tied
to Christ's love for him. Watch. You know that I love you. And
Jesus said, feed my lambs. Feed my lambs, just take care
of my lambs. Feed them. But Peter denied Christ three
times, so Jesus is going to restore him three times in front of these
men so that they know he's restored. Coach, can you feel it? If this
was a private conversation and Peter comes back, hey guys, everything's
cool, Jesus restored me. the Spirit would have to give
them the awareness of that through vision, or Jesus would have to
meet and say, yes, I'll restore this guy. So instead of cutting
all that out, it pleased the Lord in his counsel after his
own will to do it publicly, right here in front of everybody, and
this settled the account right then and there. So a second time
he asked. Now, as a father, I know what
this is like. This isn't a parent type thing,
but as a father, I've been in groups and had to deal with my
children in such a way where I have to ask them the same question
several times in a row, right? Even as a boss, as a supervisor,
as an overseer in the context of subordinates, I've had to
deal with things where, you know, did you do that? Did you say
that? Would you tell me again what
you did? And it's unnerving. The person that's being questioned
gets a little irritated, gets a little frustrated, gets a little
hurt, gets a little humbled. So here's Jesus, ask the question,
you know that I love you, then feed my lamb. Feed my lambs. A second time, more uncomfortable. He says, Simon, son of John,
do you love me? Like manner, Peter responds again,
yes, Lord, you know that I love you. You know me, you know me. I can't prove this to you than
tend my sheep. And then a third time, I believe in sequence. Simon,
son of John, do you love me? And the scripture says here,
Peter was grieved. Peter was not grieved because
Jesus used a different Greek word. Jesus didn't use a Greek
word at all. They wrote in Greek, Jesus didn't speak with his disciples
in Greek. Jesus just typically, simply
asked, do you love me? A third time. And because he had been asked
three times, it grieved the heart of Peter. Because I believe in that moment,
just as the woman in Sychar, and just as Nicodemus, and just
as all that simple narratives that we see, these discourses
or intercourses between Jesus and another, we see the Holy
Spirit bringing to life the circumstance that Jesus is trying to teach.
And Peter was grieved. And he says, you know everything. Again, same stuff. Different
Greek word, different that John wrote. John was flavorful. You know that I love you. You know. As best I can, which
is bad, you know that I love you. And Jesus says one more
time, feed my I'm going to stop there for a
second, and then we're going to close out through verse 19, but I want
to stop there for a second and I want to unpack this in a way
that Peter understood it. It's here, I'm not imposing on
the text what's not here. Peter denied Jesus, yet Peter's
life was sold out for the service of Christ. Jesus prays and tells
his disciples in the upper room that he prays they would be one
as he and the Father is one. He says, if you love me, you
will obey my commandments. And this is the commandment that
I leave you, that you would be one and that you would love one
another. So this is the reality of what Jesus is requiring of
his people. not for salvation, but because
of His great love for us. His love motivates us perfectly
and solely to serve Him, right? That's why we have, that's why
I opened this sermon up with this idea that we've all been
in a place where we want to have this zeal and glory be to God
and all this kind of stuff. And we want to do all sorts of
stuff and be active in all sorts of ministry, but the only way,
I want you to hear this, the only way you can love Jesus is
to love His people. That's the only way. And the
only way to love His people is to serve them, feed them, tend
them, care for them, provide for them,
encourage them, admonish them, And Peter's calling as an apostle,
also to be an elder, is specific to elders. So now it's different. Jesus' commission here of Peter
is not an apostolic commission, because we see the same thing
that Paul is teaching Timothy, to go and shepherd the flock
that is among you. And if you know the story of
Peter, Peter settled. All the apostles settled and
became elders. And Paul was the one that kept going. And so to love Jesus is to love
His body. For no one loves the head but
hates the arm. No one hates his own flesh and
cuts it up and destroys it while loving it. The body of Christ
must love each other and it's not about a feeling. It's not
about zeal. It's not about passion. It's
about purpose. And to love the Lord Jesus Christ
means to love Christ's people. And to love Christ's people means
that God has equipped you and created you uniquely as you are
to serve in certain ways the people that God has put you to
be with in order for you to serve. And so in all of that service
and all of that love, even when we're unlovable, which is most
of the time, we're actually loving and serving Christ. We see that
in Matthew's gospel. Whenever you do it under the
least of these, my brethren, you do it under me. Saul, Saul,
why do you persecute me? There is no divorcing the sheep
of Christ from the shepherd. There is no divorcing the head
from the body. There is no divorcing loving Jesus from loving the
church. And love is a devoted service. As long as it's called today,
Paul says to the Hebrews, encourage one another unto love and to
good deeds. Unto love by serving each other. These aren't two separate things.
These are one and the same. Love and service to one another. That's
what good deeds, which God, Ephesians 2, has prepared beforehand for
you to walk in. It has nothing to do with the
moral righteousness of uprightness. Though that uprightness should
come with it because if I am sinning in my flesh, I am not
loving you. Am I? If I disqualify myself
from this pulpit because of my flesh, I am not loving you because
I'm not serving you and I can't be used at all if I disqualify
myself from this pulpit. So if I want to kill, rob, lie,
cuss, steal, and do all sorts of other stuff, I'm just going
to be there and somebody else is going to have to bring me
into a place of restoration. Somebody's going to have to remind
me, you love Jesus, you feed the sheep, and you can't feed
the sheep if you're disqualified. So your personal sins can hurt
the body. I've never met a man that has
hit his hand with a hammer and didn't feel it. I don't want to meet that man
that can handle a hammer on the hand and not know it. As a fighter,
I don't want to meet that man. I don't want to meet that man.
When we hurt in any part of our body, we hurt. A fire ant, you
can't see, climbs into your toes and your flip flops and bites
you. It's like somebody has zapped you with lightning. This is awful! You can't... What
in the world? I mean, you just about take all
your clothes off because you don't know where it's coming from.
Did I get stung by a wasp? Did I get bit by a snake? Did
somebody shoot me? The body responds to the pain.
When we throw caution to the wind and just dive into the flesh,
we hurt the body. And when we're doing that, we're
not loving Jesus. It's simple. Feed my sheep, this
pastoral calling. specifically to those who oversee.
That is our job. That is our job to care and to
teach and to feed and to serve. And that is all of our jobs as
ministers of the gospel. We are to do what we have to
do as we're able to do for the sake of one another. And when
we do that, we are serving Christ. You see how different that is
from the world that we live in? where we have so many what we
would call mavericks. Well, I'm God's man for the job
by myself, me, myself and I. Get out of my way. Who are you
teaching? Who are you serving? Who are you loving? Who are you
with? That's why it's such a tragedy to see so many sheeps who are
sheeps, so many sheep who are orphaned. and who are alone, and who are
abused in the name of Christ, and pressed out of churches,
and destroyed, and elders who are haughty, and arrogant, and
lording over people. I'm the pastor around here by
golly, you do what I say. I mean, what is that? That's
so contradictory to the very nature of the mind of Christ
who was God, who said that equality with God was not something to
be grasped, but he made himself nothing. Nothing, he became obedient
as a slave unto death on a cross like a criminal. He was stripped
naked and beaten and mocked and called the king of the Jews and
he died as the creator of all the cosmos. Have that mind among you, Paul
says, which is yours. It's yours, you're in Christ,
you're part of his body, he is your head, so that is your mind.
See how simple that is? If you love the Lord Jesus, Even
when you fail, what do you keep doing? You ever been so busy
you forgot to eat? Yeah, happens to me all the time.
And then I'm hangry and the family goes, you need something to eat,
daddy? Yes, I do. Get out of my face. I mean, go
get me some food. You know how it is. I don't know
if any of you are like that. Well, I've never forgotten to
eat before and gotten a little hangry, gotten a little weak
and just said, oh, I'm just a terrible consumer of food. I give up. I'm never going to eat again. Never going to eat again. I quit.
Just cancel the grocery store account. We're done. I'm just
going to starve to death because I'm not a very good eater. and
I just should quit. That's silly. It's just as silly
to say, well I'm not a very good lover of Christ and I failed
Christ's people today so I'm just gonna quit. Why would we do that? Because
then we feel like, we feel like Peter in some way, I failed,
now what? Here's the now what. Jesus says,
go do it. Go do it. Now the hypotheticals
that run through our mind, well what about this, what if we do
that? Church discipline and the instruction of the saints to
the apostolic letters handle all those specifics. We don't
have to hypothetical do anything. Let's just be the body and let's
serve the body and let us know that even in the most heinous
circumstances of saving our own flesh at the cost of our testimony,
that Christ restores us by grace. And these apostles that he sent
out to teach the sheep have taught us. We've got the book of Galatians. We've got the letter to the Romans.
We've got all of these teachings. So we know what we're supposed
to do. We know what sins are and are not acceptable amongst
the brethren. We know the attitude that we're supposed to have.
We know what type of language we should use. Praises and curses
out of the same stream. It shouldn't be. We know why
we don't get our prayers answered because we ask. selfishly or
pray imprecatory prayers over our enemies. It's given to us,
it's instruction. And that's why we're together,
we continue to grow in that way. But ultimately, here is the truth
of the love that Peter has for the Lord Jesus, and here is the
reality of what God the Holy Spirit would have equipped Peter
to do. Jesus says this, truly, truly,
our main our main if we were to translate that in English
like we like to do with transliteration amen amen it is so it is so I
tell you when you were young you used to dress yourself and
see we would in this boat we would be considered young all
of us everybody in the room everybody listening to us maybe not me
some out there they can't Well, while you're young, when you're
young, you used to dress yourself. You're able to handle dealing
with your own personal hygiene, with your own personal needs,
et cetera. You dress yourself and you walk
wherever you wanted. You have your legs, you do what
you wanna do. And now what does Jesus say? But when you're old, and he's talking to Peter, this
is not a proverb, this is a prophecy. When you're young, you have all
your faculties. I'm gonna keep you healthy, Peter.
That's what Jesus was telling him. And you're going to be free
to go and you're going to do what I've called you to do. You're
going to feed my sheep wherever I send you. But when you're old,
you're going to stretch out your hands. Where have you heard that
before? That's what it is. That's what
it means. To stretch out your hands means
you're going to die by crucifixion. You're going to stretch out your
hands. And somebody else is going to
dress you, because you're naked there. And somebody else is going
to carry you where you don't want to go, the grave. Somebody's
going to take you there. Now, John leaves nothing to the
imagination. Nothing. Parenthetical. This was to show by what kind
of death Peter was going to die in order to glorify God. You're
going to love me to the end, Peter, and you're going to die
on the cross. and somebody's gonna take your
naked, bruised, and destroyed body down, they're gonna dress
you, they're gonna put you in the grave. But until then, feed my sheep. And then he commanded him, follow
me. We have a serious problem in
our culture that we think the command to
follow is an opportunity to decide. And because of that, we have
in our minds, depending on where we live, what we've been exposed
to, how we want to emulate that. This is just review. But Christ has determined our
ministry. He's determined it, he's given us the instruction,
he's given us the helper, he's shown us the way, he's revealed
himself to us, and the gospel is powerful to save. So we just
go and do in time what he's called us to do. And none of us will
probably die on a cross. None of us will probably be martyred
for the faith, but there will be a day, and it could be today,
that life in this flesh could cease and for us as the beloved
saints we will be with our Lord and that's how Paul could say
to live is Christ and to die is far far better that was what
he said it's far better to die and be with Christ than it is
to live in Christ but to live in the flesh is better for what
you So the greatest thing that Paul
could ever receive would be to die and be with Christ, but because
he loved Christ so, and so not as in so much loves Christ in
this way, he understood that the true joy of his heart was
to serve Christ's people. To be intimate with Christ's
people. Why? Because that's what grace
is all about. It's the picture of what Christ
did. stepping out of glory to satisfy
the wrath of God for His people. He loved us in this way that
He gave Himself for us. In like manner, He prays and
encourages us to give ourselves for one another that we also
may teach others to do the same. Pastors must equip other men
to do the job that they do. We must encourage one another
and equip each other. You all as the church need to
be just as versed and mature in the word of God and dividing
the knowledge of this scripture as I and any other elder in this
family. And then when we get to the command,
follow me, we know what we're supposed to be doing. We know
what we are supposed to do. And in the end of it all, we rejoice. Because we know that
God is not going to let us leave. He's not going to let us fail.
He's not going to let our faith be destroyed. He's not going
to cause us to slip away. We cannot be lost. We cannot be lost. And to that,
we give God all the glory. For that, and from that, and
for that, and to that, and everything else that, we celebrate with
joy. That's why I read Psalm 107 this
morning. For it is the love of the Lord
as he redeems his people. And you saw that Psalm, right?
You saw how they mocked and complained and he let them have a little
discipline. And then they cried out and he restored them. It's
not about being lost and saved and lost and saved. It's about
the fact that when we live in this life, there is a level of
joy and a level of discipline that takes place because God
loves us. And so, as we learn from this
gospel, it is written that we may believe that Jesus is the
Christ. Peter, if he depended upon himself, would walk away
dejected, like the rich young ruler. Oh, you love me? You love the Father? You don't
even know that I am God? You love your stuff, and you
love yourself, because you couldn't give away your stuff to people
that you don't love, because it'd make you look bad. You're
not willing to give all that up. It's not about what we're
willing to give up, it's about what God calls us in our hearts.
And Peter, though he could not give things the way he wanted
to, ultimately would give his entire life for the service of
Christ. And though He was rejecting the Lord during the crucifixion
of the Lord, He would serve in the same way. He would truly
take up the cross and follow after Him by the command of His
God. Let's pray. Lord, it is difficult to close
this text. And next week, after we see Peter's
response to the Lord and put it all together. I pray that
the truth that we've learned over these years would set with
us in such a way that we could not escape it, that we would
almost be like a disease in our soul, but a pleasant one. That it would be interwoven into
our thoughts and into our minds and into our places of ministry Father, that we would not fail
to trust and that when we feel downtrodden and see the sin in
our lives and we see how weak we really are in the flesh, even
though our spirit is willing, that we would rise and that we
would stand in the presence of your grace. and that we would
not sulk and we would not cower and we would not hide but we
would continue to do that which you called us to do one foot
in front of the other one gaze ahead to the Lord Jesus who is
the forerunner and the founder and the perfecter of our faith
as we look to this eternal state as we look to the promise of
rest not to this world in all of its passings And we pray these
things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.