Dennis Tuuri

Today’s sermon text is found in John 21:15-19. “Advent and the Gift of Discipleship.” John 21:15-19. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “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 guide you and 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.’”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the wonder of your word. Open it to us now. Open our hearts, Father, to receive this word. May your Spirit be a blessed encourager, comforter, and strengthener of the saints. Give us Christ through this word today. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

“Caught like a rat.” That was the headline out of this morning’s news. Saddam Hussein was captured yesterday, reported early this morning on American radio. Identification made complete. Press conference this morning by the president. Caught like a rat in a hole, looking very bedraggled for those of you who saw this morning. And it is good news. It is gospel.

The gospel is the proclamation of the ascension of the Savior King Jesus Christ. That’s what those names mean—Savior King to the right hand of the Father. The gospel facts of Christ’s death and resurrection, witnessed to by the people that we’ve read about in our text for the last few months here as we move toward the end of John’s gospel. These are the facts of what happened. But the implication is “Yahweh to the nations.”

That while God turned an eye, so to speak, winked as Paul says in the book of Acts, at some of these sins in the past, now with the coming of Christ, all accounts are being brought to bear. For 2,000 years, God has waged warfare against the idols and the tyrants. And this morning’s capture of an evil, wicked man is gospel. It is good news to us, and it is a reminder of the truth of the Magnificat.

The Magnificat is that great song by Mary from Luke’s Gospel. One of the four portions of Luke’s Gospel we read responsibly next week in our service. Some of us know to sing the Magnificat to a tune that Reverend Jordan taught us years ago. A portion of the Magnificat was forbidden to be read in certain periods of medieval Christianity by civil rulers because it says that he has “debased those of great authority and exalted those of low degree. The powerful he has put down from their seats, the mighty from their seats, and he has exalted them of low degree.”

Now, this was understood by the civil magistrates better than by the church today, by the pagan civil magistrates of the medieval period of the church. They knew that the gospel and the proclamation of it meant that all tyrants such as Saddam Hussein will be indeed caught like rats and then raised for what? For judgment.

Children, understand as you see the pictures, as you’ll undoubtedly see, of this haggard man hauled out of a hole in the ground. Think of your own death. Think of your own eschatology. Will your death and resurrection to meet Jesus be one of coming before him to receive the blessings of heaven or to be consigned to the depths of hell?

We all are put in the ground, so to speak, put in that hole in the ground that we as Christians know based on our understanding of the scriptures as a picture of death and burial. We’ll all be raised up. But the question is, will we be sent to heaven or to hell? That question remains open for Saddam Hussein, does it not?

We don’t believe that it’s up to the man himself who will be able to repent and come before God. God can in his sovereignty bring Saddam Hussein to repentance. And we pray that he does, although we don’t expect it. God normally does not work that way.

We’ve been reading the double statement of absolution, so-called in the period of the Reformation, written during the period of the Reformation. Normally we don’t use it. Normally what we want you to hear is the good news that your sins are forgiven and not have to think about it and not get too introspective about it. But there are proper times when what we read this morning in the absolution is important—that your sins are forgiven if you’ve repented. But if you have not repented and your sins are retained and cannot be remitted, you’re going to hell.

Because this is what our Savior told the disciples in his commissioning of them as he breathed on them the Holy Spirit. He said, “Whosoever sins you remit are remitted and whosoever sins are retained are retained in heaven.” And so it’s important to drive that message home.

And here in this statement of Saddam Hussein and the picture of the victory of Christ over tyrants, it’s important to remember that as well—that we all go to the grave. The question is what happens as we come up out of that grave.

So it’s good news and our gospel reading today is good news—the implications of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. What we see happening for the last 2,000 years in a more marked form is the transformation of the world. The transformation of the world. And men like Saddam Hussein are through God’s providential actions judged and removed from their seats so that those who are humble before him might serve in seats of power. This is the transformation of the fallen world. This is part of our vision statement.

I don’t have this vision statement stuff on the outline just because I wanted to shove it in somehow. What I’ve tried to get you to see is that this last epilogue of John’s gospel in chapter 21 is very much like the end of Mark. It’s very much like the great commission in Matthew 28. It’s the same basic message.

For what purpose do we receive the Holy Spirit in chapter 20? Is it to confirm a personal relationship with Christ that stays privatized and doesn’t have an impact on the future? No. This epilogue shows us what will happen. It is in story form a repeating of the great commission. And the great commission forms the purpose and vision of this church: loving the triune God and transforming the fallen world.

I put this in the context of God in his providence bringing this into the season of Christmas when we’re out thinking about other people, thinking about brother and sister, thinking about parents, thinking about children, thinking about friends. What would they like? What would bring a smile to their face? What would make their eyes twinkle as we give them a gift this year?

It isn’t about a gift, of course. It’s about the relationship. It’s about you bringing joy to somebody’s life. I love gifts that I can wear or that I have to use—a keychain, a tie—something because when I put that thing on, I think of the person. It’s the relationship. What we’re doing through gifts is giving ourselves to each other.

And what we’ve said is that the difference between Christianity—worshiping, or rather loving, the triune God—and all other forms of religion that worship a single God is we do not worship a God who is selfish ultimately. We worship a God who exists in three persons who are continually gifting one another, giving of themselves to each other: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not selfishly.

And the very picture, the revelation of who this God is, what we’ve looked at the last few months, is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to die for our sins, to suffer the full pains of hell for our recovery. He gives to us. And so, what better time to talk about the gift of relationship with this triune God.

And our vision statement shows these texts show that while there are things we can talk about and are talking about—the gift of mission. We’re going on a mission to God the rest of your life. What’s your mission for today, kids? I’ve got it on your outline. There’s a mission. Every time when Jesus comes to meet with us, he gives us a mission. Not just to the pastors, but to everybody. That’s a gift from him.

Today, we’re going to talk about the gift of discipleship. Learning, growing, being matured. That’s a gift from Christ. And in a couple weeks we’re going to talk about the gift of Christ himself. And in two weeks we’ll talk about the gift of community and how to be careful to preserve it. But ultimately those are like the presence under the tree. Mission, discipleship, and community.

So what drives our strategy map as we’re trying to transform the world is loving the triune God. Ultimately those themselves are not the gift. The gift is relationship with God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father gives himself to us. It’s the Father’s mission that Jesus said he was sent from the Father and he sends us to accomplish the Father’s mission. God gives himself as Father to us and as Father he empowers us for mission, but he’s giving us himself.

When Jesus gives us discipleship he’s giving us himself. We’re learning the word. We’re being matured and ruled by King Jesus in his word. He is the Word of God. So the gift of discipleship is really the gift of God. You know, incredibly enough, Jesus is giving himself to us in the context of this discipleship thing. And community—to rejoice, to community to receive the gift of friendship in a bonded church relationship and a community of believers—and to be careful not to sin against these things. This is really a gift of the Holy Spirit. This is how we experience the joy of receiving this gift of the Spirit of God.

So we can think of mission, discipleship and community. We can think of the aspects of our strategy map that transform the fallen world as the gifts of the triune God to us. The same way we think of our presents as reminders of the person. You know, Dad has given himself to me, brother has given himself to me, his thoughts, his care, his attention, a little bit of himself.

Well, God comes to distribute gifts to us that ultimately must be traced back to their source. It is of the nature of God to gift each other in terms of the persons of the Trinity—the Father, the Son, the Son, the Spirit, the Son, the Father, the Father, the Spirit, etc. That’s the nature of God. That is our nature. Now, we’ve been transformed by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our citizenship is in heaven.

We were talking about this in our Leviticus class this morning. The purpose, the primary offering, the primary thing that happens is worship. First chapter of Leviticus—not chronologically what first happened in that book in the offering system, but the most important offering is the ascension offering. The animal who represents us, we’ve leaned on it. It’s us. He’s not going to get killed on the altar. No, that’s not the purpose. He’s going to go up. He’s a sweet-smelling savor to the Lord. He’s transformed in state. The blood of Christ is shed against that altar—bang—the stairway opens up to heaven. We’re put on that stairway to heaven through the offering of eventually the son of the herd. That’s the literal translation of what’s translated to “young bull” or “bullock” in Leviticus 1. The son of the herd’s blood and he’s placed in that altar.

We’re in union with him and bang, we’re transformed into heavenly people. Our citizenship is in heaven and we’re part of that self-gifting triune God and we receive gifts from him and we gift one another in the context of that.

I think that’s what I’m trying to say here: there’s three specific stories at the end of John’s gospel and they relate to the three specific aspects of the great commission in Matthew 28. They relate to the gifts of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They relate to what Advent is all about—an anticipation of the gift of God to us: gift of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the thing that will cause our heart the most delight is to engage in the Father’s mission, to be discipled in the Savior’s word and under his reign, and to live together in Christian community, Spirit-empowered, delighting in that Spirit of God that binds us together into a loving relationship. This is what Advent is about—an anticipation of that. This is what Christmas is—the gift of this relationship. This is why Jesus comes to earth: to affect change and transformation through this specific movement, the same movement of our worship service, right?

So that’s what we’re talking about here in John 21. Three specific stories with three particular themes to them that really reflect our mission statement: loving the triune God and as a result of that transforming the fallen world.

Now you know these three are linked together. It’s really one gift. There’s one God. We had a story about culminated in Jesus feeding the disciples. And our little section today begins with what? After eating, then this next thing happens. And at the end of this story, Jesus says to Peter, “Let’s take a walk. Follow me.” And at the beginning of the next story, Peter turns around and sees John following them. So the three are linked together like chains, right?

The first one—the worldwide evangelism pictured—and it ends with a meal, eating. Second one starts with eating and moves to discipleship. That discipleship concludes with following. And then the third section begins with John following Peter and the Savior. This is the way the scriptures work. They’re links in a chain. Almost always the Bible is stitched together. I mean, you can see the overlaps as there’s a progression of things that are happening. And this story we have here is stitched with chapter 20.

Remember, the first in the list of the disciples is Peter the leader, but then the next is Thomas because that’s what 20 ended with—stitched together. Our lives may seem like distinct incidents, distinct patterns or things going on, but there’s linkages that God has built into them. And it’s important to see that. And it’s important to see that as we move to the end of John’s gospel.

We see the purpose, as I said, of this gift of the Holy Spirit. We’re a new creation. Not just to say, “Isn’t this cool?” Not to sit on a cloud and strum our harp, or to sit in our homes or in our church and say, “Great, this is fun.” No. The purpose is the Spirit has not been given for personal satisfaction so much as to exhibit and to engage in particular kinds of work that this last concluding section of John tells us about.

You know, that the covenant works, our service works, the covenant renewed and at the end we’re commissioned. We’re sent out. The future is always on the edge of what Jesus is telling to us. And here in the Gospel of John, we have a record of the past. And now we have very explicitly the future being portrayed for us here in chapter 21 in the five-part covenant model for those of you who keep track of such things—it’s succession, right? The last and fifth element of covenant renewal. But you don’t have to worry about that model. Just know that at the end of whatever God does with us, he pushes us into the future. Our faith is a future-oriented faith, built on the past—what Christ has accomplished—and moved to the future.

This chapter does that. This chapter tells us in some very specific ways what our future is to be and what the future of the world is to be in terms of this new creation.

Now, this is an ecclesiastical text. We can make application as I did last week to vocation and the fishing. We can make application to husbands, fathers pastoring their little flocks, or employers who have a pastoral relationship to those that work under them. I think that’s proper. If Peter both trains and rules over and guards his flock and is commissioned to do that, we can certainly see application in the family and the workplace. We can certainly see application in the civil realm. I think it’s horrific that the national budget has gone from 10% spending on defense guarding the country to now 3%. You know, that’s that’s the job particularly of the civil magistrate. Most of his income should be used to provide protection.

So we can make application to the family, the vocation and the state. But understand that this gospel ends with an ecclesiastical text. The importance of the institution of the church goes front and center at the end of the gospel. Same with the great commission given to the apostles, the representatives of the church. And so what happens in worship on the Lord’s day, what happens in the church, has downstream effects, but it’s what Jesus focuses on here at the conclusion of this gospel.

Succession is provided primarily through the institution that God has set up to train and rule in the context of the church. Leadership in the church and very specifically, the big picture here of course is that we’ve had leadership in the church for mission—talked about with the fish being brought in—and now we have leadership in the church in terms of pastoring, right? So evangelism and discipleship, mission and pastoral sort of work, bringing people into the fold into the flock of Christ and then discipling them as they’re in the flock.

The pastoral ministry represented by Peter here has to be, really, biblical. Both missionary and pastoral.

Now the strategy map—you know, process stuff, nobody wants to talk about the processes of the institutional church. If you see why we think it’s so important it’s because Jesus says this is how it’s supposed to work: church. And if you do this work the implications of the new creation will be made effective in the vocational sphere, recreation, political action, etc.

Get it right here. He says live life correctly here and equip people to take this stuff out. And to get that done correctly, we want to self-consciously grab a hold of that task of what it means to love the triune God and then to transform the fallen world. And as we do that, we’ll become challenged as a church.

At our meeting Wednesday night, we were challenged. Well, we were discussing, not under discipleship of the flock here, but specifically under evangelism, the mission of the church. We were discussing an initiative about creating neighborhood Bible studies that are more evangelistic, bringing people in, than they are in terms of maturing the saints. And the question is, should we do that or not?

Well, one of the men, Deacon H., said, “Well, I don’t know why we wouldn’t. Seems pretty important.” And particularly in light of what these texts tell us, right? I mean, the very focal points that God wants us to look at—it is quite important, isn’t it?

Both to plant evangelize and plant churches globally—praise God that Elder W. brought that emphasis to our church a decade ago or whenever it was. And God has matured us so much. And it’s exciting now to begin because we’ve taken hold of the process and said we want to live out Matthew 28 as a church. We want to live out John 21 as a church because we’ve grabbed a hold of that process.

Now we’re forcing ourself—group of men coming together, encouraging each other to see this area, evangelism locally as well, and planting churches locally, to become a focal point of our prayers and our efforts and what we do in our communities. I mean, it’s directly related to what this text tells us.

Yes, this church has always understood the need to do what today’s text tells us: to nurture the sheep and to rule in the context of the church. We’ve not done quite as good a job of trying to bring in those fish and nations. Now we are doing much better at that and now we want to apply that as well in terms of evangelizing and planting local churches.

So you see, that’s the importance of this strategy map in terms of what’s going on in our lives, informing us with this great gift that God has given to us, the Holy Spirit and the empowerment the new creation is all about.

So today we turn specifically to the middle story, which you could say is the pivot story, right? Peter and the disciple John. Now we’ll go back to Peter and John in the last little story and then a final statement. So here we turn to this story and it’s a pretty obvious one. Most people know the story already. We can make some pretty obvious and clear points and we will. And what I’ve done in today’s outline is to provide an alliterated outline to help you remember these four points as you think about this and talk about this in the context of your week.

We’ll talk first about the curing—I would have said, if I didn’t want to alliterate it, the healing of Peter, his cure. Peter is cured by the Lord Jesus Christ, I think, in this encounter. And then we’ll talk about his commissioning, the commissioning of Peter and his specific task—what he’s supposed to do. And then we’ll talk about the great crescendo of Peter’s life, the climax, the crescendo. We’ve used musical terms to talk about how the gospel of John is kind of like this great crescendo of all the scriptures, right?

The Old Testament talked about Jesus. All the gospels talk about Jesus. And the concluding, great climactic gospel is the gospel of John. And then the rest of the Bible gives us commentary on what Jesus did as he came. So this is the great crescendo here. And this is the last chapter of the great, last gospel, which was the focal point of all the Old Testament. And here Jesus will give us an eschatology of Peter. He’ll talk about his death. He’ll talk about the end of his life and the great crescendo of Peter’s life. And then we’ll finally talk about Peter’s—Jesus’s command to Peter: follow me.

So first we’re going to talk about the curing of Peter.

Now, look at your text and notice that in verse 15, where we begin: “When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter…” Simon Peter? No, he doesn’t say that. He says, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?” This is a formal title, so to speak. But more than that, what do we know about this particular way of addressing Peter—Simon, son of Jonah or son of John?

What we know is this is precisely how Jesus referred to Peter way back at the beginning of the gospel. So we could say that the great bookends of the gospel are: Simon, son of Jonah, being called by Jesus to become Peter the rock at the beginning in chapter 1, and at the end Simon, son of Jonah, becoming Peter the rock to lead the church at the end of John’s gospel.

Chapters 1 and chapter 21, verse 42 of chapter 1 is when this occurred. Remember that these are the days of discipleship. John is identified to—his John the gospel writer, John the Baptist, the Messiah who is here—and disciples are being added. And in verse 42 he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, that’s Peter, he said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas,” which is translated “stone.”

Now, I think that among other things, what this does to us is it makes us think about the whole line of Peter’s interaction with Christ throughout this gospel. I mean, it’s taking us back to the beginning and helping us remember Peter’s call so that we might think a little bit about Peter’s history.

Peter has been moved along for three years. Things have happened to Peter that has revealed to us who he is. And it’s critical, I think, for understanding what happens here at this particular charcoal fire.

Peter has been shown to us to be a leader. We’ve talked about that. The history of Peter is the history of a leader—a flawed leader, as we said last week—but a leader nonetheless. And we’ve seen that really in very magnified ways in this chapter. Peter leads them to go fishing. He leads them coming into Jesus. He jumps out of the boat and all the rest follow him in.

Peter has been demonstrated to be a leader. Even way back when the rest of them have doubts—in John chapter 6, at the end of the bread of life discourse—everybody leaves Jesus and Jesus turns to the disciples: “Do all you leave me also?” And Peter takes the lead again and speaking for the disciples told them, “To whom shall we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.” So Peter has a confession—flawed, sort of fatalistic almost sounding somewhat—but Peter is a leader and he led in terms of that confession as well.

Peter also leads. He has, you know, a couple of epistles that are written in the New Testament by him. In 1 Peter 5:1-4 we read this: “The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain, eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but by being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.”

So Peter will be the leader after all of this is over as well. Peter in his epistle will tell other shepherds to shepherd the flock of Christ just as he is being told now to do that by the Lord Jesus Christ. So Peter is a leader. He’s been shown as a leader throughout the gospel accounts, although a flawed leader.

Peter also has a sense of bravado. I don’t know whether that’s the right word exactly, but he’s kind of always, you know, in his zeal to be a leader, to do the things that are required to do, he sometimes says things that seem a little more like bravado than truth.

For instance, in John 13:8, in the upper room discourse, Peter said to Christ, “You can’t wash my feet.” And Jesus said, “If I don’t wash your feet you have no part with me.” And then Peter says, “Well, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.”

So Peter is sort of, you know, blustery. He’s got this bravado. He’s got a sense of zeal, but it needs to be worked on in some ways. It’s a leadership quality, but it’s a leadership quality that needs work.

Again, in John 13:37, Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, Peter, Jesus is just home. You can’t follow me now.” Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for your sake.” Earnestly and honestly said, I suppose. But Peter didn’t recognize exactly what would happen to him. He won’t lay down his life. In fact, in the garden, of course, at the arrest, he’ll try to take somebody else’s life rather than lay down his life. And then at the charcoal fire later, he’ll actually deny the Lord Jesus Christ. But he’s saying here in John to Jesus at the upper room discourse, “I’ll lay my life for you.” And Jesus says, “Will you indeed lay down your life for my sake? Most assuredly I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied me three times.”

So Peter has this sense of bravado about him. He always thinks he’s going to do better than he actually ends up doing.

In another gospel account, as Jesus was telling them that they were going to fall away—again, this is at the upper room discourse—Jesus says to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. It’s written, ‘I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”

That’s why they go to Galilee—because Jesus had told them at the last supper that he would be going to Galilee and they were to meet him there. And then Peter, though, says this: “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away. Though the rest of the disciples fall away, not me.” Peter says, “I love you more than these,” to use the words of our Savior to him in our text today. And then Jesus tells them, “No, even before the cock crows, you’ll deny me three times.”

Peter then says, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.” All the disciples said the same. Saying bravado, a sense of ability within himself to resist temptation that we, knowing the rest of the story, is simply not going to be the case.

So Peter is a leader, albeit a very flawed leader. He has this sense of bravado and overestimation of who he is. And of course this results in Peter’s denials of Christ. It was at a charcoal fire in John chapter 18 where Peter, hanging out with the wrong guy, eyes warming himself with bad men in the high priest’s courtyard, denies Jesus Christ three times. And that’s very much, of course, related to our text today.

Peter denies Christ three times at a charcoal fire. He’s with the wrong people. The very center of that scene, you know, he’s warming himself. And then he’s warming himself—at the very middle of that is the high priest interrogating Christ. Peter is identified with all the fallen world in his denial of Christ. But clearly his bravado, his saying he loved Christ so much he would never fail him, etc., all these things were simply not true. Peter denied the Lord Jesus Christ three times.

And then we have Peter’s repentance. That’s the other part. That’s the concluding, that’s the last shoe dropping, here of course, is that Peter comes to repentance. We saw this in some form and in Peter’s own calling. Remember we said last week that three years prior to this, when the great fish were caught and the boat began to sink, Peter recognized that it was Christ, the Messiah, and he said, “Depart from me. I’m a sinful man.”

Peter has a recognition of his sinfulness. He has a recognition of that early. But the Lord Jesus Christ drives home to Peter here his sin. I believe that’s what’s happening at this charcoal fire.

Jesus has told him immediately after this discussion that he’ll deny him. In Luke 22:32, Jesus says, “Simon Peter, Satan is asked to test you, that he might sift you as wheat. But I made supplication for thee that thy faith fail not. And do thou, once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren.”

Once you’ve repented, Peter, once you’ve turned, once you’ve been healed, converted, cured, then your job will be to strengthen your brethren. Now, clearly that’s what this text is about. This text is about Peter receiving the commission from Christ to strengthen the flock, the brothers that are right there.

And what happens in the context of this is Jesus is turning Peter at a deeper level than what had up to now, at least to this point, happened.

We’re at a charcoal fire. Whether Peter thought about it or not, we certainly do. We have three denials by Peter earlier. Now we have Jesus asking Peter three times, “Do you love me?” There’s differences in the dialogue a little bit, but three times the Savior asks for an assertion of love on the part of Peter. And three times tells him a command, a commission for him to accomplish.

And it’s interesting because the third time that Jesus asks him this, the text tells us that it grieves Peter. Peter says, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” “Yes, Lord, you know I loved you.” And the third time, the text tells us that Peter was grieved because Jesus asked the third time.

I think what’s happening here is Jesus is in control of the situation. He always is, but in John’s gospel, that’s particularly evident. Jesus has a purpose for bringing Peter to grief. Jesus has a purpose in bringing Peter to grief. Jesus knows that this is going to bring up in Peter’s mind his three denials of Christ.

Now, Peter has already been sorry for this the very night it happened. You’ll remember that Jesus could actually see Peter. And we had this poignant incident recorded in the Synoptics: that after Peter denies Christ three times, Jesus looks at him and Peter sees the glance and the look and he goes out and he weeps bitterly.

So he repents nearly immediately for his sin. The look of Jesus Christ can bring comfort and assurance, but it brings sadness. But now it’s the probing questioning of Peter, three times repeated, that drives Peter to a deeper sense of grief and sorrow. It drives him to a place of cure and healing that is important for Peter and is important for any leader.

Peter is being healed here. You know, there’s lots of things, lots of ways we react to our sins. And sometimes all we want is a quick “I forgive you” from someone else or from God. But sometimes it’s not the right thing to do. Sometimes it’s not the best thing just to leave these things in the past.

God doesn’t leave it in the past with Peter. Even though Peter has repented and he’s run to the tomb and he’s been a faithful leader and all this stuff up to now. No. As Jesus prepares to commission Peter, he drives home Peter’s sense of his sinfulness, his weakness, his lack of ability to carry through on his spoken words of assurance to Christ at the upper room discourse.

Jesus wants leaders who know that apart from Christ’s enabling and empowerment, they are weak. He wants men who are not convinced of their strength and who don’t make bold assertions based on their abilities, but rather people who are broken to harness, so to speak. You know, we’re supposed to be those who Jesus has under control. He’s the Master. And blessed are the meek, the scriptures say. And that word “meek” in the Greek meant those who were broken to harness. It was a horse, a wild and powerful horse that does not lose power, but whose power is now brought under dominion of the rider. That’s meekness in the Bible. Not weakness. It’s strength under the control of Christ.

And the way that happens is by making a horse humble. Not by killing him or by making him slavish, but by humbling him. Peter is becoming humbled as a result of the probing question of the Lord Jesus Christ. And his humility and his grief leads him to make the statement, “Lord, you know all things. You know my heart.”

The implication, of course, is Jesus knew Peter’s denial. He knew Peter’s faultiness of heart as well as Peter’s love for the Lord Jesus Christ. God is the one who searches the heart. In 1 Samuel, we’re told that men look at the exterior appearance. God searches the heart. In Romans 8, it is the God who searches the heart with whom we have to do.

And Jesus searches the heart of Peter and reveals to Peter in a fuller sense his own sinfulness, his own weakness in preparation to make him a ruler.

Peter needs to be cured of a couple of things. Peter may have despair. An awareness of our sin can bring us despair, not believing the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we can just despair. We can sort of spin down. We can think, “Well, I’m so sinful. I’ve done so many things wrong. I’m just going to forget the thing.” But we need to be cured of that to be effective pastors, to be effective men and women for the Lord Jesus Christ.

God wants us to know that God knows our sins. Just like Jesus knew the three denials that Peter had exhibited before him. Jesus knew Peter’s heart, which was prone to overstatements and then given to weakness as a result of his own sin. God knows your heart. Don’t think that you’ve got to hide it somehow. Don’t think that somehow it hasn’t been dealt with definitively.

In the midst of this curing of Peter, Jesus assures him of his commission. Peter is knowing the love of the Lord Jesus Christ in his forgiveness even as he’s being brought to a deeper awareness of his own sinfulness. Because that’s the other thing that Peter has to be careful of—not remembering his weakness and his sinfulness before Christ.

If Peter is as strong a personality, as gifted and as able as he really is, and he was, make no mistake about it—think about it. His bravado results from his desire to serve Jesus Christ. His natural gifting we could say is to be a leader. But men who have that kind of gifting and capability to be leaders must know their weakness. They must be humbled before the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, they will be those men who rule over others without forgiveness, without grace, without patience with other people in their sin.

What an odd way for Jesus to conduct an ordination examination, right? This is his ordination examination. Yeah. It’s interesting. In the CRA, I hadn’t put this together until I studied this text. Stupid me. But in the CRA, there’s directions for the oral examination of ministerial candidates. And the very first oral exam—there’s lots of, you know, theological questions and Bible knowledge questions. But the first question is: “Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?” That’s the first question here. Great question. That’s Jesus’s question, is it not?

As he’s preparing and in the process of ordaining Peter, a formal ordination going on with giving him his job and his task, that’s all he asked Peter: “Do you love me?” But his preparation, as I’ve said this before, for Peter for leadership is also to show Peter how horrible he is, to cause him to come to grips with his own sinfulness, his own weakness, his own inability to lead correctly for the Lord Jesus Christ apart from Christ’s enabling and love for him.

You know, it’s interesting too that when we ask people, “Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?” it’s a tough one for them to answer. And sometimes I think part of that is because we get it a little wrong.

You know, in this text, there are these two Greek words: agapao and phileo. And you’ve probably heard all of this. Agapao supposedly is divine love. Phileo is brotherly love. And so Jesus says to you, “Agapao me.” And Peter says, “Yes, I phileo you.” Jesus says, “Do you agapao me?” And Peter says, “Yes, I phileo you.” And then Jesus says, “Do you phileo me?” And Peter says, “Yes, I phileo you.”

And some people say, “Well, the problem with this is that Peter is failing because he doesn’t really have that divine love. He just got that brotherly love thing going on.” That can’t be true because in response to the question, “Do you agapao me?” Peter says, “Yeah.” Is he then going to use a different word to show that he doesn’t really agapao God? I don’t think so. I don’t think that washes in the context here.

And finally, Peter says, “Do you phileo?” Beyond that, I could take you to many places in John’s gospel and in other gospels and I could take you to Septuagint translations of Old Testament statements of God’s love and I could show you that agapao and phileo are used interchangeably very often. There’s not the distinction that we like to make all the time.

So I don’t think that Peter is failing. On the other hand, I do think it’s important to recognize that while they’re synonyms, there are two different words being used. John likes to do this. At the end of our text, he says, “Follow me.” And really, it’s kind of like, “Let’s go for a walk. Come on.” But we know something more significant is happening. We know he is really giving the final command to Peter by which he’ll fulfill his ministerial obligations, which is following Christ.

So John’s gospel is full of this: of course, Thomas the Twin. These things all have twins, but still they’re synonyms, but they’re used differently.

Well, I think that Jesus helps us to see that in his first question of people: “Do you love me more than these?” I’m sure not referring to the boats and the netting and all of that—referring to the disciples, the other disciples. But how should we take that?

Well, again, you know, in John’s gospel, these things are sort of left up in the air for us to meditate upon. And we can meditate on: “Do we love Jesus more than our possessions?” That’s okay. We can meditate upon: “Do we love Jesus more than we love the people around us?” That’d be another way to look at it. We can say, “Do we love Jesus more than we love people?” because we want to be a God-pleaser and not a man-pleaser.

But I think in these two terms being used—phileo which is brotherly love, agapao which is kind of divine love—I think what God is doing is showing that the culmination of the gospel is these are becoming wedded together.

Peter saw Jesus. You don’t. And if I ask you if you love Jesus, I think what you’re going to have to think of is, “Well, I may love the person I call Jesus sometime,” like Mark Horn said once: “He’s the God I pull out of my pocket and talk to, you know, and kind of some kind of version of God that fits our own vision.” Or we can say, “Well, I love Jesus. I know I do because I love his people. I have an agapao love for God because I have phileo love for my fellow Christian.”

And it seems to me that’s what is going on here: John or Jesus is driving Peter to see this correspondence of the love for him with his love for people.

Now, that’s written in really big letters in the actual commissioning statements, right? “If you love me, feed my sheep, right? Nurture them. Pastor these people. If you love me, love them.” You can’t see a distinction between the kind of love.

Peter is being cured of independence. Peter is being cured of maybe a sinfulness that drags him down and he’s being cured of a seeing of himself as more able, more holy than he probably should. He’s being humbled. That’s what’s happening to Peter. He’s being equipped to be a leader of men by being humbled before God and by being exhorted once more to exhibit that love for God in the context of his love for God’s people.

So I think that what this tells us about as we look at the history of Peter, we’re really seeing the cure of Peter. We’re seeing his being brought to fuller health by the Lord Jesus Christ. Great moment of commissioning, but a tremendous moment of bringing Peter to his knees once more, driving home: Elder W. loves to read that text from Corinthians about the effects of biblical repentance, what they look like. Jesus is driving home a sincere, heartfelt, deep repentance on the part of Peter, coupled with an understanding on Peter’s part that as well as Jesus knows his denials and his sinfulness, his stupid statements asserting he could do things that he could not do, as much as Jesus knows all of that about him, Jesus is still empowering him and making him the leader of the church.

He’s still giving him the shepherd’s staff and giving him the Bible to teach to the other disciples and to the flock.

See, so it’s both things here. We’re being cured of our pride and we’re being cured of a prideful self-centeredness that all it ever thinks about is our own sin as opposed to the calling and grace of God that enables us to minister for the Lord Jesus Christ.

The implications for pastors are quite obvious. As I said, the pastor is the one—the elders of the church must love Christ and must love the church. He must not love Christ more than these—from one perspective, I mean from one perspective, yeah, you have to love God more than man. That’s ultimately it. But from another perspective, no. If you think you love Jesus more than you love your brother, you see—Jesus is saying, “Well, you probably don’t really love me. You love something else that you’ve sort of made into me.” But the pastor must be one who loves Christ and loves the church of Jesus Christ and desires to serve them.

The supreme requirement for the office of the leader in the church, in the family and business, is a love for those he ministers in the context of.

Now there’s also a requirement for parishioners. From Psalm 138:8, I’ve cited this verse frequently. At the end of the year, God tells us in Psalm 138 that “the Lord will perfect that which concerns me.” The psalmist says, “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.”

You have to be cured of a self-centered sinful awareness that doesn’t move on to commissioning. You’ve got to be patient with other people’s faults and difficulties as all of them were with all the disciples were with Peter. And you also have to be patient and considerate and understanding and accepting of your own frailties and your weakness.

Peter was driven to an awareness of his history, who he was. And He was empowered for further ministry to Jesus Christ so that his history might change. He would not completely transcend his history. We never do. After this, Peter will again sin in grievous ways. Paul will talk about his sin with the Jews and the Gentiles in the book of Galatians. So we’ll read again about Peter’s sin. He’s not completely leaving his history behind, but his history is not as significant as his future is with Christ.

So we are brought to an awareness of our history as we’re discipled by the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we’re able to transcend that history and to move forward. We have to avoid the sin of thinking that somehow, you know, it’s only those who really have left their past behind completely that can serve Christ. It doesn’t happen. Jesus works through your history, cures you of it, heals you from it. But we have to be patient with ourselves, patient with others as we minister in the context of the work that God has given to us.

The Lord will perfect that which concerns your parish, your fellow parishioner here at RCC in the pew next to you. The Lord will perfect that which concerns you. As the year is marked by an evaluation looking back and a joyful looking forward, recognize that God is moving you forward as well.

We have to have patience and understanding with ourselves and with others. Peter will indeed sin after he becomes more humble through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we should love Christ by loving those people even though we’re trying hard not to still sin. And we should also come to an appreciation for what God’s doing in our lives.

So the curing of Peter.

Secondly, the commissioning of Peter.

And this is kind of the same thing that we’ve seen over and over again throughout the scriptures. What is Peter supposed to do? Jesus says it three times. And in those three times, he uses the term for older lambs. He uses the term for young lambs. He uses the term for feed. He uses the term for rule. And so Peter’s commission and his ordination ceremony here is number one: to feed Christ’s flock, to feed Christ’s flock.

He is to minister the word of God to that flock. He is to do it in a way that is appropriate for little children and appropriate for adults. Peter is to understand the flock is made up of different kinds of people and yet it’s one flock as well. Unity and diversity. Peter is to recognize that this flock is the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Do you love me?” Jesus says. And if so, feed my people. They are me. They are Christians. Peter is to feed them.

Peter is also to rule them. In 2 Samuel 5:2, we read that “you shall shepherd my people Israel and be ruler over Israel.” The parallelism to shepherd in the Old Testament is quite clear: it’s to rule. And to shepherd in the New Testament, we want to understand what the Old Testament predicted about that.

And as Peter is called to shepherd the flock of God, he is called to rule the flock of God. He is to minister to them by leading them. He’s to protect them. That’s what the civil magistrate was to do: to guard the flock and to rule them, to keep them in some degree of order in their lives.

So this represents the two-fold ministry of the pastors of the church of Jesus Christ: to teach and to rule.

And now this is in the context of discipleship. On our strategy map, we have reflected the great commission: Make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them. To baptize them is to bring them into the flock. Our responsibilities as pastors is restricted to those who have been brought in terms of the teaching ministry—the discipling ministry is to those that have been brought into the flock through our evangelistic work. Those are the people that are the proper subjects of discipleship.

Those who have been brought into the visible, recognizable flock of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s who Peter is called to teach. Each are the members of the flock. You become part of that organized group, the church, through baptism and then you maintain your standing in the flock by regular attendance at Lord’s day worship, being part of the church and the community of Christ.

You know, we have a horrible problem in our country when people kind of come in and come out, come in and come out. How do I know? There are people at this church some I don’t know—are they members of the flock or not? I’m not talking about those who have not become formal members. That’s a great way that we have of doing that. But I’m saying that when people come in and come out of the church of Jesus Christ, they really are not identifying with the flock and the responsibilities of the elders are in the first place to begin discipling them, to call them to be in the context of Christ’s flock.

So to shepherd and to teach Christ’s flock—this is the two-fold commissioning that Peter has been given.

And number one on the outline: this teaching, Peter is to teach and rule the flock of Jesus Christ. And this we can see in relationship to—again, this is in the context of the new creation. Adam was to nurture and guard Eve. He was to grow her up and mature her and he was also to protect her, to guard her.

In the same way, Peter is to shepherd the flock, to protect the flock and to nurture the flock, to grow them up in maturity into the image of the Son of God, into the image of Christ, by feeding them his word, Christ’s word, and by protecting them.

This is important for pastors because what it tells us is that we’re to think of the church of Jesus Christ the way that she’s described in Ephesians as the bride of Christ, okay? Pastors have a flock. And if the pastors do not do right with the flock, it’s like Adam who failed Eve. It would be like David who failed in his responsibilities as king—of Bathsheba, his sin with her. Really, it was David’s sin, right? He failed to guard Bathsheba.

Jesus Christ has a bride. Now, you know, ma’am, we’re supposed to protect our wives, right? And to nurture them as well. And if somebody attacks your wife and you don’t defend her, you’re not a husband. You maybe think you are, but you’re not acting like God wants you to act. You’re to have a proper jealousy, a proper jealousy to protect your wife from other, you know, from serpents of different sorts and varieties. And the church of Jesus Christ must be pastored by men who desire to protect the flock and who also recognize that if they don’t take good care of the bride of Christ, he is going to become very angry.

God is portrayed in the Old Testament as a jealous God because he wants to protect his bride and he will bring wrath and condemnation against those shepherds who fail to properly shepherd their flock—his flock rather—his bride.

Implications for the pastors: Acts 20:28. Paul, he gives the same basic idea. He summons all the elders in Ephesus and he says, “Take heed to yourselves to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.”

So the implications for pastors are obvious.

There’s also implications for parishioners here though. It is an ecclesiastical text, but it teaches us as well, for instance, the responsibilities of men in their homes, vocational leaders, etc. But it also teaches us something about the lambs.

The responsibilities for parishioners are to eat the food that’s provided and to submit. As I mentioned last week, this would be a bad Sunday to miss Sunday school class. A number of you did—my class got significantly smaller this week. I think some of the other classes did as well. Things come up. I understand that it was a week of finals for some of the older kids, etc. And people, I you know, you do need to have proper sleep to hear the word of God preached.

Having said that, understand that if the pastors are called upon to feed you, part of the way that we’re fulfilling that job of loving Jesus Christ and feeding his bride and thus transforming the world is to provide classes, particularly for the young ones, the lambs, as the text tells us today, in the word of God.

And it’s a responsibility and you’ve got a responsibility to try to take advantage of the teaching opportunities of the church. If this is the call of the pastors, it’s the call of the parishioners to eat the food that’s been provided, to try hard to understand your obligations to come before the teaching ministry of the church. Certainly in the sermon, but also in Sunday school and also to submit joyfully to the rule of your elders.

Hebrews 13:17 says, “Obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account.” See, the plot purchased by Christ’s blood. The pastors have to give an account. Don’t make it a grievous thing for us. Let them do so with joy, not with grief. That would be unprofitable for you.

Your job as a parishioner is to submit joyfully to the men that God has placed as pastors over you.

Same thing in your homes. Children should submit joyfully to their parents. Learn from them. Hebrews 12:10 says, “Indeed, for a few days these fathers chastened us as seemed best to them, but he for our profit.” Fathers chasten children to disciple them. And children, in response to that truth, knowing your dad must chasten you or he doesn’t love you—that’s what Hebrews says. Your job is to submit—get to that—to joyfully follow your parents’ lead, learning from them, not just intellectual truth, but how you should live your life.

So the obligation of the parishioners are to be teachable and to joyfully submit to the leadership of the church. Christ shepherds through men. Your job is not to learn from Jesus directly and to submit to Jesus, somehow thinking that doesn’t have an impact on men. If God says that Peter, “you’re going to represent me now to my flock,” then that means to the flock as well: it is Jesus Christ who is teaching you.

See, it’s Jesus Christ who is leading you as you’re teachable to the authorities that God has placed in your context. You are becoming teachable to Jesus Christ. You’re receiving his gift of knowledge mediated through men. And as you joyfully submit to the proper leadership of those in the church with implications for the family and the job and the state, as you joyfully submit to them, you are following the Lord Jesus Christ. You are following him, not man. God works through men.

Are you teachable? Jesus gave Peter a job. And he gave his flock a job. The flock were to learn. To learn. We all should be learners of the teaching of Christ. And our job is to submit.

Submit does not just mean to do what somebody tells you. To submit is to joyfully follow the pastors of your church, to joyfully follow the leading of your husband, to joyfully follow your parents, to joyfully follow your bosses at work, to joyfully follow, as much as you can, if they’re ruling godly, the civil magistrates of the land. That’s what submission is.

It has—submission means you should have a heart that wants to put the best construction on what your pastors are telling you. That’s submission. The wife should want to follow the lead of the husband and try to think about, “Well, he said this. What’s the best spin? Maybe I didn’t understand right. I really want to hear from him things that I can joyfully follow.”

Now, sometimes you’ll hear things you can’t follow from me, from the other elders, from your husbands, from your bosses. Occasionally, that will happen. They’re in opposition to Scripture. But your job is to be teachable and to desire to joyfully follow the pastors of the church.

We’re sketching out a strategy map in direct association with these great climactic texts of the gospels, right? And you should be teachable about that and you should be desirous of following us in the lead that the elders set for this church. And when we make decisions, lots of discussion—we like discussion in this church—but when we make the decisions, then we expect people to joyfully follow us. Unless somehow it’s in opposition to the word of God.

Crescendo of Peter.

Now we have the great crescendo of Peter’s life. How will Peter’s life end? With great glory. Jesus says, “Amen and amen. Most assuredly, I’m going to tell you something real important now for you, Peter.”

What the text tells us: “When you were young, you had your own way about things. But when you’re old, you’re not going to have your own way about things. When you were young, you girded, you girt yourself, clothed yourself, walked where you wish. When you’re old, you will stretch out your hands and another will guide you and gird you rather and carry you where you do not wish. This he spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God.”

The great crescendo of Peter’s life will be his death. And Peter knew this. He wrote in his epistle, “I know this death is coming. Jesus Christ signified to me this death.”

Now, church history tells us, I think quite truthfully, quite accurately—we don’t have to wonder about this—that Peter was crucified like our Savior. Although he asked to be crucified upside down because they wasn’t worthy of being crucified right side up.

And many people have seen in this that “you will stretch out your hands and somebody else will gird you”—a tie to crucifixion. You would have to carry the cross beam of the cross, not the whole thing, the cross beam, and you’d have to stretch out your hands so that they would attach your hands either by nails or usually with rope to the cross beam. And then they would lead you to the place you’d be crucified.

And so there is probably here a reference to Peter’s death of crucifixion. But you know, beyond that, what we see here is that through Peter’s death, he will glorify God in his very death. Being faithful, not now to deny Christ. His history is not determined by the past. His future history is determined by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in transforming him. Now Peter will actually go to his death doing what he said he would do originally: “I’ll die for you.” This is what’s going to happen through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ empowers us to have a different future than what our histories would indicate. Our histories do tell us about what our sins and our tendencies to sin will be in the future. Peter continued to sin. But Jesus takes that history and transforms it and empowers us for effective leadership.

The great crescendo of Peter’s life is his death. And you know, it’s not just Peter’s death. This is the great crescendo of all of our lives. All of us will be taken, be clothed for our death, be placed in our death places by other people. We won’t be crucified. Some will die martyr’s deaths. Most of us won’t. Some will die in their beds. John F.’s dead. Wonderful way. Many years of faithfulness to Christ die peacefully in his bed. Some of us will die of wrenching illnesses. Some of us will die quickly in car crashes.

But the end result is that our death has been transformed by the death of Christ. We die in connection to our faithfulness to Christ. If we remain part of the flock of Christ, our death brings glory to God. I believe that’s what the text is telling us. All of us, as we submit to something none of us wants to do—die—we submit to the glory of God and for his glory, we enter into that death as well.

Now, the crescendo of Peter’s life is indeed his death. His call is to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

The final commandment that Jesus gives to Peter is to follow me. The command to Jesus to Peter.

And on one hand, this is just Jesus saying, “Let’s go. Let’s take a walk.” And that’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to move away from the altar fire. But on the other hand, there’s clearly something very significant going on.

Peter will follow Jesus in his death, literally in crucifixion in this case. But remember that it was for the joy set before Christ that he endured the cross. Peter’s death will glorify God. But Peter’s following Jesus Christ will also mean glory to Peter. Jesus has transformed our death.

When we come up out of that hole in the ground like Saddam came up this morning, we come forward to a bright future. God will glorify us as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ. We are transformed.

You know, Peter has, just in the earlier part of this chapter, he puts his robe of glory back on after doing his work and he plunges in the sea to go to Jesus. Well, there it is, right? We are we’re to work. We’re to be teachable. We’re to teach others. We’re to submit joyfully to Christ. We’re to lead other people that God has put in the context. We’re to enjoy Jesus by enjoying the discipleship that represents him.

That’s the gift Christ gives to us. And that’s the gift that we’ll labor at doing with joy for the rest of our lives. And then the time will come when God will have us plunge into the sea, to move beyond, to go through the final threshold, through the final transition point of our lives. We’ll go through physical death but it will be with robes of glory upon us because of the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ has transformed death. He has given us the gift of life and we will cross that sea gladly, racing to the Lord Jesus Christ who will welcome us and say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

Jesus gives us eternal life. He gives us life so that we might be his disciples, so that our lives may be filled with the desire to know and follow him. And as we know and follow him, by knowing and following the people he’s put in our lives and by leading them correctly, we move toward that great and final consummation of our own death, which brings the grand glory of then seeing Jesus the way Peter saw at this fire. Then all of our joy is complete as Jesus will tell us, “Well done, thou good and faithful disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your great blessings to us. We thank you that Jesus gives us himself today. Thank you for his word and thank you for his reign. We pray that this may be a season in which we rejoice in both of these. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.