Good morning. We'll see how well my voice holds out. I've got some weird allergy things going on here. So the first thing you'll notice is I've moved from a baritone to a bass. This is not my normal voice, but I kind of like it. It just sounds more masculine. But I'm hoping we'll get through. So we're looking at John 21. And the title is Reset. How many of you remember Hillary Clinton's famous Reset button? Yeah. Now, that didn't work out so well, did it? You know, it was that red button. And she was going to have this big deal with the Russian foreign minister to say, we're going to start over. Everything's going to be nice. We're going to play nice. And so she brought the Reset button in. And the first thing that happened is Foreign Minister Lavrov pointed out that this is not the right word It was the wrong Russian word. Wouldn't you have liked to have been the State Department employee who just had one thing to get right, and that one thing was the right Russian word for reset? And you didn't get that right. I'd hate to see that efficiency report. Then, of course, after this supposed reset, it wasn't long after that that the Russians moved into Georgia and then into the Ukraine. and now continue to threaten Eastern Europe. So that is a reset gone awry. In our text today, however, we see a reset that does exactly what it sets out to do. So let's walk through the story. The first part is the preliminary setting of the stage. What is most important is the interchange between Jesus and Peter. Everything before that is prologue. It's not that it's unimportant and it is important, but let's sort of work through the setting of the stage and then get to the main event. So we're told here that Jesus revealed himself to the disciples by the sea of Tiberias. Now, John later says this is the third time. Yes and no. This is actually the seventh time that Jesus has made an appearance. But John is correct, he's counting those times when he has appeared to groups of disciples. Now John is very specific about things like that, about numbers. Later on he tells you there are 153 fish. Now why does he say that? The answer is because there was one more than 152 and one less than 154. Now the old church fathers jumped through hoops to find some allegorical meaning in the 153 fish. There is no meaning. That's just what happened. There were 153. That's all there is to it. Just leave it at that. John, being very meticulous, noticed the count. And so he records that for us. Another reason why we should have confidence that when John writes something, we know that what he's giving us is right on target. John was not a sloppy writer. He also was a master of literary art, as you'll see a little bit later in the dialogue with Peter. So Peter was a leader, not so much a leader in the church. He kind of bungled that the night that he betrayed Jesus. And so nobody has much confidence in Peter, least of all Peter, but Peter is still a leader and he has a job when he's not doing other things, traipsing all over the country, following Jesus. What does he do? He fishes. So he says to some of the other disciples, I'm going to go fishing and they go, we'll go with you. So off they go. We're told that they fished all night and caught nothing. Does that sound familiar? You go back to the early calling of the disciples shortly after the calling, the same thing happened. So we have a scene here that is very reminiscent of that period, right after the disciples have been called. Now in that instance, if you'll remember when they put the net on the other side, the net broke because there were so many fish. Do you remember that? We're told here that as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, and the disciples didn't know who it was. Now that makes sense if you understand. If you've been around waterfront property at the beginning of the day, sometimes there's a fog that settles over it. The daylight probably was not fully risen into the sky. And so the visuals would have been difficult. This is about a football's length from the boat to the shore. So we're not talking about ideal visuals and optics. So they can't tell that it's Jesus, but he begins to quiz them. Children, do you have any fish? And they say, no. So he says, well, put the net on the right side of the boat. And suddenly the net is full of fish. Now that disciple whom Jesus loved or seven, that's the circumlocution that John uses to talk about himself. He doesn't like to S to speak of John or I. And so he uses this to say, he says, in essence, I recognize the Lord. Now that's what John does. John's very perceptive. But look at what happens. John's not the one who acts on that realization, it's Peter. Peter is still impetuous. And so John recognizes Jesus and says it's the Lord and Peter doesn't wait, doesn't consult, doesn't dialogue, just grabs his shirt and off he goes to the shore. Then the other disciples came and when they get out, they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid on it and bread. Now, I told you that John is very meticulous about his writing. Do any of you remember the last time John had referenced a charcoal fire? Back in chapter 18, when Peter was standing by a charcoal fire, warming himself, preparing to deny the Lord three times. You think this is incidental, this is insignificant? I don't think so at all. I think John is meticulously telling us this detail. And I'll tell you something else, too. Here's the way this works, the way the mind works. After three decades of being a soldier, I've learned a little bit about post-traumatic stress. I've learned a lot about it in dealing with other soldiers. I've learned a certain deal about dealing with my own. The fight or flight syndrome that gets instilled into you, that can rise to the surface just like that. The reason that works is because the way the brain is wired, anything that is significant can set off. You can, a smell, a sound, a sight, can immediately set the brain tingling as the synapse is fired. It runs across the brain map and touches places. My son was in a car accident a number of years ago in which the bag deployed. And there've been a couple of occasions where he's told me he's been in the car with someone else and something frightening almost happened. And he says, dad, I can smell the bag deploying. What I'm saying is this, Peter remembered that charcoal fire. He knew I was standing at a charcoal fire denying my Lord. And now he comes back and there's Jesus. And what does Jesus have? It's a charcoal fire. Not for warming, but for cooking. But I'll tell you right now, the way the mind works, the first thing that happened is Peter looked at that and flashed back to the time not too long before when he had utterly betrayed his Lord. Now, it's not clear that this is miraculous. We don't know how much bread was there. We don't know how many fish were there. We do know that Jesus said, bring some more fish. Some have said, well, the language here is very similar to the language of the feeding of the 5,000. That is true. So that may be an indication, but I don't know. And I will tell you that all the great new Testament scholars are divided on this. There's some that say it was miraculous and others that say it wasn't. I don't think that's terribly important. What's important is that Jesus brings them in and says, let's have breakfast. And so they sit down and we're told that none of the disciples dare to ask who he was. Why? Because they knew it was the Lord. It could have been his voice. It could have been his actions. You remember the disciples on the road to Emmaus? Blind as bats. didn't see, understand, grasp anything until they sit at table and Jesus breaks the bread. And when they saw that, they said, I've seen that before. That is the Lord. Now verse 15, this is where, this is where the meat of the text lies. When they finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Now let's talk just a little bit about some of the dynamics here. First of all, when he calls him Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, this harkens back to John 1, because that's the language, that's the way Jesus addressed Peter when he first called him to be a disciple. In other words, this is though Jesus is going back to a formulaic ritual form, and saying, Peter, when I called you to be a disciple, this is how I did it. And now I'm going to use that exact same language as I call you now to reset and be restored. Now, in the synoptics, the synoptics tend to prefer calling him Peter. John calls him Peter 34 times, and 17 times he calls him Simon Peter. But here, specifically, Simon Peter, Simon son of John. Jesus asked him, do you love me more than these? Now, what's that a reference to? More than these? More than these what? There's a difference of opinion on this, but the most likely answer is, do you love me more than these other disciples love me? That's probably what the question is asking. Now, why would that be an important question? Well, do you remember Peter's boast? Lord, though all men forsake you, though everybody run and leave you, not me, I'll be there when everyone else is gone. So now Jesus says, okay, let me ask you about that, Peter. Let's see, let's see where you have been and where you are now. There's another dynamic here has to do with the word love that is used in this text. Now, Our English word love covers a multitude of meanings. Everything from Hollywood's notion of love as lust, to brotherly love, to devout love for God. But the Greek language was much more specific. And there are several Greek words. We're not going to look at all of them. But we will look at two, because two show up here. One is agape love and the other one is filial love. Filial love, as you know, is brotherly love, affection. Agape love is divine love. 1 Corinthians 13, for example, it's all agape love. Now, more recent commentators look at this and notice that there's a movement here in this dialogue that these two words show up and they dismiss it as merely stylistic. And I will tell you for a while, they had me convinced. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, this is too deliberate. This cannot be accidental. John does that. He does use synonyms sometimes, just as a stylistic change. But I don't think that's what's happening here. So what I want to do is I want to walk through the dialogue and show you what is actually being asked. So the first question that Jesus says to Peter, Simon son of John, do you love, agape love, do you agape love me more than these do? Peter said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I have filial love for you. For whatever reason, Peter was not confident in boasting that he had this completely unselfish, divine sort of love for Jesus, so instead, He ratchets it down and says, I do love you and I care for you. Jesus said to him, okay, feed my lambs. Now here's where your stylistic, your use of synonyms. Jesus says to him once, feed my lambs. Then he says to him in verse 16, tend my sheep. And then he says to him in verse 17, feed my sheep. Now those seem to be overlapping terms. They're just slightly different for the sake of variation. But I don't think that's, what's going on with this use of the word love. Jesus says, do you have this deep love for me? And Peter's like, Lord, I love you, but I don't want to say more than, than I can honestly say. Then we're told verse 16. He that is Jesus said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you have divine love for me? I got a love. Peter answers. Yes, Lord. You know that I have filial love for you. Again, Peter's resisting this boastful spirit. I hope you see, this is why I believe this is intentional. I think what is going on here is Peter is reckoning with his own soul and his tendency to be impetuous, to be boastful, to be arrogant, to be hardheaded. And I think what is happening is at this point is Peter is stepping back. There's a certain amount of humility that's entering into this dialogue. And so Jesus says to him, tend my sheep. Now you see the lower attestation of love is good enough for Jesus to say, tend my sheep. And then he says to him, the third time, Simon, son of John, do you have filial love for me? So Jesus now steps down a notch and says, okay, Peter, I'll use your language. Do you have filial love for me? We're told 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 have filial love for you. Why was Peter grieved? Because the third time Jesus asked that Peter's memory went right back to the charcoal fire. And the third time that he denied the Lord, see, this is not accidental. This threefold questioning. and threefold commissioning is intentional. Peter denied Jesus three times and Jesus says three times, go and feed my sheep. Now, if you had been Peter, would you have felt like feeding the sheep? No, he was a failure as a shepherd. A shepherd is one who stands between the wolves and the flock and the shepherd may go down, but the shepherd does not abandon the flock. Peter had abandoned the flock. He had abandoned his Lord. He carried that in his mind. And when he saw the charcoal fire, and when he went through this interrogation with Jesus, every bit of this came back to him. And that is why he says to him, Lord, you know, all of these things, you know, everything, you know, what I did, you know, who I was. Jesus says, you take care of my sheep. This is called restoration. Now, there's something else that's going on here. In chapter 13, when Peter failed, I'm going to turn back to it and refer to it. Chapter 1336, there are three events that are mentioned. Chapter 1336, Jesus first of all says to Peter, where I'm going, you can't follow. So he tells him you're not following me where I'm going. Then the next thing he says, but afterwards you will follow me. And he said that in reference to the cross. And then the third thing Jesus says to him is you're going to deny me three times. So you cannot follow me, but eventually you're going to die on the cross and you're going to deny me three times. Now here's what I want you to see. As John has structured this dialogue, as Jesus engaged in this reset with Peter, The first thing Jesus does is he affirms Peter three times. In other words, the very last thing that happened in Peter's failure, the three denials. Now that's the first thing that takes place here. Three affirmations. The second thing that takes place is Jesus tells Peter. You're going to die on the cross. This is exactly what he had said earlier, but there is in the context of failure. Here it's in the context of restoration. Jesus says to him, Peter, you know, when you're young, you just put on your clothes and did whatever you wanted. When you get older, it's not going to work that way. Others will come and lead you and take you to places where you don't necessarily want to go. And then the third thing Jesus did here, Remember back in 13 the very last thing he did was to say the first thing he says you will not follow me. The first thing he said in 13 is you will not follow me. The last thing he says here is follow me. After telling him three times to feed the sheep he then says now you follow me. In other words what we have here is a complete restoration and reset that takes us back to that original calling by the sea as Jesus says I want you to be my disciples and come, I will make you fishers of men." So, what then was Jesus' message to Peter? It's real simple. There are three things here. The first one is by calling him back to his original call to be a disciple. Jesus says, now you get out there and get back at it. You're restored to the work of ministry. You're to look after my sheep. You're to tend my flock. You're to take care of my lambs. It's not because you're worthy. Peter got that. But you see what God has done in this arrogant young man's heart? Well, young, I don't know how old he was. The point is that Jesus had worked in Peter's heart and had replaced that hubris with humility. And you know what? That's the necessary prerequisite to be used in the kingdom of God. God is not going to use the haughty. God is not going to use the proud. He will use the broken. I so appreciated that the one song we were singing about where God is the healer and we're the broken. God will fix what is broken. God will use what is broken. God cannot use that, which is hard hearted and hard headed and resistant to the will of God. So you don't know what I've done. It doesn't matter. Whatever you've done, it doesn't get much worse than this. Suddenly, it doesn't get any worse than what the Apostle Paul did. The man was complicit in murder. And yet, what does Paul say? God has forgiven me, the chief among sinners, you see. So the first thing is that what Jesus is doing is he's giving a reset and putting Peter back to work. The second thing that's involved in this is he tells him, now you feed my sheep. You pasture the flock. You take care of the flock. Taking care of the flock is not easy. Sheep are smelly. There are differences of opinion about how bright they are. I'm telling you, I've never seen many rocket scientists among the sheep that I've dealt with. They have a tendency to wander. They will go in harm's way without realizing it. And I will tell you that the work of pastor is tough work. I did it for seven years, and that was enough to run me off for the last two decades. Well, I think God had something else for me to do, so I don't think I'm running from some sort of pastoral call. But the point is, it was tough. And I hope you appreciate how tough it is for your pastor and for how tough it is for the ruling elders. When you're looking after sheep, it's a tough job. It can keep you occupied all the time. And so for Jesus to say to Peter, this is what I want you to do, this was pretty heavy duty. And then the last thing he said to him, I want you to be faithful. And he said, follow me. I want you to be faithful. And then he gave an indication to Peter of how this was going to turn out. He says, the way this is going to turn out is real simple. He says, you're going to be bound up and taken somewhere you don't want to go. Now all we have to rely on at this point is church history and tradition. And the tradition that we have coming down to us from church history is that Peter ended up in Rome. I mean, that's very convenient. You can't have him as the first Pope unless he shows up in Rome. So there's probably pretty good evidence that Peter was in Rome. But what happened to him in Rome? Well, you know that Rome was a place that periodically cranked up persecutions of Christians. And the story is that in one of those moments when the emperor had released his legions to persecute, to hound, and to put to death the Christians, Peter was rounded up. The normal way of putting Christians to death was by crucifixion. But the story is, and again, this is church tradition. There's no proof. You can't go back and look it up in a Find something inscripted on the Coliseum wall or in the dungeon somewhere. But church tradition says that as Peter was about to be crucified, he asked his captors and executioners to crucify him upside down. Because, as he said, I am not worthy to die the same way my Lord died. Now, Peter did not know exactly what Jesus was talking about here. Jesus was very vague. When you get old, you'll be bound, and people will take you where you don't want to go. So Peter knew there was something out there that was going to happen that probably was not going to be a good thing. But he didn't know what it was. Here's the thing. I am 100% assured that 100% of you will not get out of this alive. So at some point, You will come to that place. I don't know how or when. I'm kind of hoping that it's not going to happen to me in the next couple of days because May is my birthday month and I've got a free gourmet burger waiting for me at Red Robin. So I want to get there and get that done. But that may not happen. Those things don't always work out. I had tickets to the Simon and Garfunkel reunion and then I got called up and sent to Iraq. So I'm at Fort Polk getting ready to go. My wife calls me on the cell phone and says, hey, I'm in Phillips Arena. Listen to this. Yeah. So what's the message for us? Well, I think the message for us is exactly what the message is for Peter. The first thing is this, everyone in this room needs a reset. I don't know about you. I'm not sure that I need a daily reset. I need an hourly or minute by minute reset. The reset that we see here, this is the gospel. The gospel is, it's not that you're good enough. The gospel is not that you have achieved something. The gospel is that you deserve to take it in the neck. My mother used to say, if we all got what we deserve, we'd be in hell with our back broke. That's a pretty scary thought. But the reset, the reset of the gospel is that even someone who denies his Lord, even someone who is complicit in murder, even someone who has done whatever can find forgiveness by simply acknowledging and asking and receiving it. So the lesson for us is that there's a reset that we need in our lives. Our lives should be lives of repentance and faith. You know, repentance and faith is not just something you do once at the beginning of your Christian life if you're involved in an adult conversion. It's like, oh, I believed on Jesus October 13, 1968. That is the date that I made a profession of faith, first time I'd ever heard the gospel presented. But I will tell you now, it is not enough for me to say on October 13, 1968, I made a profession of faith. God is not so much interested in that as whether or not right now, day by day, I'm acknowledging to him my anger and wickedness and hardness of heart and pride. So that's the first thing. This is what you and I all need to do. We need to continue to go back to that fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, reset over and over again. Second thing, guard your flock, tend your flock, feed your sheep. For some of you, you're office holders. That means you have a responsibility to a larger group of people. But all you men, heads of family, oh, did you notice that patriarchal thing that I just did? What a throwback. Men, you have people in your home. You're responsible for their spiritual well-being, for praying for them. Everyone has someone that God has placed within a sphere of influence where you need to help tend that sheep, that flock, that lamb. And then the last thing, Jesus says, follow me just like Peter. You're to be faithful to the end. You're to be faithful to the end. Richard, you're talking about maybe persecution is going to come. God only knows what's going to come. I've never seen anything like it. We have, in the last five years, seen a total shift in the relationship between the church and the state. The time may come when you have to suffer for gathering like this. The time may come when tax-exempt status is gone. The time may come when certain speech will get you in trouble. You have been called to follow and to be faithful. You say, well, I don't know where it's going to take me. I don't either. But you know what? The other day, my wife and I were driving and we were listening to the Newsboys. Now, I don't do that all the time, but they just, there was just, I had a Newsboys moment. Okay. And, uh, they have this one song, Lord, I don't know. I love that song. And I love that song because it's the most Presbyterian song that they have. Here's what it says. You are the author of knowledge. You can redeem what's been done. You hold the present and all that's to come until your everlasting kingdom. Lord, I don't know where all this is going or how it all works out. Lead me to peace that is past understanding, a peace beyond all doubt. You are the God of tomorrow, turning the darkness to dawn, lifting the hopeless with hope to go on. You are the rock of all salvation. Oh, Lord, you are the author. redeeming what's been done. You hold us in the present and all that is to come. And there's a little bit more, but there you get it. There's your answer. What are you supposed to do? You live that life of repentance, reset daily, hourly, minute by minute as you need to. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. You feed the flock beginning with yourself and beginning with those within your sphere of influence. And then you follow on and don't worry about the outcome. That was the whole point. Peter didn't have to worry about the outcome. Jesus knew it. Gave him enough to let him know that it's going to come. If you follow me, it's going to come. And Jesus is the one who then said to Peter later on and all the disciples, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So whatever's coming, whatever's ahead, God is with you. Brothers and sisters, we need a reset button that works. Not a Hillary Clinton button. We need one that works. And we have one. It's called the gospel. It's the good news that Jesus Christ is still in the sin forgiving business. And you will come to him just like Peter. He will restore, refresh, and send you back to work building his kingdom. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we give thanks to you for that fountain filled with blood. We give thanks to you that we have not been redeemed with silver and gold or any other corruptible thing, but with the precious blood of the Lamb. Now help us all to return to The freshness of faith that we have when we first came into relationship with you help us to learn to push that reset button daily as often as we need and come back into your presence to receive your forgiveness, your strength, and your benediction. Through Christ the Lord, we pray. Amen.