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Pastor David Mitchell
We've been talking about the love of God lately, we've been specifically talking about agape love and what it means and we went through 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and looked at God's definition for what His kind of love is and this morning I want to take a look at an interesting passage here.
We've talked about this with our young people in the school on Mondays during the devotions and it seems like every time we talk about it we bring out or the Lord brings to light something new and powerful.
And so let's look at this one more time this morning. Starting with verse 15 in John chapter 21, follow along with me. It says, So when they had dined, Jesus saith unto Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?
He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. And he saith unto him again the second time, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And he saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.
He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things.
Thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Then feed my sheep. Now I want us to go a little bit further in this passage. Look at the next verse. Verily verily I say unto thee, When thou wast young, and thou girdest thyself, and walkest whither thou wouldest, but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not.
This said he signifying by what death he should glorify God. Now look at this last sentence. And when he had spoken all these things to Peter, he said unto him, Follow me. Now I want us to go back and look at this again.
You go back to verse 15. We discussed this last time. If you look at the Greek language, which is the language that God brought his word to us in in the New Testament, we see that it is a much more specific language than the English language.
It gives you colors of meaning where English just kind of puts it out there in grays. And we understand in the Greek language there are at least three words for the word love. Whereas in English we just call it love.
And we've been discussing that for some weeks now. The highest form of God, of love, is God's love. And we know that the scripture says God is love. And in the scriptures when that word is used, it is the word agape.
And we've understood through the weeks that agape is such a love that it does not depend upon the object of the love. It depends on the character of the lover. And it is also a type of love that does not respond to the one that it loves because it doesn't need to respond because it comes from the will.
So agape love is a choice and it is when one purposes to love the other. And really the only genuine form of agape love must come from God. He is the only one capable of loving in that manner. But what's wonderful about that is as we are filled with the Holy Spirit, then we have that capability to love one another that way.
In fact, Jesus said, this is what I want you to do. It's a new commandment. He says, I want you to love one another because this is how the world will see that you are my disciples. So the greatest witness you can have is not on Thursday night going out witnessing.
The greatest witness you can have is to love one another with that kind of love. Now another thing we've learned as we studied through 1 Corinthians 13 and we saw all the different forms of that love, it was really quite convicting to me and I think to some of you because sometimes when you preach and you notice it gets kind of quiet out there.
You may not have even thought it would be that way when you were preparing the message and all of a sudden God comes down and it just gets real quiet. People are thinking. And really what I think happened is as we looked at what love was and we looked at ourselves and we let this Bible be a mirror where we look at ourselves, we saw that we weren't doing those things to one another and we were compelled to admit that the only time that we don't bear all things, for example, the only time that we don't have patience with one another, for example, is when we're in the flesh.
So if we look at love, it is a marvelous reflector of when we're in the flesh and when we're in the spirit. When we're spirit filled, when we're carnal. It is impossible to love with God's love in the flesh.
And so when we find that we are able to love one another with that kind of love, we are walking in the spirit and it's a good barometer of that. Now what I found was interesting. If you look at this passage in John 21, starting verse 15, when Jesus asks him, do you love me?
He says, do you agape me? So let's look at this. Look at verse 15. The first time he says, Simon's son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Jesus says, do you love me with agape love? And you miss this in the English, but Peter answers it, yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee, but that's not really what he said.
In the Greek language, he said a different word. He did not say, I agape you, he said, I phileo you. And in Greek, the word phileo means to be fond of or to like someone or to have a friendship type fondness with someone.
It does not mean to have that deep, eternal love of God for someone. So Jesus says, Peter, do you love me with that deep, eternal kind of love that I have for you? And Peter says, well, sure, Jesus, I'm fond of you.
Isn't that an amazing thing when you know that's what he said? At least he told the truth, didn't he? Because he could not say truthfully, I agape you, Jesus. He couldn't say it. So he didn't. He changed the subject.
He said, well, I like you a lot. And then Jesus comes back the second time and he says, Peter, do you agape me with that abiding love that God has and that you can only have in God? Peter comes back and says, I don't know why you keep asking me this.
You know that you're a friend of mine. Do you see the significance? But this is what I found to be very unusual. And to be frank, I had overlooked it. But look at this. Let's go down to the third time.
Look at verse 17. Jesus saith unto him a third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And Peter was grieved about it. And he comes back and says the same thing. You know I like you. But what is very fascinating about this is when you look at the third time when Jesus says, Simon, do you love me?
Jesus changed the word from agape to the word Peter had been using. He said twice, do you agape me? Peter answered twice, I like you a lot. And the third time, Jesus turns around and says, do you like me?
Now, that's interesting to me. And Peter says, well, you know all hearts. You know that I'm fond of you. You know that I like you. You know that I'm your friend. And I would just ask this morning, what do you think is the significance of the fact that Jesus changed to the next level of love and matched what Peter was saying that he had, which was friendship or a fondness?
And he asked him, do you really have that for me? And Peter says, you know my heart. You know that I do. Well, I think there's a great clue to this found in verse 19. And that's why I wanted to read a couple of extra verses.
Let's look at verse 19. This spake Jesus. And so he had spoken all these things to Peter to teach him something. And at the conclusion of the lesson, Jesus does one more thing. He looks at Peter. He had already told him, feed my lambs and feed my sheep.
And now he adds this, follow me. Now, here again, the English loses the meaning almost entirely. But I want to give you the Greek word for the word follow in this verse. It is the word akoloutheo. You don't have to pronounce it or say it.
If you want to write it down, I'll spell it for you. You got a piece of paper about this long? It's A-K-O-L-O-U-T-H-E-O. Akoloutheo. Now, as you know, most Greek words consist of at least two smaller Greek words.
Because that's how we get the specificity. We can get down and get very specific by combining other words, smaller words that are simpler and we know exactly what they mean. And you put them together to make this word.
And God uses that to give us the colors of the meaning. And akoloutheo, the first word is actually the first letter, A. Or in Greek, alpha. And it is understood by the Greek mind that the letter alpha symbolizes and always stands for the concept of union or unity.
Oneness. Because it's the first letter. And so the first word in this is alpha, which is really just a letter. It's the A or the ah sound in akoloutheo. And the second part of that word means simply a road or a highway.
And so what we get when we put this together, it means to walk down the same road together. It means to walk together in unity. It means to be in the same way with, to accompany. It's translated, as we see here in English, the bland word follow.
But it means so much more than that. It literally means this. Jesus asks him, do you agape me? And he says, well, I like you. Ask him again, do you agape me with that deep, abiding, eternal love of God?
And Peter comes back and says, well, you know I'm fond of you. You're a good friend of mine. Jesus comes back and says, well, do you really like me? Peter says, well, you know that I do. And Jesus says, well, I'll tell you what then.
Walk in the same road with me. Now, that was just about the last thing that Peter heard before he was transformed from a naked fisherman who had backslidden to a man who preached a sermon and 3 ,000 souls were saved at one moment.
And then a little bit later, maybe less than a week later, he preached another one and 5 ,000 people were saved under that one sermon. 8 ,000 people were added to the early church within a matter of days through this man's preaching.
What do you think changed? What changed between the time that he denied Christ three times, Jesus looked at him the third time, and he saw those piercing eyes and it crushed him, and he went out and just got away and said, I quit.
And he got in the boat, went out there, and began to fish. And all of a sudden, Jesus appears on the shore. After the resurrection, Peter recognizes him and they have this conversation. Do you love me?
Do you love me? Well, do you like me? Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Walk in the same path with me. I think there's something here that we might ask ourselves this morning. Do I like God? We've been talking about the love of God.
We know that the greatest commandment is to love God with all of our mind, with all of our heart, with all of our strength. And we know that's the greatest commandment. But I ask you this morning, do you like the Lord Jesus Christ?
I want to ask you a question this morning. What happens when you like somebody? Dennis, I've been picking on you this morning. Tell me what happens when you like somebody. Brother Otis has taught me something.
If you just ask, everybody's just, so you have to call out a name, somebody will answer it, I mean. OK. OK. Jeannie, you tell me something that if you like somebody, tell me something you do with them.
OK. He said fellowship, and you said I like to be with them. And you said some other good things, but that's the answer I was looking for. Fellowship and you like to be with them. So wouldn't you agree with this?
It's universal. If you like somebody, you want to be with them. Is that right? If you don't like somebody, you know, you'll say hi to them, but you don't want to just spend every day with them, right?
You want to live in the house with them. Well, that's true. All right, let me take it a step further. If it's true that if you like someone, you want to spend time with them and be in their presence, let me ask you this.
What happens when you spend a lot of time with somebody, Jeannie? Carrie, you can collaborate. Jeannie, you can ask Carrie what happens. And Paul, you can give them the answer because they probably won't get it.
No, it's really simple. Think about it. If you spend a lot of time with a person, what happens to you? Very good. You become like them. You talk to them a lot. You are with them a lot. And you know what they say about a lot of couples, including me and my wife?
You begin to look like each other. I'm getting prettier every day. The only case I know where that's not true is with Brother Otis. So I got to say it before you do. You need to spend more time with your wife, Brother Otis.
He'll get me this afternoon. Don't worry. He's got the mic this afternoon. Now, all right, turn to James chapter 2, verse 21. Why do you think it is that Jesus asked him, do you like me? And then after that, he said, then walk down the same path with me.
Stay in the same path with me. Walk with me. Spend time with me. James chapter 2, this whole passage here, starting at verse 14, has always fascinated me. And I don't know if you know it or not, but the great Martin Luther, who God used to bring the world out of the darkness of Roman Catholicism, out of the dark ages into the period of the Enlightenment.
And it covered all areas of human existence from science to art, literature, but especially to religion, where he understood the concept of walking by faith. But this great man, Martin Luther, did not believe that the book of James should be counted as part of the canon.
You know what I mean by that? Martin Luther didn't think James ought to be in the Bible. Why do you think that is? The light that God turned on in Martin Luther's head was the righteous live by faith, walk by faith.
And when he looked in here and he saw a passage in James chapter 2 that starts out like this, what doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and hath not works, can faith save him? He's saying that contradicts.
I'm ripping those out. It's not supposed to be there. Now, the truth is the great, in fact, the entirety of Christendom disagrees with Martin Luther on that and witnesses to the fact that James is part of the inspired scriptures.
It's just that Martin Luther didn't spend a lot of time there. He liked Romans a lot better. But James is amazing. And as we bring James into the mix and we understand Romans teaches salvation by faith and we look at this, James, God used him as a penman to give us God's mind on what faith really is and what it's not.
And if there is ever a generation that needs that, it's this generation in America. Because in America, people believe that salvation comes by believing in any Jesus that one would invent in his mind.
You know, the Bible says there are many Jesuses, many gospels, and many spirits. And I believe that this country is full and our churches across this nation are full of people who believe in a Jesus Christ that they invented in their own mind.
It's a Jesus who does not have a walk with them. It's a Jesus that even if they did walk with him, he would not change their lives because they like their lives. And it's a Jesus that they invented because this particular Jesus will supposedly save them from hellfire, but allow them to live like a devil while on the earth.
That's not the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible will look at you right square in the eye and say, do you love me? And if you answer it no, he'll say, do you like me? And if you answer yes, he'll say, then you get right with me and walk down this path of life in my path with me, hand in hand, and spend time with me and see what happens.
That's not the Christianity of today, unfortunately, in many quarters. But this is the Christianity of the book of James. So I want to use this idea to bring into this concept of faith and works and how they work together.
So look with me at James chapter 2 and verse 21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect.
And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. And look at this phrase right here. And he was called the friend of God. Guess what that word is in the Greek language, the word for friend, phileo.
It's the same word that's translated love. When Jesus asked him the third time, do you like me? Are you fond of me? Are you my friend? Same word. So it says that whatever this was that Jesus was inquiring of Peter is the same thing that Abraham had.
It was a friendship with God. Now, notice this. We're always looking at this verse, verse 23, and it says, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him as righteousness. And we talk about the doctrine of imputation.
The fact that with his children, what God has done is he has taken your sins and mine and placed them in the body of Christ on that cross. And he took the very righteousness and goodness and purity of Jesus Christ and the life of Jesus Christ and placed them in us at the point of salvation.
That's the doctrine of imputation. And we talk about that a lot. And we talk about the fact that at the point of your salvation, God imputes to you the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. But we don't talk about the fact that it also says in verse 23 that he imputed unto you a friendship that you never had before.
And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness and and there is no punctuation in the Greek language here in the English. We have a colon which would cause us to pause in the Greek.
We have no punctuation. There is no pause. It says that it was imputed unto him for righteousness. That's one thing. And to be a friend of God, that's another thing. So that's something that God gave us at the moment of salvation that we had never had before.
In fact, the Bible says clearly in the book of Ephesians that we were enemies of God. We were aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel. We were a far off. We hated God. We were dead. We were blind. We were deaf.
And at that moment of salvation. The light came on. And at the moment of salvation, our sins were imputed to Jesus Christ, and in fact, of the matter, if you study carefully, you'll see that you're saying that you were in Christ when he was crucified, if you belong to him.
But you know what? At the moment that the light comes on, when you figured all that out, you didn't figure it all out, but you you saw that you were the Lord's for the first time in your life. As of that moment, you not only had all of the righteousness of Jesus Christ in you, but you became the friend of God.
Now, what would this accomplish for us? Well, this presents a thought to me anyway, and maybe some of you are already getting ahead of me and thinking this, that there is a relationship of friendship with God and this relationship is interrelated with our concepts of faith and works and how they fit together.
Now, wouldn't you agree that faith is a gift from God? If you were in Sunday school, you studied it already this morning. Now, I can't preach about it a lot. It's already been taken this morning. But in Romans 12, 3 and Philippians 1, 29 and many other places, it clearly says that saving faith is a gift that God gives you and you cannot work it up in the flesh.
You can't sit here and say, OK, I believe, I believe, I believe I can move this mountain and they'll go in the sea. That's not true faith. That's carnal. Did you know that even repentance itself, the Bible teaches, is a gift from God?
Do you remember when it says Esau wept with tears and tried to repent, but he found no repentance? He tried and couldn't do it. Repentance comes from God. Faith comes from God. Faith is a gift from God to his own.
And at the moment they receive that gift, they can believe for the first time in their lives. A lost man can't believe in God. It's impossible. He's dead. He's blind. He's deaf. He's an enemy. He's an alien.
And when that gift is given, all of the sudden a person believes is saved. And so faith is a gift from God. Now, what's interesting, though, as we study this passage, we find out that the purpose of saving faith is not to avoid hell.
Wouldn't you agree with me that the great doctrine of today is come down and receive, come down and accept the Lord Jesus is how they word it. You make the choice. You decide whether you'll accept him or not.
And if you do, you can avoid hell. Now, if you will repeat this prayer after me, dear Jesus, come in my heart and save me. Amen. Shake my hand if you meant that. Now you're going to avoid hell. Let me ask you a question today.
If you died today, would you be 100 percent sure that you would avoid hell? That's the question we ask them, isn't it? And that's not what salvation is for. Faith, its purpose is not the avoidance of hell.
Let me prove that to you. Look here in James where we are and look at James chapter two, verse 14. What does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and hath not works, can faith save him?
Faith is not the avoidance of hell. What is the purpose of faith? Well, it is that we may live unto God. This living involves performing good works, bearing fruit, walking down the same road with Jesus.
Faith is all about life. The faith that comes from God imparts the life of God to us. We've turned it into a religion. We've turned Christianity into a religion in the last 25 years. It's a religion very similar to Roman Catholicism, where we have formulas of prayer.
To try to save people, we have times when we go out to try to save people, very much like Constantine tried to take the branches and dip them in the river. And as the soldiers of Rome would walk by, they would scatter the water on them and they proclaimed them to be Christians.
We Baptists do that with our little prayer formulas all the time. And we think in our minds, and we get the concept that faith is to save people from hell. There was a very interesting question asked in Sunday school, and I hate to ask it in here, because if you hadn't been coming, you won't even understand it.
But the question was something along these lines. Will there be any potential Christians in hell? Well, I give you one guess. No. The answer is no, there will not be any potential Christians in hell. Because if you've been here for this study of God's love, you found out from Deuteronomy 7, verse 6, and many, many, many, many, many other verses we've been through.
I almost spoke in tongues, did you notice that? We even talked about that while we studied love. You learned that before time, God set His love upon you if you're His today. If you can look in your heart and say, I know I belong to Jesus Christ, then I will promise you the Bible says before time, He set His love upon you and loved you and knew you.
What's fascinating about it is when you start to contemplate that God is outside of time, there was never a time when He didn't love you. There was never a start to that love. There was only a start to you knowing about it and that's the day you got saved.
Now, if people could go back and understand those basic things, the immutability of God, the fact that God cannot change, the eternal nature and the faithfulness of God, and all of that is tied up in agape, that when the Bible says God is love, it doesn't say that He can love you or that He has love for you.
He is love and God is eternal. And God does not love those who will be in hell. I don't care who told you that, it is not true. Show it to me in this book. He does not love those who will be in hell. He knows who they are.
Now, He tells us to love our enemies because we don't know, we're not God. But God is holy and righteous and omniscient and all-powerful and perfectly right in all that He does and perfectly loving and perfectly kind and gentle-hearted in all that He does.
And He knows what's best for everything that He's made. But I'll tell you this, if you're saved this morning, if you've got Jesus in your heart this morning, there is never a time when that love started because it's always been there for you in God's heart.
Now, so the purpose of saving faith is not to keep you from hell. You were never going there. You were never going to hell. Not in reality. Now, you've been taught that you were headed straight for hell.
I know that. I've been taught the same thing. I've probably taught it myself. But as we study and get in the Word, we grow, don't we? You weren't headed for hell, so your faith didn't save you from hell.
What did it do? It gave you His life. It imparted the life of Jesus Christ to you. It caused you to want to have good works, to bear fruit, to walk down the same path with Him. Let me give you another proof of it.
Look at James chapter 2, verse 17 and 18. Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.
Now, look at Ephesians 2 .10, or don't take time to do it. Let me just read it to you. You all have it memorized, most of you. Ephesians 2 .8 is one of the most famous verses in the Bible, at least among we Baptists.
It says, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. But the next verse says this, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.
Does it say to avoid hell? What does it say? Unto good works. That is the purpose of the faith. Unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. And the English word should is incorrect.
It is the word would. It is a determinant. You will walk in them when you are saved. Now, we know that we don't walk in them every moment, because we're not filled with the Spirit every moment, are we?
Isn't it true that from time to time we walk in the flesh? We're indwelt by the Spirit of God from the moment of salvation. But we walk in the flesh sometimes, and this study on God's love has shown us how much we do.
We walk in the flesh more than we knew, more than we would admit until this past study. And now we know, don't we? When we have an impatient thought, have any of us ever made a negative inventory of weaknesses in our brother or sister in our mind?
We thought about that person and we made an inventory of all their weaknesses and the things about them we don't like. Then we were in the flesh while we were doing that. The Bible teaches it, because love never does that.
Amazing, isn't it? So, God has created us in Jesus Christ unto good works, which he determined before the foundation of the world and before time began that we who are his would walk in them. Deuteronomy 13 .6 is not teaching on this, but there's a fascinating phrase in here about friendship.
It says, If thy brother, thy son, thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or thy wife, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee, do not believe in other gods. Now, it's teaching on not believing in other gods, but I want you to see the little teaching on friendship here.
Notice this, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul. There is such a friendship as that, where that friend means as much to you as your own life. Jesus said the highest form of friendship and of love is to give your life for your friend.
And Jesus looked at Peter and he said, Do you like me? Am I your friend? Peter said, You know my heart. And Jesus said, That's not enough. Yes, I do know your heart, but that's not enough. In this world, in this realm, you must also feed my sheep, which means he's going to have to study, which is a good work.
He's going to have to teach, which is a good work. He's going to have to disciple, which is a good work. Spend time with new Christians, which is a good work. He's going to have to go out and find some of those lost sheep, which is a good work.
We call that soul winning. Not the best word to use for it, probably. He's going to have to love that new Christian, which is a good work. And that's not all Jesus said. He said, Not only do you have to feed my lambs and my sheep, but you've also got to walk in the road with me.
That's a good work. Because every day we get up, we can make a choice whether we're going to walk with me or with him. We're going to walk in self, which is the flesh, or we're going to walk in Christ.
And we see all these things coming to pass here. What if Jesus were our friend? And what if we counted him a friend as our own soul? That close of a friend. Jesus asked Peter, Are you my friend? Peter had to think about it, didn't he?
Well, I think maybe that's what the Lord wants us to do this morning. Is to think about it. The book of James teaches that, Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect.
Literally what that says is that faith works works. Faith brings works to happen in our lives. It's just a given. It's two sides of the same coin. But it also says that faith that works is what makes faith perfect.
And the word perfect means complete. It's like if you had a nickel and it had a head on it, but it didn't have a tail, would it be of any value? Couldn't spend it. It would be worthless. And faith that does not have works with it is not faith.
It's not saving faith. It's not faith of the Bible. And that's what this is teaching. So it is works that makes faith perfect or complete. And this word for perfect and complete means to point or to aim at a target.
It is the conclusion of something, the result of something, and the purpose of that thing. So what we find out when we study this is that works is faith made perfect or complete or whole. Works is the target aimed at by faith.
Works is the conclusion of the faith that God gave you when you got saved. Works is the results of the faith that God gives you at salvation. Works is the purpose of the faith that God gave you at salvation.
Because faith is the means and works is the end. Now that's backwards from what we as Baptists would think, I'm sure. But faith is what brings righteousness and friendship. And the great clue that we found this morning is being the friend of God.
Jesus asked Peter, do you agape me? Do you love me with your mind and with your purpose and with your strength? But then he asked Peter, do you phileo me? Do you like me? Do you count me as a friend? Are you my friend?
Then feed my sheep and walk down the same road I'm walking in. And that is the whole key to how we find good works and fruit and all these things in our lives. It is not a prayer formula. It is a relationship.
Let's stand and have prayer together. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for how you teach us even when we're teaching. You teach us even when we're studying new things that we hadn't seen in the same passage that we've studied many times before.
And you've given us this living book and the Holy Spirit to be our great teacher. And Father, we thank you that you tell us that you are performing a work of sanctification in our lives by the word of God and by the spirit of God.
And you're making us to be in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, Father, thank you for times like this when we can learn together. Work in each heart and cause us to be more like Jesus and to be a better servant in our time.
And help us most of all this morning and this week to think about what it means to be your friend and to want to spend time with you and be with you. And how when we do that, we'll be more like you. And we ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.