I'm going to read, as we have the last couple of weeks, rather than reading the entire chapter, I'm going to kind of break it up. I'm going to read the first 14 verses now and spend a little bit of time talking about those verses. And then really what I think the highlight of this chapter is, is what happens starting in verse 15 when Jesus restores Peter to fellowship. That's the effect of it, I believe. And something then, a very encouraging lesson, I think, for believers comes out of that as we take a little bit of a look at Peter and kind of some of his progression through the gospel accounts, and even then what he goes on to be after this. So it's a lot of ground to cover. So that's why it might end up taking two weeks to get through this chapter. But here we go. John chapter 21. Here's verse 1 through 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 am going fishing. They said to him, we are going with you also. 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. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Then Jesus called to them, children, have you any food? They answered him, no. Then he said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. 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. Now 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 net with fish. Then as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it and bred. 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 that Jesus showed himself to his disciples after he had raised from the dead. So let's just stop the reading there and I'll make some comments. So verse 14, first of all, I think that when John writes here that this is the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples, what he's talking about is the third time in this gospel narrative that he's referred to that. There are actually a lot of occasions where Jesus showed himself to his disciples risen from the dead. They're not all recorded by John in John's gospel, but if you take a a collection of all of the times that Jesus rose after he had risen from the dead appeared to his disciples. There's quite a few and I will commend to you. We're big fans in our church here of the ministry answers in Genesis. There's a wonderful article. on the Answers in Genesis website. We use their curriculum in Sunday school, and we use their materials for our Vacation Bible School. And just a great place. I mean, Roberta and I have visited the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. You know, it's Ken Ham. But anyway, there's a good article there about the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in the New Testament. But this is the third one that John recorded, back in verse 19. of the previous chapter, Jesus appeared in the house minus Thomas. Then eight days later, in verse 26, Jesus appeared in the house with all of them, this time with Thomas. And that's when Jesus goes to Thomas and shows him the wounds. And Thomas responds, my Lord and my God, that was the second appearance. And then this is the third appearance here in John's account, where Jesus appears to all of them. Before that even, when he had first risen from the dead, he appeared to Mary Magdalene. And he appeared to some of the women as well. But the group of disciples, this is the third of those occurrences. So after these things, back to the beginning of the chapter to just unpack it a little bit. After these things, these things are a reference to the crucifixion of Christ and everything that led up to that, his burial and his resurrection. and a couple of the appearances already. So we're told that he appeared to them this time at the Sea of Tiberias. The Sea of Tiberias would have been, well, it's the same as the Sea of Galilee, right? And so we know now here that we're not near Jerusalem anymore on this occasion. We're back up in Galilee, where most of Jesus' fishermen disciples were from. He had told, he had given them instructions at one point to go to Galilee. There's a couple of appearances of Jesus in Galilee in the four Gospels, though most of it happened in the vicinity of Jerusalem. And we get the names of the people that he showed himself to here from the ranks of his disciples. There's Simon Peter, who we're well acquainted with, who very quickly here is going to become the focus of all of this. Thomas, that's the same Thomas that Jesus appeared to go after in a special way in the second of those appearances. Nathanael, now we went over this before, I'm not going to go into the details again tonight, but Nathanael is almost universally considered by theologians to be Bartholomew, and you can check the previous studies for some of that. He's only called Nathanael in the Gospel of John, he's called Bartholomew. and all the other ones, but where he's from and some of the other things are the fact that he's a fisherman. They all seem to indicate the same person. The sons of Zebedee, that's John and James. John, who is the author of this gospel, who identifies himself as the one whom Jesus loved. And we talked about the reason why he did that. And then two others of his disciples, they were all together. So Peter says, go in fishing, right? And God's people said, amen. No, I don't know who the fishermen people are here in the room, but different kind of fishing. They were commercial fishermen by tradesmen when Jesus called them. If you remember, Jesus told them they were going to be fishers of men. And I think some of what happens here is a little reminder of that. They said, we're going with you. So they go out into the boat and they catch nothing. And it's night, right? So this is a nighttime fishing expedition and they go out. They don't catch anything and you can almost see where that's what that's what that is setting us up for. So in the morning, so it's early in the morning. And they're out there. We're told later in the passage they're about 200 cubits, which would be about 300 feet, which, if you're a football fan, that's convenient for you. That's about the length of a football field from end goal line to goal line. So early in the morning, when it's perhaps still a little dark outside, and a football field length away, they didn't recognize who it was. It was on the shore right away, but something was about to happen to make them realize who it was. very quickly. And so Jesus is on the shore. They don't recognize him, but he calls out, children, have you any food? And I love the fact that Jesus addresses his disciples throughout the life of them in different ways. Here he calls them children. Other times he calls them friends. Other times he just calls them his disciples. But there is always like this familial relationship between Jesus and those who he loves and those who love him. And that's That's why we call ourselves brothers and sisters. You know, the Bible speaks of us who are in Christ, saved by God's grace through faith as being adopted as sons and daughters of God. So there's always, whenever there's like communication about among the children of God, even though I just said it, the children of God, it's always in terms of family, right? So he calls out to them, children, have you any food? And they say, no. And so he tells them to cast the net on the right side of the boat and for sake of time, because there's so much to cover. I won't have you turn there, but this is going to evoke something that they would remember very well. John, who's writing it down too, was part of this crowd back earlier in the ministry time. It's recorded in Luke chapter five in detail. They had gone out onto a boat. Jesus was with them in the boat on that occasion. They fished and fished and fished and caught nothing. And then Jesus said, launch out for a catch again. And Peter was like, we've already been fishing all this time. We haven't caught anything, but nevertheless, you say so, so I'll do it. So they launch out, they throw in the net and they catch so much that it says the net was breaking and they could barely pull the thing into the boat. And if you remember what Peter's reaction was on that occasion, Peter looked at Jesus and said, Lord, go away from me. because I'm a sinful man. He saw that miracle and had such a profound impact on him. He didn't see it as, wow, here's someone who can give me lots of fish every time I need it, you know? He didn't like go all prosperity gospel on him, like right from the beginning, like, you know, here's someone who can just give me whatever I want. No, he realized he was in the presence of a holy, almighty God who had sovereign power, even over what was swimming around in that lake. And so that obviously had a profound impact on Jesus and the rest of the disciples that they definitely remembered. And I think that's ultimately what triggers them to recognize that this is Jesus who's on the shore. And John, who was in the boat, as recorded in the previous account, recognizes it. Cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some. So they cast. And they weren't able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish, which we're told later was 153 of them. Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved instantly recognizes it, because that was the thing. If you go for yourself and look at the passage in Luke chapter 5, you'll see that that was the occasion that Jesus called these men to himself and told them, you're going to catch men from now on. Or as Matthew puts it, you're going to be fishers of men. Right? So they recognize this happening. And they recognize who it is that this miracle happens. And so Jesus, or the disciple whom Jesus loved, John, says to Peter, it is the Lord. Now, so Simon Peter hears that. And he put on his outer garment. And he did the same thing that he did last time this happened. He jumped out of the boat and into the sea. But this is a little bit different. He pulls the boat in. and he's pulling it into the shore and dragging it. And verse nine says, when they came to land, the Lord had already prepared, imagine that, that the Lord had prepared for them food already. Well, he prepared food for 5,000 once and 4,000 on another occasion, so that shouldn't surprise us. And Jesus said, bring some of the fish which you have just caught. Now, Verse 11 tells us, we're just going over the facts here, the details. We'll get into some more stuff here in a minute. But Simon Peter goes up, drags the net to the land full of large fish, and we're told here that there's 153. Now, I'll tell you that there are and have been many, many attempts by pastors and theologians and just everyday Christians like me and the rest of us, you know, who have attempted to try to explain some specific detail, a numerological interpretation, or some sort of spiritualizing of the number 153. And I could make an entire study just talking to you about the different theories about that. But that's, in the end, that's all they are because it's not. It's just not stated. I think the point of 153, and it's not just the number, he also tells us not just how many fish, but what else does he tell us about the fish. He tells us that they're big, right? So it's not just 153 fish, it's 153 big fish. In other words, large fish. So he's trying to tell us, you know, that this was a very great miracle that Jesus had done, and it was a lot, you know? And I think that would be like a normal reaction if you had so many of these massive fish that had been caught in this net that had to be pulled through the water by the boat into the shore. I think one of the natural reactions that somebody would be blown away by would be to count them, right? Sometimes you have a particularly crowded Bible study or service like that, and you look around the room and you try to count how many people are there. It's just a normal human reaction, I think, to do that, to show what? Wow, this is a lot. Now, what had Jesus said to these men on a previous, very similar occasion, but before he had died and risen from the dead and was now clearly in their minds established as the Messiah? you're going to catch men from now on. And this is going to be your job. You're going to go out in my name, you're going to preach my name, and you're going to catch men. And boy, did they ever, right? Did they ever, starting really soon after all of this. So Jesus says, come and eat breakfast. None of the disciples dared to ask them, who are you? Although they knew who it was. It says right there, they knew that it was Lord. And then Jesus came and like he did when they were in the house, he took bread and he gave it to them. And likewise, the fish. So I think the point of the first 14 verses there, the main point is number one, it's the third appearance that John mentions. of Jesus showing himself to his disciples, and this big miraculous catch of fish to remind them what their mission is. And that's something that we can all take out of that, is this 153 fish. reminds us what our mission is. Our mission is to continue, like they did, to spread the word of the gospel. Jesus, if you'll permit me, in a sense, is still saying to all of us, cast out your net. Cast out your net. Cast out your net. That's what we do when we walk through our lives and we take opportunities to speak of Christ talk of the gospel, share the gospel, invite people to come to something like this, to hear the word of God, give out gospel tracts, our mission to spread the word of Christ. That's what this is. It's a reminder of that. Guys, Now this is all going to start to go down, what I told you what you were going to do. Because remember, the whole upper room discourse before he was betrayed. Remember all those chapters we went over? The whole upper room discourse before he was betrayed and then crucified. That was all about Jesus preparing them for the fact that he was going to leave. And they were going to be here to carry on in his physical absence. He said, I will always be with you. And the Holy Spirit was going to come and live in them and teach them. So he'd be always present that way. But physically, he was going to be gone. Now that's about to happen. I mean, he left them in his crucifixion, but then rose from the dead. But now he's going to leave. And he's still to this very day where he went, at the right hand of his father. And we are, as the disciples of Jesus, supposed to be doing this. cast out your nets. Didn't catch anything last night? Cast them out again, right? Keep going. That's the lesson in all this, right? They go out, they're fishing all night, they catch nothing, and the word of Christ is, do it again. And then what happens? They catch 153 large fish, so many fish that they were moved to count them, right? And big ones. So don't lose faith. We have seasons where it feels like we've fished all night and we've caught nothing. You don't know what morning might bring. Right? Amen? Trust in the Lord. Now, let's forge ahead. I probably could say more about all of this, but that's true every time you do a Bible study, there's always more to say. But I want to get to this lesson of Peter. Because this is, I think, great encouragement. It certainly is for me. I think this is great encouragement for every believer because we all struggle. We all have moments or perhaps seasons where we feel like we've struggled or maybe we feel like we've failed the Lord. Peter's coming off of one of those moments, right? The denial at Christ's crucifixion. Let's first give God glory for the fact that Peter, and take encouragement from this, though Peter denied the Lord three times, he's still there. What can you derive from that? Don't give up. God is gracious. Don't be like Judas Iscariot who denied the Lord and went out and hung himself. He was a false false disciple, right? He was a false disciple and went out and did what someone in the world would do. Peter is the real deal. Yes, he failed, but the Lord lifted him up and he's about to do that here. Don't, if you're in Christ, If you've humbled yourself and you've repented, you've believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, you've trusted in Jesus Christ, listen, if you've failed, none of us wants to fail. God doesn't want us to fail. But if we sin, we fall into something, we have a season where we get dry or whatever it is, humble yourself before God. He never refuses the broken and contrite spirit. Psalm 51 says that. Psalm 38 says that. There are other places in Scripture that say that. Humble yourself. Repent. Confess your sin. Confess your faults to one another and pray for one another that you might be healed and just get up and keep going. Right? Keep going for the Lord. So Peter's there. Let's give God praise before we even read what the conversation is that Peter's there. I mean, he could be gone. All of the bravado that sometimes you read in Peter that we'll look at here in a minute, some of it. And then there's this great failure after falling into the very thing that he said he would not do. I'll never deny you. Denies him three times. Not just once, but three times in succession. Boom, boom, boom. That's the kind of thing that might drive someone to just give up, but there he is. That's the grace of God. That's the power of God. That's the steadfast faithfulness of God towards his own children. If you're in Christ, don't ever give up. Okay? So. Look at that. That's kind of the lesson of what the text says without even reading the text yet. But here we go. So when they had eaten breakfast, we're going to have a little after-breakfast fellowship here with Jesus and his disciples. Jesus says to Simon Peter what? Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? He said to them, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to them, feed my lambs. He said to him again a second time, Simon, son of Jonah, 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 Jonah, 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 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 and 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, follow me, being powerful choice of words, because back at that first time when Jesus met Peter, that's what he said to him, follow me. So this is like a restoration, right? So let me talk about this specific passage for a moment, and then I want to take a little bit of a deeper dive into Peter himself, because this is where the encouraging lesson comes from, I think. So now the first thing, and I'm sure I'm not the first person you'll have heard say this, but this should always be pointed out when you read this passage. And that is the, in English, of course, this reads like, do you love me? You know I love you. Do you love me? You know I love you. Do you love me? You know I love you. But in the Greek that this is translated from, there are different words, right? So when Peter, is first asked by Jesus. When Jesus speaks in verse 15, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? Agape is the Greek word that Jesus uses for love. And when Peter answers him, yes, Lord, end of verse 15. You know I love you. That's the Greek word phileo, right? Do you agape me? Yes, you know I phileo you. And that happens the second time as well. Do you agape me? Yes, you know that I phileo you. And then the third time, Jesus switches over to the word phileo and says, do you phileo me? And Peter says, yes, you know I phileo you. So what's the significance of that? Well, you need to know that the words both mean love. Right? But in Greek, there's actually four, in Koine Greek, there's actually four different words for love. Two of them are used in scripture, agape and phileo. And the main, you may have heard phileo described as brotherly love, so it's the prefix of the name of the city of Philadelphia, which is called the city of brotherly love. That's where that moniker comes from. The main difference between agape and phileo, they're both love, but the main difference is this. Agape is intentional. Agape is a deep love that is rooted in a commitment and intentionality of the person who shows love. right? It's deep. Phileo is also deep, but it's more familial. It's more friendly. It's maybe we can say a little more rooted in somebody's feelings like Phileo comes more naturally to a person, right? You like you love someone because you like them. Agape might be a kind of love that you apply to people that you don't necessarily like, although obviously these concepts overlap. Sometimes you can agape someone who you don't particularly like, and as you're showing love towards them, over time you can develop the warmth of a faleo kind of love. So, agape is the kind of love that Christ showed, we would say, when he died for our sins, right? Because in scripture, It's easy and organic and naturally human for phileo love to come to us with my wife or with your friends or with your close relatives and people you like to be around. But Jesus taught us what? He taught us to love our enemies. He taught us to love people that treat us badly and persecute us. He taught us to love one another, even though we may not even know one another that well, even though sometimes we need to be patient with one another and forgive one another. We're called to love one another. That's agape love. It's that intentional, deep commitment to love. Whereas the phileo love is one that will flow more naturally. I guess, in a way, you could say that phileo might feel sometimes deeper, but is the easier of the two. But the love of Christ, listen, Paul writes that God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So the Son of God died for the enemies of God. That's agape love, right? That's deep commitment to the betterment of someone else over yourself. It's a sacrificial, serving kind of love, deeply rooted from a Christian in their commitment to Christ. Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself, right? That's what that's about, right? It's putting the needs of others ahead of yourself. All right, it's it's the kind of love that Paul calls for in first Corinthians chapter 13. They overlap Jesus and so when you when you understand the difference, so Jesus is calling. Do you love me? Are you come that intentional committed kind of love and Peter responds? Now the, you know, part makes sense, right? You know, I love you. Like, can't you tell? I mean, you know, there's like a friendship. So Jesus is like calling for this deep commitment and Peter is speaking more out of how he feels in his heart. And so there's a great, there's a great sincerity to both of them, right? It's a very powerful conversation when you understand it that way. They're both love. Don't look so hard at the difference between the two words that you think one is one thing and one is something else. They're not. They're both love. They should both be properly thought of as love. One is more intentional, one is more organic. That's kind of the difference as I see it. So Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me, Agape, more than these? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know I fully owe you, right? He said to him, feed my lambs. Ah, now you get the command that is attached to love. Who are Christ's lambs? Who are Christ's sheep? In John chapter 10. He talked about how his sheep hear his voice and they know him, they follow him, right? So his own children, his own disciples, his own people, we are the sheep of his pasture, right? Peter, if you love me, feed my sheep. It's the call to Peter to be the apostle, to be the elder, to be the pastor. to be the evangelist, to be the teacher, right? The word of God is lamb's food. And Peter was called not only to teach it and preach it, which right away at Pentecost he starts to do, just a few days after this, right? But he ends up writing, you know, a couple of letters that appear in our New Testament as well. Second time, happens again. Third time, and there's a nuance to the third time that you should see in verse 17. Feed my sheep, tend my sheep, I should point out at the end of verse 16. That's the difference between the first two times. It's identical, except the second time Peter says, tend my sheep. That's the same thing that Adam and Eve were told to do in the garden, right? Tend to the garden, work it, keep it, right? So feed my sheep. and tend my sheep. So feed them, give them their food, give them the word of God. Tend them, care for them. And then the third time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? And Jesus goes to the phileo that Peter has been using. So Peter has twice said, I phileo you. So now Jesus goes to that. Do you phileo me? And it says Peter was grieved. Why was Peter grieved? It tells us, right? This is powerful. He was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And you can make the obvious connection, right? How many times did Peter deny Jesus? Three times. So when Jesus asks Peter the same question three times, when he gets to that third time, Peter is grieved because he was asked a third time. And I really think that's just Peter making that connection, right? That's what's happening here, is Jesus is asking him three times. Because Peter was pretty bold. When Peter was pretty bold when he said, I'm never going to leave you. I'm prepared to go and die with you. And Jesus was like, before the rooster crows, you're going to deny me three times. And then that came to pass. And now here he is being asked this. Do you love me? Three times. So there is the tones, the hint of the loving rebuke in all of this. And that's part of restoration sometimes. Part of restoration. But do you see how gently and beautifully and perfectly Jesus does this? I mean, Christian rebuke and Christian discipline and Christian correction are all very important. They must be done. But they must be done in the gentleness of love, because they're not our sheep. They're Christ's sheep. And look how Christ is to his sheep. Peter's one of his sheep. And Peter denied even knowing him after saying, I'm ready to die with you. And so there's rebuke and correction here, but it's gentle. Lack of a better way of saying it, it worked though, right? I mean, it got to the point because the grief that Peter felt, he needed to feel. He needed it. And Peter answers a little differently. Lord, you know all things. You know, and look, why would he say that? Well, because the record of his life might cause someone to think something different. You denied me. But Peter says to the Lord, what? Look, you know, my heart, right? You know me. Yeah. I mean, Peter obviously deeply must have regretted that. We know that. It says that when he denied Jesus and he heard the rooster crow. The Gospel of Luke says that. Only Luke records this. But when Peter denied Jesus, it actually says they locked eyes for a brief moment. And then Peter left weeping. So it was a very grievous. Hard moment for him. Boy, but the Lord used it to make him so strong, didn't he? When we stay humble, and when we allow rebuke and correction, instead of being proud and pushing it off and just avoiding it, when we allow in humility and contrition, correction, wisdom from the word, Everything here is perfect. There's humility in Peter and there's grace and love in Jesus. And when you mix those things together, you know what you get? You get the Peter that comes out of all of this. And the Peter that comes out of all this is a lion in the right way, in the right way, right? So this is a great example of all of that. and how perfect then here's the restoration Jesus in verse 18 there's no there's no Peter I forgive you there's no twisting of the sword you know there's no pouring salt on the open wound There is simply an acceptance back into the fold by telling him what his future is, and then the way he ends it is so perfect. Feed my sheep, says that again, then verse 18. 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 and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish. And in case you're wondering what that meant, we're told by John in verse 19, this he spoke signifying by what death he would be glorified. Jesus, on a number of occasions here in the gospel of John, referred to himself being lifted up. Peter was going to be similarly carried away. And the tradition around it is that Peter was crucified upside down, even. But that was It sounds harsh. It's not Jesus pronouncing judgment on him. It's actually Jesus saying something that welcomes him back into the fold because part of being one of this band of disciples was this was probably going to cost you your life. Peter could have fled and kept fishing and just, you know, lived out a life of nothing. But Peter was welcomed back into the fold by a gracious, listen, a gracious, faithful, patient, generously forgiving, loving father and God. And so Peter was going to give his life now in service to the Lord. And I love the last sentence. I pointed it out already, but, and when he had spoken this, he said to him, what? Follow me. Because what's that? Like I said before, that's how it all started. These guys are in their boats, mending their nets, and Jesus goes over to them and says, follow me. And they drop their nets, and they follow him. So it's like Jesus takes Peter back to how it all started. It's a renewal. It's a renewal, a refreshing, a revival. All right, here's where I have to make an executive decision. All right, so as expected, I did say this in the beginning, there is zero chance of me effectively now doing what I want to do next in a reasonable amount of time. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to have one more study of just Peter because that's like the content study of the conversation between Jesus and Peter in their post-breakfast fellowship. But there is a great study of just Peter himself when you start earlier in the Gospels and just kind of episodically go through different events where you read of Peter to include going into the Book of Acts and even into some of what he wrote in his epistles where you get the bigger picture. You get a pretty big picture. character study of Peter in the New Testament, not that we exalt Peter, not that we study men, but we look at them as examples of what God does in people. And when you see someone like Peter, who is brash, and he seems to be on fire, and then he stumbles and he falls really hard, but he's still there, He hasn't given up, and then the Lord restores and forgives, and then the Lord welcomes him back, and the Lord raises him up, and then the Holy Spirit comes, and Peter's preaching at Pentecost, and Peter's the one who opens up the gospel to the Gentiles, you know, at Cornelius's house, and all these things. You know, it's quite a study that's so encouraging to know that Jesus, our Lord, can take us even when we've fallen, even when we've fallen hard. And when we humble ourselves, when we humble ourselves and receive what Peter received, willingness and humility to receive that correction, Christ is abundant, infinite in mercy and forgiveness to the broken and contrite. And that Peter gets restored and becomes what he becomes. And even his failure becomes like a platform with which to encourage others. Right? That can be true for us as well. It's not an encouragement to go out and fail on purpose, right? But you understand what we mean. There's a great example here in Peter that we're going to read and study and follow. Let me say a couple of things about the last few verses of the passage here, and then we'll finish this. And we'll come back next week and have one more study of just a character study of Peter. We'll be back in this passage and read some of it and see how this fits in with the whole, narrative flow of what we see God do in Peter. Verse 20, Peter turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, and there's that again. That's agape there, by the way, the disciple whom Jesus loved. That's agape, that word there, right? Jesus chose to love these men, right? who had also leaned on his breast at the supper. This is John. John always identifies himself. I've said that before. He never identifies himself by name. Always identifies himself with that. John doesn't even want to be known by name. He just wants to be known as someone that Jesus loved. What a great example that is. He's not trying to make a name for himself. He just wants Jesus to get all the glory. Who are you? I'm one that Jesus loved. Wow. Peter says, Lord, who is the one who, wait, I'm sorry, let me read this again. 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? That was John asking at the supper, Jesus, who is the one who betrayed you before Judas Iscariot did what he did. Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, but Lord, what about this man? And Jesus said, if I will that he remain till I come. What is that to you? You follow me. Stop. Don't even start. Okay. Don't even start comparing yourself to other people. Just do what I've called you to do. Trust me. Do what I called you to do. That's also a nice, I take comfort from the fact that like two seconds after the Great Restoration, Peter needs to be like kind of corrected again. I can identify, right? So that's, Verse 23, John gives us the personal note then. If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? In other words, John at the close of his gospel is like putting down gossip, basically. Like, Jesus said that John's never gonna die. You see how easy it is for words to get twisted? All Jesus is doing there is rhetorically saying to Peter, If it's my will that he never dies, what is that to you? You follow me. You're going to stretch out your hands and you're going to, you know, someone else is going to gird you and take you. Just like I said, that's what's going to happen. You're going to glorify me in your death. Doesn't matter what's going to happen to him. You just follow me and serve me. And so somehow the word spread from that, that Jesus said, John's never going to die. Well, here's John, who's the writer of this, correcting that, you know, in verse 23. Then, verse 24, this is the disciple who testifies of these things and wrote these things. In other words, I'm the one who's writing these things down. And we know that his testimony is true. And then verse 25, and 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. And that sounds so much like the end of chapter 20, right? which John, again stopping the narrative, said, truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name. Here's why I wrote the book. I wrote the book because I want you to read about these amazing things that Jesus did so that you will come to believe, to believe that he's the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you might have life in his name. That's the point of the Gospel of John. This Jesus is the Messiah, he's the Son of God. We know it because of all these things he did. Then he closes the book by saying, there's a whole bunch of other things that he did that there's no way he could write them all down because all the books in the world couldn't contain them. But what is written here is what? It's to bring us to believe, to continue to believe, and to never give up on believing. Trust in Jesus Christ. He took the penalty for our sins in his death on the cross. We deserve death and eternal separation from God in hell because we have violated his laws. and have sinned against Him again and again and again in our lives. That's what we deserve, but God's love for us. is that he gave Jesus his son, and when Jesus died on the cross in his death, he took the penalty that I deserve because of my sin in his death. He was buried, and on the third day he rose from the dead, and this is written down. So all these centuries later still, if you will put your faith, if you will humble yourself and repent and put your faith in Jesus Christ, he will wash away all of your sins, Right? He will reconcile you to himself. He will pour his Holy Spirit into you. He will adopt you as his son or daughter and more and more and more. He will save you from your sins. He will never leave you or forsake you. He will be steadfast and faithful and nothing can separate you from his love all the way to the end. And he will receive you unto himself and you will live with him forever. That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of it. Jesus. Okay, we have one more lesson in the Gospel of John, even though we've read through the entire text. I want to come back next week and have this talk about Peter. Okay, so come back. Tune back in next week if you're watching this online and come for one more thing about Peter, which is a great example for us.