For some reason, we start out, but we do not finish. For some reason, we try a relationship with God, and then we get tired of it, or bored of our obedience, or doubtful of trusting, or wayward in our thinking, or people hurt us in the church, and then we assume that God then is no longer faithful. For some reason, we put our hand to the plow for work in the Kingdom of God, and then we look back, or are tempted certainly to, and to wonder if the life that we left behind is actually better than the life that’s ahead of us. I don’t know why we’re like this. I don’t know why we are so fickle. I don’t know why we are so disloyal. But each of us have a story to tell in this regard. If you don’t have one, you’ll have one eventually. We turn our back. For some of us, it’s a season, it’s a day, it’s a week, it’s a month. For others of us, it’s years, long seasons of backsliding. You can join me in John 21. That’s where we’re going to be this morning. As Josh said, we have been in a sermon series that we’ve called the Ministry of Jesus.
We’ve been in it for about two years, and I’m I had to say there are only three lessons left in the series. We have today, we have next week where I’ll talk about the great commission, and then we have the upper room, the beginning of the Book of Acts. Those are the three lessons left. But for the last few weeks, we have been looking at the appearances of the resurrected Jesus. In our account at this point, Jesus has already revealed himself to the Apostles, to those four women. He has asked those Apostles then to join him in a place called Galilee, which is the northern part of Israel. All of the things that happened during the crucifixion and the resurrection happened in the Southern part called Jerusalem. Jesus said, basically, Go wait for me in Galilee where I originally called you. That’s what’s happening. But the story has one major loose end that needs to be tied up before we can move on. Really one more important question left to answer. The story and the question is simply this. It’s like, what about Peter? What about Peter? Particularly, what about Peter’s relationship with Jesus? Here’s a quick summary.
Peter is one of the very first disciples or Apostles of Jesus Christ. You might remember, one of the first sermons we ever taught in this series two years ago was in Mark Chapter 1. Jesus is walking beside the Sea of Galilee. He sees Peter and he says, Hey, come, follow me. Immediately, Peter drops his nets, joins Jesus, and Jesus says, I’m going to turn you into a fisher of men instead of just a fisherman. For three years, Peter follows Jesus and becomes one of Jesus’s most trusted leaders. He becomes one of the 12 Apostles amongst a group of thousands of disciples. In a matter of three years, he becomes one of the three closest members of Jesus’s crew. In Mark Chapter 16, Jesus even says of Peter that you are, and I tell you that you are Peter. On this rock, the word Peter means rock, I will build my church. Peter is supposed to be the leader of the church. All of this is good and all of this is wonderful. Peter has been showing signs of his loyalty to Jesus Christ. This is amazing until something that we talked about in a previous week, something happens in John 18, where Peter takes a significant tumble.
After Jesus is arrested, Peter, in fear, denies Jesus three times. He’s asked if he is one of the followers. Jesus has just been arrested. What he says is, basically, in a manner of speaking, I swear on my own life, I do not even know the man. ‘ Three times, he calls down curses on himself. What a shocking betrayal that is. Peter, afraid for his life, blatantly and then enthusiastic drastically rejects that he even knows Jesus. We’re in this strange place, right? Because Jesus has risen from the dead. But there’s a question, which is simply this, what is Peter’s position in Jesus’s church after his tragic fall? What is Peter going to do? Is Jesus going to be like, Hey, Peter, come on in. You’re all good. Or is Jesus going to say, Hey, get out of here. You have shown your disloyalty once. You’re not going to see it again. What is going to go on with Peter? And so the gospel account can’t really end until the problem of Peter is resolved. And that’s exactly what we’re going to see here in John 1. Jesus is going to resolve this Peter dilemma. And while doing so, I think, and I have spent a lot of time in study on this passage this week.
This week, he’s going to provide for us some clear instructions about how to turn back when we have stumbled in our faith. This account is going to answer for us two relevant points. One is this, how do we come back? It’s not going to answer it conclusively, but it’s going to give us some tools. Then the second thing is, what does Jesus expect from us when we do come back? Those are the two questions we’re going to look today. I want to just tell you from the beginning, what we’re going to say is going to sound counter to the standard American evangelical message that would be describing these two answers. In modern an evangelical American church, what you’re going to hear is something like, just come back and Jesus is going to take you just as you are. I’m going to tell you that Jesus is going to present something that’s a little bit different than that. Maybe not a little different, maybe significantly different. What we’re going to be able to recognize is that Jesus is actually giving us some very clear instructions using Peter, not only for Peter, but for all of us as well.
Now, this is where we’re headed, but we have some Bible study to do as we typically do. We’re going to go verse by verse, walk through, we’re going to allow the story to unfold, and then we’re going to come back and answer these questions. Are you guys with me this morning? All right. John 21:1. Afterwards, Jesus He appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee. Simon Peter, Thomas, also known as Didamis, we talked about him last week, Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedi, and two others were together. This is after Jesus’s resurrection. We’ve already seen the appearances of Jesus to his disciples several times in Jerusalem, and we know the instructions were for them to go to Galilee, get away from Jerusalem and head to Galilee. In In fact, that instruction is given multiple times, first off by Jesus himself. This is Matthew 26. I will go ahead of you into Galilee. He says, There you will meet me. In Matthew 28:9-10, he tells the women to tell them, Go to Galilee. I’ll meet you there. Then also we have at the end of Matthew 28, it tells us very clearly that Jesus had told them to go to Galilee.
So the instructions are clear, go to Galilee and wait for me there. There. That’s exactly what they’re doing. They are waiting in Galilee, and Jesus is supposed to come. How long are they waiting? This is an interesting question. I’ve done a little bit of math, but Jesus appeared to people for a number of about 30 days. That’s what the Bible tells us. Over the course of 30 days, he meets with different people and appears to different people. Here, Jesus is about to ascend into heaven. After the great commission, he will ascend. This is the very end. So he appeared to them at the very beginning and then at the very end. So we don’t know how long they’ve been waiting. But we can say confidently that they’ve been waiting for maybe a couple of weeks. That’s a long time of waiting, sitting there wondering, Is this guy ever going to come? Here comes Peter. Peter has always been impulsive, has always been a little bit capricious. He’s always been in this position of trying to be impulsive and respond very quickly. He’s always been that way. Here’s what Peter says, I’m going out to fish.
Simon Peter told them, and they said, That’s the rest of the six. We’ll go with you. So they went out into the boat. You have the picture. There are these seven disciples supposed to be waiting in Galilee. They’re on the hillside. That’s the sea of Tiberius. They’re waiting there. The instruction is, Go to the mountainside and wait for me to come. They go, okay, we’ll wait. They wait and they wait, and they wait, and they wait until They go, I’m not waiting any longer. Peter says, I’m going fishing. See, I believe this little story is full of callbacks to the time when Peter was first called into ministry. This is a speculation, but I think as we read the text together, you’re going to see there are striking similarities to when Jesus first called Peter to when he calls him again. Actually, that does give us some insight about the callings of Jesus, that the first calling is the same as the second calling, and the calling after you fall is the same as the first calling. The callings are the same calling again and again and again. The standard for what Jesus is after actually never slides, never slips.
He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So what he expects from the disciples is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Well, these disciples, they are sitting there and they have yet to been given the great commission. They don’t know what they’re supposed to do. What are you supposed to do? You’re just waiting for Jesus. They’ve yet to been given any further instruction. They aren’t sure what’s next. So Peter to some degree, might be saying, Hey, look, my three-year journey of following Jesus maybe is over. Maybe I’m retiring. Maybe that’s what’s happening here. I’m going to go back to fishing. This idea of going back to fishing is actually something that’s more of a permanent going back to fishing than just going back to fishing. You might say, Well, how do we know that? Well, in Mark 1, Jesus calls Peter to leave his career and his family business. He says, ‘Come follow me, ‘ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people. ‘ At once, they left their nets and followed him. This is Jesus saying to Peter, ‘I am changing your destiny forever. ‘ You’re once just a fisherman.
You will now be a worker, a servant in the Kingdom of God. This is what Peter does, as I mentioned before. For three years, he doesn’t put his hand again to a net. He just serves the church. He serves his master. To say he’s going back to fishing is in some way a way of saying, Hey, my full-time involvement in this whole following Jesus thing is over. All the other disciples who have basically come from the same profession who have failed themselves and disowned Jesus themselves, they say, Hey, we’re going to. And so they hop in the boat or they load the boat first with all the bait and all the tackle and all the nets. They hop in the boat and they head offshore. You might think, again, they’re just fishing. But I’m telling you there is something deep underneath this story, something that undergirds this idea. It’s this simple characteristic of all people who follow Jesus. You know this characteristic because you have this same temptation in your heart There’s a great song that we sing, that, Come thou fount of every blessing. You know the song? To in thy heart to sing thy praise.
He says this line. It says, We are prone to wander. Prone Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. You experience this, right? All of us men are prone to wander. We’re prone to slipping and sliding. We’re prone to saying, I’m going to do it, and then not to follow through. If you have any doubt about this, you can look at whatever your New Year’s resolution was. We are in April. Anybody still following? I doubt it. No, I trust some of you. You’re killing it. Yes. Never mind. I’m going to shut up. All right. We’re prone to it. We’re prone to lose a little bit of our saltiness, to be excited, to be zealous, and then eventually to fall away, to lose the light of our lamp, to turn our backs, to return to what we once were. It’s one of the most pervasive negative characteristics in the Bible that it’s actually a major theme, that people drift, that people forget, that people backslide. They’re freed from Egypt. Remember the story? Then immediately, what do they do? They worship a cow. They backslide. They’re chosen to be the leader of God’s people, Moses.
Then they lose their temper, they strike the rock, and they’re disallowed to enter the promised land. They’re chosen to be from amongst the shepherds to be king and to slay Goliath. Then they become people that commit adultery and murder. They’re people of the promise, Abraham, that then tells lie after lie after lie. They walk with the Lord in the cool of the day until they are convinced by the deceitful words of the serpent. We wander, we are prone to wander. We, as the song sing, we’re prone to leave the God we love, to allow our candles to burn out, to lose our loyalty, to say, You know what? I was called into ministry, but now I’m going fishing again. For some reason, we start out, but we do not finish. For some reason, we try a relationship with God, and then we get tired of it or bored of our obedience or doubtful of trusting or wayward in our thinking or people hurt us in the church, and then we assume that God then is no longer faithful. For some reason, we put our hand to the plow for work in the Kingdom of God, and then we look back or are tempted certainly to, and to wonder if the life that we left behind is actually better than the life that’s ahead of us.
I don’t know why we’re like this. I don’t know why we are so fickle. I don’t know why we are so disloyal. But each of us have a story to tell in this regard. If you don’t have one, you’ll have one eventually. We turn our back. For some of us, it’s a season, It’s a day, it’s a week, it’s a month. For others of us, it’s years, long seasons of backsliding. I have a season like this in my own life. I’ve been very open about this before, where I turned my back on God. I was a freshman in college, and I lost my way. I pursued things other than God. I loved things other than God. I lied more than I loved the truth. I was attracted to the fictitiousness of the world. I loved sin more than I loved the God who saved me from sin. I was called from lies, and I returned to them. I was called from immorality, and I returned to it. I was called from self-seeking, self-centered living, and I just went back to it. I always wonder, I still wonder to this day, what about the world was so attractive to me?
What about those lies were so tempting What about what Satan said in my ear was so convincing that I thought choosing sin was better than choosing the Lord who made the universe. I thought a lot about this, and I’ve pondered it this week. I’ve been praying for it. I’ve been going every day as I take my prayers. I’m like, Lord, tell me why people stumble and why people waver and why people give in and why people begin to distrust you and why do they lose their faithfulness? Why do people do that? I’ve been praying for God to make it clear to me why we do it. Do you know the answer I have? I have no idea. I don’t know. It seems so crazy that we would trade eternity for a bowl of stew. It seems nuts, but we do it. I don’t know why. I don’t know why there are times when God is less attractive to us than the sin of our youth. This This is why this message, I believe, is so relevant to us, because Jesus, in this interaction, is going to talk to Peter and going to help him get to the place where he is fully reinstated after this significant tumble in his life.
He’s going to figure out how to turn it around because Jesus is going to give him some great words of wisdom, man, that are penetrating forever, forever more. Here’s Peter and the other disciples, and they’re sitting on the boat. They’ve pushed it offshore. They’re supposed to be waiting for Jesus. They forget about all that, and they go on the boat, and they’re all discouraged. They’re just reveling in their own failures. Here’s where the story continues. They went out and got into the boat. Look at the next line. But that night, they caught nothing. So of course, the disobedient disciples in the boat fish all night and catch nothing. Remember, this is their profession. They’re pros at this. They know how to fish. I went out to go fishing maybe a couple of weeks ago with Jake, who’s back there. We went out. Jake is a boat captain, so he knows exactly where to go. He’s like, Let’s go right there, throw it against that wall, and immediately, boom, boom, fish. He’s like, Oh, my goodness. This guy is like a genius. A fisherman. If you’re a fisherman, you know where fish are. This is what you do.
This is what you know. And so they went out to go fishing. And Peter’s like, Of course, I know this good spot. I’m just going to put it in the GPS, sit it right here. Boom, boom, boom, boom, throw the net over. And they fish all night and they can’t catch a single thing. They think, I can catch, and the Lord says, Oh, no, you can’t. You can only fish if there are fish. And I am the sovereign Lord, and not a single fish is going to get anywhere near your nets. And so he rerout all the fish, and they never come near the boat, and they go all night and they catch nothing. By the way, did you ever notice this, and maybe it’s just me, that when you’re a Christian and you begin to backslide, and then When you start to do the things you used to do that you thought were so much fun, and then you do them, they are not fun anymore. You ever do this? You think, well, okay, you know what? At least I used to buy things, and they used to make me feel good. And then you go and you’re like, Why am I doing this?
And you feel guilty. You’re like, I used to indulge like this. I used to participate in this, and this brought me pleasure, at least for a little bit. And now it brings me nothing, no happiness, and I’m miserable. And as a non-Christian, rebellion, at least for a short time, was amazing. But as a Christian, rebellion just brings hardship. That’s all it does. And you fish all night, you try all night, and you catch nothing because the spirit inside of you just makes you feel terrible. The things you once turned for, it’s like once you taste the heavenly gift, it’s so hard to go back to the disgusting, dirty sewer of the world and to think that it’s actually satisfying. He’s not going to catch anything. Anyway, so this is Peter. He’s out there. I’m going to fish. I’m going to catch some fish. At least I’m a good fisherman. I may not be a good apostle, but I can fish. The Lord’s like, No, you’re not. Verse 4, early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not recognize that it was Jesus. So we called out to them, Friends, haven’t you any fish?
Jesus, he knows they have no fish. And they respond, No. And he says, Throw your nets on the right side of the boats, and you will find some. That’s not the way fishing works. You don’t throw your nets on one side and throw your nets on the other side and find the fish. That’s not the way it works. Their boat doesn’t stay put. Their nets don’t just stay put. This is not the way it works. But this is a callback to when Peter was first reached out to by Jesus. Luke 5, Simon put out into the deep and let down the nets for a catch. Simon answered, Master, we’ve worked hard all night. This is the same story, right? They’ve been fishing through the night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets. So they do They let down the nets on the other side. When they did it, they were unable to haul the nets in because of the large number of fish. Jesus just instantaneously calls for all the fish in the Sea of Galilee to hop into the net, and they can’t even bring it into the boat.
Again, a call back to the earlier story, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. What does What is Jesus doing? What is Jesus doing? I think he’s trying to remind Peter of where he first was when he called him. I think he’s trying to remind him. Here’s a principle for all of us who are backsliding or attempted to backslide or going through a difficult season. It’s a very simple thing. There’s nothing profound about what I’m about to say, but I think it’s important that do you remember where you were when you were called? Do you remember? Do you remember? Here’s some pictures. I asked the community group leaders this week to just send me pictures of people who were baptized recently or in the last couple of years. Look at it. Look at all these people. Look at these people. Do you remember this? Do you remember when you were called? Do you remember the station in life? Do you remember what your marriage was like if you were married? Do you remember how you thought about pleasure? Do you remember how you thought about comfort? Do you remember the things that you struggled with?
Do you remember the dreams that you had that had failed you? Do you remember what you were saved from? Do you remember the lies that you believed that you then obeyed that brought your life to a devastating place? Do you remember the insecurity that you carried in your body? That feeling of inadequacy? Do you remember the pain that you held on to in your brain? Do you remember your relationships and the fears that you had in the soupless nights? Do you remember? Do you remember? Do you remember? I think the practice of remembering what you were saved from is such an important practice if you want to be someone rooted and established and not someone who backslides so easily. This is so encoded in the Old Testament that the Old Testament writers tell us again and again and again to remember. Remember that you were slaved in Egypt and that the Lord called you Remember that you were in captivity and God rescued you. Remember the place where you were. Remember. Do you remember? Do you ever take time to go back and go, Oh, my goodness, who was I? What was I? What was I doing?
When you take those moments to begin to remember, I see and I find, that what I experience is what Peter experienced. This whole week, I’ve been trying my hardest to remember. I journaled everything. Man, these These are the things. These are the places I was. Let me tell you what that brought me, a great deal of gratitude for what God has done in my life today. My life’s not perfect. My life’s a mess. There’s lots of things I’m like, I want to work on. I want to improve on. I want to get better on. And that thought of I want to do better, I want to do better, I want to do better. The thing is that never ends. You just keep wanting to do better. You’re like, well, you know what I want to do? I want to get slightly better at this. And you just move the target and you never achieve it. But if you take Take a moment, just every once in a while, to just look back and go, Oh, I was that guy. I was that girl. I did those things. The gratitude in your heart for the progress that God has made in your life becomes an anchor for your soul.
And so this is what happens. Peter is in that boat. He’s asked to do the thing that he was asked to do before in order to remind of the place he once was in. And it says this, Then the disciple whom Jesus loved, this is John, by the way. John always refers to himself that way, said to Peter, by the way, I mean, that’s dope. At first I thought that’s a little arrogant, but I’m like, no, you are the disciple who Jesus loved. That’s not a part of my sermon. Okay. He said to Peter, It is the Lord. It is the Lord. He knew it immediately. As soon as Simon Peter heard him say this, say, Is the Lord, he wrapped his outer garment around him and jumped, dove into the water. The other disciples followed him in the boat with a fish full of nets, a net’s full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about 100 yards. Peter hears, This is the Lord, and again, being that impulsive, Peter goes, All right, I’m going. Boom. He dives right into the water. You know what I see here is once he remembered, the repentance is so fast.
So fast. He doesn’t need to take months and months to wonder and ponder about where he’s been before. He just goes, You know what? I’m going back. I’m going back to be with Jesus. If I was Peter, though, about halfway When I was through, I might have stopped and wondered, Am I about to get in deep trouble? You ever like this as a teen, you got bad grades, and you’re like, I don’t think I’m going to go home. I could just live in the street. It’ll be better than facing my mother or whatever. So he dives in the water, he swims all the way on shore. And what is waiting for Peter? Is it a rebuke? Is it a correction? He’s going to get a little bit of a correction in a moment. But you know what? It’s before any of those things, breakfast. When they landed, they saw a fire on burning coals. There with fish on it and some bread. Jesus makes him breakfast. When we come back to Jesus, I want to encourage you. He doesn’t have a disappointed look on his face. He doesn’t have a belt ready to whip us.
What he has is like something to feed us. Sometimes Christians who have failed wonder if they can come back because there’s so much anxiety about even walking in this room. I’ve talked to so many people. I’ve been in so many counseling sessions where people are like, I want to come back, but I just don’t want to come in the room. I’m afraid. What are people going to say? And they feel guilt and they feel shame. But the thing I always encourage them with is that the Father and Jesus always is willing to accept, to hug, to wrap his cloak around them, to put the ring on his finger, to give him a kiss, to say, Look, I just am so grateful that you’re back in the family. Arms open wide. I can relate to Peter because many times I’ve been out in sea when I should have been on the mountainside, and I’ve been disobedient when I should have been heeding the commands. Peter was wrong for being out in that boat. But the reason this is such a powerful story, and he is such a great man of God, is because he chooses to repent, chooses to come back, because that’s really what matters.
What a compassionate God. I want to remind you, if you’re backsliding, you have a compassionate friend in Jesus Christ. He’s not ready to kill you. He’s ready to bring you back into his family and into the fold. Verse 10, Then Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish you have just caught. ‘ So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153. For the Bible nerds, this is a really fun number to look up. I’m not going to talk about it. But even with so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast. ‘ None of the disciples dare to ask him, ‘Who are you? ‘ They knew it was the Lord. Verse 13, Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. Then we move from how to come back to some Jesus’s expectations. The conversation drifts away from just the crowds, now to Peter alone. Here it is. When they had finished eating, man, Simon Peter must have thought that he was totally fine.
He’s like, Yes, I got nothing. I’m good. We’re good? We’re good, God? We’re good? Okay, cool. He said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Jesus calls Peter by his old name because he’s acting like his old self. Simon was the name before Jesus changed his destiny. Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He’s asking him, and he uses this This word for love, that’s the extreme love. Do you have this love for me? Do you have love for me more than anything else, more than these? I’d imagine at that time, he’s pointing to the boats, and he’s pointing to the nets, and he’s pointing to the fish. What is he asking? Do you love me, Peter? Do you love me, Peter? Do you love him more than anything else? That’s the question. Do you love me more than you all the other things that you’ve loved in your life. I want you to know that here’s an expectation. If you have backslid and you’re trying to come back to Christ and your hope is that there will be a mitigated responsibility or mitigated amount of commitment, I want you to know you’re wrong.
That when Jesus calls you back, he’s not like, Oh, last time you were fully committed, and now you can be 75% committed. I know that was really hard, but you can just dial it down a little bit. You don’t have to engage in much. You don’t have to care as much. I’m telling you, that’s not the way it works. He asked Peter very clearly, Are you going to love me more than you love all of the other things in your life? And that’s the question he asks all of us today. The person who comes back doesn’t get a lower standard because they have messed up. They don’t become a second class disciple because because they have failed. That doesn’t mean you get, you know what? I was a really strong disciple, and then I lived in sin for a couple of years, and I’m coming back. I’m just going to sit in the back. I’m not going to engage. I’m telling you, you don’t get to do that. Everyone who comes in gets the same commitment level no matter what you’ve gone through in your life. Supreme love for Jesus is the only acceptable standard.
Jesus says, Do you love me more than anything else? Then feed my lambs. Yes, you Yes, I know you love me, or yes, you know I love you. Again, Jesus asked him, this is the second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He answered, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And these were choices, you could study it out on your own, but there’s this statement of, Do you have this extraordinary love for me? And Peter’s like, Lord, I really like you. Lord, we’re close. We’re bonded. You know that? That’s what he’s saying. And then Jesus says, again, so take care of my sheep. The third time he asked him, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me? ‘ And this time, he decides to use the word that Peter then uses. Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him a third time, ‘Do you love me? ‘ He said, ‘ Lord, you know all things. You know that I loved you. ‘ Why three times? Why does he ask him three times? Because he denied him three times. By the way, there’s these other little things. He’s by a charcoal fire. Do you know what Peter was by when he denied him?
A fire. It’s recalling the settings, right, of John 18. Why these questions? Why do you love me? Why these responses? And why all this feeling? And Peter’s just going, Look, I don’t think I can claim to you that I love you as much as I should love you. And so then Jesus then says, Well, do you even like me a little bit? It’s not because he asked him three times, but it’s because he used his own word that he is offended. He could say, Look, don’t look at the way I acted. You know everything. You know that I love you. Again, he We’re just asking the question, Do you love him? Do you love him? Do you love me more than anything else? I want to challenge you, brothers and sisters, that there’s nothing else more important in life than loving God and loving Jesus, his son. It It doesn’t even matter beyond that. Do you love him? Do you love him more than everything else? I think about Luke 14. Anybody who loves father or mother or brother or sister is not worthy, cannot be my disciple. Matthew says the same idea. Anybody who loves father or mother more than me cannot be my disciple.
These ideas are so encoded in the scriptures that I think we sometimes just gloss over them because we’ve talked about them so often. The commitment to Jesus Christ is 10:00 to 10:00, wholeheartedly, everything at all times. That’s what it is. That’s the expectation. Now we fail and we struggle and we stumble and we fail a lot. But the only thing that matters is whether or not you love him more than you love anything else. Do you love Jesus Christ? The simple, substantive, foundational question of Christianity is simply that. Jesus actually says to him after asking, Do you love me? He gives him this response. And what’s the response? He goes, Do you love me? Yes, I love you. He goes, Well, then do what? Feed my sheep. Take care of my people. And I think about this. I just want to let you know that the expectations of Jesus is… So the first question is this, do you love him more than anything? And then the second question is another thing that we have to consider for the standard of following Jesus, which is this, are you still willing to serve him? Are you still willing to serve?
It’s like, Yes, Lord, I love you, but I’ve decided that after 30 years of being a Christian, I am retiring. What I’m going to do is I’m just going to sit and sing and go home. No more reaching out, no more shepherding God’s people, no more discipling folks, no more mentoring anybody, no more serving in Kingdom Kids. That’s for young folks. I’m older, I’m gone. I want to let you know there is no retirement in the Kingdom of God. I wish there were, but there is none. Yeah. There just is none. I don’t know if I wish there was. But the feeling goes, I’ve done this for years and years and years. Isn’t it someone else’s time to do it? No. It’s your time, forevermore. You’ve been called out of the world into God’s glory, and it’s your job to serve him forevermore. Maybe you can’t do it like you used to do it, and that’s fair. Maybe you can’t respond like you used to respond, and maybe you don’t have the energy you once have. But let me tell you, you have a place in the Kingdom of God. You have something to do, whether you’ve been struggling or whether you’ve been here for a long time.
I’m telling you, you have something to do. We are all workers in the Kingdom of God. We’re not lawyers, we’re not teachers, we’re not doctors, we’re not maintenance workers. We are disciples of Jesus Christ. And what is more than that? We are here to serve him and to honor him and spend our days and our months and our money and our energy serving his kingdom wholeheartedly. What does he expect? He expects that when you come back, you still put him first. He expects that when you come back, you still serve him wholeheartedly. The third thing he expects we find in this next text, this is wild, but we’ll read it. Truly, I say to you, after this interchange, when you were younger, this is talking to Peter, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hand and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. Jesus said this to indicate the death by which Peter would glorify God. Jesus tells Peter, You know what’s going to happen? You’re going to sacrifice for me to the point of death.
You’re going to die. And his cost for following Jesus will be his life. And that’s exactly what happens. About 30 years later, tradition tells us that Peter dies a martyr, telling the crowds and telling his captors that he does not want to be crucified as his Lord was, but instead, he would like to be crucified upside down. And he is brought where he does not want to go, and his hands are stretched out, and he’s killed on a tree, just like his savior. I want to let you know that for all of us who choose to follow Jesus, sacrifice, sacrifice sacrifice is still a requirement. If you backslid, sacrifice is still a requirement for you as well. Then Jesus turns to him after saying this and simply says, Follow me. Three years earlier, Jesus had called Peter to follow him, and Peter had no idea what it meant. He was a young Christian. Follow me, he said. He said, Okay, I’ll do it. I’m going to go on the adventure of my life. He did, and it was amazing. He had no idea where God would take him. Here, with hindsight, with the view of Jesus’s death, with the view of his own death, with a full understanding of what it means to follow Jesus to the point of sacrifice, to the point of wholehearted commitment, Jesus once again invites him, Follow me, follow me, follow me.
He could also see the power of the Kingdom of God. He invites to follow him. And I’m telling you, church, above all things, above everything else, this calling still stands for us today. Will you follow him? Will you follow him? I believe he’s calling all of us. Again, every day, follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me. He’s calling you like he once called you. But with the hindsight of the knowledge you had living as a disciple, that follow me statement becomes more and more impactful. Today, will you follow him Choose once again to drop whatever it is you have and make Jesus the thing you love the most in your life. I want to invite us to do something that is weird, but I just want to do it for a second. If you have been If you were converted in this congregation and you have been a Christian for more than 30 years, can you just stand up for a second? For 30 years, for 30 years, these people every day have denied themselves, taken off their cross, and chosen to follow him again and again. I want you who have been a Christian for 30 seconds, all of us, the rest of us, to go find those people who stood up and to ask them, How are you still faithful?
How are you still here? And I’ll tell you the stories they will tell. The stories they will are not stories of perfection, are not like we went from ever increasing glory. We were great and now we’re even greater with no down. It’s like we were 8 out of 10, and now I’m 11. That’s not the stories you’re going to hear. What you’re going to hear is, Try trial, hardship, pain, and then endurance, and the choice to once again choose to follow Jesus all over again. This church has been such a blessing to me because of that intergenerational connection. I want us today to choose to follow Jesus and then to learn from those who have been doing it for a long time. Amen, brothers and sisters. Amen. At this time, we’re going to take communion. We have a piece of bread on the bottom of your cup there and a little bit of juice. We take it every week to represent the death of Jesus and also the death of Jesus, both his body broken for us and his blood poured out for us. And as I pray, we’ll reset the stage. We’ll get some singers on.
We’ll sing a song to close our time out. But let’s keep that in mind as we pray to God for communion. Father, we are so thankful for this amazing community. Thank you for the example of Peter. Lord, I wish I could have… Well, I guess I’ll do it right now in my prayer. I wish I could, Lord, have talked a little bit about Peter And him then looking back again at John and wondering whether or not John was going to die the same way. Lord, that’s just in our DNA, Lord, to then want to compare ourselves to the suffering of another and to I wonder why we have to suffer more than others or why we have to be challenged by more things. Father, I think I’m so encouraged by you because every time you once again recenter us and draw our gaze back to you and you tell us it’s not about anybody else. It’s not about anybody else, but Lord, you are asking us today to choose to follow you again. God, I pray that we’ll do that, Lord. I pray that we will never leave. Lord, I pray that this community here will be a community that only grows, that there is never a subtraction interaction of anyone.
I know it’s a miraculous prayer to ask, but I pray God in this community that no one will be deceived by Satan’s lies and choose that the world is better. But everybody here will learn to obey Christ until the day that they die. Lord, I pray that we’ll see everybody in this room in heaven one day. Lord, when we see those people, Lord, and when we celebrate that celebration, Lord, that our lives, rather, that we’ll look back and we’ll be reminded of the shortcomings of our failures. But more than anything else, Lord, we’ll be reminded of the faithfulness that you produced in each one of our lives. God, be with us today as we take communion, we take a little bit of juice that represents your body and the bit of blood, sorry, the bit of bread that represents your body. God, I just pray that as we take it, we’ll remember the sacrifice of our amazing Lord, our great friend. Thank you, Jesus. Lord, I’m so thankful to have a friend in you, to have not just a pal on my side, but a Lord who I worship and who I honor. God, thank you for giving me everything and teaching me and helping me to be obedient to you, God.
And I just pray, Lord, that your example in my life, in all of our lives, will be so profound that we cannot shake it. You truly are the Messiah, the Lord of heaven and earth. We honor you today. It’s in your name we pray, Jesus Christ. Amen.