Sunday Morning Worship Service

Well, good morning. It is the first Sunday of May, 2020, and it's what, the sixth

Sunday, I think, that we've been doing these online worship services, and I hope that today's service will be a blessing and an encouragement to you.

A couple of announcements before we get right into that service. One of them is, of course, we're continuing with the daily devotionals every day at noon and 6 p .m.,

and you catch those on Facebook, on the church homepage, as well as on my personal website, brianbice .com,

and also on YouTube. And you can always go back and catch those later if you don't catch them live when they broadcast, and those videos are always available.

Do meet Wednesday night at 7 o 'clock online as well, and be doing that for the next couple of weeks.

And it looks like our online services will continue through the 24th, unless the governor does something to restrict things further.

We will plan to meet together on May 31st. Now, next

Sunday is Mother's Day, and there's traditional things we do on Mother's Day.

Obviously, not gatherings, so we won't be doing some of those things, but we'll have a message for moms on Mother's Day, and try to find some other way to honor the moms next

Lord's Day. In two weeks, just about two weeks, Saturday the 16th, there's a wedding of a couple of the young people from our church.

Those in the church family will get an email with some details about how you can watch that online.

Obviously, can't have a couple hundred people in the church auditorium for a wedding on that day, but it will be live streamed, so you'll be able to see that.

We'll give you some instructions on how to do that in the very near future.

Well, as we begin our worship service today, I want to read Micah 7, verse 18, says,

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance?

He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.

I'd like to open our service today with the hymn, Who is a pardoning God like you?

And I would remind you that in the, if you're watching on the home page, on the box to the right of the video screen are the documents you can see for today, the order of service and the different hymns that we're using.

First one, Who is a pardoning God like you? Great God of wonders, all thy ways are worthy of thyself, divine and bright, the glories of thy grace among thine other glories shine.

Who is a pardoning God like thee, or who has grace so rich and free?

Pardon from an offended God, pardon for sins of deepest die, pardon bestowed through Jesus' blood, pardon that brings the rebel nigh.

Who is a pardoning God like thee, or who has grace so rich and free?

Oh, may this glorious, matchless love, this God -like miracle of grace, teach mortal tongues like those above to raise this song of lofty praise.

Who is a pardoning God like thee, or who has grace so rich and free?

Let's pray, shall we? Our Father and our God, we do praise you today that you are a

God of rich, pardoning grace. How unworthy we are of the least of your favor, the least of your notice, and even we who claim the name of Christ far too often, we fail, we go astray, and yet you are a

God who delights in steadfast love. You are a God who forgives. You are a pardoning

God. We praise you for that today. We pray as we focus on that truth, that glorious truth today, our hearts would be encouraged in your love.

This we pray in Jesus' name, amen. I'd like to read a portion, a couple sections of the 38th

Psalm, read verses 1 through 4 first, and then verses 15 through 22.

If you have a copy of scriptures and can follow along, I encourage you to follow as I read Psalm 38, verses 1 through 4.

O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath, for your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down upon me.

There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin, for my iniquities have gone over my head like a heavy burden.

They are too heavy for me. Verse 15, but for you,

O Lord, do I wait. It is you, O Lord, my God, who will answer. For I said, only let them not rejoice over me who boast against me when my foot slips.

For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me. I confess my iniquity.

I am sorry for my sin, but my foes are vigorous. They are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully.

Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good. Do not forsake me,

O Lord. O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me,

O Lord, my salvation. Appreciate again

Kelly Bliss playing for us today as we look at some of these hymns. Next one we want to share together,

Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul. Dear refuge of my weary soul, on thee when sorrows rise, on thee when waves of trouble roll, my fainting hope relies.

To thee I tell each rising grief, for thou alone can heal.

Thy word can bring a sweet relief for every pain I feel.

But, O, when gloomy doubts prevail, I fear to call thee mine.

The springs of comfort seem to fail, and all my hopes decline.

Yet, gracious God, where shall I flee? Thou art my only trust, and still my soul would cleave to thee.

Though prostrate in the dust, hast thou not bid me seek thy face? And shall

I seek in vain? And can the ear of sovereign grace be deaf when

I complain? No, still the ear of sovereign grace attends the mourner's prayer.

O, may I ever find access to breathe my sorrows there. Thy mercy seat is open still.

Here, let my soul retreat. With humble hope attend thy will and wait beneath thy feet.

Thy mercy seat is open still. Here, let my soul retreat.

With humble hope attend thy will and wait beneath thy feet.

As we pray together today, we want to remember to pray for our Missionary of the Week, which would be

Chuck Kempf. Chuck and Ruby live in North Carolina, and Chuck is an itinerant evangelist and ministers in churches all over the country.

Of course, these days, all those meetings have been canceled, at least until probably the fall.

And that puts quite a burden on ministers of the gospel of this kind, who are depending upon local church meetings.

So we want to pray for the Kempfs, for their finances. Last I communicated with Chuck, a week or so ago,

I asked him how things were going. He affirmed that he has no meetings, but many churches are still helping out financially, and he's very grateful for that.

Of course, our church supports him on a monthly basis. And then Ruby, his wife, has got chronic illnesses, and we want to pray for them.

We also want to thank the Lord. We prayed the other day for Connie's dad, who was in the hospital.

He has been released from the hospital, doing much better, so we're thankful for that. Also, the church family should have received by text or email the notice to pray for Janet, with some pretty severe back pains.

And there's been a little bit of relief, but not much, so continue to pray for Janet.

I also would encourage you to pray for a friend of ours, an acquaintance from a previous ministry.

His name is George. He's been diagnosed with COVID -19, and has pneumonia, and is currently in the hospital.

So we want to pray for his recovery. Let's look to the Lord in prayer, shall we?

Our Father and our God, we praise You today, that You are a refuge for us, a very present help in trouble.

We thank You that we can flee to You. We can flee when troubles rise. We can flee to You when doubts assail.

We can flee to You when we have yet again failed. And we thank

You, Father, and praise You for the stillness to our soul that comes with our fleeing to You.

Oh, how easily we forget the refuge for our soul.

How prone we are to take matters into our own hands, and to stew on them, and to mull over them, and to fret over them, to become anxious and fearful.

Father, we confess to You our sin of forgetfulness, our sin of fear, when

You've told us not to fear. We confess to You, Father, that we too often take upon ourselves and try to deal with our burdens all by ourselves.

Father, forgive us for forgetting You. And we thank You today,

Father, that You are a God who forgives. We have a God, we are grateful that we have a

God who calls us to come to You in repentance, and to bring before You honest confession of our sin.

And with that confession is pardoning grace. We thank

You for Your forgiveness. Father, we pray today for these folks who are in need.

We pray for the Kempfs and pray that You would be gracious to them. Give Ruby grace to deal with her oft infirmities.

And we pray for Your supplying grace to meet their needs in this time of setback, of having meetings canceled, of no normal means of income.

I pray that You would generously provide in other ways, meet the needs of this godly couple who love

You and have given their lives to serve You. I pray that meetings would be replaced and there would be ample supply for Chuck to preach the

Word. We pray today for George who is suffering from this

COVID -19 and pneumonia. We pray that You would be gracious to him and You would provide healing to the body.

We pray for his family who are restricted from having personal contact with him.

I pray that You would give them grace and encouragement and comfort of heart. Father, I pray

He would get the right kind of treatment that would bring about his recovery. We pray for Janet today and pray that You would heal this severely hurting back.

She would get mobility again and be able to do her daily tasks. We pray,

Father, for those in our church family who are in some way impacted by all of the governmental restrictions that are placed upon us.

Some who've had their jobs restricted if not furloughed from work.

I pray that during this time You would be faithful to provide their every need and they would be faithful to You to look to that need.

May their job be restored soon, quickly. Father, we pray as You supply our needs as personally, individually, that we would be quick and ready to share with others who are in need.

We ask, Father, our refuge, that You would provide protection for our bodies from illness.

Father, our hearts are so inclined to restlessness, to frustration and irritation during these days.

I pray that You would heal our bodies or our hearts from these things.

And pray that You would deliver our minds from the fretful speculation, the constant obsession over the things that are placed upon us and over the conflicting information and so forth that we get.

How easy it is for us to lose perspective. Protect us from that, we pray.

We pray for our lawmakers, for our governor, for our president, for our legislators. We pray that You would put each in their place under You.

May they have humility and may they have truly a heart that wants to serve people and is not concerned about their own power and their own position and prestige and their own legacy.

I pray that You would guide these lawmakers to have wisdom and prudence and to do what is best for our nation, for our state.

Father, people need to get back to work, they need to get their needs supplied, they need to be able to interact with other people.

Help our lawmakers to see that there's more to life than simply breathing.

Father, we pray that in these days Your kingdom would come, Your will would be done.

And we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. So often these days our hearts can be disconsolate.

Next hymn we want to share together is entitled, Come, ye disconsolate.

Come, ye disconsolate, where 'er ye languish, Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.

Here, bring your wounded hearts. Here, tell your anguish. Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

Joy of the comfortless, light of the straying, Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure.

Here speaks the comforter, tenderly saying, Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure.

Here, see the bread of life. See waters flowing forth from the throne of God, pure from above.

Come to the feast of love. Come, ever knowing, Earth has no sorrow, but heaven can remove.

The scripture reading today for the text for our message is John 21, verses 15 through 25.

John 21, verses 15 through the end of the chapter, which is also the end of the book of John.

So, follow along as I read this passage of scripture today. Setting it into context, this is on that morning after the disciples had gone fishing.

They caught nothing. Jesus told them to cast their net on the other side. They caught 153 fishes and brought them to shore.

And when they got to shore, Jesus had prepared for them breakfast. And now we come to verse 15.

It says, 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 a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Peter was grieved because he said to him a 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 was 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, 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 also many other things that Jesus did. If it were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

A brief prayer. Our Father and our God, may we see this encounter that Peter had with Jesus.

Reason for those who are your children who fail yet again to find encouragement.

This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Several years ago

I read a book by Nicholas Sparks entitled Three Weeks with My Brother. And in that book he tells of a three week worldwide tour, trip that he took with his brother

Micah. But the book is not a travelogue per se. I mean he does talk about some of the places that he went, where they went together and so forth.

But really the book is more about the relationship that Nicholas had with his brother

Micah. And their bonding and years of growing up together in the same house as brothers.

Nicholas was a middle child. Micah the eldest and was two years older.

Now one of the significant differences between the two of them was that Micah being the oldest received lots of attention, lots of responsibility and lots of freedom.

They also had a younger sister. And this younger sister was likewise the center of attention from her parents.

A couple of boys and then a sister. And you know you can see the dynamics perhaps in that kind of a family situation.

Well Nicholas being the middle child had the typical middle child syndrome I suppose. He felt like he was a constant failure.

Like he could never really merit his parents approval and to be the focus of their attention.

It didn't matter what he did. And that just drove him all the more to find some measure of perfection that would gain their attention.

So he got straight A's in high school. He set track records while he was in high school.

He even earned a full four year scholarship to Notre Dame. And yet he felt like his parents didn't really notice.

And that only fueled his feelings of failure. By the way this should be, this is an aside, but this should kind of be a challenge to us as parents in this day when we can so easily be screen focused and our children are trying to get our attention.

They want to show us something they've drawn or something that they've done. And you know we've got our face in a screen.

And then you know they call us and we kind of glance over and yeah yeah that's nice and go back to our screen.

We've got to be careful about that. Well Nicholas had that problem. He felt like no matter how loudly he screamed for his parents attention with straight

A's, track meet records and scholarships and excellence in his schooling, that he just couldn't get their attention.

And he therefore felt like a failure. Maybe you've felt the same way in your family.

But more importantly what about in the family of God? What about in your relationship with your

Heavenly Father? With God? Are you in His family? Are you one of His children?

Have you by faith come to the person of Jesus Christ and received Him as your personal

Savior? Seeing that you yourself are a sinner in need of His saving grace and that Jesus, the

Son of God, God in the flesh, died on a cross to pay the penalty for your sin.

And seeing that and seeing yourself as a sinner, you came humbly before the

Lord Jesus and you called upon Him to save you. You received Him. You trusted

Him as your Savior. The Bible says that those who receive Him, they have the right to be called the children of God.

But here you are in the family of God, one of God's children, but yet you have failed again.

It's not that you're just simply unnoticed, but you actually do fail and do so time and time again.

Okay, so you failed again. Now what? Where do you go from here?

Well, in this passage of Scripture, this Jesus dealing with Peter, who has failed

Jesus and failed Him miserably, I trust that you can gain some encouraging answers.

And the first is that I would have you notice in verses 15 through 17 that I want to encourage you to hear

Jesus as He offers forgiveness. Hear His voice as He offers forgiveness.

What He's looking for here from Peter is not perfection. He's not looking for perfection, but He is looking for you to acknowledge your sin and your failure, to acknowledge it.

After all, Jesus knows about it anyway. So He's looking for you to acknowledge it.

And in this interaction between Jesus and Peter, Jesus asks him, do you love me?

And He does this three times, and three times Peter acknowledges that Jesus knows everything.

He says, Lord, you know that I love you. You know that I love you. And the third time He says, Lord, you know everything.

You know everything. And I want to encourage you to notice the details in this account that serve to bring back to Peter's mind his failure.

You remember when he denied Jesus, he denied Him three times. He was asked three times, are you not one of His disciples in some form?

Aren't you one of His? You're a follower of His, aren't you? And three times Peter said, no, no,

I'm not. Last time he cursed and swore, said, I do not know this man. And he, you know, denied

Christ. The first time he was confronted with his potential following of Jesus, it was around a fire.

And here they come to shore, and there's this charcoal fire grilling some fish for breakfast.

These details reminding Peter of his failure. And he readily acknowledges that Jesus knows it all.

Acknowledge your sin and failure. But what Jesus also wants you to do is to recognize

His deity, to realize that He's not just a man.

And He's not a man to us who has lived a couple thousand years ago and died on a cross and went in a tomb.

But He is God. He is God. Peter acknowledges this, recognizes this, when he says in that third questioning,

Lord, You know everything. Now, of whom could that be said?

Of whom else could that be said other than Jesus? No one. Sure, when we were kids, we thought maybe our parents knew everything.

We thought they did have eyes in the back of their heads. But you grow to adulthood, and you realize, no, they really didn't have eyes in the back of their heads.

They had good intuition. They had good insight. But of whom could you say, as Peter said of Jesus, Lord, You know everything.

And he was even talking about what was in his own heart. He acknowledged that Jesus knew what was in his own heart.

Only God can do that. Only God knows what's really in your heart. Jesus wants you to recognize

His deity. And furthermore, He wants you to submit to His Lordship.

Three times, again, Peter said, Lord. To each question,

Peter responded, Lord, Master. Do you submit to the

Lordship of Christ? Or do you just look at Him as someone who can be a fire escape out of hell, but you don't want

Him to rule over your life in any way? I would suggest that calls into question the legitimacy of your professed conversion.

Whosoever calls on Jesus as Lord, to them He gives eternal life.

Submit to His Lordship. And then Jesus wants you, furthermore, to confess your love for Him.

Your love for Him. Three times Jesus asked this question of Peter. Do you love me? Do you love me?

Do you love me? And three times, Peter affirmed that love for Jesus. Now, Jesus is not interested in simply hearing of us being interested in Him.

He wants to know, do you love Him? Confess your love for Him. And yet, in that confession, here's what else

Jesus wants of you. He wants you to be honest and sincere. To be honest and sincere.

Notice how, well, you can't really notice it in your English Bible, and maybe you've heard messages and teaching on this passage before, and it's been brought out to you before, that there's a word change in the

Greek language that doesn't really come out in our English translation. Because three times,

Jesus asked, do you love me? Three times, Peter says, you know I love you. But there are different Greek terms for the word love.

In the first place, Jesus asked Peter, are you thoroughly, the first two times,

Jesus asked Peter, Peter, are you thoroughly devoted to me with your whole being?

Would you sacrifice yourself for my sake? He says, do you agape me?

That word agape that's translated love here. It has to do with a submission or a sacrifice of oneself for the good or the sake of the one loved, for the sake of another.

And Jesus asked Peter, Peter, are you thoroughly devoted to me with your whole being? That's the sense of that question.

And Peter replies, Lord, you know that I'm filled with genuine affection for you.

He uses a different word for love. He uses the word phileo.

That's the kind of love that is a natural love between siblings, that blood is thicker than water kind of love.

It's a genuine affection that's involved there. So Peter changes the word.

Peter doesn't simply go along with the question that Jesus asked and say, well, yes,

I agape you. No, he is honest and sincere. He knows he cannot bring himself after his failure to say,

Lord, you know that I am thoroughly devoted to you with my whole being, fresh in his mind is his disloyalty, his lack of devotion.

But he can say honestly and sincerely, Lord, you know

I'm filled with genuine affection for you. Be honest and sincere.

Okay, you failed, so now what? Well, first of all, hear that the

Lord offers forgiveness. Secondly, accept the

Lord's challenge of your motivation. Accept the Lord's challenge of your motivation.

Again, I see this in verses 15 through 17. As I indicated a moment ago, the

Lord Jesus wants you to follow him not out of obligation, not out of a sense of fear, not out of the idea that you don't have a choice in the matter.

The Lord wants you to follow him out of love for him. Therefore, Jesus is going to probe deeply here in Peter's heart, and he actually questions the depths of his love, and he may do this very same thing to you.

Allow the Lord, accept that the Lord will challenge your motivation as he asks you and questions of you the depths of your love.

Jesus says to him, Simon, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

Now, in that question, and he does this three times, notice how the name that Jesus uses here, he doesn't say

Peter, do you love me? He says Simon. Simon is the name that was

Peter's birth name. It's his pre -discipleship name. If you notice back in Mark 3, verse 16, when you get a chance to look that up,

Mark 3, verse 16 tells us that Jesus appointed the 12, and it's going to give the list of the 12 apostles.

He appointed the 12, and the first one he says is Simon, to whom he gave the name

Peter. Peter was Simon's apostleship name, his discipleship name.

But here Jesus uses that pre -discipleship name, Simon, Simon.

And then he calls into question his earlier claim,

Peter's earlier claim to a superior love. Do you remember this back in Matthew 26?

We read this in verses 31 and 33. Jesus was speaking to his disciples as they were en route to the

Mount of Olives, and he told them, he told all 11 of them that were following him at that time, he said, you will all fall away because of me this night.

All of you will. Now, remember, in that scene on their way to the

Mount of Olives, there was not only Peter, but there was James and John and Andrew and Philip and Nathaniel, the other disciples as well, including the same ones who were on this boat with Peter fishing all night.

The same ones who had hauled the net to shore, the same ones who had breakfast with Peter, the same ones who are sitting there around that fire of coals.

And Peter answered when Jesus said, all of you will fall away from me this night.

Peter answered Jesus and said, though they all fall away because of you,

I will never fall away. Let me ask you something.

Have you ever avowed such a statement as that?

I will never, and then you fill in the blank. I will never do this again.

I will never talk to her like that again. I will never act in this way again.

This is it done. Not going to happen again. I will. It will never happen again. Jesus says,

I will. Or Peter said to Jesus, I will never fall away. But Jesus calls that into question.

Simon, son of John, do you really agape me?

As you said, you did more than these other guys who are sitting here, whom you said they may all fall away, but I won't fall away.

Do you really have a superior love, Peter? As Jesus challenges your motivations, he will question the depths of your love.

And he may also question the reality of your love. He repeats that question, that initial question, do you agape me, a second time in verse 16.

And he uses that name Simon. Simon, son of John, do you agape me?

I think there's a difference of emphasis in these two questions. The first question would be like this.

Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

Do you agape me more than these? Well, Lord, you know

I have a genuine affection for you. Simon, son of John, do you even agape me?

Even as much as these? Do you even agape me? So he repeats this same question using that same word.

And what he's emphasizing here, I think, is the very existence of love, of this agape love.

Do you love me, Simon? Do you love me?

Questions the reality of his love. And then as he asked the question the third time, he changes the wording to even question the character of that love.

And Peter affirms, he says, Lord, you know that I have a genuine affection for you. And then the third time in verse 17,

Jesus says to him, Simon, son of John, do you even phileo me?

Do you really have a genuine affection for me? So in this third time he asks the question, he asks if even that is real.

Simon, do you even love me like a brother? Now here's the thing

I want us to catch in this interrogation, if you will, in this challenging of Peter's motivation.

Jesus asks three times, Peter answers three times, and when all is said and done,

Jesus, in effect, affirms the presence of Peter's love.

And as Jesus comes to you who are truly his brothers, if you will, who are truly in the family of God, who are truly the children of God by virtue of God's saving grace in your life, when you have failed him yet again,

Jesus will come and challenge you, challenge your motivation, your earlier affirmations of loyalty and love.

Those things will come back to your mind. You will question, you will hear that question ringing in your mind, won't you?

Do I really love Christ? And you will answer that, yes, I do. And you may not at that moment feel the ability to formulate that agape love that says, you know that I have a whole being devotion to you that would be absolutely loyal to you and would absolutely die for you.

Maybe you can't feel in that moment of failure that you can affirm that. But when the question keeps coming back to you, do you really love

Jesus? Do you really love Jesus? You have to say, yes, I really do. And in the end, it turns out that Jesus accepts that.

He accepts that answer. And in accepting that answer, what

Jesus is doing is affirming the presence of your love. That it may be defective.

It may not be all that you want it to be. It may not be all that God would want it to be.

But Jesus doesn't argue with Peter and say, no, Peter, you don't even have the affection of a brother for me.

No, he doesn't do that. He accepts it. And instead of arguing with Peter about that love, he gives him some direction based on that love.

So, now you've failed. Now what? Well, the

Lord offers you forgiveness. And the Lord challenges your motivation. And thirdly, hear, hear, listen.

As the Lord directs your efforts. With each question and each answer, the

Lord follows up with a directive. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep.

Feed my sheep. Notice some features of this direction. One of them is that the task that Jesus directs you toward is going to be an others -oriented task.

He says to Peter, feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.

His task is not to be focused on himself. And that is so like us, isn't it?

Especially after we've failed. Our attention is all inward. It's all focused on ourselves and how lousy we are.

How miserable we have failed. And all the rest of that kind of stuff that plagues us when we've failed yet again.

But what does Jesus do? He turns our eyes off of ourselves and off of our desires and off of our failures.

And instead, he causes us to look on the needs of those who are in our circle of influence.

Feed them. Tend to them. Care for them. So your task is to be others -oriented.

And then Jesus gives him a task that is word -centered. He says, feed my sheep.

Feed my lambs. Tend to my sheep. And he's calling for Peter to care for the spiritual needs of Christ's flock, but to do so with God's word.

And what Jesus is calling on us to do, directing us to do after we've failed yet again, turn our eyes off of ourselves, look on those around us, and to be so saturated with his word that we can feed others with his word.

But then I would also have you notice that these efforts that Jesus directs

Peter toward are stewardship -based. Because Jesus says, feed my lambs.

Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.

These are his. They're not yours. Now, the principle that I derive from that is simply this, that the

Lord, in his sovereignty, will providentially and purposely put you where you are, in the place where you are.

And then he wants you to see others around you in the light of that providence, and to see that that is your stewardship.

That is your place of service. That is your place of ministry. Those are your sheep to tend to, if you will.

Well, they're Christ's, that he has placed in your care and your responsibility.

Look at your circumstances in light of that. And Jesus directs your efforts.

Hear him as he does so. But you know what Jesus will also do, is he will also test your commitment.

This comes out in verses 18 and 19, where Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted.

So, Jesus is saying earlier, you used to be able to do what you wanted to do, go where you wanted to go, dress how you wanted to dress, and so forth, and when you wanted to dress.

He said you had complete freedom. In other words, is what he's saying, you had your freedom. But what if you lose your freedom?

What if you lose your freedom? Will you still be committed to Christ if you lose your freedom? He says, this is what you used to do, but when you were old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.

What if you lose your freedom? What if you can't do what you want?

You can't do it when you want. You can't do it where and with whom you want.

Will you still love the Lord? That's a pretty poignant question for these days, isn't it?

Now we can get all aggravated about restrictions and we can debate in our own minds and with one another whether or not all of them are necessary.

But the bigger question is, do you still love the Lord? Are you still committed to the

Lord? Or will you be like that teen, young person who's got what he thinks is terribly restrictive parents, won't let him do this, won't let him do that.

And he asks again, says, I'm going to go do thus and so. And they say, no, no, no, not tonight.

Not going to do that tonight. And the teen is finally just so aggravated with his restrictive parents that he just lashes out, says,

I hate you. Well, when you lose your freedom, will you still love your

Savior? What about when you lose your comfort? What about when you lose your comfort?

Jesus tells Peter, you're going to have your hands stretched out. This is a reference to that rack.

Tradition tells us how Peter died and it involved the stretching out of his hands and having them tied before he was executed and put to death.

Will you still love me when you have lost your comfort? You're suffering the pain of rejection, the pain of some level of persecution, the pain of isolation, and all because of your faith.

Will you still love me when you've lost your comfort? Will you still love me when you've lost your life?

Or when one of your loved ones is taken from you? Will you still love me then?

Basically, what Jesus is telling Peter, we read at the beginning of verse 19, that this was an indication of how he was going to die.

This was the death by which he was going to glorify God. What happens when someone you love, you care for, is taken from you, maybe in an untimely or tragic way?

Do you still love Christ? I think of the young woman, Cheryl Strayed, who wrote the book,

Wild, I believe it is. She recounts her journey, her backpacking journey, on the

Pacific Crest Trail. It was a spontaneous decision on her part to make that trip. She'd never done any backpacking before.

But she wanted to get away. She had to get away. She was in grief and she was in anger and she was a psychological mess and just had to do this.

And so she took off to do it. And as you read her book, you find out what she was all upset about, what she was angry about.

She was angry at God because her mother had died of cancer. And heal her.

How will you respond when your comfort, when your life, when your freedom is tested?

Will you still love Christ? So one thing Jesus may do when you have failed is test your commitment and give you an opportunity to show that yes, indeed,

I do love Christ. And then lastly, now you've failed, now what?

Well, the Lord offers you forgiveness. He challenges your motivations. He directs your efforts.

He may test your commitment. But when all is said and done, what the Lord does is he commands your attention.

He commands your attention. This is what we find in verses 19 through 23. He gives

Peter a very clear directive and I suggest this is a directive that goes for you and me who are followers of Christ, claim to be, profess to be.

He says at the end of verse 19, he said to Peter, follow me, follow me.

That is, find in me and discover from me the pattern of life that you should live wherever that would take you.

Follow me, Jesus says. What's your inclination?

Isn't it similar to Peter's? Do you ever look around and ask, well, what about him?

What about her? What's their calling? Look what I have to do.

What are they going to do? This is what Peter does. He says, well, you see it's John over here.

He says, well, wait a minute. Okay, so this is what's going to happen to me. Somebody's going to stretch me out and take my life and kill me.

Well, what about him? What about him? What's his fate? Isn't that our inclination?

We want to know what someone else's calling is, what someone else's lot in life is to be, what their fate is going to be.

How does Jesus answer that? Stay focused.

Stay focused. He says to Peter, Peter, if I want him to live until I come again, what is that to you?

Don't worry about him. Don't worry about somebody else and what I have for them to do.

You worry about what I have for you to do. You follow me.

Keep your eyes on the Lord and on his plan for you, not for somebody else.

Okay, so you failed. Now what? Well, first of all, are you even a

Christian? Are you truly a follower of Christ? Have you come to that place of repentant faith in Jesus as your personal

Savior from your sins? If you have to say no to that question, then let me encourage you.

Listen, you haven't failed again. You're just not there.

You're not even in the family. Come to faith in Christ today. Turn from your sins. Call upon the

Savior Jesus to save you, and he will. He will. You say, yes, I have, but I still failed.

I still failed. All right. Confess that failure. Confess it.

Confess, along with that failure, your love for the Lord, even though it's not all it ought to be.

Confess it. And submit your heart and your life to him anew.

Offer it up to him again, and our Savior will graciously, mercifully forgive you and even compel you to carry on living for him, loving him, serving him.

Listen, don't wallow in the misery of your failure. Repent of your sin.

Renew your love for the Lord and carry on. Our Father in heaven,

I pray, that you would encourage your saints today that they don't need to wallow in despair.

There is forgiveness with our Lord, who is a pardoning

God like you. We thank you for that pardoning grace. Bless these thoughts to our hearts we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen. As a closing hymn today to solidify in our hearts and minds this message,

I want to read the words to the hymn I Hear Thy Welcome Voice. I hear thy welcome voice that calls me,

Lord, to thee for cleansing in thy precious blood that flowed on Calvary.

I am coming, Lord, coming now to thee. Wash me, cleanse me in the blood that flowed from Calvary.

Though coming weak and vile, thou dost my strength assure. Thou dost my vileness fully cleanse till spotless all and pure.

Tis Jesus calls me on to perfect faith and love, to perfect hope and peace and trust for earth and heaven above.

All hail atoning blood. All hail redeeming grace.

All hail the gift of Christ our Lord, our strength and righteousness.

I am coming, Lord, coming now to thee. Wash me, cleanse me in the blood that flowed from Calvary.

Now to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to our

God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen. God bless you with a good Lord's Day and a fruitful, focused week ahead.