John 21:12-17 (Restoring Peter)

I want you to imagine what it must have been like to be in Peter's shoes.

He was in the upper room on Thursday night, he'd watch Jesus wash his feet, he'd watch

Jesus institute the Lord's Supper, teaching, singing, all of these things, and then in the middle of the night, against all wisdom,

Jesus, human wisdom, Jesus said that they needed to go to the garden, and in that moment,

Peter felt like a secret service agent trying to protect a president at a rally.

There was a lot of flattened roofs in Jerusalem at that time. And as they walked through the streets, creeping quietly, they had to have felt afraid.

They had to have felt like they were in grave danger. They got to the

Garden of Gethsemane, I don't know if you've ever had these moments before in your life where you're under so much stress, you're under so much frustration that you kind of just fall asleep.

I don't know if you, I know Shannon and I have had this moment before, this is a funny little story, we had an argument one night, imagine that!

And I was totally right, no I'm just kidding. Now we had an argument one night, and we laid down, and I wanted to keep going.

And she fell asleep immediately when she hit the pillow, and I was so frustrated about it.

Don't you care? And I had to realize that she was so worn out by me that she fell asleep.

I think that's sort of what happened to the disciples, their adrenaline, their emotions, everything was on high alert so that when they get to the

Garden, they just fall over. You can imagine Peter later probably looked at that with great regret.

How could I have done that to my Lord? He woke up, and he saw Jesus arrested, and he saw

Jesus beaten and put into this moment where Peter couldn't save him.

Peter breaks out his little hobbit sword, and he lunges at this guy named Malchus, and Jesus even rebukes him at that point, but Peter couldn't stop the inevitable from happening.

You have to believe that Peter later felt great shame and regret that when

Jesus was in his moment of greatest need, I wasn't there, I couldn't be there, I couldn't help him. You think about Peter, how he followed, and he went to the court of Annas, which is where they mocked

Jesus, and he followed him all the way to the court of Caiaphas, where he convinced the guards to let him in.

And you imagine Peter, situational ethics here, he's saying, I didn't know the man. I think he's trying to in some way say,

I need to be close to Jesus. I've let him down, I've let him get arrested, and he denies him three times in that courtyard in front of a charcoal fire.

You have to believe that that haunted him. That moment haunted

Peter. After the rooster crowed, it says in Matthew that Jesus and Peter made eye contact, that Peter looked at the

Lord that he had just denied three times, and he ran uncontrollably weeping out of the courtyard.

This man who said, if all of them deny you, I will not deny you, was the one who now is running, weeping.

You imagine he found himself somewhere in the city of Jerusalem, hiding in a back alley, weeping over his cowardice, until he finally realized that he, now that Jesus was arrested, being the leader of the apostolic community, is probably public enemy number one.

Somehow, in some way, he found himself back to the upper room, and he hides there. And he misses the things that are happening in Jesus's life.

Peter has no active memory of Jesus being put into a holding cell awaiting transport in Caiaphas's house.

He has no memory of Jesus being taken in front of Pilate and being mocked that way, or taken in front of Herod, and then brought back to Pilate, and whipped, and scourged, and beaten.

Peter was not there. He was hiding in his shame. He missed the most consequential moments in the life of Jesus Christ while they put a crown on him, and a purple robe, and a scepter, and they bowed down and worshipped him.

Peter was bowed down in the fetal position, weeping in shame. As they prodded

Jesus down the streets of Jerusalem, and he collapsed under the weight of the cross. The text tells us that Simon of Cyrene, not a follower, was there to help

Jesus. You remember Peter's name is Simon. He was the Simon who should have been there, and he wasn't.

While Jesus was being nailed to the cross, Simon was missing. Peter was missing. While he endured the scorn and the criminal, even the criminals were confessing faith in him.

And where is Peter? Jesus died and gave up his spirit, and they pierced his side.

Where was Peter? He was hiding. You'll remember that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus came and got the body.

Don't miss the symbolism. They were men who were too afraid to follow Jesus for his entire career, and now they show up, and they have more courage than Peter.

You can imagine how these things were haunting Peter. As Jesus lay dead in the tomb on Saturday, his guilt was festering.

And even when Jesus appeared alive, and Peter was overjoyed at it, it says that he ran and John actually outran him because Peter was the old guy.

But he ran. He was excited, but the guilt was still there. His excitement didn't actually deal with his shame and his guilt.

He saw Thomas deny Jesus and then see Jesus in the second appearance. And yes, he was excited, but the guilt was still remaining.

You remember he goes, he says, Peter's the one who has the great idea to go fishing. Because Jesus wasn't with him at that moment, he said, let's go fishing.

He brought his guilt with him. Have you ever had a moment in your life where God is doing good things around you, but the things that are happening inside of you are ugly, filled with shame, filled with regret, filled with pain over the sin that you have done, and it's just festering.

It's this low hum of ugly sin that you're not talking about, you're not telling anybody about, but it's haunting you and it's hurting you.

We've all felt that way. Maybe somebody feels that way today, which is why

I'm so glad we're preaching on this passage because Peter had a lot of shame.

Peter had a lot of guilt and Christ was unwilling for Peter to walk another second with all that shame and with all that guilt.

Today, we're going to learn what it looks like for Jesus to restore sinners. Today, we're going to look at what it looks like for Jesus to take a sinner back to the place of sin and to deal with their sin there.

So that why? So that they no longer walk with it and they walk away free.

Today, I hope this message is good news for any of us here who've ever sinned and still carried that sin as if it was yours.

Today, I want us to see how Jesus goes back to the moment and takes it and he can take yours, too.

So with that, turn with me to John 21, 12 through 17, as we look at Peter's restoration.

John 21, 12 through 17. If you will join me there, we'll pray and then we will look at what these things mean.

John 21. Jesus said to them, remember this is after he had told them to throw the net on the other side of the boat and they caught all these fish.

Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast. And none of the disciples ventured to question him.

Who are you? They knew it was the Lord. And now this was the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples.

After he was raised from the dead. So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

And he said, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said to him, tend my lambs. And then he said to him again a second time,

Simon, son of John, do you love me more than Do you love me? And he said, yeah,

Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, shepherd my sheep. And he said to him a third time,

Simon, son of John, do you love me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him a third time, do you love me?

And he said to him, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, tend my sheep.

Lord Jesus, we thank you so much that you're not a sweeping under the rug kind of God.

That you didn't allow Peter to do what Peter most wanted to do, which is to avoid and to not deal with his shame.

That you went there with him, that you entered into it with him, and you healed him.

So that the Simon, son of John, that's standing there on the beach filled with shame would become the

Peter who preaches the gospel and 3 ,000 people are saved.

Who prays and jail cells shake. Who's crucified upside down, no longer a coward, but ready to die in the most debased and horrible way with joy because of his love for Christ.

Shame is a great paralyzing agent. And Lord, I pray that today that we would see how you deal with shame.

And that we would follow you onto that beach and have our shame and our guilt and our pains dealt with as well.

It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. This is a pretty unique scene in the

Bible. There's Jesus before his crucifixion and there's Jesus after his ascension.

And there's very few scenes between the resurrection of Christ and the ascension of Christ.

This is one of the few scenes in the gospel of John where we have Jesus alive and well interacting with his disciples before the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. And here you have men who don't yet understand what to do with the things that have happened.

They have never seen a man raise himself from the dead. They had seen Jesus raise some people from the dead, but they had never seen anyone raise themselves from the dead.

They were grappling with the resurrection. This is hours, just a few days after the resurrection of Christ and they must have been perplexed.

They're trying to understand the depth of these things. They're trying to comprehend the purpose of what

Jesus is calling them to. And it's manifested by the fact that they went out and went fishing.

When men are confused and don't know what to do, don't know how to think, their emotions are all in a bundle, fishing is actually a great pastime.

What do you do? Nothing. You sit there and you look at the water and it's glorious.

What do you talk about? Nothing. Amen. They were wrestling with things they could not possibly understand.

They had not yet got the Spirit of God so that they could understand them. They were like an old flashlight without the batteries.

They just weren't working real well. Jesus had given them a new status, a new kind of reality where they were no longer gonna be dead, but they were gonna be alive.

They were no longer gonna be cowards. They were gonna be courageous. They were no longer going to be men riddled with shame and guilt for the things that they had done, but they were gonna be lionhearted champions of Christ.

They knew now that life was gonna be different, but they didn't quite know what it was gonna look like. Have you ever been in that situation before?

New Christian? You know that things have changed. You know that something is different, but you have no idea how it's gonna be different.

You have no vision for what next year, the year after that's gonna look like. We gain clarity only in hindsight, don't we?

That was their headspace. That was what was going on in their emotions. And of course they went fishing, but they were also hesitant.

They got on the beach and they knew that it was Jesus. And they knew that they'd been fishing all night long and they hadn't caught a single thing.

And in a moment, He speaks and 153 fish jump joyfully into their nets and they get on the beach and they're like, this must be

God. They don't even dare speak because they have a holy reverential fear.

At least 10 of them did. I think Peter has another reason though why he's not speaking.

I think Peter, in addition to, because we're complex beings, in addition to his reverential fear that I'm in the presence of God, he also had a shame that I'm not worthy to be here.

Why do I say that? Well, Jesus does something very interesting to Peter here.

Where did Peter deny his Lord at a charcoal fire? Where does

Jesus invite Peter to on the beach, to a charcoal fire? He's bringing him back to the moment of his greatest failure and I have to believe as Peter saw the fire, he had to think,

I'm not worthy. To dine with this man who is God in the flesh.

The fire reminded Peter of his failure. The fire reminded Peter of his need for redemption.

The fire reminded Peter that he had not loved his Lord like he said he was going to do.

He was a hypocrite, he was a failure, he was broken and I think

Peter probably had so many emotions going on in that moment that if he tried to speak, it wasn't gonna come out but Jesus had bigger plans for Peter.

Jesus was not going to allow Peter to continue sitting in his shame. What a great

God we serve that he loves us so much that he'll do what we would never do, that he'll take us where we would never go to give us the kind of life that we would never have because we are addicted to holding onto our shame.

Shame paralyzes us, shame makes us quiet. Shame is the kind of thing that we are so terrified to share that thing that we did that one time because how will people think of me?

How will people view me? And Jesus did not ignore Peter's shame, Jesus exposed it and he exposed it because he loves him.

He used Peter's failure as a starting point and he took him back to the moment of his failure to show him that you can't even move forward in your ministry and in your life and in your walk until you first go back.

Peter's going to be stuck forever if he doesn't go back to his denial of Christ.

So Jesus takes him back. And that ought to teach us something about the way that Jesus redeems us.

He takes us back, he makes us repent. Now I love how

Jesus begins here. He begins with Simon son of John, did you notice that?

He doesn't call him Peter, he refers to him by his old name. You remember

Jesus when he first met Peter, he said, you're Simon son of John, but from now on you're gonna be known as Peter. Peter means like little pebble.

That's what Peter, Petros means little pebble, like a rock. Jesus is the rock,

Peter's the little pebble. He's the one fashioned after the master. And now Jesus is not referring to him as Peter.

Why? Because he's not acting like Peter. He's not acting like the great Peter who's going to stand up and proclaim the name of Jesus.

He's acting like a Simon. So Jesus, because Peter's living underneath his name, is referring to him by his old name.

That's where he starts. I remember there's this great story. I love this story.

Alexander the Great. You maybe have heard this one. But Alexander the Great was getting ready to lead his soldiers into a great battle.

And one of his soldiers, he looks up and is running away. Which is absolutely unheard of in Alexander's army.

So he sends his soldiers and they grab him and they, he tells them, put him in my tent until after the battle and then

I'll deal with him myself. So the coward is in there hiding in Alexander's tent waiting for him to come in.

Alexander the Great comes in after the battle. They won, of course, because Alexander the Great won everything. And he came in and he said, soldier, what is your name?

And the soldier said, funny coincidence, my name is also

Alexander. And in a moment, Alexander turned beet red and he said, you either change your name or you change your behavior because Alexanders are not cowards.

I love that story because Alexander refused for anyone who shared his name to act like a coward.

Because what, there's power in a name. We talked about that earlier. In God's name, we get all of his character, all of his goodness, all of his kindness.

So here, Peter's not acting like Peter. He's acting like a Simon. He's not living up to the new life, the new name, the new calling that Christ has given to him.

So Peter needed to be taken back and reminded. Do you want your old way or do you wanna follow the way?

Jesus, by doing this, reminds him that he needs to repent. He also exposes Peter. John 21, 15 says,

Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? This is also a fascinating thing that Jesus is doing here.

English, oh, I wish we all knew Greek. English sometimes mixes up things and flattens things.

And it's a market language. So it flattens rich meaning sometimes.

So we have to talk about it. Simon, do you love me more than these? There's a couple different options for what these can mean.

What does these mean? Do you love me more than the other disciples who are standing here? I don't think that's what

Jesus is getting at. Because if he did, Simon would most definitely say, no.

No, I love you maybe a little more than Judas. Out of all the disciples, I failed you just a little bit less than he did.

I was the leader and I denied you and I ran away like a coward. No, I said

I loved you more than these. I said I'd follow you more than these, but I didn't. And there's probably some double meaning in this passage.

Where Peter had to face that. But I also think it's possible. And I think that it's actually, it's consistent with what

Jesus is doing here for these to actually be referring to the fish. Do you love me more than these?

Which is not a silly question. Jesus is not saying, Peter, I make a mean fish taco.

Do you love me more than that? He's saying, do you love me more than fishing?

Or underneath that, do you love me more than your old life? So he's just referred to him by his old name.

And now he's saying, do you love me more than these? I think he's talking about, do you love me more than your old life? Is all that your life is gonna be about is just fishing?

Or are you gonna follow me through the shame, through the pain into what I've called you to do?

Do you love me enough to trust me? Do you love me enough to follow me? Do you love me enough for your life to be radically different than you ever imagined that it would be?

That's what Jesus, I think, is asking him. Do you love me more than these fish? And Peter says, yes,

Lord, you know that I love you. What I think is fascinating about that is the brash, arrogant, impetuous

Peter is humbled here. Is he not? Peter's the one who jumped out on the water.

He's the only other person who's ever walked on water because the Lord was sustaining him. Peter is a bold man.

Peter's a man who acts first and thinks later. Some of us can identify with that. And yet here,

Peter is measured and humble. His shame has, in a way, neutered him. Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

The brash and arrogant man is gone. The Lord had to take him back. Now, I think another thing that Jesus is doing here is he's asking him, do you love me?

He's not asking him, did you obey me? I think that's really important. Because when you're faced with shame and guilt, guilt says

I have done something. Shame says I have become something. You don't need to look at your performance in those moments because yes, you're a sinner.

Yes, you're broken. Peter, you failed tremendously. How could you possibly have done that?

So that's not the strategy that Jesus employs. He doesn't say, Peter, what an idiot, or what a bonehead.

Which, that's a silly phrase, anyway, if you think about it. We all have bones in our head. He begins with love.

Peter, do you love me? And thank God that he did that because we would never have to wonder if Jesus' restitution plan involved you and I cleaning ourselves up.

Jesus was not looking for performance in that moment. He was not looking for Peter to come and say, yes,

I royally screwed up, but here's my plan. Here's my five -step restitution plan, or here's my 12 steps, or whatever other kind of restitution plan that you could come up with.

He's saying, do you love me? It begins with love. It begins with love for Christ. That's where restoration begins, not with your good deeds, not with you cleaning yourself up or pulling yourself up by your spiritual bootstraps.

It begins with love for Jesus. And even that is good news because you didn't put that love there.

Jesus asked him, Peter, do you love me? Do you remember from the scriptures who put the love of God in Peter?

Who put the love of God in you? It wasn't Peter and it wasn't you. We should never be trusted.

We are dead in our trespasses. We should have been disqualified. Our citizenship should have been revoked before our heavenly green card was even stamped.

We are oath breakers, liars, cheaters, revilers, murderers at heart. And if Peter is going to be restored, it's not gonna be based on his own record.

Even his love can't be based on his own affections. It must be based on Jesus depositing love in Peter's heart.

Love's required for redemption. Love is required for restoration. But it's not required for us to generate that love because our love chases after idols.

Our love chases after all sorts of things. Like C .S. Lewis once said, we're the kind of people who go on making mud pies in the slum when a holiday is available to us at the sea.

So the thing that Jesus requires, this is really important. The thing that Jesus requires of Peter is what

Jesus has already done for Peter. How much confidence can Peter have in a restitution plan if it's based off his effort, his will, his love, his this, his that?

You can have no confidence. He's the guy who denied Jesus three times in a courtyard. But how much confidence could he have if Jesus said, do you love me with the kind of love that I gave you?

Because now it's based off Christ performance, Christ work, Christ love.

He could have great confidence for a broken man to say that I love you, not with the love that I have.

The love that I have is awful and puny and pitiful and pathetic. But I can love you with the love that you've given me.

What a great hope. And what a great hope for all of us. Jesus requires of us what he has already given to us.

What an amazing thing. So if you've sinned like Peter, if you have shame and guilt, if you have something right now, even in your mind that the

Holy Spirit's bringing you up and you say, I should never have done that and you have been eaten up about it for years and years and years, the question

Jesus would ask you is, do you love me? Do you love me with the kind of love that I have given you?

If you've denied him in your sin, do you love him? Do you have love for Jesus? You don't need performance. You don't need a restitution plan like the prodigal son who came back and he had this three -step plan on how the father was gonna welcome him back into his presence.

What you need is love for Jesus, which tells us that love for Jesus is the antidote of sin.

Love for Jesus is what propels you out of sin. Love for Jesus is what gets you unstuck out of your slavery and into freedom from your sin.

For instance, if you wanna stop sinning and you're struggling in a particular way, if you want to break that sin, start with the love of Jesus, start with worship, start with praise, start with prayer.

Don't try to begin with, I'm gonna will myself out of it by my obedience. You can't do that.

You and I are just like Peter. But if you begin with the love that Christ has put in your heart by the

Holy Spirit, you begin with that love, love will lead you. It will lead you to sorrow, a godly sorrow that will make you weep over your sin and it will lead you to pray and it will lead you to worship and it's real difficult to sin when your heart is enthralled with the beauty and the love of Christ.

It becomes hard to sin when you're worshiping. It's easy to sin when you're trying to fight your sin.

You're not powerful enough, but it's real difficult to sin when you're worshiping Christ.

Remember, like Peter, that Jesus has put a eternal love for him in your heart.

He's deposited it by his Holy Spirit in there. He's given you the tools to fight sin and fighting sin is not with your willpower, it begins with love and worship.

So if you wanna be restored from your sin, freed from your sin, worship, worship.

Redemption is cultivating love, Jesus cultivating his love in you that will lead you to healing.

That's what transformed Peter, that's what transformed the disciples, that's what transformed the world. You don't need more shame and guilt.

Like I said earlier, do you know the one who actually gives you more shame and guilt is Satan? We're actually living satanically when we allow shame, guilt, and accusations to continue to be pummeled on top of our heads.

There's a kind of guilt that leads us to repentance, that's what the Bible says. But there's also a kind of guilt that is sinful and evil and not befitting of children of God.

So that's the first thing that Jesus does. He takes him back to where he began, he makes him face his sin and he reminds him that your weapon in the fight of sin is not your willpower,

Peter, it's not your record, Peter, it's your love. Now the second part is

Jesus transitions from Peter's new condition to Peter's commission.

Look at what it says in John 21, 15. So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said, tend my lambs. Redemption moves from your new condition in Christ, which is love, to your commission, which is now what do you do?

What you do follows who you are. Remember, don't reverse that order. What you do comes after who you are.

And Jesus restores him by commissioning him. The word here is interesting. The words in this passage are so interesting.

The word here for sheep is arnea. Arnea, which means baby lambs.

So Peter, who's just now been restored, is given a task. Feed my little baby lambs.

Feed the youngest little people in the flock. Feed the ones who are the most vulnerable. This is amazing because this is actually the strongest affirmation of Jesus restoring

Peter in this whole section. Think about it like this. If you came to my house and I told you, I want you to watch over my older children, then you would say, oh, he must trust me.

But if I told you I want you to watch over my smaller children, the most vulnerable children, then imagine the trust that's there.

I've put you in charge of my most vulnerable people. These are Jesus's people that he's talking to Peter and saying,

I want you to feed my baby lambs. I can imagine Peter saying, I'm not worthy of that.

I failed you in the most vulnerable moments of your life, and now you wanna give me the most difficult job?

Job? I might get in trouble for searing the story, but it's okay.

When I was working at the jail, there was a moment, and I have no idea, trust me,

I don't know why I did this. I was in the pod. The pod is the population area where the inmates hang out, and my shoe was untied, and I looked down and saw my shoe was untied, and standing beside me, there was this gentleman who

I had been witnessing to. Now, at the jail, you're not allowed to, as a guard, you're not allowed to witness to them, you're not allowed to pray with them, you're not allowed to do these things, but I was breaking rules.

Anyway, I'm not advocating for breaking the rules and not obeying the leadership who is above you, but I'm just telling the truth.

Anyway, as I was standing there, I had to tie my shoe, but I had the key to the door on my radio.

It was just kinda hanging there, so if I bent over, it would fall off. So I grabbed the key, and I handed it to this guy beside of me, and I did it because I had been witnessing to him.

I had been, I wanted to show him that he wasn't just a screw -up. Now, I admit that this was probably not the greatest move.

I'm not advocating this, but I also knew that he couldn't get very far because that key only opened one door and he'd just be stuck in the hallway, so it wasn't really that big of a deal either.

Anyway, I tied my shoe. He handed me the key back. He didn't say a word. The blood left his face, and he looked white as a ghost, and he didn't speak.

Couple weeks later, when he got out, we have to take them into the change -out room where they get dressed and go out into the world and hopefully don't come back, and he said, no one, this is what he said, no one has ever trusted me with anything before, from the time that I was a child until the time that I was an adult, and I felt like that I just had to be a screw -up because that's all that I could ever do, and he said, when you handed me that key, it made me feel like somebody could trust me, and it made me not want to do anything to let you down or to let

God down, and I was like, that's what it is. That's what

Jesus is doing for Peter. He's the screw -up. He's the one who should have been beaten over the head over and over and over for what you did, but Jesus didn't do that.

Jesus gave him the most trusted assignment and said, no, I'm gonna give you this, and I think

Peter thrived up under that because Jesus trusted him. Jesus also restores him by turning his love outward instead of inward.

We sin when our love turns inward. Have you realized that? Have you noticed that in your life? When our love turns inward is when we begin to sin.

When we become self -absorbed and self -focused, and that's what led Peter to his denial, actually.

Loving outward is the antidote of sin. Directing your love onto Jesus and onto others is the antidote of your sin and selfishness, and that's what

Peter does. He says, feed my lambs. Feed my little baby lambs. He doesn't say, Peter, make sure that you have a quiet time.

He doesn't say, Peter, make sure that you listen to Caleb on your chariot in the way to the

Jerusalem market. He says, feed my lambs. Direct the love that I put in your heart towards me and towards the people of God.

That's the antidote of Peter's shame, to direct his love outward, to break the tendency that we all have that it's all about you, and this actually mimics

Jesus because for the joy set before him, he did not self -preserve. He was not self -absorbed.

He was not protecting himself. He went to the cross. You see, often when we have shame, as C .S.

Lewis once so brilliantly said, is because we're focused on us. It's actually focusing on yourself in your shame is the way to keep yourself ashamed.

There's two ways to be a narcissist. There's to come into the room and act like you're better than everyone else, and there's to come into the room and act like you're worse than everyone else.

You're still focused on yourself. Peter was wangling in his sin.

Peter did not believe. Earlier he said, if all of these deny you, Lord, I will not. That's one way of being a narcissist.

Now, Peter says, I'm not even worthy to be called your disciple.

That's another way to be a narcissist, and Jesus is saying, Peter, quit focusing on you.

Yeah, you're a problem, so stop focusing on you. Direct your love onto me, direct your love onto others, and here's something

I think is really fascinating. Love multiplies. Have you ever noticed this?

I thought when we had one child that how could I possibly, like zero -sum game sort of thinking, how could

I possibly love a second child as much as I love the first child? Am I gonna love them both 50 %?

Because there's only 100 % of love to give, zero -sum game. It's not true. If you've had two children, you realize that you love them both with everything.

If you've had eight children, you realize that you love them all with everything. Love multiplies, especially when the source of that love is

Christ. So think about it this way. I don't know how many people are here today. Let's say 55.

I'm terribly at this, so it might actually be really far off. If you love yourself, if you focus on loving yourself, if you're the kind of person that grabs the oxygen mask always, but never actually does anything for anyone else, you'll be loved by one person.

But if every single person in this room loved every other person in this room and stopped thinking about themselves, you'd be loved by 54 people.

Because love multiplies. Jesus is telling

Peter, stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about the lambs. And if you do that and they do that and we all do that, we'd be filled with so much love for God that we wouldn't have time for petty things like shame.

It's a part of Jesus's restoration plan. Another thing here. Peter is constantly using one word for love and Jesus is using another word for love and you wouldn't pick that up in the

English. Peter, do you love me? Yes, I love you. One word. Actually, in Greek, it's

Peter, do you agape me? And Peter says, yes, Lord, I phileo you.

It's a very interesting feature. Now, phileo, we need to understand what that means. Phileo is the friendly, affectionate love.

It's the love that two friends, whenever they see each other in the street and they shake hands or they wrap their arms around each other, it's a friendly, affectionate kind of love.

It's phileo. Agape, on the other hand, is sacrificial love. It's the love when a mother has been up all night long with a baby and still wakes up and makes love to her.

makes the older children breakfast, even though she has no energy and wants nothing more than to sleep.

Peter is saying, yes, Lord, I have affection for you. Yes, Lord, I have friendly love for you.

But Jesus is asking him, do you have agape? Do you have sacrificial love?

And I don't think that Jesus is actually pitting these two concepts against each other where he's saying that agape love is more important than friendly love.

I think both are actually important here, but Jesus is exposing something in Peter that he needs both.

We need more than just the affections for Jesus. We need sacrificial love for Jesus that causes us to give up our lives for him as well.

Both are important. You can't sacrifice without affection, and affection without sacrifice is not true affection.

We need both. So Jesus challenges him on these things, and he challenges him to move in this direction of having sacrificial love, to feed his lambs, to give up his time, to give up his schedule, to give up his resources, whatever it is, to feed and to care for Jesus's lambs.

So, so far, what we've seen redemption looks like, and this applies to all of us, is Jesus brings us back to our moment of greatest sin.

He reminds us of the love that is in us, which is not our love. He calls us to pour out our love and affections on him, and he calls us to pour out our love and affection onto others.

And if you do that, you actually won't have any time in your life for shame. You will become a joyful Christian who sings the praises of God.

You will mature into sacrificial love. I think that's what Jesus is saying. Those are the five things.

Now, there's other questions that Jesus asks him. The third question, Simon, son of John, do you love me? This is fascinating.

Jesus now switches the word and doesn't say, do you agape me? This is the first time Jesus says, do you phileo me?

And Peter loses it. I want you to understand what this sounds like in Greek, because in English, I'm saying it, and even it's confusing me as I'm saying it.

Listen to this. Simon, son of John, do you sacrificially love me? Yes, Lord, I have affections for you.

Question two. Simon, son of John, do you sacrificially love me? Yes, Lord, you know

I have affections for you. Question three. Simon, son of John, do you have affections for me?

He's challenging. Peter, are your affections real? Are your affections what you think they are?

Peter wasn't sure if he had agape love, so he kept saying, yes, I have affections for you. But Jesus turns that even on its head and says,

Peter, do you have affections for me? I think why

Jesus does this is because Peter denied Christ three times.

So Jesus is making Peter affirm him three times. Jesus is taking him back to his moment of greatest sin, and he is making him walk through it with obedience, because he would not move forward in his life if he didn't.

He would not become the lion -hearted preacher. He would not become the man who's crucified upside down without these three affirmations.

His shame was exasperating him, and Jesus loved him too much to let him bury it.

So he made him affirm it. And Jesus responds with, feed my sheep.

This is another interesting word, which means the entire flock. Yes, I want you to feed the babies, but Peter, I want you to feed the entire flock.

I want you to feed my people. So Peter comes into this moment feeling all sorts of shame, like he's unworthy to serve

Christ, and at the end of it, Christ has put him over the entire early church. He's made him the leader of the entire early church.

This would be like failing upwards. And yet Christ has put him in charge of these things, not because of who

Peter is in his natural state, but who he's going to become with the Holy Spirit of God. Redemption is not looking at who you are naturally.

Christ is looking beyond that. Christ is not looking at your brokenness. Christ is not looking at your pain.

Christ is not looking at your moment of denial. He's not looking at your moment where you did something so stupid that you can't believe that you did it.

He's not looking at that moment when you were drunk and you said that. He's not looking at that moment when you went to that website that you weren't supposed to go to.

He's not looking at your greatest failures. He's looking at who you will become in Him when you lay your sin down and you follow

Him to the cross. Brothers and sisters, this is the exact same thing that He does to us.

If you're afraid for Jesus to take you back to the sin, don't be afraid.

Go there with Him. Let Him deal with it because He wants to deal with it. And remember that the affection that He's put in your heart is not yours.

And because of that, you don't get to control it. Your affections now are

His. To pour out on Him and to pour out on His people, to serve Him, to serve His bride, to live a life of selfless affections for Him and for His people.

And brothers and sisters, I promise you if you do that, the shame that you walked in here today will be dead and all you'll have left is

Him. And that is the point of life, is to come to the end of you so that all is left is

Him. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you show us in this scene with Peter how you strip away the layers of his shame and his guilt so that all that's left is you.

Lord, I pray that there would be someone here today who has been carrying something that they thought was too big, too ugly, and too dark, and that they would see that there's no sin that's too big for Christ.

Lord, I pray that we would see how Christ pursues us and heals us, that we would see how He, that you heal us in order to use us.

And Lord, I pray that we would see how life is all about you, all for your glory, all for your honor, all for your name, all for your renown.

And that, Lord, if we would stop focusing so much on ourselves and we would pour out our affections unto you and your people, that we would actually be the most joyful and shame -free people that have ever existed.