John's Gospel, chapter 21, from verse 15 through to 25.
That's on page 907 in the Church Bibles,
which are available on the table at the back of the sanctuary,
both downstairs and upstairs.
Print it on the screen, and it's also in your bulletin as well.
So John 21 at verse 15.
When they had finished breakfast,
Jesus said to Simon Peter,
Simon, son of John,
do you love me more than these?
He said to him,
Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
He said to him,
Feed my lambs.
He said to him a second time,
Simon, son of John,
do you love me?
He said to him,
Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
He said to him,
Tend my sheep.
He said to him the third time,
Simon, son of John,
do you love me?
Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time,
do you love me?
And he said to him,
Lord, you know everything.
You know that I love you.
Jesus said to him,
Feed my sheep.
Truly, truly,
I say to you,
when you were young,
you used to dress yourself
and walk wherever you wanted.
But when you are old,
you will stretch out your hands
and another will dress you
and carry you
where you do not want to go.
This he said to show by what kind of death
he wants to glorify God.
And after saying this,
he said to him,
Follow me.
Peter turned and saw the disciple
whom Jesus loved following them,
the one who also had leaned back against him
during the supper
and had said,
Lord,
is it that,
Lord,
who is it that is going to betray you?
When Peter saw him,
he said to Jesus,
Lord,
what about this man?
Jesus said to him,
If it is my will
that he remain until I come,
what is that to you?
You follow me.
So the saying spread abroad
among the brothers
that this disciple was not to die.
Yet Jesus did not say to him
that he was not to die,
but if it is my will
that he remain until I come,
what is that to you?
This is the disciple
who is bearing witness
about these things
and who has written these things,
and we know
that his testimony is true.
Now, there are many other things
that Jesus did.
Were every one of them to be written,
I suppose that the world itself
could not contain the books
that would be written.
Amen.
May God bless to us
reading of his own precious
and most holy word.
We are continuing to look at
encounters with Jesus,
and we're looking again
at this encounter
between Jesus and Peter
at the very end of John's gospel.
Peter has just had breakfast
with Jesus on the beach.
Peter was a spectacular failure.
We looked at that last week.
Peter had said,
before Jesus' crucifixion,
if you go to die,
I will go to die with you.
And when it came time
to test that,
Peter denied
even knowing Jesus
three separate times.
And here,
the spectacular failure
of Jesus Christ,
pardon me,
Peter,
is encountered
by Jesus Christ.
And Peter
is encountered
because Peter
experienced a moment
where he was treacherous,
and he was a coward,
and he was a liar.
And Peter carried
a wound
so deep.
So if you've ever
found yourself
in a place
where you think,
I didn't know
I was capable of that,
crossing a line,
it creates a wound in you
that is so deep,
only the Messiah himself
can heal it.
And when they had breakfast
on the beach,
Jesus Christ,
the surgeon,
healed Peter
and restored him.
And he did that
by way of walking
through repentance.
Peter experienced
real repentance.
And so last week,
we were asking,
have you ever experienced
real repentance?
And real repentance
is staring
at the mirror
of your sin
that Jesus is holding up
and looking at the truth
of your wounded heart,
your sinful heart,
and saying,
who can understand
how deep the sin goes?
The pride problem
I have really goes.
And then from that,
experiencing the godly sorrow
that Peter did.
It says,
Peter says it was grieved.
And by that,
it means,
you know you've had
real godly sorrow
and real repentance
when you say,
I'm not so concerned
about what my sin cost me.
I'm concerned about,
I want to acknowledge
what my sin cost him,
cost Jesus.
And that's godly sorrow.
That's real repentance.
And when Peter experiences that,
he is restored.
He's forgiven.
He was already forgiven.
And that means today,
if you come as a person
who knows yourself
as a failure,
who knows yourself
as a person
who has crossed a line
in your life,
if you are willing
to look in the mirror at all
and say,
my heart is desperately wicked,
who can understand it?
The absolute best place
to be,
no matter if you're a Christian
or not this morning,
is to come and sit
at the feet of Jesus
at the charcoal fire.
That's the best place to be,
to sit at Jesus' feet.
And the question
I want to ask today
as we look at this passage
and extend it a bit
one more time,
we'll look today
down to verse 23.
We'll have to leave
the very end of John's gospel
for later.
The question I want to ask
is what happens
when a follower of Jesus
experiences a spectacular failure,
but then they're forgiven
like Jesus loves to do.
And they're restored.
That's the word,
restored.
And what we see
in this passage,
and this is what we never
could get to last week,
is that then
you're commissioned.
So what we learn here
is that when you are restored,
when you are forgiven,
you're also commissioned
or recommissioned.
In other words,
verse 19,
when Peter experiences forgiveness,
Jesus says,
follow me.
be my disciple.
You're restored,
you're recommissioned.
What does it mean?
So let's think about that.
What does it mean?
And today is less of a day
that's maybe pulling
on the heartstrings
and more of a day
that's asking the question,
if I'm a Christian
and I really have received
forgiveness after forgiveness,
what does it mean
to follow him?
So that's the question.
What does it mean
to follow him?
And then I just want
to conclude secondly
with one danger
from this passage,
one warning
that this passage gives us
about a barrier
that we all might face
to following Jesus.
So first,
what does it mean
to follow him?
Here,
Jesus is not just saying
to Peter in this passage,
your sin is covered,
you're forgiven.
And he is saying that,
grace upon grace.
He's turning then
and saying,
because you have been graced,
you've been clothed,
you are now being sent,
you're being commissioned,
you're being sent
to go and do something,
to go and follow me
all the way.
In other words,
your failures,
even as a disciple,
look,
if you've been following Jesus
for a long time,
but you've been in a pattern
of running from him
and of saying,
I didn't know
I would be capable of that,
even as a Christian,
that sin does not disqualify you
from living for him,
following him,
becoming again
a renewed disciple,
and that's what's going on here.
So here's the metaphor
that Jesus gives.
He says to Peter,
okay,
you're restored.
Now go three times,
feed my sheep,
tend my lambs,
feed my sheep.
That metaphor,
of course,
for Peter means
that he's being called here
and said,
hey,
you're still an apostle,
you're still a disciple,
you're also going to be
a minister,
a pastor,
you're going to have to preach.
So if you open,
if you flip over
to the book of Acts,
you can read all about
Peter's ministry
and how amazingly
at times
he fulfilled that command,
go and feed my sheep,
tend my lambs.
But,
what I want to say today
is that this is actually
the ark of every believer.
So when you read
the whole of John's gospel,
you realize that Jesus
is saying this
to all of us.
So if you come today
as a Christian,
the ark,
the story of every believer
is you've had to stand
in the mirror
and Jesus say,
stare right into
the heart of your sin
and receive grace
and restoration
and forgiveness
and now go and feed
my sheep,
go and tend my lambs.
So if you're a follower
of Jesus today,
this is not just for Peter.
The command,
feed my lambs,
tend my sheep,
follow me,
is for every single
one of us.
And so let's ask
a little more,
okay,
what does that mean
for us as people
in 2025
to actually do something
like that?
Let me give you
three things it means.
First,
Jesus says to Peter
three times,
do you love me?
Do you love me?
Do you love me more
than these?
Is the first question
he asks him.
And we learned
that back in John 18
and before that,
Peter had said,
Lord,
I love you
and I love you
more than all these guys
and I will follow you
all the way to the very end
even if it costs me my life.
And when the time came,
he failed so spectacularly.
So today,
resting on his pride
in the past,
following Jesus
out of competition,
following Jesus
to get something,
to get a sense of
I'm better than other people.
That was his life before.
But after he failed
and then the resurrection happens,
he comes back again
and he receives
the same question,
do you love me
more than these?
And now what he says is,
I love you.
Lord,
you know that I love you.
And because he has experienced
such grief over his sin,
he can truly come
in this moment
and say,
I love you
out of a place of weakness.
Now here,
friends,
everybody today,
what is the first way
after you've been forgiven
and restored
that Jesus says,
follow me?
How do you do it?
Verse 19,
how do you follow him?
And the first thing
is to see this.
You follow him
by turning around
and loving him.
And so I just want
to simply ask today,
follower of Jesus Christ,
do you love Jesus?
Can you say today
when Jesus asks,
in the midst of your weakness,
in the midst of the fact
that he has died for you,
he has risen for you,
can you say today,
yes,
Lord,
you know I love you.
And what does that mean?
That means
not a perfect love at all,
but in some sense
having affection for Christ,
in some sense
having a heart of affection
that he draws you in
over and over again.
But if you think as well
about the rest of John's gospel,
in John 15,
John,
what did Jesus say?
He said,
if you love me,
how do you love him?
You will keep my commandments.
You'll listen to my teachings.
And so we learn,
the first way to follow Jesus
is just to ask the question,
am I growing
in my love for him?
And if I love him,
am I looking at his teachings
and seeking to obey them?
Now let me take that further.
Secondly,
the second way to follow Jesus.
It's right here in the passage.
When he says,
do you love me?
Then he turns and says three times,
feed my sheep,
tend my lambs,
feed my sheep.
And notice the pronoun there,
feed my sheep,
tend my lambs,
Jesus says.
Sometimes,
I know that this happens
to everybody
that's a member
or attends a local church
pretty regularly,
but sometimes,
especially when you're
a minister,
pastor,
people will say to you
something like,
how's your church doing?
You know,
and then you say,
you never know what to say.
You know,
I don't know.
I think it's okay.
Other people probably don't.
I'm not sure.
I'm thankful for what God's doing
around here.
But what's the question?
How is your church doing?
You could ask that as a member.
How's things at your church?
And if you're being cheeky,
you want to say,
well,
hold on a second.
It's not my church.
So Jesus here says,
feed my sheep,
tend my lambs.
And so he's saying to Peter,
get out.
In other words,
what is he talking about?
He's saying,
get out and love the church.
Love the church,
my sheep,
my lambs.
That's who he's talking about.
Now look,
if we were to put it all together,
what does it mean
to follow Jesus,
to respond to grace,
to be a disciple?
It means first,
to turn around and say,
not in order to get
into his kingdom,
but because I already am,
I want to grow in love
with you,
Jesus,
and love for you.
Love God,
and then he says,
love the church.
Sounds like a good
vision statement.
Love God,
love the church,
and then love the place
that you've been sent,
love the city.
This is the sum total
of what it means
to follow Jesus.
Love God,
grow in love for Jesus,
and love the church
is what he ultimately
tells Peter here.
He's been restored,
and he says,
love me,
and tend the people,
tend the sheep
that you've been given.
And this is for everybody.
Third,
lastly here,
to love him,
let me now bring this
into summary.
Okay,
if I could summarize this
in one image,
and it's right here,
I think,
coming out of the text.
To follow Jesus,
to be a disciple of Jesus,
is to give him,
then,
your heart.
So it's not to give him
your heart
in order to get his heart.
It's not to give him
your heart
in order to get
God's love for you.
It's because you have
God's love,
then you say,
now I want to grow
daily in giving
my heart away
to you,
Jesus.
John Calvin,
during the Reformation,
the great reformer
of Geneva,
he would write
a lot of letters
to people,
and we have
some of those letters,
and at the bottom
of his letters,
he would always,
often,
stamp or seal
and wax
an image,
and this image
has become
pretty famous.
some universities
use it,
or seminaries
use it as their image,
but it is,
you might have seen it,
it's two hands
like this
holding a heart,
and sometimes
when he would
put underneath
the seal,
he would write,
my heart
I give to you,
Lord,
promptly
and sincerely.
And so it was really,
the motto of his life
is,
because you have given me
your heart,
Christ,
I give you back
my heart,
and that's what it means
to follow Jesus.
It's a great image
to take away today.
In other words,
the final hymn
we're going to sing
in a few minutes
is,
I will go
where thou leadest me,
I will give you
my heart today.
Now,
what do we learn?
What do we learn here?
As a follower of Jesus,
we learn that
he is calling us
not to be directed
by our own desires,
but directed
by his mission for us,
to give our hearts away,
and that's exactly
what's going on
in verses 18 and 19.
If you look down
in verse 18 and 19,
he gives this parable,
Jesus does,
to Peter,
and he says,
truly, truly,
I say to you,
when you were young,
you would dress yourself,
you would walk
wherever you wanted to walk,
but when you're old,
you're going to stretch
out your hands,
somebody else
is going to dress you,
somebody else
is going to carry you
where you do not
want to go.
And John adds
this little parenthetical
comment,
that was a prophecy,
a parable,
about the death
that Peter was going
to ultimately
go and die.
What's going on here?
This parable,
this parable,
he's saying,
when you're early
in your discipleship,
Peter,
when you're following
me after this,
things are going
to be smooth,
they're going
to be okay.
Read Acts,
the early chapters
of the book of Acts,
but when you grow older,
somebody's going
to take you
where you do not
want to go.
And you can even
notice in this,
in verse 18,
he says,
somebody's going
to force you
to stretch out
your hands.
So we learn
by tradition,
second century
Tertullian,
Clement of Rome,
these early
second century
disciples,
that Peter,
around 80,
70,
was crucified.
And Jesus here
is referencing
that.
When you grow old,
this is going
to be 35 years
later from this
moment,
somebody's going
to stretch out
your hands
for you.
And you're going
to go to a place
that you do not
want to go.
And that's what
it means for you
to be called.
Now,
the last two
looks at John 21,
let's bring it
all together
and connect this.
We have noticed,
if you've been
with us,
we've noticed
that there have
been some deep
connections between
multiple passages
in the Gospels.
The beginning
of John 21,
the disciples
were out fishing.
They were not
doing the ministry
God called them
to do.
They were sitting
on their hands.
And that had
happened in Luke 5
as well,
when Peter and
these disciples
were first called.
In Luke 5,
they were out fishing
and Jesus said,
you haven't caught
any fish,
go cast your net
on the other side.
John 21,
you haven't caught
any fish,
cast your net
on the other side.
That's the scene
here.
Or last week,
we saw that.
In John 18,
when Peter denied
Jesus three times,
where was it?
If you were here
with us,
you remember,
around a charcoal
fire.
John 21,
Jesus restores
Peter around
a charcoal fire.
John 21,
15 to 25 today.
When Jesus wants
to express to Peter
what it's really like
to be a disciple,
what it's really like
to follow him
all the way,
he says to him,
I bid thee go
and die.
I bid thee go
and die for me.
Back in Mark chapter 8,
the first time Jesus
ever said anything
like this,
Jesus said
to the disciples,
to Peter,
I have a cross
to bear
and you can't go
where I'm going.
And Peter said,
what do you mean?
And Jesus said,
I have to bear the cross,
I have to go
and die for you.
And Peter said,
oh Peter,
he said,
no Lord,
you can't die,
we won't let that happen.
And Jesus said,
get behind me Satan.
You know,
foolish Peter,
always running his mouth
and there he was again.
And then Jesus turns
and he says something
so important
that's right here
in John 21.
He said,
you too
must take up
your cross
and follow me.
Mark 8,
John 21,
what is Jesus saying?
When he turns to Peter
and says,
one day you are going
to go and die,
he's connecting it
to the same claim
Jesus has been making
the whole of his ministry
in the gospels.
He said to followers
of Jesus
over and over again,
what does it mean
to follow him?
It is,
I bid thee
go and die.
Take up your cross
and follow me.
That is the heart
of discipleship.
It's the heart
of what it means
to follow.
Love Jesus,
tend my sheep,
love the church,
and I bid thee
go and die.
Now what type
of death is this?
As we finish
this first point,
what type of death
are we talking about?
This is a death
that every Christian
is called to.
And is it
the physical martyrdom
that Peter experiences?
No,
not at all.
We of course know
that most Christians
are not called
to become martyrs.
Some are,
some aren't.
But what type
of death is it?
There's a commentator
on Mark's gospel
that's fairly well known,
a guy named James Edwards.
And this is what
he writes about
the idea
that Jesus says.
What does it mean
to be a follower
when he says,
take up your cross?
What exactly
does Jesus mean by that?
This is what
James Edwards writes.
He says,
Jesus chose an image
of extreme repugnance
to describe discipleship.
The cross was the instrument
of cruelty, pain,
dehumanization,
and shame.
The cross symbolized
the hated Roman oppression
and was reserved
for the lowest social classes.
It was the most visible
and omnipresent aspect
of Rome's terror apparatus.
He notes that in 71 BC,
the Roman general Crassus
defeated the famous
slave Spartacus.
You probably know
something of that story.
And what did he do?
Crassus,
the Roman general,
crucified Spartacus
and 6,000 people
down the stretch
of one long road.
And that was really
the beginning
of the cross
as Rome's terror apparatus.
One century later
in 71,
approximately 80,
Nero,
the emperor of Rome,
will crucify Peter
along a road
in the city of Rome.
And James Edwards comments
and he says,
this is the image.
Boy,
this is the image
that Jesus chose
to say,
go and be my disciple
like that.
Take up a cross.
This repugnant,
hideous image
in the first century.
You know,
a Jewish person
in the first century
would have known
how ugly this was,
how horrific this was.
And ultimately,
at the heart of it,
it's got a death.
That's what he's talking about,
a death.
What kind of death is this?
He says,
Peter,
to truly follow me,
I bid thee go and die.
Christian friend here,
disciple,
if you are a follower of Jesus,
he's saying,
I bid thee go and die.
What kind of a death is it?
And just one little line
back in Mark 8
tells us ultimately
what it was all about.
And back in Mark 8,
he says,
if you really want to follow me,
if you want to save your life,
you must lose it
for my sake.
What kind of death is it
that you have to die
to be a follower of Jesus?
Jesus.
It's not physical necessarily.
It's not the death
of a martyr necessarily.
No.
What has to die?
What has to die
is a part of you.
That's what has to die.
That's what Jesus
is talking about.
To be a follower of Jesus
that's growing,
that's growing in love for God,
love for the church.
He's saying,
ultimately,
that looks like this
killing a part of you,
killing a part of yourself,
a daily dying
that has to take place
where you are,
one part of you
is looking at another part of you
and saying,
this old part of me
has to die.
It has to be mortified.
It has to be killed.
And it sounds really philosophical,
but it's simply something like this.
Paul says,
this type of death
is the death
of the love of self.
And Jesus is saying,
true discipleship
is to give your heart away
every day
into the hand of Jesus
and say,
I recognize today
that something of me
has to die
if I'm going to follow you.
And what has to die
is the love of self
expressed
in selfish relationship,
selfish ambition,
selfish desire for wealth,
selfish greed,
selfish care,
selfish comfort.
And he's saying here,
Peter,
you've got to be willing
to become fully a follower
by losing that part of yourself
that wants to live for self,
that wants to love self
all the way
to the day of your death.
This is a call
to daily dying.
This is a classic
Puritan expression.
Wake up every day
and say,
Lord,
to live is Christ,
to die is gain.
I,
how does Paul put it?
I have been crucified
with Christ.
It is not me
who lives today,
but me in him.
So I give you my heart
into your hands.
Show me all the ways today
that I need to die to self
in order to live for you.
It's very painful.
It's not easy.
It is very difficult for us
and it is the call
that we're given.
Not in order to be
a part of God's people,
but because we are.
The call to dying to self
every day.
Now,
let me finish secondly
and briefly with this.
There is one warning here
that is a barrier
to this type of discipleship
in the passage.
The danger is always,
this is what happened
with Peter over and over again,
is that without that commitment
to daily dying to self,
you will drift back
to your old life.
You will drift back
to the old desires.
You will drift back
to your old self.
And Peter found himself
in that place
over and over again
in his life
and that's an experience
that any Christian
in the room
can describe, right?
Verse 20 and 21,
boy, Peter,
he's just been restored.
He's just been forgiven.
And in verse 20 and 21,
it says that
as Jesus and Peter
are walking down
the beach together,
Peter turns around
and he sees John,
the disciple,
following them.
They're walking down
the beach.
John is following them.
And as soon
as Jesus says to Peter,
you have to go
and die for me,
Peter's response is,
what about him?
John,
is he going to have to?
He says,
Lord, what about this man,
John?
He's the other leader
of the apostles.
Is he going to have
to do it too?
And Jesus can only say,
do not worry about him.
Why are you asking
about John?
I have put you
where I want to put you
and I've given you
the life that you're
going to have.
Go and die to yourself
and follow me.
a great barrier
to growth as a disciple.
I had three,
I cut it back to one.
You'll be thankful.
A great barrier
to growth as a disciple
is the alluring power
of comparison and envy,
of looking at other people's lives
as a Christian
and saying,
Lord,
why didn't you give me
that life?
Why didn't you give me
that gift?
Why didn't you call me
to that part
of your little kingdom,
of your enormous kingdom,
a little part
of your enormous kingdom?
Why didn't you give me
that, Lord?
Comparison and envy,
as it's commonly said,
is a thief of all joy.
It will steal your joy away
and it will actually turn,
what does comparison
and envy do?
It turns us back
into self
when Jesus has said,
give me your heart
every day,
daily dying.
Comparison and envy
are one of the many issues
we struggle with
that turns our minds
and our hearts
back to self-interest
instead of self-forgetfulness
because it constantly
keeps us in our own heads
and says,
why not?
Why not me?
Why don't I have this?
Lord,
why didn't you give me this?
And we're being told here,
we're being shown here
by Peter
that you can be standing
in the presence
of Jesus Christ
restored,
forgiven,
recommissioned,
saying,
Peter,
you're going to go
do great things
for the kingdom of God
and immediately
sidelined by comparison
and envy
and struggling
with the,
ultimately,
what is this?
This is the allure
of comfort
and saying,
that sounds great,
Lord,
I want to be forgiven
but I don't want
to count the cost
of discipleship.
I don't,
I want to live
a comfortable life.
Why does John
get to not die for you?
Why do I have to?
He wants to be comfortable.
You see,
the allure of comfort
drives him
to the allure,
the struggle
of comparison
and envy.
Envy,
what is love?
What is true love?
Love is when
you look out
at other people,
when Jesus says,
feed my sheep,
tend my lambs,
when you look out
at other people
and say,
I'm happy
with your happiness.
That's real love.
I am excited
for the good things
going on in your life.
Envy in comparison
is a nasty thing
and what does it do?
It says,
I'm sad
when you're happy
and I'm happy
when you're sad.
And Jesus is saying,
Peter's showing,
watch out
because it will take you
out of the path
of growing
and following Jesus.
And what's the only antidote?
Daily dying.
Lord,
I give you my heart today.
Kill that part of myself
that needs to die
that is envious
and comparing
and struggling
with wanting comfort
far more than giving myself
away for you.
That's the part of us
that ultimately has to die.
Let me bring it home to me,
to a pastor,
to a minister.
This can happen to anybody.
Here's an example.
Can the local pastor,
can the local minister
look at what God
might be doing
down the street
bringing a small revival
or a big revival
to the church,
to the Baptist church
down the road
and say,
I'm happy
for what God is doing
down there.
I'm excited for that.
I want,
if we lose people to that,
if people go there
because of all God's doing,
I want to see
the kingdom grow.
See,
the allure of envy
would say,
institutionalism.
It's this place or nothing.
It's the allure
that can capture all of us.
Maybe social media today,
maybe you need to,
as we pray in a moment,
need to ask,
is social media
robbing me of discipleship
by putting me
in the path
of comparison and envy
and self-interest,
turning me back in on
what is my life like
compared to everybody else
all the time
and taking away
the possibility
of daily dying?
God has put you,
let me close with this,
God has put you
exactly where you are.
God had given Peter
exactly what he wanted
for Peter
and that was a hard
providence,
martyrdom,
and he's calling us
today to say,
do not let comparison
and envy
take away
the path of calling,
the focus on it
that God has ultimately
given you.
Charles Dickens,
in his book,
A Tale of Two Cities,
there's a character
named Sidney Carton
and if you've read it,
you'll know about Sidney.
Sidney was a man
who had a life of regret.
He was an older man.
He really hated himself,
a lot of self-loathing.
He was deeply cynical
and it's because
he was,
as a young man,
told by everybody
how brilliant he was
and how much he was
going to do with his life
and how great he was
going to be
and he had just lived
a really mediocre life.
He had never done
anything great
and as he got older,
it made him deeply upset
and angry,
really self-loathing,
hated the world,
hated himself
but at the end of the novel,
one of his friends,
Charles,
was arrested falsely
and imprisoned
and Charles was sentenced
to death by guillotine
and Sidney,
coming to himself
and getting out
of his self-interest
and self-loathing,
getting out of his own head.
He realized that
throughout the book,
Dickens hints at this
several times,
but Sidney and Charles,
they looked alike.
People confused them
for brothers quite often
and so Sidney turned
and he went into the prison,
snuck in
and took the place
of Charles in the prison
and let Charles,
helped Charles escape
and then Sidney went
to death
by guillotine
for Charles
and Dickens puts
these words
in Sidney's mouth
at the end of the book.
He says that going to die
in the place of another,
this is what he writes,
Sidney says,
it is a far,
far better thing
that I do
than I have ever done.
It is a far,
far better rest
that I go to today
than I have ever known.
And what is he saying?
He's at,
look,
here's what he's saying.
What makes life great?
What makes life great
is not,
is when you look up
and say,
I have given myself away
for a purpose
far bigger than me
and not been crushed
by self-loathing
and self-interest.
I've become self-forgetful.
That is what makes life great.
That is what brings joy
ultimately in life
and that is exactly
what Jesus is calling us to.
Don't let comparison
and envy
take away self-forgetfulness.
Daily dying
is the only prescription.
I give the last word
here to Peter's story today.
If you were to read now
the rest of the New Testament
and follow Peter's narrative arc,
Peter went out
and was self-forgetful
and he followed Jesus
and he lived
throughout much
of the book of Acts
in a way that was
amazing and important
and many people came to faith
because of his ministry.
But about 15 years after this,
flip to the book of Galatians
and we find out
that when Paul went
to visit Peter at Antioch,
he said Peter
was actively
and openly
denying the gospel
and he was refusing
to eat with Gentiles
and he said
that Peter used
to eat with Gentiles
and call them
brothers and sisters
but now he's not.
Why?
Because other people
came to Antioch
and said,
no, no, no.
If you want to be a Christian,
you've got to follow Jesus
and be circumcised.
You've got to follow Jesus
and obey all the works
of the Mosaic law
and Peter,
afraid of what other people
thought about him,
went around saying,
yeah, yeah, that's it.
If you want to be a Christian,
it's more than Jesus.
Boy, oh Peter,
a failure constantly
throughout his life.
Paul even uses the language
that attends to being
anti-Christ, anti-gospel
in Peter's ministry
in that moment.
And that means that
Christian discipleship
and following Jesus
is not a 45 degree angle
of virtue enhancement.
It is a constant struggle
and up and down.
And Peter's narrative arc,
you flip over to 1 and 2 Peter,
these beautiful letters
that we have from him
10 years after Peter
denying the gospel
to the Galatians,
in Antioch,
noted in the book of Galatians.
And this is what he says.
I think,
let me finish with this.
I think Peter was thinking
of himself and his story here
when he writes these words.
He says,
Jesus Christ himself
bore our sins
in his body on the cross
so that we might die to sin
and live to righteousness.
By his wounds,
you have been healed.
For you,
here it is,
for you are like sheep
without a shepherd.
You are like sheep
going astray,
but now you have returned
to the shepherd.
How many times
did Peter have to say,
but now I've returned
to the shepherd?
Jesus keeps bringing us back.
That's the arc
of following him
throughout life.
You do not have
to be good enough.
You do not have
to be a good enough disciple
to be worthy
of Jesus calling you
a disciple.
The message here
is not,
if you follow me
and if you adequately
take up your cross
consistently,
then I will give you
the power of my cross.
The message here is,
I have given you
the power of my cross.
So keep coming back.
Keep coming
and be restored
and be set back
on your path.
A question for you.
As we pray,
do you today,
everyone in this room,
do you today
need to be restored
and recommissioned
this morning?
Do you today,
as we pray,
join me in prayer
in just a moment
and say to the Lord,
Jesus,
I am captured
by legalism.
I'm captured
by seeking approval.
I'm captured
by comparison.
I'm captured
by envy.
I'm captured
by wanting comfort
far more than daily dying.
I'm not living for you.
I'm not following you.
And be restored.
Let us pray.
Father,
we are captured
and so we recognize that.
We are struggling
with following you
all the way.
And so today,
we confess before you
our need of approval,
our need of comfort,
our struggle
with comparison
and envy
that is taking away
our self-forgetfulness
and our ability
to just live for you
and to love you
and love people
and love the city
and love the place
where you've put us.
And we just want
to recognize our struggle.
And so,
in the light of that,
Lord,
restore us,
deliver us from that,
set us back on our path,
help us to hear
the words that
we don't give you
our hearts today
so that we might be accepted.
We give you our hearts today
simply to respond
to the fact
that we have been accepted
by you.
Take our hearts today.
We give you our hearts
this very week.
We pray that in Jesus' name.
Amen.