Last Words | Do You Love Me? - John 21:15-19 - Clint Leavitt

In our final week of sermon series through the Gospel of John, Last Words, we consider how Peter's denial and restoration invites us to confront an uncomfortable truth: we are all capable of profound failure, yet that very failure becomes the gateway to experiencing God's deepest grace. The passage from John 21 reveals Jesus meeting Peter on the beach after his threefold denial, not with condemnation or minimization, but with a transformative love that penetrates to the core of our shame. We discover that Jesus refuses both to cancel Peter for his betrayal and to sweep it under the rug. Instead, He does something far more radical—He exposes the wound precisely so He can heal it. The charcoal fire, the threefold questioning, the pointed reminder of Peter's boastful claims—all serve not to shame but to bring honest acknowledgment. This teaches us that healing from our failures requires complete honesty before God. We cannot experience the heights of Christ's love until we acknowledge the depths of our sin. The beautiful paradox emerges: Peter's greatest failure becomes the foundation for his greatest leadership. His weakness, when surrendered to Christ, becomes his strength. This challenges our cultural narratives that tell us to hide our flaws or define ourselves by our strengths alone. In Christ, we find a different path—one where our scars become the very places where grace takes root and new life springs forth.