John Chapter 21:15-20

Have faith in God, not in yourself. Have faith in God, not in yourself. Now, I know this flies in the face of certain logic today, but the reality is if you put your faith in you as a believer, you're going to live a life, well, it's going to be horribly disillusioning. Now, what I mean by that is time and time again as you put faith in yourself, that faith will be dashed, you'll have problems, you'll stumble, you'll fall. But if you put faith in the Lord, the Lord never stumbles, the Lord never falls. So don't put faith in your ability to follow God, put your faith in God's ability to lead you and to know that if, I say if, when something happens and you find yourself off to the side and not in the middle and not focused on the Lord, know that because of his leadership, he's going to come to you and remind you, hey, hey, let's focus.

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is a senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. While God has equipped us to do many things, in the end, we shouldn't have faith in ourselves, but we should have faith in God. Today, Pastor David explains how we can do that as he continues in the Gospel of John chapter 21 with his teaching, A Great Question. So we're in John chapter 21.

We finished with verse 15, but let's pick it up with verse 15 for context's sake. So when they'd eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said to him, feed my lambs. He said to him again a second time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

And he said to him, tend my sheep. So just as a way of reminder of what's going on here, they were supposed to be waiting in the mountains in Galilee for Jesus to come and speak to them after the resurrection. And Jesus comes, and they're out on the Sea of Galilee fishing.

They're not really where they're supposed to be doing what they're supposed to be doing. And when you go into the original languages, it seems to indicate in verse 3 not just that Peter's saying I'm going fishing, but I'm going back to fishing. So perhaps he was disheartened. And so Jesus comes, and these guys are out on the lake, and he says, what did you catch?

And they said, well, he hadn't caught anything. And he says, throw the net on the other side of the boat, and they did and had a net full of fish. And then Jesus starts with Peter and says, Peter, do you love me?

And the first one, he says, do you love me more than these? Now, he may have been talking about the fish. Do you love me more than this whole fishing business? Because, Pete, this fishing business is over.

There's other things that you need to be doing. He may have been talking about the other disciples. We're not really sure.

It could be either one. I'd lean towards the fish, but notice the old Peter's gone. That was an expensive thing for Peter to spiritually grow, but if you remember in Matthew chapter 26, 33, when Jesus is talking about them falling away and one of them betrayed, Peter answered and said to him, even if all are made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble. And we read that verse, and part of us goes, yeah, Pete, all right. But wait a minute. Did Peter hold true to that verse? No. How long did it take before that rash vow fell on the rocks?

A few hours. Guys, understand something, and we tend to think that rash vows are very spiritual, don't we? But are they? I don't know how many of y'all have had the experience of being in a situation you didn't really want to be in and then crying out to the Lord, Lord, if you'll just get me out of here, I'll never do this again. And the Lord will get you out of it, and a few hours later, guess what you're doing?

You're doing the same thing. Lord, if you just let me sober up, I'll never drink again. I hadn't said that one, but I've read stories of people that have said those. And we think God is impressed with those rash vows. You know, as I've grown in the Lord, I don't utter rash vows anymore. I don't even say, I'll never do this anymore. I say, Lord, please help me not to do this anymore. Please help me not to repeat this pattern of behavior, but never arrogantly going, I'll never do this.

Why? Because you know the moment I do that, you know what I'm trusting? I'm trusting me.

I'm trusting me. And Peter had a lot of faith in Peter. It's interesting, you know, the time when Peter writes the home run and he says, you're the son of the living God.

He follows up with a huge fumble. In Mark chapter 8, verse 31, it says, And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

Do you see this? Jesus has just laid out the whole plan, the reason he's here to die for the sins of the people. And Peter's like, hey, Jesus, come here for a second.

I've got to talk to you. You're all confused about this whole thing. And begins to rebuke him.

You have to see the irony of this. And so we see that Peter had a lot of faith in Peter. Even when Jesus tried to warn him, no problem. That's the first life lesson. Have faith in God, not in yourself. Have faith in God, not in yourself. Now, I know this flies in the face of certain logic today, but the reality is if you put your faith in you as a believer, you're gonna live a life, well, it's gonna be horribly disillusioning. What I mean by that is time and time again as you put faith in yourself, that faith will be dashed. You'll have problems, you'll stumble, you'll fall. But if you put faith in the Lord, the Lord never stumbles, the Lord never falls. So don't put faith in your ability to follow God.

Put your faith in God's ability to lead you. And to know that if, I say if, when something happens and you find yourself off to the side and not in the middle and not focused on the Lord, know that because of his leadership, he's gonna come to you and remind you, hey, hey, let's focus. It's not about you, it's not about this earth, it's about heaven. And what was he talking about, feed my sheep? And notice he says, feed my sheep. He doesn't say, beat my sheep, which some pastors think that's the mandate.

I gotta beat the sheep. We need to be fed the word of God. Psalm 119, 103 says, How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. And 1 Peter 2, 2, and 3 says, As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. So this is one thing that's really important for new believers, that's why we give away so many of these new believer bibles. I don't even know how many hundreds we've given away, but what an awesome thing to do.

Why? Because it gives them the word of God. We don't just wanna hand them a book.

There's a lot of great Christian books out there, don't get me wrong, but we don't just hand them a book about the new faith, we wanna hand them the book about the faith and feed them and feed them. Psalm 119, he said to him the third time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him the 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, feed my sheep. Now this is interesting, because how many times does he ask him? Three times, and some of you have heard this before. How many times did Peter deny the Lord? Three times.

And again, notice what Jesus doesn't say. Peter, I'm gonna ask you this, three times. Three times, does that number mean anything to you, Peter?

Have you done anything recently three times? Does that remind you of anything? He doesn't say that. He doesn't say that. He speaks to him.

Now it's kind of unfortunate. The English language really only has one word for love. And it's not very descriptive, because I can say that I love pizza, and I love my friend. And so do I love my friend as much as I love pizza?

Well, hopefully not. So the English language leads a little bit to be desired in the word for love. Now, both the Greek and the Hebrew have several words for love. Now I don't want to bore you with the details, but it's important to what we're learning and studying about here to know what those words are.

The first Greek word is eros. It's romantic love. It's where we get our word for erotic. And sometimes it's equated with lust.

That word's not actually in the Bible. The second one is philea or phileo, and that's a friendship love. We refer to that as platonic, and that's where the name of Philadelphia came from, the city of brotherly love.

So that's a friendship love. Another love is agape or agapeo, which is divine, unconditional love. And this is the love that we use to describe the love that God gives us. This is the word that is used in the Bible to describe that perfect, unconditional love, agape love. And one other is storge, which is just natural affection, like I like you.

Now, in this, agapeo and phileo are used, but it's interesting how they occur. The first time Jesus asked Peter, he says, do you love me? He says, do you, agapeo me, do you love me with an unconditional perfect love, Peter? And Peter says, Lord, you know that I phileo you. You know that I have friendship for you.

You know that I care about you. And the second time, Jesus says again, Peter? I mean, Simon, son of Jonah?

Notice he calls him Simon, too. That's another time. The, do you love me? And again, he uses, do you, agapeo me, do you love me with a perfect, unconditional love? Now, you realize that the old Peter said, yeah, you betcha.

You know, Jesus, I don't know why you chose these other guys. They obviously don't love you as much as I do, but me, I agapeo you. Now, what happened? Peter again says, I phileo you.

I'm your friend. I care deeply about you. The third time, Jesus says, do you phileo me? Peter says, yeah.

It must have breathed a sigh of relief. Jesus came down to where he was. Jesus used the word that he was using. Jesus is so sweet.

Jesus met him right where he was. So, okay, let's go from here. What can you give me? Can you give me a part of your heart?

Can you give me part of your life? And he builds from there. He does with us this morning, each and every person in here. He doesn't say, look, I want you to, you know, be this radical missionary, and tomorrow you're leaving for Africa or something.

Well, it could be, but probably not. You know, he says, where are you right now? What can you give me of your life?

What can you give me of your heart? Let's start from there. See, because the other thing is, we set up this whole thing of going, well, you know, he wants all this, and I can't give all this, so I just won't give him anything. Jesus wants what you're willing to give him this morning. If it's a little bit, he'll start with you there.

If it's a lot, he'll start with you there. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, we want to pray for a few cities in our listening audience right now, specifically Seneca Falls, Windsor, New York, and also Brown Summit, Burlington, Eden, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina. God, we thank you for the people tuning in right now in these cities. We pray that you would pour your Holy Spirit out on them. Lord, we pray for those who are not listening but who live in those cities. God, I pray that they would trust in you, Lord, that they would hear your gospel and that they would say yes to Jesus. Lord, we pray that people will get plugged in Bible-teaching churches, and Lord, we pray for those in leadership positions in these cities that you give them wisdom and discernment, and they also will look to your Bible for answers on how to lead. Lord, please bless these cities, and may there be revival. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Notice again, he says, Feed my sheep. They didn't say, Peter, feed your sheep. Feed my sheep. Whose sheep are they? They're Jesus' sheep. You realize whose sheep you are? You're not necessarily my sheep. You're the Lord's sheep. You're his people.

And boy, that's important for me to understand, important for you guys to understand. Now, understand, Peter had been through this thing. Luke 22, 31, Jesus says to him, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to have all of you, to sift you like wheat. I often reflect, can you imagine being part of that conversation? Sitting down with Jesus and Jesus going, hey, look, here's the deal. Satan wants all of you.

He wants to sift you like wheat. And I'm quite sure that Peter was thinking, you told him no, didn't you? You know, I mean. But here's what Jesus says verse 32. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turn to me again, strengthen and build up your brothers. This is a very important verse and I'll tell you why. Because again, notice what he doesn't say. He says, Peter, after you fall, after you fail, focus on yourself for a while.

That's not what he says. He says, when you get back up, start loving on other people. Start serving other people. What was Jesus saying? Well, Jesus knows what some of us are still discovering in that our healing comes when we start to pour our lives out. Not as we stand there just continually receiving, but when we begin to give of ourselves to others. See, that's what we're all supposed to be doing, encouraging one another, serving one another, and loving one another.

And we're supposed to be going from a self-centered life to a others-centered life. Verse 18, most assuredly I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish. See, you used to do what you wanted to do, Peter, and those days are over. Used to be a fisherman. Peter, you're not a fisherman anymore.

I'm going to use you to do something else. Again, this is consistent with what Jesus is saying is, you know what, you need to be others-centered, Peter. You need to begin to focus on others and make that journey, if you will. And I think that's important. And the personal application is each and every one of us is supposed to be making this journey. Each and every one of us is supposed to begin to focus more on others and meeting the needs of others and giving our lives away is what Jesus said. And to do anything else is to stagnate that Christian growth.

And we certainly don't want to do that. And whenever I go to Disney World, it's just an impressive place. I don't know if you've ever been, but the moment a piece of trash hits the ground, somebody scoops it up with a smile on their face. And the thing that bizarrely occurs to my mind as I watch this is they're doing it all for a mouse. I mean, maybe not literally.

They get paid. I understand that. But that's, you know, make your mouse, M-I-C, that whole thing, you know? If they can do that for a mouse, why would we be unwilling to do it for Creator God? I don't understand that.

We need to be willing to give our lives away. Now, what's beautiful, and you need to understand this, this is not a pop quiz for Peter. This is not Jesus grilling Peter.

What John has recorded and only John records is actually very beautiful. This is the public restoration of Peter. Jesus is appointing, anointing, and empowering Peter in the ministry. See, no longer will people go, well, you know, Peter, you messed up.

You're done. Because Peter said, no, I'm not done. He told me to go feed the sheep. And he told me three times, in case I missed it or any of you guys missed it.

That's a beautiful thing. And the reason he did that publicly is because Peter had fallen publicly. And Jesus said, I'll take you right where you are, and I'm gonna do something glorious with your life. Verse 19, this he spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he said to him, follow me.

That's another amazing passage. Jesus says, you know what? This is how you're gonna die. Follow me. He doesn't say, look, Peter, it's gonna be difficult.

You probably shouldn't do this. He says, no, Peter, you're gonna die. Now, church history, not the Bible, but church history indicates that Peter was martyred under Nero, a very savage and brutal man, and that they crucified him. And when they went to crucify him, they said, you know what? Since you're following this Jesus character, you're gonna die like Jesus. And Peter said, you know what?

I'm not worthy to die like Jesus. And they crucified him upside down. And Peter, who had denied the Lord three times, yes, with his last statement in life, his last breath, said something to us all. I can only imagine the pain that he went through. Now, as you go through a list of the disciples, you look that, you know, Andrew was crucified, Bartholomew was flayed alive with knives, James the brother of John was beheaded, James the younger was sawed in pieces, John was boiled in oil and lived, and he was also poisoned, and he was exiled to Patmos, which was a penal island.

It was a prison for, you know, the horrible people. And John was the only disciple that died a natural death. Then we have Judas, who hung himself. Jude was killed with arrows. Matthew was martyred in Ethiopia. Peter was crucified. Philip, we believe, was hung. Simon was crucified. Thomas was killed with spears in India.

What's the point? I think it's fair to say the disciples did not live comfortable lives, that their lives had definitely been divinely interrupted by the Lord. I think to say that they suffered a little bit of persecution is quite the understatement.

But check this out, guys. They died for something they knew to be true. People don't die for what they know to be false, and I guarantee 11 people would not have done that. They died for what they knew to be real. They knew more than just that there was an empty tomb somewhere in Jerusalem. They knew that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and they were willing to go to their deaths in that. Verse 20, Then Peter turned around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had leaned on his breast at the supper, and said, Lord, who is the one who betrays you?

That's kind of interesting, isn't it? Now, who is the disciple whom Jesus loved? John. How do we know that? John told us. That's right.

Which is a good thing. John knew that Jesus loved him. But notice Peter's publicly restored the ministry. What's the first thing he does? What about that guy? Oh, Peter. Is that what Peter should be worried about right now?

No. Is that what you should be worried about right now? See, we have this tendency to worry about what somebody else is doing.

Why? Well, because then we're not thinking about what's going on in our own heart and in our own lives. It makes us very comfortable to go, oh, look at them. Oh, look at them. Look what they're doing. You know, it's like that old thing, oh, look over there. You know, the old distraction device. What should we be focusing on?

We should be focusing on Jesus, but what do we do? Oh, look at him. Oh, look at that. Well, look, I can't believe she's doing that. I can't believe he's doing that. I can't believe he said that. It's convenient, isn't it? But we're supposed to be focusing on the Lord.

Way too often we're worried about what the other person's doing. Now, what's amazing, okay, let's just stop and take a real quick glimpse of Peter at this point. Peter not only denied the Lord, but he was just forever, you know, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Jesus lays out the plan of salvation. Remember what Peter, the verse we just read? Peter began to rebuke him. Jesus has exposed this glorious plan involving the redemption of man, and Peter rebukes him.

Guys, there's no way to gloss over that. Then you remember the upper room when Jesus is going to wash their feet? And Peter says, absolutely not. He says, well, if I don't wash your feet, you got no part of me.

Okay, wash my whole body. I mean, Peter was always making these missteps and then the denial. Pastor David, why are you pointing this out? Nothing in his past would point to the glorious success that he would have in ministry. As a matter of fact, if you looked at the life of Peter at this point, you'd say, man, I'm not sure God can use somebody like that. God did use somebody like that to the point that most of the people in the world today know who Peter was. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood, through radio, through the Internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God, with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So, folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.