Earlier this week, I had something happen that in this day and age of social media, I feel like it happens decently often. But I woke up one morning and the time comes. I tried not to like, is email type try to not hit their phone right when they got a bit? I'm trying really hard to do that.
It's sometimes a successful bit. At some point in time, I realized that somebody on Instagram had liked like 20 pictures and I didn't recognize the name. And I saw a follow account at the bottom. I'm like, OK, that's kind of weird.
Maybe creepy a little bit. Some stranger does this. But then I realized that it's not some stranger. It's actually the guy who's the best man in my way.
And he's not on the internet at all hardly. And he has some of his user names that you can't figure out who it is by the name. And I never, his son is now like nine years old. I'm not seeing his son's like two.
And so I was like, oh, this is my friend Jason. And then once I realized that, I was like, I should have known this was Jason. Because all the things, these pictures, because I did the internet stalks thing first you know what I'm talking about? Or you kind of scroll through.
It all looks like him now. I mean, there's not any pictures of him on there. But it's like all the things I know he's like. I realize, oh, OK, this is my friend Jason.
It just took me realizing all the things that were going on for me to make that connection. And last week, we started just a couple of week conversation about the apostle Peter. And about his denial of who Jesus was, and then also just the reconciliation that happened between him and Jesus. And then we also, we talked about how Peter's every one's favorite disciple because Peter's normal Peter messes things up at times.
He's loved by Jesus, but he's also impulsive. Like his favorite party trick is putting his foot in his mouth. Like he's really good at all those awkward things that we do. And that's who Peter is.
We like Peter because we're all Peter. We like Peter's story and we need Peter's story. But at the last week, we talked about how Jesus predicted that Peter would deny him. Is Peter's making these bold projections of all the things he would do for Jesus.
And we went to the book of John, but then we also looked at the book of Luke. And now in this last moment, right when Jesus denied even knowing, even knowing who Jesus is, the rooster crowed, which Jesus had predicted, and there's this glance between Peter and Jesus. As Jesus was being led off to be interrogated by the Romans. This rooster crowed and that their eyes connected.
This is deep moment of sorrow for Peter. We also realized that Peter kind of goes from this awkward, like bumbling guy in the gospels to just this powerhouse for Jesus in the book of Acts. And in a lot of ways, just this transition that Peter's making is one of the things that really does change you. He is still Peter.
He's always going to be Peter. He makes Peter mistakes even after this. But he's dramatically changed. And I think it's because of this.
Last week we talked about how our terms can be the worst terms. When we tell Jesus what we want Jesus to do. And this week what we're talking about though is our purpose is wrapped up in our following. And we're going to look at how Peter's following changed this day.
So let's open up the book of John chapter 21, 1 through 14, is where we will start. This takes place and we can just kind of tell Bible time line. This is just a couple of weeks after the crucifixion. Probably maybe week and a half after the disciples knew that Jesus had rose from the dead.
So this is still pretty quick emotions. In chapter 21, later Jesus appeared again to the disciples besides the Sea of Galilee. And this is how it happened. Several disciples were there.
Simon Peter, Thomas, nicknamed the twin. Nathaniel from Kaina and Galilee. The sons of Zebedee and two other disciples. And Simon Peter said, I'm going fishing.
We'll come out too. They all said. They went out in the boat and they caught nothing all night. Don Jesus was standing on the beach.
But the disciples couldn't see who he was. They called out fellows. Do you have any fish? No, they replied.
And he said, throw out your notes on the right hand side of the boat and you'll get some. And they did. And they couldn't haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. Then the disciple Jesus loves said to Peter, it is the Lord.
When Simon Peter heard that, it was the Lord. He put on his tuner for he'd stripped for work, jumped into the water and headed the shore. The other stayed with the boat and pulled the net to the shore. For there were only 100 yards from the shore.
When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them. Fish cooking over charcoal fire and some bread. Bring some of the fish you just caught, Jesus said. So Peter went on board and dragged the net to shore.
There were 153 large fish. And yet the net hadn't told. Now come and have some breakfast, Jesus said. And none of the disciples dared to ask him who are you because they knew it was the Lord.
Then Jesus served in the bread and the fish. This is the third time Jesus had appeared to his disciples since he had been raised from the dead. So a couple of weeks after the resurrection, we find out that the disciples that were from Galilee went home for a little while. Now Peter and his brother Andrew were professional commercial fishermen.
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also professional fishermen. So they kind of went back and took care of the family business for a while. They were waiting. And they're out there all night long fishing.
And nothing's happening. And then they think they see somebody they know. But just think about just some of the emotions that might be present in this, the futility, the frustration. Now a lot of y'all know this.
I'm about to make a lot of fish jokes today. I don't like to fish. I'm scared of fish. So I don't care when I don't catch any fish.
But if you actually care about fishing, you'd be pretty frustrated in this situation. And also, they're not like setting out juglines or casting rods. I mean, except in the story, they're throwing nets out. And they're not getting a single thing.
I also think that they're probably sometimes just sharing seven disciples on a boat. And they're probably going back. Even at the time, Jesus said this. So there's probably emotional moments with the highest.
And there's also probably emotional moments when they're low. They're all kind of processing this out together. But nothing's happening. It's not.
They've gone back to their old life. They've gone back to their old ways. Instead, it didn't seem like bad's happening here. But in their old life, in their old ways, nothing good has happened.
Nothing right is happening. In so many ways, we also find, in this little section of the story, is this is like a mini gospel. This one story condenses Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into just a handful of verses. Because we see the relationship that exists between Jesus and the people that he calls out.
We see another miracle of abundance. Think of the feeding of the 5,000. And all these other stories that this just resonates inside of. But also, in this story, it sounds a little familiar because it exactly mirrors nearly Jesus' original call to Peter in early on in Luke's gospel.
And in that situation, Peter's fishing with his brothers. They're not catching anything all night long. They say something about Jesus sees them, says something about it. They say something back.
And Jesus says throw your net to the other side. And then that becomes so full, they have to call extra boats in to help them get the net because their boat is sinking. And it's after all these things happen to back of their mind. I think that reminds me of that.
That's Jesus. And we see Peter doing what Peter does. He abandons the president. He abandons all of his friends and all the hard work they have to do without just disregarding the present situation, jumps out.
He says he, other translations so he had to put his clothes on. I wouldn't want to fish naked, would you? Does that seem like a good idea? That's kind of it's, maybe he was that guy.
I don't know. But he put his clothes on and he jumped out to swim. We probably made just tied up his robe, but still. It's fun to make fun of it though.
But without regard to what his friends need, he just rushes into a situation like Peter does. But in this situation, he's actually running towards what actually is best for him. Because everything in this situation reminds him of what has happened before. And Peter's learned his lesson.
He knows that following never results in failure. And he doesn't want to make mistake the second time. When we don't name or when we don't know where Jesus has been in our past, we are going to struggle when he reveals himself in our present. Everything about the situation just screamed Jesus to Peter.
And he knew that he absolutely wanted to be the center of what was going on again. And so he does whatever it takes to get there. Our purpose is wrapped up in our following. And so Peter, he gets to Jesus when we were called back to, we read last week that Peter denies Jesus three times by this charcoal fire.
It's a very specific kind of fire. It only shows up two places in the entire gospel of John. And Peter's denial of Jesus. And in this story, he's also going to read to you, John 21 verse 15 through 17.
And just think back to what we talked about last week. And just look at this now and just start trying to track some similarities here. After breakfast, John, Jesus asked Simon Peter. Simon, Simon, Simon, Simon, John, do you love me more than these?
Yes, or Peter replied, do you know I love you? Then feed my lamens, Jesus told me. Jesus repeated the question, Simon, Son of John, do you love me? Yes, or Peter said, do you know I love you?
Then take care of my sheep, Jesus said. A third time he asked him, Simon, Son of John, do you love me? Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, Lord, do you know everything?
You know that I love you. Jesus said, it's in feed my sheep. So yet again, they're by this fire. And yet again, a statement is made three times.
We see Peter sad because he knows exactly what's happening right here. He knows there's no such thing as going through reconciliation and going through forgiveness without there being pain, without there being honesty, without there being responsibility for things. But we see this transition taking place within him because Peter's purpose will be found in his following. Previously, just a couple of weeks before this, Peter, all of the songs is equal of Jesus.
So in a situation like, you know what? I'll say he tried to actually die instead for Jesus. He wanted to just say, I can take care of this. Take care of this, Jesus.
Peter learned his lesson. It was a hard time. He was not following. Peter found his value because he was a disciple, not finding his value because he was loved by Jesus.
And now where we see Peter truly following Jesus, following Jesus on awareness of who he was with an awareness of what he was capable of with an awareness of what's going on. He's following Jesus and doing so with an understanding because Peter had come to terms with the context of his betrayal. Peter thought he was able to do things when these things only belong to Jesus. And then it's interesting that this back and forth, you love me, do you love me, do you love me?
And Jesus says, feed my lambs, tend to my sheep, and feed my sheep. Jesus actually uses multiple words for love inside of this conversation with Peter. He kind of covers the water as far as love is concerned with Peter. But what's more interesting is this whole idea of tending and feeding.
It seems weird, but what Jesus is telling Peter is, I need you to take care of people like I do. Not like you do. I need you to take care of people like I do. And then the next layer to this is this idea of tending, rather than feeding, it's two different concepts.
But he says, I need you to tend my sheep. He's saying, I need you to take care of the people that I take care of. I need you to have eyes that see people like I see. And what's so interesting is this idea of tending is a generic word for taking care of barnyard animals.
But in the New Testament, with the exception of this story, that word is only used to describe people who are taking care of pigs, which sounds kind of weird, right? But if you look at the story of the Gerasneen, D'Amagnac, the man that was possessed by demons and Jesus sent the evil spirits out into the herd of pigs and they ran themselves over the cliff, or in the story of the prodigal son, where the son ends up taking care of someone else's pigs. You remember Jewish people have animals that are clean and that are unclean. And to a Jewish person, a pig represents the ultimate and unclean.
You can't get more unclean than a pig. And so here's Jesus using the word for taking care of pigs. He's asking Peter, you need to have different eyes and you need to have a different categorization of people. And you need to have a different understanding of what does it mean to love people like I love them.
You need to not have boundaries. You need to not have barriers of the love that you give to others that I gave you. He says, show your love to me by responding to others in the way that I have responded to them. Our purpose is wrapped up in our following.
When we look at the story, there's really three things about following that we can learn, that we can apply into our lives, that it can help us order the way that we see, and the way that we do things. The first one is forgiveness. This moment of forgiveness between Jesus and Peter. This is just the utmost denial.
I mean, there wasn't that much of a difference between Peter and Judas. And John actually kind of sets the story up to compare and contrast them in those moments. But at his core, Jesus is forgiving. It's not an action that he has.
It's not something that he does. It's something that he is. Jesus is forgiveness. That makes us ask ourselves the question, are we still a Christian people if we're not a forgiving people?
Jesus had every human right to not pay attention to Peter after this. And think about betrayal. Think about when maybe with a time when you felt betrayed or when you were betrayed. What's the likelihood that you didn't fixing breakfast for that person?
Are we still a Christian people if we're not a forgiving people? If our purpose is wrapped up in our following, and we choose not to follow Jesus in exercising forgiveness, are we truly following Jesus? That's core Jesus is forgiving. The second thing, this is interesting, is this whole net business of throwing the net and there's all sorts of stuff.
We could talk all day long about this net. This net's a lot more interesting than I think you realize, but we're not. But if our efforts aren't relying on the guidance of Jesus, they will be fruitless. Unless we can clearly hear and see what Jesus is acting us to do, we can do all the good things in the world, but they might not ever be the right thing to do.
So many times we think of good and right and bad. And as long as it's not bad, we're doing okay. But what's the situation shows us is there's a market difference between good and right. You know, having the net on the other side is indicative of us just, our necessity we have to cooperate with what Jesus is asking us to do with the prompting of Jesus in order for us to receive the fullness of the blessing and the faithfulness that Jesus offers.
The story talks here about, there was 153 fish, it seems like a pretty random number, right? So ancient ichthyologists, like fish scientists, worst job in the world, I think, believe that there are 153 species of fish in the world. The entirety of creation is wrapped up in this net. That's kind of that underlayment to this story.
The fullness of all the world is inside of this net. And in short, what this really is is us learning that Jesus asks us to move from our present position sometimes. He's like, you need to change something. If you keep on doing it your way, you're not gonna see anything.
If you respond to my, really all they do is throw the fish on the other side of the boat, by the net, on the other side of the boat. I've never fished with a net before. I try to avoid fishing. But it seems to me, the likelihood of you catching nothing with the net on one side of the boat and catching all the things on the other side of the boat, doesn't really make much logical sense to me.
I might be proved afterwards in a text message after church today, but all Jesus is asking us to do is just consider what would happen if we move from our present position, just a mind, you shift in what that brings in our life. But the last thing that we can do in from this story today is we have looked at following and looked at forgiveness and all these patterns in Peter's life, what changed him to be just this remarkable person for the kingdom, is this. Jesus says, don't worry, Peter. The second time he asked if he loves him, Jesus told Peter, he said, do you love me more than these?
He's not saying I need you to love me more, or you're supposed to love the most, or he's just asking Peter to just focus on him. Peter had lived a life previously of comparison. Do I have this kind of ability? Do I have this kind of influence?
Do I have this level of importance? Do I have this or not have this? Where am I? Where am I standing with you right now, in Jesus, all these things?
And what Jesus is, Peter, don't worry about that, man. I need you just to focus on me, focus on loving me, and that will be big enough. That would be all you need to do. Our ability will be found in our willingness to follow Jesus.
And that's the only thing that we need to worry about. Helps us figure out difference between good and right, even more. All we're asking, all we're asking is just to follow Jesus. At the level that we can understand, and the level we can follow right now, and to have the hope that tomorrow will bring us what we need for tomorrow.
Our purpose is wrapped up in our following. Let's pray together. Lord, this is a story of forgiveness that's unlike anything else. And as we ask ourselves the questions, what does it take to do these things we've heard, and we've seen, we find it going on exactly in the life of Peter right now.
It's a story of the Lord that he encountered you in an honest and truthful way. It's a responsibility for himself. And he realized the depths that he went to for him. And for us, all that really matters is just doing the same thing.
But we pray to have the faithfulness to see and understand where you've been in our past, and we can recognize you in the present. Because I know you're big enough. You're big enough to do those amazing things for us. Thank you for inviting us in to a life of mission that stands together.