Do you love Jesus more than all the Christians you know? 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. Perhaps the most important question you could ever be asked is, do you love Jesus? For any Christian, the answer is yes. But how would you respond if somebody asked you if you love Jesus more than all of your Christian friends? What if all your Christian friends were with you when you were asked that question? And what if the person asking that question was Jesus himself? Today on Renew Your Mind, we'll be concluding our series through the Gospel of John. In today's message, Dr. Sproul will take us back to the occasion when Peter was restored and commissioned by Jesus to feed his sheep. With more on that, here's Dr. Sproul with today's message, Feed My Sheep. So our scripture today is from John chapter 21, verses 15 through the end of the chapter, which is verse 25, and I'll ask the congregation to stand. So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said to him, feed my lambs. He said to him again a second time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? And 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 Jonah, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said it 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. Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands. Another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish. This he spoke signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he said to him, follow me. Then Peter turning around saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had leaned on his breast at the supper and said, Lord, who is the one who betrays you? Peter seeing him said to Jesus, but Lord, what about this man? Jesus said to him, if I will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. And this saying went out among the brethren that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but if I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? This is the disciple who testifies of these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. There are also many other things that Jesus did which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books. that would be written. Amen. He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let them hear. You may be seated. Last week I mentioned that chapter 21 could be seen as an epilogue, a postlude for the entire Gospel of John in order to tie up the loose ends. And last Sunday we considered the episode where Peter, seeing Jesus on the seashore while he was still a hundred yards out on the water, dove into the water and went as fast as he could to the presence of Christ. This same man who had fled Jesus in Jesus' deepest hour of need, this man who had publicly denied Him with curses before servant girls around a fire. And now we're seeing the final recorded interchange between the big fisherman and his Lord. And it is not without significance that the interrogation proceeds in the manner it does. After they had eaten, Jesus speaks to Simon. He says, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? Now there are a couple of questions about this question. The first is that when Jesus asks the question, He uses the Greek word for love, agape. Remember that there are three words in Greek that can be translated into the English language, agape, phileo, and eros. Eros refers to erotic love, sexual love. And phileo generally refers to brotherly love. That's why we have Philadelphia. Adelphos Phileo, the love of the brother, the city of brotherly love. And yet the highest expression of love that the New Testament reaches is that spiritual love that is rooted and grounded in the power of God, which is called agape. And so Jesus puts the question before Peter. He says, Simon, son of Jonas, do you agape me more than these? Now what's also ambiguous about the question is what or who Do you love me more than what? Is he saying, do you love me more than these things that have been such an integral part of your life, your nets, the boat, the fishing equipment? Do I take precedent over your career, over your vocation? Maybe. Or is Jesus saying, do you love me more than you love your fellow disciples. That's the second possibility. And the third possibility is that Jesus is saying, Peter, do you love me more than these other men love me? Which would be kind of an embarrassing question to ask in front of some of the others. But we don't know for sure which of those was meant by our Lord. My guess, and it's only a guess, the best guess I can give, it's not a wild guess, it's an educated guess, but it's still a guess, is that He meant the third. Do you love Me more than the rest of the disciples love Me? I think that's what He was asking. I think there's a reason for that, because Peter understood the principle. Those who are forgiven much, love much. And there is a sense in which the depth of our affection for Christ is inseparably related to the depth of our understanding of that from which we have been forgiven. And when Peter understood that of all of those surviving, he had betrayed Christ more deeply than the rest. that for him to be restored, for him to be forgiven, for him to be invited back not only into the fellowship of Christ, but into the ministry of Christ, not to be dismissed from ministry for the rest of his life for his public and scandalous transgression. I think that's what Jesus was asking Simon. Do you have a degree of love for me that nobody else has here? Simon answers, yes Lord. You know that I love you. There's irony in that. That's not how he granted Jesus insight into human thinking and human affections in the upper room. When Jesus suggested that Simon was going to deny Him, Simon's response was what? No, Lord, you don't know. You don't know what's in my heart. I will never do that, and so on. Now he's learned not to dispute the knowledge of Christ, of what's going on inside of him. But all commentators notice that when Simon says, yes, Lord, you know that I love you, it goes like this, yes, Lord, you know that I phileo you. Jesus asked you, agape me. Simon says, I phileo you. Now, many commentators look at that and they say, well, what's going on here is that Jesus is challenging Simon Peter to a higher love than up to this point Peter had been able to make manifest. But, as other commentators have quite accurately pointed out, throughout the writings of John, not only the gospel, but his epistles and so on, the verbs phileo and agape are used interchangeably. And there's no reason to assume that these change in words here are anything more than stylistic preferences without any profound theological significance. I'm convinced of that. I don't think it has anything to do with Peter saying, I love you, but not to the degree you want me to love you. Because after all, Simon says, you know the answer to this question. But what's more important to me in this text is what Jesus says that love requires. What are the consequences of love? If Peter is going to be restored, if he is going to be a pastor, a shepherd to the flock of Jesus, then if he loves Christ, then what does that mean? Feed my lambs. Let's just quickly run ahead. The second question, do you love me? Yes, you know they love you. Tend my sheep. Then the third time, do you love me? Peter was grieved and said, do you love me? Lord, you know this and you know that. Feed my sheep. Lambs, sheep, sheep. Feed, tend, feed. And some have made something out of that, that the lambs are the new converts and the sheep are the older one, and that there's a difference between tending and feeding. I don't think that had anything to do with it. I think that what Jesus is saying here, you want to be a pastor? You want to be a shepherd? Then you feed my sheep. You don't starve my sheep. Do you set your concerns apart from my sheep and set them focused on those who are not my sheep? I think it's the greatest tragedy of the latter part of the twentieth century, of the revolution in worship in the United States of America. It's killing the church to follow this model of so-called seeker-sensitive worship. And the idea is that if you want your church to grow, then you design your church to meet the desires and the interests of non-Christians. Seekers. As I said to the pastors this week, I believe in seeker-sensitive worship. And we have, in fact, designed worship here at St. Andrews to be seeker-sensitive. And you say, wait a minute, doesn't that contradict everything you say and everything we do here at St. Andrews? Well, let me explain that, please. The Bible says in their natural state, no one seeks after God. No one. Jonathan Edwards said the seeking after God should be the main business of the life of the Christian. I remember the night of my conversion. I went out to the parking lot with my best friend in college. We got into my Ford, my 57 Fairlane 500 with twin four-barrel carburetors and dual exhaust with chrome extensions and chrome fender-mounted mirrors. Turned the engine over, hit myself in a shirt pocket. I said to my buddy, I said, I'm out of cigarettes. We got to go back in the dorm. So I went back in, went down the stairs, because the cigarette machine was at the bottom of the stairs. And this is to tell you how old I am and something about inflation. For 25 cents, I put the quarter in the slot and got my pack of Luckys. And I turned to go back upstairs, and the guy said, hey, fellas, sit down. And I sat down, and the guy told me about Jesus. I wasn't seeking Jesus. I was seeking cigarettes. and found Jesus. The seeking after God, the seeking after Jesus starts at conversion. It doesn't end there. And that's why a true seeker-sensitive worship service is designed for Christians. The purpose of Sunday morning, of the assembling together of the saints, of the holy ones, of the ones who have been set apart, the ecclesia, those called out from the world, the purpose of church on Sunday morning is to feed the sheep of Jesus Christ. We are to do evangelism, we are to be engaged in outreach, we are to be involved in ministries of mercy, but Sunday morning belongs to the sheep. And it is the task of the pastor and of the church to feed the sheep. Now if somebody who's not a sheep, if the goats come in unbid, that's cool, that's fine, but we're not going to change the food that has been prepared for sheep and give the sheep goat's food. I don't know what they eat, but the last time I looked they were eating tin cans and stuff like that. Worship is for the sheep. Now you notice that when Jesus talks to Simon here, he doesn't say, Simon, if you love me, if you really love me, feed the goats, nor did he say, if you love me, for heaven's sakes, if I make you a pastor, whatever else you do, Simon, take care of your sheep. If I make you a shepherd over a flock, feed your flock. Tend your flock. Strengthen your flock. And don't let them just drink milk, as the author of Hebrews tells us. But make sure they grow up so that they can have an adult diet that they can feast upon the meat of the Word of God. And they'll say to you, Jesus told us to become His children and we want to have a simple faith, a childlike faith. But if you're a Christian called to maturity, you can't be satisfied with milk. You must look for the meat of the Word of God. But all of that He didn't say. He didn't say, Simon, take care of your flock, feed your sheep. What did He say? Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. I've been called to be a shepherd among you, but you're not my sheep. You're not my flock. not my lambs. Did I purchase you with my blood? Have I built my church on this rock?" No, no, no. It's His church, and you are His sheep, and you are His lambs. And what a terrible thing it would be for me be one thing for me to neglect my own sheep. That's bad enough, but to neglect his sheep? How could I ever look at it? And so the interrogation goes, Simon, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I love you. Then take care of my lambs. Simon, let me ask you something. Simon, do you love me? Yes, Lord. You know that I love you. And the last time Jesus even goes down to the phileo, well, do you phileo me? Which Simon had said twice that he had. By this point, Peter's getting a little agitated, and John tells us he was grieved when Jesus asked him the third time. Wonder why he asked him three times. That doesn't require rocket science to figure that out. How many times? Did Simon deny Him? Three times. And for him to be restored, he has to make his profession of faith before Jesus in triplicate. Finally, Jesus said, if you love Me, praise Me. No. If you love Me, exalt Me. Did you love me, learn of me? No. If you love me, do the mission I've called you to do. Take care of the people of God. Because when the sheep of Christ are fed, when the sheep of Christ are nurtured, when the sheep of Christ are filled with the nurture and strength of Christ and of His Word, they become a mighty army. Turn loose on a world and turn the world upside down. Babies have almost no influence in a culture. before babies can turn the world upside down, they have to grow up, they have to be nurtured, they have to become mature, they have to be adults, and they have to be fed on the Word of God. Nothing less will do. This is the disciple who testifies of these things and wrote these things. and we, presumably the editorial we, we know that his testimony is true. Now some look at this and say, this is a little bit self-serving, where somebody is saying, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, I verify the story that I've just given. Now this is a Jew who, like Paul, knows the sanctity of the oath before God, knows the severity of the punishment for false witness, who knows the danger to his soul if he vows and doesn't pay. And at the very end of his gospel, John takes an oath, and he says of his testimony, we know that this testimony is true. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind Weekend Edition with R.C. Sproul It took thousands of years to write the drama of redemption. When was the last time you ran through the scriptures that proclaim the coming of Christ? Why not now? To give you a panoramic view of the drama of redemption, we're offering The Word Became Flesh CD for a donation of any amount. This album is a musical interpretation and celebration of the incarnation of the Son of God. Listen as Dr. R.C. Sproul reads selected scriptures on the promises of the coming of Christ with the accompaniment of familiar hymns, Christmas carols, and new choral pieces. The result of this collaboration is an epic presentation of salvation that resonates in both mind and heart. Let the beauty of music and the truth of scripture fill your hearts and minds this Advent season. Again, The Word Became Flesh CD is available for a donation of any amount. So call now. Our toll-free number is 1-800-435-4343. Again, that's 800-435-4343. 435-4343. Or you can go online to rymoffer.com. That's R-Y-M as in renewing your mind and the word offer.com. That web address is for this special offer only. Consider all that God did to bring His Son to us that first Christmas morning. Indeed, He didn't just plan it. He orchestrated it. What better way to trace His steps through Scripture than to be accompanied by music that honors our Savior? To get your copy of The Word Became Flesh for a donation of any amount, give us a call now using our toll-free number 1-800-435-4343. Again, that's 800-435-4343. 435-4343 or you can go online to rymoffer.com. That's R-Y-M as in renewing your mind and the word offer.com. That web address is for this special offer only. That's all the time for this Weekend Edition of Renewing Your Mind. Thank you for listening. Be sure to join us again next weekend as we return with a special broadcast. 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.