If you marked your place in John
21, please turn there with me at this time. Three times. The Lord asked Peter, lovest
thou me? The first time our Lord asked,
he said, lovest thou me more than these? Some old writers
said that Christ was asking Peter if he thought he loved Christ
more than the rest of the apostles did. You know, Peter had said
before the Lord was betrayed, he said, though all men deny
thee, yet will not I. And the Lord said, Peter, before
the cock crows, you'll deny me three times. And he did. Others
think that Christ was asking Peter if Peter loved him more
than he loved James or John, his closest and most intimate
friends. And did he love Christ more than
he did Andrew, his own brother and companion, partner in business,
fisherman together? I'll make this statement. Those
who do not love Christ more than the best friend they have in
the world, do not love Him as they ought. Peter, lovest thou
me? Do you love me more than these?
More than the things of the world? More than these boats and these
nets? The pleasure of fishing, the
occupation of fishing. Is Christ the most important
person in your life? That's what he was asking, Peter.
Am I everything to you? That's the question I would have
you consider concerning yourselves this morning. Is Christ your
all in all? Is He the most important thing
in your life? He ought to be loved by us more
than anything or anyone else. Peter, do you love me more than
you love your occupation? If so, implore yourself wholly
in feeding my flock. Lord, you know all things. You
know that I love you. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Three times. Feed my sheep. Feed
my lambs. Feed my sheep. There's much that
can be said about our Lord's question. There's much that can
be said about Peter's answer. And then again, our Lord's response. Now remember that, as I said
a moment ago, three times Peter had denied the Lord. Now he's
asked three times if he loves the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't
think that was a coincidence to you. Nothing is coincidence. All things are by the will and
purpose of God. But Peter had said, I go fishing. I'm going fishing. Which was
basically to say, I'm going back to what I was doing before I
met Christ. He was a fisherman. If you remember,
in the very beginning of the Lord's ministry, he had told
Peter and Andrew, his brother, in the beginning, on that day
he first met them, he said, follow me. And I will make you what? Fishers of men." And Scriptures
tell us that they immediately left their nets and followed
Him. They'd left all. They'd left all their possessions
to follow Christ. But now Peter, because of his
lack of faith, his denying of Christ, an overall discouragement. Can you imagine how discouraged
he was? They had taken his Lord and Master,
in whom he had said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God. When asked if he would leave
also, he's the one that stood up and said, Lord, where else
would we go? Thou hast the words to eternal
life. And yet they crucify his Master
and lay him in a tomb. Can you imagine how discouraged
he was? And what was his words? I'm going
fishing. I'm going back to what I know
best. And it had great effect on the others. Look at verse
3 of chapter 21. And Simon Peter said unto them,
I go a fishing. And they said unto him, we also
go with thee. And they went forth and entered
into a ship immediately. Our actions, this ought to be
a lesson to us, that our actions often have great influence upon
others. But no man, let me repeat, no
man can resist the will of God, especially in God's calling of
service to Christ. Now this is what I want us to
see. They'll gladly give up all earthly things to serve the cause
of Christ if they're so called to do so. And Peter was. Christ
had said, I'm going to make you a fisherman of men. You're going
to be instrumental in the saving of many souls. You may go back
to fishing for fish, but you won't stay there long. Because
that's not my will and my purpose for you. So this gives no doubt
to why the Lord responded each time after asking Peter if he
loved him with the words, feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. It's by the foolishness of preaching,
as we said earlier in the Sunday School Hour, that God is pleased
to save those who believe. God uses preaching. God has men
stand up and declare His Word, and His people are called by
that effectual preaching. Now this was his call and this
is the call of all God's preachers. Christ told Peter, feed my sheep. The elect that God gave me before
the foundation of the world. I know many God called preachers
who have given up successful businesses, nice homes to move
miles away from their family to pastor a church. Do you know
why? When God calls His servant to
the service of Christ, friends, He'll go. And when He's done
all those things which are commanded of Him, He'll acknowledge one
thing. He'll say, I am nothing but an
unprofitable servant and have done that which was my duty to
do. It was Peter's calling. And it
was Peter's duty to feed God's people. Not long after this,
he stood up on the day of Pentecost and thousands were saved. Now
look at the last part of verse 19. And when he had spoken this,
he saith unto him, Follow me. Follow me. Now I know that the
command to all God's people is to follow Christ. He literally
asked Peter to take a walk with him. So Peter takes a walk with
the Lord of glory. Oh, what a walk that must have
been. What a walk this is. To follow
Christ. To walk with Him. There's nothing
in this life that compares, are you walking with your beloved
Savior? But then again, Peter shows us
something of our true nature as an example. The Lord used
him many times in Scripture to show us what we are by nature.
Truly in our best state, the psalmist said, we're all together
vanity. All together in ourselves and
all together collectively, we're vanity. Man in his best state,
on his best day, is nothing but vanity. Now look at verse 20.
Then Peter, Peter's walking with the Lord. Oh my, what a blessed
walk that must have been. Then Peter, turning about, turning
about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following." That
means John. And he seeth the disciple John. And Peter's mind all of a sudden
became distracted. It became distracted from the
beauty of walking with and following the Savior by a very simple,
insignificant incident. He simply turned about. Turned around. So often in our
walk with the Lord we're easily distracted. You know it to be
so, the same as I do. We turn about, we look behind.
I'm reminded of the words of our Lord who said, no man and
no woman, that goes for you ladies too, having put his hand to the
plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. We must
forget, as the Apostle Paul said, those things which are behind,
and press on and forward in our walk with Christ. The Lord Jesus
had said to Peter, follow me. Now Peter turning about, he sees
John following. One thing I noticed there that
kind of stuck out to me was that he didn't ask John to follow
him, but he's following. He who had oftentimes described
as the disciple whom Jesus loved, the one that laid his head upon
the Lord's breast, He's following. He wasn't invited, but he's following.
There's a good example there. But he sees John following, and
the sight of his fellow disciple just arouses his curiosity. And he asks the Master concerning
John's future, which was absolutely none of his concern. Verse 21,
Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man
do? We concern ourselves with things that we have no business
concerning ourselves with. Oh, how I pray that God would
deliver me from this. The reply from our Lord is found
in verse 22. He says very distinctly and directly,
what is that to thee? That was a kind way of saying
it. What he was saying was, it ain't none of your business.
What concern is that of yours? You follow me. That's what he says. Now, the
Lord in verses 18 and 19 had just told Peter how Peter would
glorify God in his death. And now Peter seeing John, he
wanted to know about John. How is he going to die? What's
going to happen to him? The Lord said very plainly there
in verse 22, He said, If I will that he should tarry till I come.
What is that to thee? Follow me. You're going to die
this way, but if it's my will for him to live to the day I
return, what business is it of yours? Your command for me is
to follow me. Follow me. Oh, may God help me
not to be so easily distracted from the most needful thing.
What is that following him? Following him. The Lord's purpose
for another is not our concern. It is not our concern. Though
we pray for others, and we should, and we hope the best for others,
and we do, in the purpose and work God has for them, we wish
them the best. But other than that, it's not
our concern or our business. Our command from Christ is to
follow Him. How many times have we heard,
now you think about this with me, how many times have we heard
a word from the Lord in the preaching of the Gospel and through idle
chit-chat have forgotten the very thing that God had just
laid upon our hearts? How many blessings have we lost
on the way home from a worship service talking about anything
and everything other than the one subject that should occupy
our minds alone? I'm thinking about that myself.
It's been many times. Our prayer should be, O Lord,
keep our eyes, keep our ears, keep our hearts from wandering
away from You. For if not, we'll soon forget
the sound of Your voice and the necessary concerns we should
have for ourselves. I can remember many times hearing
a glorious gospel message and I was so encouraged to follow
my Lord more faithfully, filled my heart with joy, to only lose
it because my concern turned to foolish things like, well,
I wonder where so-and-so was today. Old me. Oh my. Wonder why so and so wasn't at
church. I noticed she didn't come again
this morning. God will deal with his people
without our help. Did you know that? God teach
me that. When we concern ourselves with
the things that we shouldn't, we're the ones that suffer. We're
the ones that lose the blessing. Now I'm preaching to me, but
glean from it if you can. The lesson here is vital for
our spiritual well-being. For the Lord says, What is that
to you? You concern yourself with one
thing and one thing only. You follow Me. So this morning,
just briefly, I want to consider three simple things that should
be most needful for us. Three simple things I think easy
to remember. The first, the most important
thing in our life, above all things, everything, is to follow
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the most important thing
that we could ever concern ourselves with. The main thing we have
to do is to look to Him, to trust Him, and to live by faith in
Him, the one and only Savior. It would be better if we had
never been born than to live and die without faith in Christ,
our beloved Savior. It would have been better if
we had never been born. Now, there are many things that we
may neglect. But first, and before everything
else, we must never, ever neglect our own salvation, which is found
in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. Salvation is in a
person, and He says, follow Me. We better follow. We better follow. Mr. Spurgeon once said, he said,
if you're on a vessel at sea or in the ocean and it begins
to sink, he said, you may forget your luggage. You may forget
any other precious treasures or heirlooms that you brought
with you. But first and foremost, you're
going to be concerned for your life. Your thoughts are going
to run to how am I going to get off this sinking ship? Is that
not true? Our concern is going to be for
our life. Sinners without Christ are sinking
deep in sand, friends. They're sinking. And they're
cumbered about with the care and concern of many earthly things,
but they ignore the welfare of their own soul, which will be
eternally lost unless they see the Lord Jesus Christ and follow
Him. Now that's just a fact. You may not believe that, but
that's the truth. And if I could convince you of
it, I would, but only God can. And what will it profit them? What will it profit them? Well,
Mark says in chapter 8, verse 36, for what shall it profit
a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Then he asks another question.
What shall a man give in exchange? for his soul? I can answer that
easy. Everything he has. You remember
in the story of Job when the Lord asked Satan, and he initiated
it, he said, has thou considered my servant Job? Even Satan spoke
the truth when he said, skin for skin, yea, all that a man
hath will he give for his life. The Father of all lives spoke
the truth concerning this. May it be so with us. that we
would give all that we have, that we may have life. What earthly things? Let me ask
you seriously, what earthly things do any of us have that will really
matter in eternity? Job said, naked I came from my
mother's womb and naked I shall return. The Lord giveth, the
Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. What are
we going to take with us? The first thing for a man or
woman to do is to follow Christ. That's what we must do. Follow
Him for salvation, looking to Him by faith and obedience to
His command. We believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and we shall, we shall be saved. I speak for a moment
to you young people. There are several of you here
and I'm grateful for that. You may say to yourself, there's
plenty of time. There's plenty of time for me.
I'm young. I've got a lot of life to live
yet. But no man, no woman, no boy,
nor girl are promised the dawning of a new day. I'm sure each of
you young adults know someone your own age that's now gone. I bet you do. It's our nature
to always think that the end of life comes to others but not
us. It didn't happen to us. You see
somebody on TV that gets hit by a tornado or hurricane, and
they'll say, you know, I just never thought it would happen
to me. God's no respecter of persons. I've seen it happen
to others, but I never thought it'd happen to me. You hear that
all the time, don't you? It's the same with death. It's
estimated that 153,000 people die in this world every day.
Many of those being young folks. Young, under the age of 18. What
is our life? but a vapor that appears for
a little while and then vanishes away. What is our life? Please
understand, I beg you young folks to understand, the most important
thing in your life is to follow Christ, to learn of Him. And
you may think, well that's just foolishness. He's just another
one of those religious preachers. I'm telling you, You mark my
words, one day you're going to see what I'm telling you so.
It's our privilege to honor God, to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ,
to be an instrument by which God shall continually demonstrate
His almighty power of grace and mercy in our lives. Second thing,
to follow Christ, we must leave many other things alone. As I
said earlier, Peter wanted to know about John. He said, what
shall John do? That's our nature, isn't it?
But what about old Gary? What about old Glenn? What's
that to you? You better worry about yourself.
I can remember so many times as a young boy growing up when
I wanted a particular thing and my mother or father said no.
You know what my first argument was? Well, Johnny has one. My mom used to always say, if
Johnny jumped off a bridge, would you jump with him? I thought
if I could get one, I would. What is that to me? What does
it matter? Are you going to follow Christ?
God knows his own servants better than I do. And He knows best
where to place them, and He knows how to use them for His glory
and advantage. And we often wonder what God
has determined for this man and this woman. This is nothing more
than really just the result of sinful flesh. Oftentimes it's
jealousy, it's just vain curiosity. But Christ says, what is it to
thee? Follow thou Me. Follow thou Me. If I was going
to title this message, it would be just that. Follow Thou Me. God has all kinds and shapes
of stones in His temple, and He places them where He alone
sees fit. He calls one man for a particular
job for lack of a better word, a particular purpose, and he
calls another for another, and he knows best. God has managed
the universe quite well without our help. And God has well kept
the preaching and the furtherance of the gospel and the church
for over 2,000 years. He said, just follow me. I'll
take care of the rest. I'll handle everything else.
You just follow me. You worry about yourself. The
last thing is we should make it our life work, our chief concern,
the one thing absolutely needful in our life, to follow Christ. That's my encouragement to you
this morning. Follow Christ. follow Christ. Now let me tell you why I must
follow Christ and concern myself with that alone. First is that
I don't have power to save myself. He does. I better follow Him.
The reason I must follow Christ also is that my time is limited. He's eternal. And in Him, I am
eternal. And we've already seen life is
brief at best, and to follow Him is the most spiritually profitable
thing that you and I can do. And I honestly desire that when
I'm dead and gone, that people might say of me, for the glory
of God, not for any glory of mine, that man, though he was
a sinner, was faithful. I desire that more than anything.
I want to be found faithful. Don't you? I want men to say,
you know, that man, he was far from perfect, but I'll tell you
this much, he lived to preach to the lost and comfort the saints
with the preaching of the true gospel. I want men to say that. I want that to be so. I don't
want men to lie about it. I want it to be so. I hope that
others might see that my true concern in this life was for
the lost. Those who are yet without Christ
and also the comfort of those that have Christ and love Him.
I want to be found a faithful steward when I stand before God
Almighty and give an account. Knowing that it was following
Him and trusting in His faithfulness and having His perfect righteousness
that gave me life eternal. That comes by following Him.
May it be said of you, that woman lived to bring her children to
Christ. That was her one desire. Man, she made that her mission,
that her children might know Christ. That young man, that
young woman lived to tell others what their Savior had done for
them in sovereign grace and mercy. How they told everybody, they
saw. Let me tell you about my Savior and what He's done for
me. They truly desired that others might receive the divine blessings
that they themselves have received. May that be said of you. Oh, that each one of us might
live to glorify God. Having so little strength, now
I'm leaving you with this. Having so little strength, and
we do, we just don't have any, do we? Without strength, the
scripture said, we have so little strength, it is best for us to
use it all. in one direction and for one
purpose. We don't have enough for it to
be divided in this and that, especially to worry about others. What about Him? What's that to
thee? You concentrate what little strength
you have on one thing and one thing alone. You follow Me. You
follow Me. Our Lord said, if any man will
come after Me, let him what? Deny himself and take up his
cross. and follow me." That rich young
ruler, I can't help but think about. He had so much zeal. He
came to our Lord wanting to do something good. First thing out
of his mouth was, Lord, what good thing must I do to be saved? The young man was all about doing
good. He had not committed murder or adultery. He told the Lord
he had not stolen or bore false witness. He claimed to have honored
his father and mother and loved his neighbor. He said, all these
things I've kept from my youth up. What like I yet? He was trying
to work his way to heaven. There must still be something
good that I can do to merit salvation. Well, let me tell you something.
The Lord will always meet you in your weakness. Every time,
He'll meet you in your weakness. Because in your weakness, He's
made strong. Our Lord met Him where His heart failed Him. He
said, you go and you sell all that you have. And you give it
to the poor. And you shall have treasure in
heaven. And then he said, and you come and you follow me. You
follow me. The scriptures say the young
man heard that saying and he went away sorrowful. Why did
he leave sorrowful? It says, for he had great possessions. Great possessions. Peter, do
you love me more than your friends? Peter, do you love me more than
your occupation, your career? Yes, Lord, I do. Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. Peter, do you
love me more than your possessions? Lord, thou knowest all things.
You know that I love thee. Then feed my sheep. Our greatest concern in this
life should be the glory of God and the salvation of sinners.
And to do this, we must leave many other things alone and make
this one thing needful in our life. Following Him. Why? Because
it is the one thing needful. It is the one thing that we must
do. Don't turn about. Don't look
behind. Don't concern yourself with the
Lord's purpose for any other. Just follow Him. And you know
what? If you follow Him, He promised
that you will be where He is. That's exactly what He said.
Where He is, you shall be also. That's where I want to be, where
He is. That's heaven to me, being with Him, isn't it? And what
hell is, is being eternally separated from Him. Follow Him. Don't let
Him out of your sight. Cling to Him. Don't let Him go,
because He won't let you go. Follow Me. Follow thou Me.