If you came face-to-face with a Holy One of Israel, how would you respond? Stay tuned. Renewing Your Mind Weekend Edition is next. Welcome to this weekend edition of Renewing Your Mind with author and teacher Dr. R.C. Sproul. Dr. Sproul is also the Senior Minister of Preaching and Teaching at St. Andrews, a Reformed congregation in Sanford, Florida. It may be easy to speculate how we would react in certain situations, but sometimes we surprise ourselves when we are actually there. How would you respond if you were face-to-face with Jesus right now? Would you embrace Him, fall down before Him, or run from His presence? Today on Renewing Your Mind, We'll continue our way through the Gospel of John. In today's message, Dr. Sproul will take us back to see Peter's response the morning Jesus appeared to the disciples on the seashore. Here's Dr. Sproul with today's message, Breakfast on the Seashore. We're going to continue now with our study of the Gospel of John. This morning I will be reading from the 21st chapter beginning at verse 1 through verse 14. After these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and in this way he showed himself. Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, The sons of Zebedee and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. And they said to him, we're going with you also. So they went out and immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore. And yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. And Jesus said to them, children, have you any food? They answered him, no. And he said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some. And so they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, it is the Lord. And when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he had removed it, and plunged into the sea. But the other disciples came in the little boat, for they were not far from land, but about 200 cubits, dragging the nets with fish. And then as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there and fish laid on it and bred. And Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish which you have just caught. Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land full of large fish, 153. And although there were so many, the net was not broken. Jesus said to them, come and eat breakfast. Yet none of the disciples dared ask him, who are you, knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise the fish. This is now the third time Jesus showed himself to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. He who has ears to hear the word of God, let them hear." There are many critical scholars who believe that John chapter 21 doesn't even belong in the canon of Scripture because they can't understand why John would take the trouble to add this chapter with just one more manifestation of the risen Christ when the climax of the gospel was reached in chapter 20, when John, at the end of chapter 20, explained why he wrote the gospel in the first place. We remember from last week he said, these things were written that you may believe, and believing in him have life, and so on. But anyone who does any serious amount of reading of literature, particularly fiction, know that it is customary in literature, when one tells the story of episodes of what happens to people during a particular time in history, that it's important that the writer provide some kind of epilogue to achieve what Lieutenant Columbo frequently is concerned about, to tie up the little loose ends. And if we've been reading this gospel, one of those loose ends for which I think we're interested in having it tied up is the status of Peter. who so dismally had betrayed Jesus in his public denial. Now we know of Peter's rushing to the tomb after the testimony of the women on Easter morning, and of his presence in the upper room when Jesus appeared to the disciples then. But still that loose end is there. What about their relationship? We know that Jesus looked upon Simon. in the courtyard, right after he had announced his denial with curses of Jesus, and their eyes met. You can't imagine any deeper level of shame a human being could ever experience than Simon Peter experienced that moment when he saw Christ looking at him. And if you're interested in the history of what's going on here, I think John understood that. And he says, I'm not going to let that loose end hang, because most of chapter 21 gives us information about the restoration of Peter in terms of his relationship to the Lord. Well, it begins with these words. After these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples. This showing involves an unveiling, a manifestation, a visible revelation of his resurrected state. And that's how John introduces this segment. And he mentions those who were there, Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee. That would be James and John. and two others of his disciples were together. And those two remain unnamed. And we are told that Simon Peter said, well, I'm going fishing. Remember, Jesus had told the disciples to go up to Galilee and to wait for him. And so they're still waiting for their final orders. And it's not like Peter is saying, well, you know, I'm not too excited anymore about following after Jesus. I think I'll go fishing this afternoon. I saw a bumper sticker this week on a car. And it said, work is for people who don't know how to fish. And it's not like Peter's just wasting his time. This is what he did. This was his business. This was his profession. He had been called from his nets to follow after Jesus, to be a fisher of men. And now while he's back home and he's waiting for the next summons of Christ, he says, I'm going to go fishing. And the rest of the fellows said, we'll go along. And so they go out on the sea, and they fish all night, and they catch nothing. Now that part, that portion of the text sounds very familiar to the incident that Luke gives us in the fifth chapter of his gospel when he tells the story of how the disciples had spent all night fishing with no success. And Jesus came and told them to throw their nets at a particular place, and when they did, every fish in the Sea of Galilee jumped in the net, and they were completely amazed. But it's not enough to look at similarities in episodes that take place in the New Testament. You also have to note the differences. And there are striking dissimilarities between the event that Luke records in chapter 5 of his gospel and this post-resurrection occurrence that John tells us of here. The only thing really that's in common is that the disciples are on the sea, they're fishing, they didn't catch anything, and that wasn't all that extraordinary, and that Jesus helps them out. And so Jesus is standing at the shore. We know that he's about a hundred yards away, and the disciples did not recognize him in the distance, but he said to them loudly enough that they could hear, children, which could be more loosely translated fellows, lads, boys, do you have any food? They still didn't recognize the voice of Jesus on this occasion, but they said to him, no, And he said, well, then cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some. So they cast. Now, you have to wonder at this point. They don't know who's coaching them from the seashore. They're professionals. They've had their nets all over the place all night. They haven't caught anything. And somebody in the darkness, 100 yards away, said, hey, fellas, have you caught any fish? No. Well, why don't you throw your net over on the starboard side? All we know is they did it. And when they did it, they got a huge catch, just as what had happened in the Luke episode, where in that story, they filled two of the boats with the fish that they caught, and the boats began to sink. But in this case, we are told, they cast, and they were not able to draw in the net because of the great number of fish. Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It's the Lord. Dawned on John. Recognition. It's the Lord. He's appearing again. There He is on the shore. He's called out to us. He's filled our nets like He did back before He died. Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, listen to this. He put on his outer garment, for he had removed it, and plunged into the sea." Is there anything strange to you about that text? When people spontaneously decide to go swimming, if some emergency arises, there's some reason that requires an immediate decision to go into the water, what do they do? They take their clothes off. They don't put them on. This is a rather genteel translation of this text here in the New King James. The word in the Greek is gumnos, which means naked. It's the word nuda. in Latin. So the actual description of Peter while he was fishing was that he was naked or very close to it. I mean, you could use the word for nakedness, gomnos, if you were in your skivvies. But in any case, Peter's out there in his boat, and he's not completely dressed. Now, he may have had his outer cloak draped over himself while they were fishing. But when he decides to go to Jesus, he covers himself, not to keep out the cold. But we remember how often, I mean, it's an interesting thing to study that word gomnos, usage throughout sacred Scripture, and how it is so intimately related to the concept of sin and to the concept of shame. It was the first experience that Adam and Eve had in the garment after they sinned. They were naked and they were ashamed. And now, there is Jesus on the shore, and this Simon Peter who has denied him and betrayed him, he sees Jesus, Jesus is recognized, he covers himself with what he has, and dives into the water. Now this incident here makes this account of this episode differ radically from the account that Luke gave us of the first catch that Jesus assisted the disciples with that was recorded in the fifth chapter of Luke. You remember on that occasion when Jesus told them where the fish were, and as I said, all these fish jumped into the net, and they brought this in, the nets are breaking and tearing from the load, the boats are sinking. And I have said this to you before, you remember that Peter was Jewish, and he was a Jewish businessman, and his business was selling fish. Now he just got the greatest catch of fish he ever had in his life. If that's you, if that's me, I would say to Jesus, look, Jesus, Let's make a deal. Sign right here. You don't have to work for me every day, 40 hours. Just once a week, come down here just one time and do this little trick again. And I'll give you 50% of the business because we are going to make a killing. That's what I would do. That's not what Peter did. When Peter saw that and saw what Jesus had wrought before his very eyes, He had a very strange response. You remember what he said? He looked at Jesus and he said, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. This is the universal response of people when they recognized the character of Jesus. It is the universal response of the creature who beholds the unveiled glory of the holy. When Peter realized the one with whom he was dealing, He was overwhelmed with the sense of his guilt, and what he wanted more than anything else was relief from that guilt, and that meant he wanted space between Jesus and him. And so he said, Jesus, please leave. I can't stand it. Which at that point, Simon Peter gave the standard human response to the drawing nigh of the Holy One. Even the demons cried out, Jesus of Nazareth, what do you have to do with us? Get out of here. Our basic nature is to put as much space between Christ and ourselves as we can. That's how Peter reacted early on in the ministry of Jesus. That's not what he did this time. This time when he has so much more to be ashamed of, so much more to be embarrassed by. Instead of trying to put distance between himself and his Savior, he dives in the water and swims as strong as he can. He can't wait to get to the seashore. I was in college. I was a counselor at a Jewish boys camp in Ohio. We had a big lake there. I was in charge of the waterfront. In this one afternoon, this tremendous storm came through Ohio, and there were sightings of tornadoes and alerts and warnings all over the place, and the day had turned almost as dark as night. And it was so violent that we sounded the alarm, the siren, at the camp, which was the signal that every camper, every counselor, every staff member had to come right away to the dining hall for safety. And so when everybody arrived at the dining hall, there was a count. Two of the campers were missing. We had no idea where they were. So some of us went outside the dining room, some in some direction, some another. I headed towards the waterfront, and I saw clear at the end of the lake, about four or five hundred yards out there, that there were these two campers in a canoe fighting as hard as they could against the wind and the waves to get back to safety. And there was an empty canoe on the shore, and I jumped in the canoe, got in the bow of it, went down as fast as I could. I had a tailwind. It took me about five minutes to get to that. And when I got to them, they were terrified, lightnings flashing, they're in a metal canoe, and so on. I got them fixed in the boat where they could get maximum pressure against the wind, got them turned around so that they could pierce into the wind, and got them on a course to safety. And then I had to get myself in. And against the current and against the wind, it took me at least 45 minutes. to travel that four or five hundred yards back to shore. Now, if I could have just abandoned that boat and jumped in the water, that's what I would have done. Peter was not about to wait. They're dragging this net full of fish, and it's going to take them, even though it's a hundred yards, it's going to take them, obviously, against the wind and against the current, some minutes to get to shore. So he jumps in the water and dives. If Jonathan Edwards were here today, you know what he would say. By way of application, O sinner, dive in the water. Swim as fast as you can. With as mighty strokes as you can make, get as close to the Savior as you can before it's too late. The other disciples came in a little boat, dragging the net with fish. As soon as they came on land, they saw a fire of coals. And every time you have a detail like that in the gospel, you ask, why did he mention the fire? What's the significance of the fire? Maybe none. But remember, this is about Peter. Only twice in the gospel of John is there any mention of burning coals and of embers and fire of this sort, the word that is used here, It's the same word that was used for the fire in which Peter was standing warming himself with the servants when he uttered his profane denial of Christ. But this time, instead of servant girls of Galilee or of Jerusalem, I should say, tending the fire, it is Jesus who's prepared a fire to serve breakfast to His servants. The Jesus who washed their feet in the upper room, the Jesus who absumed their sin on His person at Golgotha, the Jesus who was raised from the dead for their resurrection is still serving them, is still the servant of the Lord. He doesn't just tell them to pray for their daily bread, but he provides it for them there on the seashore. He said, bring some of the fish which you've caught. Peter went by himself, dragged a net to the land. Whatever you say, Lord, you know, I don't even need any help. You give me a command, give me the net. He goes over, grabs the net, draws it up on the land, full of large fish. 153. Jesus then said, come and eat breakfast. Yet none of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? Because they knew it was the Lord. And Jesus came and took the bread, gave it to them, and likewise the fish. This was not a reenactment of the Lord's Supper. But this is what our Lord does even now. He says, come to my table. Eat the meal that I have prepared for you. In my very presence, let me serve you. Let me strengthen you. Let me heal you. Let me forgive you. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, Weekend Edition, with R.C. Sproul, as he takes us through the Gospel of John. How well do you really know Jesus? In the fifth chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees by telling them, You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me. One of the ways to know Jesus more is to learn what Scripture says about Him by way of His titles. To aid in that study, we're offering The Majesty of Christ on CD for your donation of any amount. So give us a call using our toll-free number. 1-800-435-4343. Again, that's 800-435-4343. Or visit rymoffer.com. That's R-Y-M as in renewing your mind and the word offer dot com. That web address is for this week's special offer only. The Majesty of Christ series is a six-part biblical survey of the prominent titles for Jesus and the character traits each one reveals. Learn the biblical aspects of Christ's identity revealed by His titles, such as Son of Man, the Prophet, Messiah, Suffering Servant, King of Kings, and more. This six-part CD series is available for your donation of any amount today. Call now to reserve your copy. 1-800-435-4343. Again, that's 800-435-4343. Or visit rymoffer.com. That's R-Y-M as in renewing your mind, and the word offer.com. That will bring a close to this Weekend Edition of Renewing Your Mind. Thank you for being with us. Be sure to join us again next weekend as Dr. Sproul continues to take us to the Gospel of John. Until then, join us on Facebook.com slash Ligonier. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind Weekend Edition, the listener-supported radio outreach of Ligonier Ministries in Orlando, Florida. Yeah.