Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

No front door evangelism today

Scripture Reading

Pastoral prayer

INTRODUCTION

The subject I want to talk about today is what I call “John’s Great Commission”.

And since we preached out of John last week on the resurrection, I want us to study the final chapter in John today.

So if you have a Bible please turn to John 21:15.

Each Gospel gives some kind of Great Commission to the disciples.

Matthew’s Gospel is probably the most well known, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

John’s version is quite different but it has some great teaching on about our call to service.

BACKGROUND: Jesus had just been crucified on the cross.

This chapter describes the third appearance to the disciples after the resurrection.

This appearance begins with the disciples out fishing all night and they had caught nothing.

But someone calls out to them from the beach and tells them to throw the net off the right side of the boat.

They do as the man says and the net becomes so full of fish that they were not able to haul it in.

They immediately realize this is Jesus on the beach and they rush in to see Him.

Here are the disciples sitting around a a charcoal fire cooking fish, and Jesus gives some great lessons on Christian leadership and service.

Every believer is called to serve.

There is no one who follows Jesus that is not called to serve Jesus.

Jesus said, “where I am there my servant will be also.”

And there is no way to serve Jesus, without serving one another.

This is God’s plan for the Christian community and it is His plan for us.

John 21:15-17 “So 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, “Tend My lambs.”

He said to him again 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, “Shepherd 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 all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep.”

Explanation

Why does Jesus ask Peter if he loves him three times?

If you remember before Jesus was arrested, he told the disciples that he was going away.

And Peter heard this and said I’m going with you!

And Jesus said to Peter where I am going you cannot come.

Now Jesus was talking about the cross.

And only Jesus could carry the cross that paid for our sins.

Peter’s response to this? “I will lay down my life for You”.

Now you have to love Peter because he was so confident in himself.

He was the one who cut off the slaves ear in the garden.

He was also the one who threw himself into the sea and swam back the beach when they saw Jesus.

He was the first one to confess Jesus as Lord.

Peter always spoke up first and for the crowd.

And Peter told Jesus, “if all the disciples fall away, I will never fall away!”

A little later, in the garden Jesus is arrested.

And Peter follows Jesus into the courtyard where he is confronted about his relationship to Jesus.

And Peter ends up denying Jesus not once, but three times just as was predicted.

After that denial, Peter and Jesus do not speak again until after the resurrection.

And it is until now that the matter of Peter’s denial is brought up.

So Jesus asks Peter 3 times, if he loves him, and Peter answers each time, “Yes, Lord”.

But that third time pierced his heart as the sin of his denial resurfaced and He had to face it before the one he had sinned against.

What Jesus does with Peter it absolutely NECESSARY in all of our lives because we are not usable with sin hidden in our hearts.

Our sin must be dealt with before we be used by God

Bridge

Do you know how God gets sin out of our lives?

He exposes it.

He brings it to the surface so it can be acknowledged, and then be dealt with.

And what Peter needed most in this moment was not a sweeping under the rug about what he had done, but to acknowledge his mistakes and reconcile his relationship with Jesus.

Is this painful?

Just ask Peter.

The Scripture says that third time of being asked if he loved Jesus, it “grieved” him.

And I could only imagine the pain of having to face that sin in front of the one he had betrayed.

Until we deal with our sin, it sits in our hearts and eats at us like a disease.

It keeps us from growing and causes us to stumble.

It steals our joy, and it keeps us from being used by God, and because God loves us too much to let sin remain, He brings it to the surface.

He operates on us like a Great Physician through His Word or through a sermon, or through another person and exposes our sin for what it is and calls us to face it, and to walk away from it.

1 Timothy 1:12–13 (NAS): I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor.

Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.

Having a past history of sin does not disqualify us.

Once being someone we are not proud of does not keep God from using us.

It is when we choose to not deal with the sin that Jesus has brought tot the surface that keeps us from being used by God.

I read a quote in a book not too long agin that I would like to share with you.

He said this, “God can use a bent spoon, a crooked spoon, or even a twisted spoon, but he cannot use a dirty spoon”

Our love of Jesus is demonstrated by how we serve one another, not by our words

Explanation

I want you to notice how Jesus never tells Peter to repent.

In fact, the word repent is never used in the gospel of John.

But this deal with Peter is exactly what is happening.

2 Cor 7:10 “For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

And I think that is exactly what Peter is doing here.

He is grieved over his sin and Jesus restores him.

Not by scolding him, but by commissioning him.

Jesus doesn’t question Peter’s love, but tells Peter how he can demonstrate his love to Jesus.

He tells Peter, “Feed My lambs, Shepherd My sheep, Tend My sheep”.

Instead of saying Peter, your word is good enough.

you can trust in your own words of love towards me.

Jesus says, here is how you can show me love!

Bridge

Love is never demonstrated by words alone, but always followed through with action.

And even more specifically in this context, by how we serve one another.

Peter was not just called to serve Jesus, but to serve the Jesus’ people.

And every believer’s called to this same service.

Jesus washes the disciples feet

When Jesus washed the disciple’s feet in the upper room, they did not understand what was going on.

Jesus was doing what a servant should have been doing.

This is why Peter said to Jesus, “you will not wash my feet!”.

And then Jesus said, no servant is above his master.

In other words, what he has done, we must also be doing.

It is our calling church members to serve one another.