John 21, Keep Your Eye on the Ball, Dr. John B. Carpenter

John 21: The Miraculous Catch of Fish

John chapter 21, be reading the entire chapter, hear the word of the Lord. After this, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas, called the twin, Nathaniel of Cana and Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together.

Simon Peter said to them, I am going fishing. And they said to him, we will go with you. And they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to them, children, do you have any fish? They answered him, no. He said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. So they cast it. Now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish.

That disciple whom Jesus loved, therefore said to Peter, it is the Lord. When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.

The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off. When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, and fish laid out and bread.

Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish that you have just caught. And so Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn.

Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast. Now, none of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? They knew that it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so were the fish.

This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. 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.

And 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 the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know everything.

You know that I love you. And 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 had been reclining a table close to him and had said, Lord, who 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 was 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. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his holy word. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I saw an interesting experiment on social media. It was, ask people, how many handshakes are there between you and Adolf Hitler?

Otherwise, you shook hands with someone in, who shook hands with someone, on and on, all the way back to Hitler. I don't know why they chose Hitler, but they did. That got me thinking, as a boy at about age six, I shook hands with the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, who had shaken hands with John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy shook hands with Winston Churchill. Churchill, presumably, shook hands with Neville Chamberlain, who shook hands with Hitler. So I had four men, that's all, just four between me and Hitler. Well, that's the advantage, if you call that an advantage, of being from Alabama.

George Wallace said he shook the hands of every citizen of the state. When I say I'm from Alabama, if you're older than me, you probably think of Wallace, who became famous for his stand for segregation, twice ran for president, actually won several states, I believe, and was nearly assassinated.

But if you're younger than me, the first person who comes to mind when you think of Alabama is probably a fictional character, Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is a mentally handicapped man who lives through every major American event from the 1960s, early 1990s.

He is not intelligent enough to really understand everything that's going on around him, to perceive or even really care about the big events and their meaning, to be curious about implications of the issues and the personalities he is dealing with.

But he is just smart enough to understand the main thing he needs to know. When he's playing football for Bear Bryant's Alabama, all he needs to know is in which direction to run. And he ends up being a big football star.

In the army in Vietnam, he's told to look after his friends and run. And so he ends up being rewarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing men under fire. When he's in a rehab, in a VA hospital, someone teaches him ping pong, showing him the paddle and the ball, and simply telling him, whatever you do, keep your eye on the ball.

Ends up being such a good ping pong player, he's sent to China to represent the US. It's all fiction, of course. This chapter tells us that to serve God, we don't have to be especially smart. We don't have to be brilliant and understand Greek and Hebrew and the hermeneutical principles of Johannine eschatology.

We just have to be able to keep our eye on the ball. We have to see what we need, a miracle. We need to remember our mandate, be fishers of men, and we need to be mindful, and to be so overwhelmed with the impressiveness, the glory of Jesus, that we don't get distracted by the many other things.

The Need for a Miracle in Gospel Ministry

The miracles, mandates, mindfulness, we need to keep our eye on the ball. First, a miracle. The miracle happens early one morning, after the disciples have been fishing all night, at least a group of them, in their name for us in that first verse.

Now, there's nothing wrong with them fishing. Some people say, well, they're wrong to go fishing. I don't think so. Most of them are fishermen by trade, and they still need to eat. But there's this sense of restlessness, of kind of unsure what to do now.

And so Jesus has been raised from the dead. He's told us to go to Galilee. Well, what do we do now? Hanging around by the lake, and of course they have a boat, so let's go fishing. Peter decides, I'll go fishing.

A few others, like John says, we'll go with you. You won't see them with time to fish after Pentecost. So they fish, but despite their expertise in fishing, they don't catch anything. Now, surely there's a message in this.

Just as there was earlier in Luke chapter five, just to bring back to you another very similar story, when Jesus first called Peter. There, Peter had caught nothing, after fishing also all night, and Jesus tells him to put in his net, and voila, he catches a net full of fish.

So many, that time, Luke chapter five, that his net breaks. The lesson, though, then, was the Lord Jesus was telling him from now on, you will be catching men. The miracle was there, as Jesus's exclamation point, on his call of Peter.

So here, in John chapter 21, the Lord Jesus is again calling Peter, kind of recalling him, reinstating him, rehabilitating him, after he had denied the Lord three times. And so, there's another exclamation point.

The miracle is performed again. Both times, God shows that if they're gonna do this, they're gonna catch men, they will need a miracle. And initially, they catch nothing. They have a long, kind of depressing night, trying to catch something, trying to catch anything.

But their work is for nothing. It's a painful, living lesson of the Lord Jesus's earlier words here in John, John chapter 15, verse five. Apart from me, you can do nothing. And nothing is exactly what they get.

They need a miracle, and they need to see their complete dependence on God, as do we. The work we are called to do as a church, the catching and cleaning of people, it's not something we can do on our own.

It's not as though we're given this mission, we gotta go out and do it on our own, impetus with our own strategies, and however we can get names on a roll or whatever. It's all up to us. No, all our events and funds and work and good intentions can go into attempts to grow the church and lead people to Christ, but it will produce nothing if the Lord Jesus does not grant a miracle.

We can get distracted by our resources, our education, our building, our strategies, our own hard work. We can allow those things to get our eye off the ball. The ball is the essential fact that without Him, we can do nothing.

We need Him to tell us where to let down our nets and to lead the schools of fish right into them. We need Him, and we need to know that we need Him. We need to know that without Him, we can do nothing, and then, when we know that, we'll pray.

We'll pray with desperation that God would grant us the miracle, because we know there is no other alternative. That doesn't mean we stop working. There was nothing wrong with the disciples going fishing.

They were waiting on the Lord. They were hungry and in need, and they have a boat. They have a lake right there, and so they are right to work until they are given something else to do, and they are right to keep working through the night.

God withheld any fish from them, but He expects them to continue to work until the morning, the miracle dawns, and so, too, we need to continue to work in our church and our families and our workplaces to try to catch people.

We might go years without a catch, but we keep working, and we keep praying. They're exhausted. They've been at it all night, casting in the net, time after time, empty, empty, empty, again, time after time.

The first streaks of light come from the east. They can kind of dimly see a man on the shore, and He calls out to them in verse five, children, do you have any fish? Interesting that He calls them children.

He tells them to cast out their nets one more time to the starboard, their right side, and they obey. Probably feel they don't have anything to lose, and immediately, they feel the heavy load of a net full of fish.

They can't believe it's an enormous catch, and so many in one net, so many that they count them, in verse 11, 153. Now, some people try to make something of this. Is this some kind of symbolic number?

But the problem is, what does it symbolize? It's not clear what's 153 symbolize. I heard somebody, there's 153 nations of the world at that time. There's probably a lot more, but they can never make up their mind about what specifically 153 is supposed to be a symbol of.

I think that they're just experts, they're fishermen. They've done this a lot. They normally measure their catch by counting their fish. They probably have come in from a long night of fishing. Oh, we had a bad night, we only caught 20 fish.

Oh, we had a good night, we caught 70 fish. That was a great night. I heard the guy down there, I heard him one time a few weeks ago, he said he caught 100 fish. I don't believe him, though, I think he's exaggerating.

So they're used to counting their fish, and this time, they caught so many, they counted as they usually do, 153, can you believe it? Remember that time we caught 153 fish? Well, that's because it was a miracle.

And so they count them, it's just out of habit. It's what, they're fishermen, it's what they do, and they remember that enormous number because it's so much more than they ever had before. So many, it's a miracle.

It's also a miracle the net doesn't break. When God catches his fish, he'll be able to keep every one of them. So they have their miracle. Keep your eye on the ball. It's easy to be distracted by good things.

We think for ourselves, we need more discipline, or maybe we think we need more money, need a better job, or a better house, or a better spouse. For the church, maybe we think we need more workers, more funds, more appeal, more whatever.

Peter's Reinstatement and the Call to Feed Christ's Sheep

But what we need is the main thing. We need more miracles. The miracle of Jesus telling us where the fish are, and sovereignly directing the fish right into our nets. That's the main thing. Now they'll get their mandate.

Peter is always, of course, impetuous, emotional, the effusive man, remember? Who acts on his feelings. He jumps in as soon as John tells him that the man on the shore is the Lord. He puts on his hour garment.

I don't know why he did that. That'd slow you down swimming, but whatever. And he puts on his robe or whatever, jumps in, swims to shore. Peter will need special attention. He's forfeited the right to be a disciple.

He once boasted to Jesus, I will lay down my life for you. And before the night was up, had denied him three times. How could he still be an apostle? How could he still have a mandate to represent the Lord he denied?

Peter, if the Lord were unforgiving, kind of one strike and you're out kind of God that some people have thought he was, then Peter would be done. How could he be trusted again? How can he be reinstated, rehabilitated?

Can there be a second chance after such a spectacular failure? In the early days of the church, many Christians did not think that such people could be restored. Or if they did think they could be restored, it would be a long, arduous process after a very long time.

During the persecutions of the Roman Empire, if a Christian offered incense to the Roman gods, in other words, he gave into the pressure or turned over scripture under threat of death, turned over scripture because the Romans were trying to stamp out the Bible, trying to burn it, especially the New Testament.

If Christian gave into that, they would be considered apostate. Some said they should never be restored. Others said that they could only be restored after many years going through a process. One standard procedure for dealing with believers who had knuckled under the pressure during persecution, like Peter, but wanted to return, required first that they spend two years, it's what they call weepers.

They're made to stand outside the church meeting and to bow low to those going inside, crying and begging forgiveness. They're called weepers. Imagine if you came in here, there were a few people out there bowing to you and weeping and begging for your forgiveness as you came in.

Now, if he did that for two years, then they could stand outside the church meeting by the windows, it's a Mediterranean area, but maybe here, be like standing on the other side of the curtain, just listening.

Imagine if we had a handful of people at the other side of the curtain just listening. They weren't, we didn't allow them to come in here because they had done something a few years ago. They had to do that another two years.

They were called hearers. Then if they kept that up, they were allowed to come into the church meeting, but were required to stay kneeling through the whole meeting. And they were not allowed to take communion.

Imagine if we had a few people here kneeling on the floor because they're coming through the process to be rehabilitated. They'd do that for seven years. And then they were allowed to stand with the rest of the believers for several more years, but they were not allowed to take the Lord's Supper.

Then finally, they could be considered sincere believers, completely reinstated again. They were rehabilitated. Now, was that extreme and legalistic and suspicious? Yeah, it was. It was wrong, really.

I mean, say imagine what it would be like. In one sense, it would raise the value you put in being a full member of the church, but in another sense, it would probably make you a little self-righteous.

I'm glad I'm not like that person. So that was wrong. But imagine the value it shows that they put on being right with God and worshiping him together with his people. Do you have that value? God lets Satan sift Peter like wheat and prove that he needed a miracle in his heart if he was gonna be a faithful disciple.

We may never have to face such excruciating sifting, but let's not flatter ourselves and think that we would do much better if we have not yet had that miracle done in our heart. It used to be that people who had once called themselves Christians, but now it's Christ, would be put out of the church and then required to go through years of humiliating, rigorous proof to show that they were really repentant.

And now we let people turn from God Sunday after Sunday, and we are shocked if someone suggests that there should be any required rehabilitation. We are wrong. Notice here, Peter's sin is not swept under the rug.

There's no cheap grace here. The Lord was going to deal straight with Peter's denials. Now, sure, Peter had wept bitterly. He was already sorry, but sometimes mere sorrow isn't enough. There has to be rehabilitation, not the protracted, suspicious, humiliating, legalistic rehabilitation of some parts of the early church, but something is required, and it hurt Peter.

It says so in verse 17, Peter was grieved. Do you see that? Peter felt bad. The Lord Jesus made Peter feel bad. Don't dodge that. Jesus hurt Peter's feelings. He did it on purpose. Jesus hurt Peter's feelings because that was necessary for him to be rehabilitated.

In order to rehabilitate him, to be able to give him mandate again, the Lord asked Peter three times whether he loves him, starting in verse 15. He addresses Peter formally by his original name, Simon, son of John.

So for this moment, he's not Peter anymore. The rock, he's the original distant Simon of John. Three times, Jesus asked him, do you love me? By the third time, Peter understood the symbolism. His denials were being replayed and rescinded, and it hurt to be reminded of his spectacular failure.

It hurt. But discipleship isn't about feeling good about yourself. Before Jesus can be followed and served, the sin in our lives has to be addressed. Jesus is insistent on this, even to the point of hurting Peter's feelings.

If you are serious about following him, he will be insistent on it with you, even to the point of hurting your feelings. He might do it right here. Sometimes having your feelings hurt might be what church should do for you.

Don't lose sight of that. Don't get your eyes off the ball. What's it about? What is the one thing you need to keep in mind? Do you love Jesus? Is that what's driving all this? Is the reason why you're here, this not sleeping in on Sunday mornings, missing work, the singing songs, sometimes strange and not to your taste, sitting through prayers and long monologues, doing stuff, giving generously, reading your Bible, praying in private, seeking God's will, is it all about loving Jesus?

Or have you gotten your eye off the ball? If you love Jesus, you want to do the same he wants to do, that he does. Here the Lord Jesus directly ties loving him three times to caring for his people. You can't love Jesus and think the church is optional.

Notice, do you love me? Peter says, yes. Then Jesus says, prove it by feeding, tending to my sheep. Jesus' sheep, the church. Church is a mandate, so does Peter. Peter is being called, he's being recalled here as a shepherd, as a pastor.

So three times he is told to feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. That's what a shepherd does. Does it entertain the goats? Does it spend all his time trying to bash the wolves? He has to, he has to, but that's not his main thing.

He doesn't massage the sheep, he doesn't just follow the sheep around and feel sorry for them if they fall off a cliff. He feeds them, he tends them, he leads them. In spiritual things, that means that he gives them the word of God.

That's the mandate. The main thing they are to pay attention to. Peter is told in verse 18, as part of this painful rehabilitation, you denied me to avoid persecution because you were afraid, but if you embrace this mandate, you will not finally escape.

You've been impetuous and rash. When you were young, you used to kind of go and do your own thing. But this mandate will put reins on you. It will lead you to die the same way I did, Jesus is saying. You will stretch out your hands, have your arms lashed to a cross beam, and then be led to the place of your crucifixion.

They'll make you go where you don't want to go. When Christ bids a man, he bids him come and die. Jesus is saying to Peter, do you want to be restored? Then come and die with me. Will you embrace that mandate?

Come and die. This is your call, if you are a disciple, your mandate, come and die. Peter had heard the Lord Jesus' earlier words about taking up your cross and following him, but he was too distracted by the threats, and he took his eye off the ball, and now he's called to it again.

Here it is, Peter, your mandate. You missed one chance to die for me. You won't miss another. Come and die. Who would embrace such a mandate? Who would say yes to such an offer? Not the one who thinks the ministry is sanctified social work, not the one who thinks the church is a place to make you feel better about yourself, but the one who loves, and not, first of all, love for people, as important it is to love people, but out of love for Jesus.

This is the beating heart without which nothing else makes sense. That's why Jesus asked him not, Simon, do you feel sorry? Not, Simon, are you ashamed of yourself? Not, Simon, why did your integrity fail?

Or, why did you lose your nerve? Not anything like that. Jesus went right to the heart of the question. Do you love me? Do you? If you love Jesus, it will show. It will show in loving what Jesus loves, his sheep, doing your part in bringing his lambs into the sheepfold and making sure that they are fed, not abused by wolves or confused with goats.

They are, notice all three times, his sheep. Jesus says, my sheep, my lambs. They're not ours. First and most importantly, they are his. He's attached to them. We can't say we love him and not be attached to his sheep, his flock.

Do you love the Lord Jesus? He's asking you right now. Do you love me? Do you? Then feed his sheep. Do your part, whatever it is, to tend his lambs. Maybe it's to do your part in building up this church so Jesus' lambs have a place to go.

Finally, after grieving Peter, hurting his feelings to bring him back, reminding him of the lambs, the church, bidding him come and die, Jesus reissues the call in verse 19, follow me. That's the mandate.

Keep your eye on it. Then finally, briefly, be mindful. Just have a mindfulness, an obsession, and your mind, your thoughts set on one thing. Mind your own business about a lot of things. Don't get too distracted.

Look to Christ, his call for you, and be overwhelmingly impressed with who Jesus is and what he did. Be desperate for the miracle. Embrace the mandate and be mindful of him. Peter wants to know, starting in verse 20, what will become of John?

Notice how distracted he's gotten so quickly. Lord, what about this man? Talking about John. Peter is told, basically, now mind your own business. If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?

Jesus has just told Peter, basically, you're gonna die. I'm bidding you come and die. You're gonna die like me. And Peter's wondering, well, what about John? Is he gonna die too? Well, that's none of your business.

Whatever I want to do with him is between him and I. So Jesus repeats the mandate. You follow me. You keep your eye on the ball. Now, some of the early church misinterpreted this in verse 23 and thought it was a promise that the apostle John would not die before Jesus returns.

And John, at the time he's writing this, he's getting old and he knows he's about to die. So John clears it up. That's not the point. The point is that Jesus was telling Peter, be mindful of me and my mission for you.

Think about that. Keep your eye on the ball. Like Forrest Gump being given that ping pong ball and paddle. It's not rocket science. People think they're too smart. They're too clever. They get distracted by everything else, by their feelings being hurt, not being recognized as who they think they should be recognized as, or by their family.

They gotta be obsessed about that, what's going on there, or by their business, by their studies, their need for money, or other priorities, the cares of this life, by other people, by petty personality conflicts, by traditions or opinions.

Church becomes all just consumed with that, being recognized, or because you have this problem with this person, blah, blah, blah. And they lose sight of their calling. They lose sight of Jesus. And in many sports, the key is to keep your eye on the ball.

Can you get back to the other player, or getting it through a hoop, or across the goal line? Can you get to the plate before the runner? Keep that ball in mind. If you get distracted from the ball, you'll lose.

In football, there are several different kinds of offensive plays designed specifically to get the defense's eyes off the ball. Misdirection plays, and play action passes, and bootlegs, and trick plays, all about distracting them from the ball, from where it is really going.

In our spiritual lives, the main thing is about loving Jesus, and yet the world, the flesh, and the devil are constantly trying to get us distracted by other things. And it doesn't matter whether those other things are good or bad.

Now hopefully, most of us here, we probably all know that we shouldn't be distracted by some things that are just so bad, pornography, living materialistically for the almighty dollar, you know, just caring about making more money, or getting drunk or high.

Those are easy to detect distractions. But we can also be distracted by good things. We think they're good. Relationships, careers, patriotism. Churches get consumed in politics. Morality, they get consumed in teaching the kids how to be good boys and girls.

The family, even religion, about being theologically precise. Reform people are like that, they're so obsessed. We're going to be right, all our doctrine's going to be perfect, our everything, every song we sing, everything we do in church is going to be perfect, the right church organization.

And these can all be good if they are ways through which we love Jesus. But if we allow ourselves to love them more than Jesus, remember Jesus asked Peter, do you love me more than these? If we love them more than Jesus, we've been distracted.

We've gotten our eyes off the ball. Instead, we need to be reminded. Every time we come together for worship, be reminded of the overflowingly, the infinitely impressiveness of God and our savior, our Lord Jesus, who we are dealing with.

John ends his gospel with his eye on the ball. Notice how he ends it. He's writing that if you tried to describe everything that Jesus is and did, that the whole planet is not big enough to hold what would be written.

That means that Jesus is infinitely impressive. He's entirely sufficient then to fill our thoughts and our attention, our fascination, our pursuits, our mind, to fill our worship. He is indescribably glorious.

So you could not describe him if all the earth were a library. The world itself could not contain the books in that last verse. And that's because he was more than a man or a martyr. He was the word made flesh.

He is the lamb of God slain for our sins, the risen Lord and God, our God. So keep him in mind. Don't be so easily distracted by other things. Be so impressed with him that you hardly notice sometimes these other things going on.

Pray and obey because you know you need a miracle. Embrace the mandate when he bids you come and die. Love him. Love him most so that everything and everyone you love, you love as a way of loving him.

Keep your eye on him.