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from the Lord what I also delivered
to you. The Lord Jesus, on the night
when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks,
he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do
this in remembrance of me. In the same way, also, he took
the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant
in my blood. Do this as often as you drink
it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this
bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until
he comes. This is the body of the Lord,
which is given for you. This cup is the new covenant
in Christ's blood shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of
sins. And as we sing our final hymn
this morning, please turn in your red hymnals again to page
642. 642 in the red, Be Thou My Vision. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of
my heart, not be all else to me, save that Thou art. Thou my best thought, my day, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence
my light. Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my
true word. and Thou with me, Lord. Thou my great Father, I Thy true
Son, Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one. Be Thou my battle shield, sword
for my fight, ♪ Thou my dignity, Thou my delight ♪ ♪ Thou my soul's
shelter, Thou my high tower ♪ ♪ Raise Thou me heavenward, O power of
my power ♪ ♪ Riches I need not, nor man's empty praise ♪ Thou
mine inheritance, Thou and always, Thou and Thou only, first in
my heart. My King of heaven, my treasure
Thou art, My King of heaven, my victory won. May I reach heaven's joys, O
bright heaven's sun. Lord of my own, hard would ever
befall. Still be my vision, O ruler of
all. Amen. Now would you please stand
for our responsive reading this morning. Our responsive reading
comes on page 800. We will be reading Psalm 42. Page 800 in the red. Psalm 42. As the deer pants for streams
of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for
God, for the living God. My tears have been my food day
and night. While men say to me all day long,
where is your God? These things I remember as I
pour out my soul. How I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of
joy and thanksgiving among the fested throng. Why are you downcast,
O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? For I will yet praise Him, my
Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me.
Therefore, I will remember you from the land of Jordan, the
heights of Hermon, and Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in
the roar of your waterfalls. All your waves and breakers have
swept over me. By day, the Lord directs His
love. At night, His song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life. Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy? My bones suffer mortal agony,
as my foes talk to me, saying to me all day long, where is
your God? Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put
your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and
my God. And let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are the great God and
savior of this world. You sit on your throne and you
rule over everything, Lord. Father, we are thankful that
your son has made his enemies his footstool. Father, I pray
that even now the power of your gospel, Lord, would continue
to be proclaimed throughout this world. that your kingdom would
continue to conquer to the ends of this world, that you would
save souls from their wretched selves, Lord, and bring them
into your eternal glory. Father, I pray for Josh Hayward
at Kenney Avenue Baptist Church, Lord, and Father, I pray that
you, The spirit of unction, Lord, would be preached through him
this morning. The spirit of power would go out into his congregation
and that your gospel would continue to be proclaimed from that pulpit,
Father. I pray that your gospel would
continue to be proclaimed in this pulpit, Father, that you
would sustain this body and that you would sustain our pastor,
Greg, Lord. Father, that he would stand upon
the gospel and not stand, Lord, in his own wisdom, but in the
wisdom that comes from you. Father, I ask that your hand
would be upon the leaders of our government. Lord, that they
would rule and they would deliver justice, Lord, to the oppressed. Father, that they would rule
in the righteousness of you, Father, that you would save them,
Lord, save their souls, Father. Father, I pray that you would
continue to be upon us all, Lord, and be with upon those who are
unable to be here this morning, and Father, be with Ben Fletcher,
Father. Lord, I pray that you would be
with Marie Collins, that you would be with Sandra, Father,
that you would be with Chuck and his migraines, Lord. I ask
that you would be upon all of us, Lord, as we go about our
days, that we would worship you and that you would be our vision,
Lord. I pray this in your son's name,
amen. You may be seated and the children
may go out to Children's Church and Greg, please come preach
the gospel to us. As our children go out, if you
would turn with me in your copy of God's life-changing, life-giving
Holy Word to the Gospel of John. Back to chapter 21 of John's
Gospel. As we are wrapping up our series
in John, here at the epilogue, tying up some loose ends specifically
regarding the relationship between the Lord Jesus and the Apostle
Peter. You'll be helped to follow along
in John chapter 21. I'm gonna start reading for us
at verse 15. When they had finished breakfast,
Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more
than these? He said to him, yes, Lord, you
know that I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. He 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. He said to him, tend my sheep.
He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love
me? Peter was grieved because he
said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him,
Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. Jesus
said to him, 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." Well, it's an incredibly heartfelt
passage, isn't it? This intimate conversation here
between Jesus and Peter And it still has that kind of mysterious
setting to it that we talked about last week. So you've got
the early morning waves of the Sea of Galilee lapping on the
shore, the sky is now brightening as the Dayspring rises over the
water to the east. There's that charcoal fire, remember,
that would have certainly reminded Peter of his denial. And right in the middle of this
breakfast of broiled fish on the beach, Jesus, just kind of
out of nowhere, he looks at Peter and says, Simon, do you love
me more than these? Now at the macro level, just
at the highest level, I think what's going on here in our passage
is pretty clear and pretty easy to see. Jesus asks Peter, do
you love me? Three times, and in each one
of those three times corresponds, right, to one of the three times
that Peter had denied Jesus. So I think it's pretty obvious
what's going on here is that that Jesus here is restoring
and reinstating Peter as a faithful apostle, putting him back in. He's saying, this one is not
like Judas. But even if that part is clear,
even if you can read that and see immediately that that's really
what's happening here in our passage, I think there's still
a lot of questions that this passage raises. I mean, why does
Jesus follow up each affirmation of Peter's love with some variation
of, shepherd my sheep? It's said in three different
ways, but all the words mean the same thing. And then what's
happening with this last part where Jesus says, you know, one
day Peter will stretch out his arms and be led where he doesn't
want to go. What does John mean when he says
that that was referring to the kind of death that Peter would
die? And what does he mean for that
matter by saying that in his death, Peter would glorify God? Well, all of those things are
questions that we're gonna talk about this morning, but in the
midst of that, answering and asking all of those questions,
I don't want you to miss out on the main point of all of this,
because what this passage does ultimately, and most importantly,
is that it tells us what lies at the very heart of what it
means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. So here's the main idea. The main thing that this passage
is trying to get across to us is this. The right response to
being forgiven by Jesus is to love his people and to suffer
for his glory." The right response to being forgiven by Jesus is
to love his people and to suffer for his glory. So when Jesus
pulls Peter back to his side, when he forgives him and restores
him and launches him out onto this mission that was going to
define his life of fishing for men in the ocean of the nations
of the world, that's what he tells him. Peter, if you're going
to love me, if you're going to follow me, if you're going to
give your life to my service, this is what it'll mean. You
must give your life to loving my people and ultimately to suffering
for the glory of God." So what he tells them, in other words,
is that forgiveness, true forgiveness, has legs. Forgiveness doesn't
just drop with a thud into your life and then sit there. It has
legs, it goes somewhere, it does something. Jesus says the way
that you now live is by loving his people and ultimately accepting
suffering when it comes for the glory of God. So I want to look
at this passage today in just two points, considering each
of those things. So first point, the right response
to being forgiven by Jesus is to love his people. The second
point is that the right response to being forgiven by Jesus is
to suffer for His glory. So those two things, those two
points, love His people, suffer for His glory. So let me tell
you up front just what my hope and prayer is for all of you
this morning. I pray that you'll be reminded,
if you're a Christian today, that you'll be reminded of just
the amazing fact that you have been forgiven of all of your
sins. That is such a good thing for
Christians to remember, right, to be reminded that you and I
as believers in Jesus have been completely forgiven of all of
our sins, past sins, present sins, the sins you committed
on the way here this morning, future sins, all of your sins
completely washed away by the blood of the Lamb. All accounts
have been cleared. The slate is wiped clean. And in fact, it's actually filled
up with Jesus's righteousness, not just clean. You've been forgiven
of your sins and you have been credited all the righteousness
of Jesus Christ in your place. Just like Peter, you've been
embraced by Jesus again, and now that forgiveness, it's got
to have legs. That's what I pray that you'll
realize today. You've been forgiven, you've
been pardoned, you've been redeemed, you have been set free, and that
has got to have legs to it. If you're not a Christian, then
I pray that maybe through studying this passage with us today that
you will come to know what it actually means to be forgiven.
You'll know the eternal joy that springs up from a heart that's
been made clean and pure because it has been forgiven of all of
its sin by Jesus. So I hope that even today that
you will Look to Jesus, that you'll come to Jesus for salvation,
and that you'll call yourself a Christian as you leave here
today because you have turned from your sins, and you have
trusted in Jesus alone to save you. So let's look at point number
one together. The right response to being forgiven
by Jesus is to love his people. So look down at the passage with
me at verse 15. We're gonna look at this in quite
a bit of detail, just looking at various phrases here. Verse 15, first notice it follows
just right on the heels, of course, of verse 14. You can see that
because John flags it there, when they had finished breakfast,
right? So this is coming right on the
heels of when they had finished eating the fish and the loaves. It's immediately after their
breakfast, and right there, Jesus turns to Peter and says to him,
Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Okay, several
things to notice here. First of all, it's important,
in fact, it's critical, I think, to see that apparently Jesus,
he asks Peter this question right in front of all the other disciples.
Do you love me more than these? Not those over there, but these
right here. For those of you who are grammarians,
this is the near demonstrative, not the far demonstrative, which
means they're right there with him. Do you love me more than
these guys right here with us? And do you see why that's important? Why is it important that he makes
this such a public thing? because Peter's sin of denying
his Lord was public. Peter had publicly humiliated
himself by his action, and so here Jesus publicly confronts
him and publicly, as it were, cauterizes that wound. I'm sure
Peter, for his didn't like this very much at the time, right?
I mean, nobody likes being called out, and nobody certainly likes
being called out in public. He probably winced when Jesus
said this. He may have even thought initially,
gosh, why do we have to do this in front of everybody else? He
probably would have very much preferred if Jesus had just taken
him aside and done this privately. But you have to see that it's
critical that the other disciples, they witness this act of Jesus
reinstating Peter so that they know he has been fully restored. So even though it hurt Peter
to be confronted publicly about this by the Lord Jesus, it was
ultimately for Peter's good. It was an act of love on Jesus's
part. Peter had sinned publicly, and
that self-inflicted wound, it would need to be cauterized publicly
so that all the apostles would realize that it was not just
Peter trying to move past his denial, it was Jesus putting
it behind him. That's why he did it. But I'm
sure even the wording of Jesus's question here stung Peter in
the moment. So let's think about that for
a second. Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"
I mean, there's the obvious sting of just, you know, the painful
reminder of the denial itself. Peter probably had the charcoal
fire stinging his nostrils. He was already reminded of the
courtyard of the high priest's house. and that charcoal fire
where he denied the Lord. He was already in that frame
of mind here, and now Jesus reminds him of it again. But it also
goes deeper than that, because when Jesus, when he asks the
question, he specifically calls Peter Simon. Now why does he
do that? He does that because that is
the name that Peter had before he encountered Jesus. He was
Simon the son of John when they first met. But remember, Jesus
had renamed him Peter. But here he reverts back to Peter's
original name, the name he had before Jesus had changed it. And that stings, doesn't it?
I'm sure it stung. It stung Peter. When Jesus called
him Simon, he may not have even responded to it immediately.
Who's Simon? And then he realized, oh, that
was me. But you see what Jesus is doing there. He's telling,
he's reminding Peter and pressing it deep into Peter's heart that
his actions of denying Jesus three times, that was a relic
of his past, of the man that Peter used to be before. This rash, unthinking, selfish,
impulsive man. And Jesus wants him to understand
more deeply and more profoundly that he's not that man anymore. He wants him to understand that,
and he wants him to not want to be that man anymore. And so
he calls him by this former name with the intent of making it
sting so that Peter will never want to be that man again. Brothers
and sisters, I wonder if there's anything like that in you as
a Christian. But is there any of the old you,
any of the old actions, the old way of thinking that really by
rights are just relics of the old you and that are just kind
of sticking around and holding on to you in your Christian life? And what do you think about those?
Do you want those to be there? Do you not want them to be there?
Do you just kind of not care? But by the time Jesus was finished
with Peter, he didn't want to be Simon anymore. He never refers
to himself as Simon. He refers to himself as Peter
in his letters, embracing his identity as a Christian. I am
Peter, the name that Jesus gave to me, the rock, right? I'm not
going to be that old man anymore. Do you have that desire? when
it comes to your past that still shows itself from time to time
in your life, well then, brother, sister, pray. Pray that God would
not just remove those things, not just take those things away,
but pray that He would cause your heart to want them to be
taken away. It's actually far more important
that you want that to actually happen. Pray that the Lord would
do that in your heart by increasing your affection for the Lord and
for his people. Notice too here that Jesus asks
Peter specifically, not just, Peter, do you love me? Or Simon,
do you love me? At least not in the first instance.
He simplifies the question in the second too. But in the first
one, he says more specifically, Do you love me more than these?"
Okay, what does that mean? People have actually interpreted
that in various ways over the centuries. So some have said
that what he's asking amounts to something like, do you love
me, Simon, more than you love these other disciples? But if
you think about that, I mean, Peter's great love for the disciples,
if that's even a thing, it just never really shows up as a theme
in John's gospel at all. It'd be a really strange thing
to bring it here at the very end in the epilogue of the book.
So I don't think he's saying, do you, Simon, love me more than
you love these other guys? Others have suggested a little
more far-fetched, I think, a far-fetched interpretation that maybe Jesus,
like, pointed to the fishing gear when he said this, to the
boat over there and the nets, and he said, do you love me,
Peter, more than these things over here? Do you love me more?
More than your career, more than your old life as a fisherman.
But the story just doesn't seem to suggest that. Well, what makes
the most sense is probably what all of you thought anyway, and
most of you were thinking when you read it the first time, and
that is that Jesus is asking, do you, Simon, love me more than
these other men love me? That's what he's asking. Now,
what kind of answer is Jesus expecting there? Is he challenging,
is he saying, Peter, you're the leader, you're the big man here,
you should love me more than all these other guys here with
us. Is that what he's doing? No,
I don't think so. I think he's asking the question
for an entirely different reason. And I think that the reason that
he's asking that question, Simon, do you love me more than these
others love me? because Peter, before his denial,
his thrice denial of Jesus, Peter had insisted that he did love
Jesus more, right, over and over and over again. He insisted that
he loved Jesus more than they did. So back in chapter 13, remember
when Jesus was in that upper room with all of his disciples?
He was telling them about how he was about to be crucified,
and the others were kind of growing quiet in the realization that
Jesus was going to die. Peter leaned over the table and
said, Lord, why can't I go with you? to the cross. Why can't
I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. It's not, Lord, we will lay down
our lives for you. It is, I will lay down my life
for you, Lord. And remember what happens next.
Jesus tells them, he quotes Zechariah, the shepherd will be struck,
the sheep will be scattered. He says, all of you are going
to fall away. You're all going to abandon me. And remember what
Peter does. Peter jumps in and says, even if all of them fall away,
not me, I will never fall away. So you see the point. The point
is that Jesus, what he's getting at when he asks that question,
Peter was deeply confident in his own love for Jesus. deeply
confident in his determination and his ability to stay by Jesus'
side even unto death. Even if all the rest of them
fell away, he was so confident right up to the moment that he
crumbled. And so Jesus just goes right
at it here. He looks him in the eye right
across that charcoal fire and he says, Simon, do you love me
more than these now? It's an amazing moment, isn't
it? Because even in the midst of restoring him, right, even
in the midst of reinstating him as a faithful apostle, Jesus
reminds Peter of his sin. He reminds him of his former
self-confidence, his arrogance. And when Peter says, Simon, do
you love me more than these others love me? Peter's not willing
to say that anymore. He's done with the Even if everyone
else abandons you, Lord, I will lay down my life for you. I will
never forsake you. My loyalty is so strong." He
knows his failings now. He knows his weaknesses. He knows his sin. So he does
not look Jesus in the eye anymore and say to him, yes, Lord, I
love you more than all of these do. And I will lay down my life
for you and never forsake you. He's been humbled. And so all
he can say is, yes, Lord, you know. You know that I love you. He didn't say, yes, Lord, you
know I love you way more than these other guys. He just says,
Lord, you know. that I love you." This is a much
humbled Peter, isn't it? This is a Peter who has seen
his sin. It's a chastened Peter, but it's
a stronger Peter because of that. This is a Peter who is not leaning
on his own strength anymore. He's not leaning on his own comparison
of himself with his brothers. You know, one of the greatest
marks, really, of Christian maturity, is that you come to a point of
giving up on comparing yourself to other Christians. You despair
of the absolutely hopeless game of trying to love Jesus more
than other people, or serve Jesus more than other people, and you
just learn to rest on the only thing that matters. I do love
you, Lord. You know. You know I love you.
If you've come to that point in your Christian life, then
you know just how wonderfully freeing it is to be there. But
if your heart today, if it's still striving to be better than
others, to love Jesus more than others, to serve him more than
others, pray that the Lord would teach you this lesson that Peter
had learned. It's a simple lesson, but it
is a deep one. Pray that the Lord would quiet
your heart and bring you to a place where you can be content with
a simple, yes, Lord, you know. You know that I love you. Do
I love you more than all of these others? I have no idea. It doesn't even matter. I love
you, and you know that. Well, the next few verses, Jesus,
he goes on and he asks Peter that same question two more times
in slightly different language. It doesn't have the more than
these anymore, that's been dealt with. But he says, Simon, son
of John, do you love me? Two more times, and Peter answers
two more times, Lord, you know that I do. Verse 17, he's even
grieving. When Jesus asks the third time,
you see that? He said during the third time,
Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because
he said to him the third time. What's going on there? Why is
Peter grieved? I think there's a way that you
can read that verse and you can say, well, he's just kind of
irritated as though he's like, you know, I've already answered
the question. Are you seriously asking me a
third time? I don't think that's what's going
on here. I think it's rather that Peter was not entirely clear
on what was going on, on specifically how Jesus was lining these three
confessions that he's eliciting from Peter, how he's lining those
with the three denials until he asks the third time. And when
he did that, It all clicked for Peter. It just all clicked. He's
asking me to fill in the holes of my sin by denying him. I did that three times, and now
he's giving me the opportunity to publicly affirm that I love
him. Instead of deny him, I love him. And so Peter finally realized
what was happening with the three times he gets to affirm his love
for his Lord. what he was grieving. His sin
was just laid there. And so he grieved his sin. He
repented, in other words. And look at how Jesus responds
each time to Peter. Each time it's three different
times, verse 15 and 16 and 17. Jesus says some variation of
the phrase, the sentence, the command, feed my sheep. Now there are several different
words that Jesus uses in that formulation. People have often
tried to make a big deal out of the word changes here. You've
got feed, you've got tend, which is just the word for shepherd. You've got lambs, you've got
sheep. Some people try to make a big deal out of those. But
the thing is, you can't really do that because John, characteristically,
he loves to use synonyms in his writing. It's just a stylistic
thing for John. And as you read John, you'll
notice all the time he just swaps out synonyms. He does the same
thing to describe words that will just communicate the same
thing but make the writing a little more interesting. And that's
the case here too. He doesn't mean some profound
difference between feeding and tending, or between sheep and
lambs. He doesn't mean a profound difference
there. And he also doesn't mean any profound difference between
the two words that he uses here for love. He uses two different
Greek words, agapao and phileo. And people have made a huge deal
about that, but John uses agapao and phileo all the time interchangeably
in his gospel. I mean, even when he says that
the Father, God the Father loves the Son, God the Son, sometimes
it's agapao, other times it's phileo. There's no difference
whatsoever. in meaning, just overlapping
words, synonymous. And I should point out here that
10 years ago, almost to the day, 10 years ago in May, our founding
pastor Jackson was preaching this passage in John's funny,
when I joined, he had already been in John for a couple years.
And then in 2005, he was still in John and was preaching on
this passage. He tried to make the argument
against D.A. Carson that the word phileo and
agapayo have very different meanings, and they're intentionally being
used to say, well, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you at
least kind of like me as a friend, is the way you may have heard
it preached. That's the way Jackson. preached it. And he knew the
arguments about stylistic variation. Here was his argument, which
I think will just help you hermeneutically to understand how we study and
understand and read the Gospels. His argument was, yeah, stylistic
variation, that's a literary thing, but this isn't literary. These are the words of Jesus
that are being communicated. That was his argument. Now, the
reason I disagree with that and why I think that that's wrong
is because this is literary. One mistake we can make when
we come to the Gospels is to read the quotations put in Jesus's
mouth as if they are transcripts of the video, right? And that's
not the genre. The Gospel genre is theological
historiography. It's not a transcript. In fact,
Jesus didn't speak in Greek. He would have been speaking in
Aramaic. So these aren't his exact words. The Chicago Statement
on Inerrancy is really helpful in distinguishing between what
theologians called ips, ipsum of vox versus ips, ipsum of verba,
which means the exact very words of Jesus are the exact voice
of Jesus. This is true to his teachings,
true to his saying, but we don't have word for word for word exactly
what he said. The authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John, they have license as writers to do this sort of stylistic
variation, which is why we see things like Matthew and Luke
have Jesus talking about the kingdom of God all the time,
telling parables about the kingdom of God. You go to Matthew, exact
same place, exact same moment, out of Jesus's mouth comes what?
Not kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, right? Matthew, he's
free to do that. So we shouldn't be uncomfortable
with that. So anyway, that's just genocide, how to read the
Gospels. These are just synonyms overlapping. So Jesus's response
to Peter is, okay, if it's true that you love me, then Peter,
shepherd my sheep. Now, I don't know if it strikes
you this way, but honestly, I think that that is kind of a surprising
word from Jesus, because what I would have expected, if I didn't
know this story, right, somebody asked me to guess what Jesus
was gonna say next, what I would have expected would be something
more like, okay, great, since you love me, now go tell the
nations all about me. Go preach the gospel to the ends
of the earth. All authority has been given
to me. Now go, baptize them in the name of the Father and the
Son. and the Holy Spirit. That's what I would have expected.
But Jesus, he's already made that point in the previous passage,
as we talked about last week. Here he turns to the other part
of Peter's calling, to shepherd the flock of God as a leader
in his church, particularly by teaching, or what Jesus here,
by metaphor, calls feeding the sheep, tending the lambs. Now,
this is not some unique calling for Peter. The Roman Catholic
Church takes it that way. This is, you know, Jesus establishing
Peter as the Pope. That's not what's going on, right?
Feeding the sheep, it turns out, in the rest of the New Testament,
is the task given to literally everyone who is set aside as
leaders of the Church. So, for example, Paul The Apostle
Paul, he's going to tell the elders in the church in Ephesus,
shepherd the flock of God. Same word as tend here. And Peter
himself probably remembering this episode in 1 Peter 5, he's
going to say to all the elders in the local churches, shepherd
the flock of God among you. Exact same word. So this isn't
something unique to Peter. Jesus is just reinstating him
into the leadership of the church, into the the apostolic band. And the reason that nobody else
gets this kind of special treatment from Jesus is not because Peter's
the pope, it's because nobody else had fallen quite like Peter
had with his three denials. He doesn't get this special treatment
because he's especially good, he gets it because he's especially
bad. And Jesus reinstates him. I think it's worth thinking for
a minute, too, about exactly what Jesus is telling Peter,
and by extension, all elders in all of the local churches,
what he's saying is that the main and most important role
of shepherds, pastors, elders in the church is to teach the
word of God, to nourish the flock with the glorious gospel of Jesus
Christ so that they grow by it and are equipped by it for every
good work. Above all things, that's the
charge and the task of being a pastor, to feed the people
of Jesus the living and active, life-transforming Word of God
by which we mature and grow. That's why we organize our local
church the way we do. This is why we center the public
service of worship here on these Lord's Day mornings, here at
Dayspring. like this one that we're in now, we center it, right,
on the whole thing around being fed from the Lord's Supper and
being fed through the preaching of the Word of God. So that's
the right response to being forgiven by Jesus. It's to love and care
for, feed his sheep, shepherd his people. Second point, Second
point, the right response to being forgiven by Jesus is to
suffer for his glory, to suffer for his glory. And that's the point of verses
18 and 19 here. So look down at those with me.
After Jesus gives the last command in 17, feed my sheep for the
third time, he says, truly, truly, I say to you, Peter, 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 Peter was going to glorify God. And after saying
this, he said to him, follow me. So why does Jesus say that? He's made his point, right? He
says, Peter, if you love me, if you're you know, if you actually
love me here, then feed my sheep. He's made that point. So why
does he say this now about Peter first being young and being able
to go wherever he wanted to go, and then being old and having
to stretch out his arms and being led where he doesn't want to
go? I mean, is that just a bare prediction? Like, is Jesus just
going into genie mode now and saying, I have something to tell
you about your future. I don't think so. I don't think
this is just a bare prediction. It actually follows logically
from this task that Jesus has now given Peter of feeding the
flock, teaching the flock. It's connected. Because what's
going to happen, and Jesus knows it, what's going to happen is
that as Peter feeds the flock and speaks the truth about Jesus,
as he proclaims the lordship of the resurrected Christ in
a fallen world, he's inevitably going to draw opposition. And Jesus knows that. So some
people have suggested that Jesus is kind of using a common proverb
about the difference between being young and being old, so
when you're young, you get to dress yourself and go where you
want to go. When you're old, somebody else
has to dress you and take you where you don't necessarily want
to go. People have said that this is
just an ancient proverb that was used all the time. And Jesus
is telling it to Peter, that that's what's going to happen
to him as he grows old. But there's actually no evidence
of a saying like that ever existing. I mean, it kind of sounds like
there should be a proverb like that. But there's no evidence
that that kind of saying ever existed. And even that sort of
thing doesn't explain that you will stretch out your hands when
you're old, does it? I mean, what is it about just
being old that would say you're going to stretch out your hands?
So it's not that. And besides, John tells us in
that parenthetical statement exactly what it means. It indicates
what kind of death Peter is going to die. On top of that, everybody
knew that stretching out your hands was a picture of crucifixion. The Bible doesn't actually tell
us how Peter died, but the tradition is pretty solid that he was ultimately
crucified, probably in Rome, and he was certainly crucified
and dead by the time John wrote this book. There's some later
traditions in Christian history you may have heard that Peter
asked to be crucified upside down because he thought he was
unworthy to die as Jesus had died. But really, that tradition's
way too late to be very reliable. Probably we shouldn't put a whole
lot of stock or weight on that story. Well, notice that last
verse, verse 19. This he said to show by what
kind of death he was going to glorify God. And after saying
this, he said to him, me. Follow me. There's probably several
layers of meaning to that. I mean, on the one hand, it just
looks like Jesus is just inviting Peter to, you know, go join him
on a walk down the beach, right? By the time you get to verse
20, that's exactly what seems to be happening. Peter turned,
he saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, so now
they're going somewhere, right? So follow me, just come on, follow
me. And they head off down the beach.
But I think there's a deeper meaning to it, too, or else John
wouldn't have put it in his book. It's got this, this deeper meaning
of a call from Jesus to Peter to follow him in the sense of
obeying him, being his disciple, serving Jesus all the years of
his life. Just at the beginning of the
gospel when he called his disciples and said, follow me, but here
it has even more weight to it, because this is the now-crucified
risen Jesus saying, follow me. So this means that following
him could even lead to his death. It's as if Jesus is saying, I'm
telling you right now that as you feed my sheep, as you tend
my lands, it's going to lead to such opposition that they
will ultimately crucify you and stretch out your hands. Nevertheless,
take up your cross, follow me." It's amazing to think about,
isn't it? I think it's incredible to think about that Peter knew
beforehand. He knew what his following after
Jesus was going to entail, where it was going to lead him to.
It was going to lead him to an excruciating, torturous death
on a cross, on a Roman cross. And yet, he followed Jesus anyway. Why did he do that? I mean, how
did he do that, knowing that this was how it would all end? And yet, for 30 years, he followed
Jesus anyway. Would you do that? I mean, would
you do that if you got an email from heaven They just said, you
know, dear so-and-so, if you follow Jesus, what's going to
happen to you years from now, if you follow Jesus, is that
you're going to be crucified in the most excruciating way
possible. That's the result of your following
Jesus. My guess is that many of us would
have a second thought about it. write back an email that says,
is there any way that I can avoid that part? Well, Jesus tells
Peter that this is how it's going to end if you follow me, and
Peter just followed. How did he do it? What was it
that was so deep down in his heart that even knowing that
that threat of crucifixion awaited him at the end did not deter
him from going down that path and following Jesus. I think
it's two things that you can sort of see in this passage even.
First, Peter followed Jesus even unto suffering and death because
he knew the glories of having been forgiven. He followed Jesus
even to death because he knew the glories of having been forgiven. He knew the pain and the shame
of that sin of denying Jesus. And he also knew the joy of having
that pain and that shame lifted off of him. That forgiveness,
that eternal, unbreakable joy of having a cleansed heart drove
him to follow Jesus all the way to the cross. But secondly, Peter
also knew that his suffering was ultimately going to glorify
God. He knew that his suffering was ultimately going to glorify
God. So you look at verse 19 there.
By the time this book was written, Peter was already dead. But John
says that little phrase there, he said this to show by what
kind of death he was to glorify God. It doesn't just say to show
by what kind of death he was going to die. It's by what kind
of death he was going to glorify God. There's a very tight, logical
connection between the suffering of Christ's people and the glory
of God. It's because when you suffer
as a Christian, whether it's just insults or even death, whatever
it is, when you endure all of those things for the sake and
the name of Jesus, you know what you're saying to the universe?
What you're saying to the universe is this. What Jesus has done
for me, who Jesus is, is worth more to me than my very life. than my comfort, than anything. Jesus is worth it. It's worth
more to me than my honor. It's worth more to me than my
job. It's worth more to me than all
of my relationships. It's worth more to me than my
health. I will lay everything else down if I can only hold
on to Jesus. And so I suffer everything that
the world has to throw at me if only I can have Jesus. Look, I don't know how much any
of you as individuals will be called to suffer in the name
of Jesus, but I do know what's required of you as a child of
the King. It's to stand firm in knowing
that even that suffering, whatever is coming, the insults, the reviling,
the loss of your job, scoffing of professors or your friends
or your neighbors. It is all for Jesus's glory. Hold tight to him. We're not there yet, but we're
on our way home. So hold tight to him. After the cross comes the glory,
even when the going gets tough. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we praise you
and we honor you today as the great shepherd of the sheep,
the great head of the church, the great king of your people. And we thank you, Lord, that
you care for your people so much, that you gave elders and teachers
and pastors and shepherds to lead and to teach and to feed. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
for ourselves as a church that you would bless us always with
good, loving, and gentle leadership, with godly elders and pastors
and shepherds. And Lord, we pray that in all
of that, that we would honor and glorify Jesus Christ, even
in our suffering. We ask all of this in his name
and always to his glory. Amen. Well, please stand together. Be sure to take a moment to greet
one another. And remember that a week from
today, it is the fifth Sunday. And so we will be having a fellowship
meal in the fellowship hall right after our worship service next
week. You're all invited. Invite your neighbors and friends.
It'll be a great feast and a great time of fellowship together.
And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of
God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all.
Amen.
Restoration of Peter
Series John
Sermon begins at 11:55
| Sermon ID | 3232516304632 |
| Duration | 58:50 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | John 21:15-19 |
| Language | English |
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