The Power of Unconditional Love - Life of Christ Part 115

Have you ever blown it so badly that you just were sure that you were an outcast for good from that point on? I did that in high school. High school is a little different today, but when I was in high school, what they did is you went to homeroom every morning and you were there for about 15 minutes and this was your community, these were your troops, you know, these were your people.

And then you went off to your classes for the rest of the day. But that was your community. Well anyway, I was in high school homeroom with some people, this was a small town, and we'd come all the way through elementary school together, all the way through junior high school together.

I mean, these were my people. But my behavior was so bad that my high school homeroom teacher transferred me out of her homeroom over to Ewing. Now I know you don't know anything about Ewing in my high school, but Ewing was a really bad place. Not only was I separated from all my friends now, but I was over here with a really tough crowd. I didn't know anybody over here.

And Ewing, just to tell you how bad it was, everybody in Ewing could already vote. That's how bad it was in my high school. So man, I felt like a total reject. And every day when I went to high school and walked in the homeroom, there was like a big neon sign right over the door just flashing out and saying, Solomon, you're a failure. The reason you're over here without your friends, without your community, knowing nobody, scared to death, is because you are a total failure.

That's how I felt every day when I walked into high school. I'm leaving, Lord willing, to go to Israel this afternoon. And one of the first places we go when we're there is a place called Mensa Christi.

Mensa Christi means in Latin, the table of the Lord. And it's a little place right on the Sea of Galilee that commemorates the events of John chapter 21. And you sit there, it's a little tiny amphitheater, seats about 100 people. You're maybe 20 yards from the Sea of Galilee as it just kind of, the water just laps in on the shore. It's one of the most beautiful places in the world. It's one of the most beautiful places you can ever imagine.

But the reason I really like it is not just because of the physical beauty of the place, but I love the place because of the beauty of the message, the spiritual message that Jesus communicated to Peter and to us at this location. And that's what we're going to study this morning here in John chapter 21. Let's look at it together. Today we're going to look at a man named Peter who felt exactly the way I felt in high school, like a total complete failure. We're going to watch as Jesus heals this man, restores this man, renews this man, and Jesus uses only one remedy to accomplish that. And that's his unconditional love.

Let's look at it together. Verse 1. Afterward, Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberius or the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way.

Simon, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of Zebedee, James and John, and two other disciples were together. And Peter said to them, Hey, guys, I'm going fishing. So they said, Well, we'll go with you. And they went out and got in the boat. And they were out all night because that's what you do on the Sea of Galilee. You fish at night.

And in the morning, they had caught nothing. You say, Well, now, Lon, what's Peter doing back up here? I thought that Jesus had called Peter to be an apostle, an evangelist, the leader of the church.

What's he doing back up here fishing? Folks, the reason Peter was back up here is because he had denied the Lord three times. He felt completely disqualified. He felt like a total failure. He said, Hey, look, there's absolutely nothing in the kingdom of God left for me to do after denying Jesus three times that I even knew him.

So guys, I'm going back to the only thing that I know how to do well. And that's fishing. By the way, the fact that he was out all night and didn't catch anything might indicate he wasn't such a good fisherman either.

But we won't get into that. Anyway, verse four. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore and the disciples didn't realize it was Jesus. And he called out to them and said, Hey, guys, you got any fish?

Nah, they said. He said, Well, look, throw your net on the right side of the boat, and you'll find some. And when they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. And the disciple whom Jesus loved, John, the one writing this said to Peter, Hey, Peter, see that person on the shore? That's the Lord. How did he know that? Well, if you read back in Luke chapter five, you'll find that way back there three years before Jesus did the exact same thing for them at the exact same spot.

So like Yogi Berra says, it was like deja vu all over again. And here they were. And they said, that's got to be the Lord. So the minute he realized that Peter, middle of verse seven, said, I'm going to see him and he wrapped his long coat around him because he had taken it off for working. And he jumped in the water and the other disciples brought the boat to shore.

I'm going to summarize now, when they got to shore, there were so many fish in the net, they could hardly pull it in. And when they got it in, Jesus said, bring some of the fish over here. Let's sit down and have breakfast. Therefore, the name of the place, Mensa Christi, the table of the Lord because they sat around a table and they had breakfast. I think Peter was probably real quiet at breakfast, don't you?

I don't think he had much to say. But at verse 15, after breakfast, look what happens. And when they had finished eating, Jesus turned to Simon Peter. And he said, Simon, do you truly love me more than all of these guys sitting around the table? He said, well, Lon, why would Jesus ask Peter a question like that?

I mean, that's setting up comparison, that's setting up, you know, competition. Why would any good parent knows you don't ask a question like that? Why would he ask a question like that? Oh, listen, because that's exactly what Peter had claimed for himself. Remember when Matthew chapter 26, Jesus said, everybody, all of you disciples are going to abandon me tonight. You remember what Peter said?

Peter said, oh, we are, huh? Well, I'll tell you this, every one of those other yellow-bellied cowards may leave you tonight, but I'm not leaving you. Every one of those other wimps may run away because they don't really love you. But I really love you. I love you more than they do. And one thing you can count on is I'm staying the night.

I don't care what they do. Why did he ask the question? Because it's exactly what Peter had claimed, that he loved Jesus more than any of his buddies did. So Jesus said, hey, Peter, you really love me more than all the guys around the table here understood that you denied me three times? Yes, Lord, he said, you know I love you. Jesus said, well, let me tell you what to do.

Go feed my lambs. And then Jesus said a second time, hey, Simon, do you truly love me? He answered and said, yes, Lord, you know I love you.

Jesus said, well, then take care of my sheep. And the third time he said, hey, Simon, do you love me? And Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him a third time, do you love me? And he said, Lord, you know everything.

You know whether I love you or not. Jesus said, hey, Peter, go feed my sheep. He said, Lon, what's going on here? What is this all about? Is Jesus just trying to rub Peter's face in it?

Is that what he's doing here? No, no, no, no. See, what he's saying is, Peter, we all know you perform poorly. We all know that you let me down. We all know you let yourself down. We all know you failed.

That's no secret. But Peter, I came here to tell you something. And what I came here to tell you is that I love you, Peter. I came here to tell you that you have value to me and you have worth to me and you are important to me, Peter, and it has nothing to do, Peter, with the way you performed.

This is an important thing to know. Because you know what I found in 48 years of living? I have found that most people in our world feel like failures a lot more often than they feel like successes.

And you know what? It's not a big deal for most people to believe God loves them when they're doing successful. Most people seem to say, oh, yeah, well, I can accept that.

Sure, I'm doing a good job. Yeah, God, I can accept God would love me. The real problem, friends, is believing that God loves us when we fail.

That's the rub. Believing God loves us when we're not performing well. Now that's something that the average person in our world does not believe. That's something Peter didn't believe.

Peter was sure. Not only had he forfeited his ministry, but he had forfeited the love of Jesus Christ as well. And so when Jesus came to meet him, did Jesus try to superficially say, oh, you didn't really fail? No, he did fail. Did Jesus try to soften the consequences and say, well, Peter, wasn't a big deal?

No, it was a big deal. But what he came to tell Peter is, Peter, I'm a God of forgiveness, and my love for you does not depend on how you perform, and that's why I came here to see you. And now, Peter, I want you to go out to my sheep and my lambs, everybody else in this world, and I want you to tell them that I love them the very same way that I love you. And you see, if Peter had never failed, he never would have understood the love of God to the degree that he did. But by failing so miserably and having Jesus still love him just the same, oh, the man had a message now. The man had a message. Look what Jesus did for Peter as he stood here feeling like a failure. On a personal level, he reclaimed him and he reassured him and he reconnected with him, and on a ministry level, he restored him and he reinstated him and he renewed him to ministry again. Hey, he healed this man's broken life.

And he only used one thing to do it, the unconditional love that he had for Peter. Now, that's the end of our passage, but it leads us to ask a really important question, and you're awake because this is, you know, 11 o'clock in the morning, so I really, I need to hear a really good, now, what's the point? Not bad, not bad. So what?

So what? You know, when I was in high school, my homeroom teacher was not the only person who was really fed up with my behavior. My parents were pretty fed up with it too. And I'll never forget, I was about 15 years old, they called me to come into the dining room.

They were sitting at the table. Now, when you got called into the dining room, you were in deep kimchi at my house. So when I got invited to the dining room, I knew this was not going to be a fun encounter. And they said to me, they said, Lon, we are fed up with you. We don't know what to do with you. We don't know how to deal with you. We are exhausted dealing with you. You embarrass us with your behavior.

We have had it up to here with you. And so we are sending you to military school. I said, is that that place where they wear those weird hats with the feathers on the top and stuff like that? And they said, you got it. That's the place.

Fork Union Military Academy, here comes Lon. Oh, boy. It's hard for me to describe to you the feelings of rejection that I had in that dining room. See, I knew I was a behavior problem. I've been a behavior problem my whole life.

My wife still thinks I'm a behavior problem, to be honest with you. But all the kids at school, I didn't have many friends at school. The kids at school rejected me.

But that was one thing. But to have my parents reject me like this. You know, something got crushed inside of me that night that even though my parents later relented and never sent me to military school, it never recovered fully. I mean, something happened on the inside of me.

I'm not a psychotherapist and I may not be able to explain it to you. But that kind of rejection just crushed something inside of me. That's the kind of family I grew up in.

Family I grew up in was good at crushing stuff inside of you. Never once do I ever recall my dad telling me he loved me. Never once do I ever recall my dad taking me in his arms and hugging me or kissing me. Do you realize that when I would behave right in my home, nothing would be said. But when I misbehaved in my home, I was rejected. I was isolated.

I was cast off. My mother would go days and refuse to speak to me. And never once when I misbehaved do I ever recall my parents telling me that they still loved me. They still accepted me. I was still valuable to them in spite of the fact that I misbehaved. Never once do I remember that.

Folks, when I met a man on the streets of Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1971 who began telling me as a 21-year-old college student that God loved me unconditionally. I was an emotional wreck of a person. I was insecure.

I was paranoid. I was unstable. I had no self-worth. I felt no self-dignity. I had no confidence in myself.

And I was a very unhappy person about who I was. I've been in full-time Christian ministry now over 20 years. I've counseled thousands of people in my office on Tuesdays. And you know, I think I've heard just about every problem there is.

Maybe I haven't, but I'm close. And I've made an observation over 20 years of doing this. And here's my observation. The number one cause of human dysfunctionality, the number one cause, my observation, is people being loved conditionally. Meaning that when we perform correctly, we get loved or most often we get nothing.

But man, when we perform incorrectly, we get rejected, we get outcast, we get slam dunked. You love somebody like that. You grow up in a home like that.

You stay married to a person like that. And it is like a nuclear explosion in your soul. And the fallout is everywhere. And sad to say, I'll bet there's a lot of us here who know a whole lot more about being loved conditionally than we wish we knew. You know, folks, if Jesus was looking for a candidate to love conditionally, Peter would have been a good one, wouldn't he? I mean, this guy really blew it bad. This guy really messed it up.

You talk about bad performance. If you were looking to show conditional love to somebody, wouldn't Peter have been a pretty good candidate? But is that how Jesus loved this man?

Absolutely not. Here in John 21, he opened his arms and he loved Peter in a way the world would not love Peter, in a way the world could not love Peter. He loved Peter with a supernatural love that was unconditional. He loved him with a love that rebuilt him and redeemed him and repaired him and renewed him. He loved him, Jesus did with a love that restored worth and value and dignity to this man's life. He loved him with a love that healed this man's broken life.

And you know, the Peter that we see later in the Bible and the Peter who was willing to be crucified upside down in Rome in 66 AD rather than deny Christ, that man would never have existed. That man would never have come into being if Jesus Christ here in John chapter 21 had not gone to meet that man who felt like a broken total failure and loved him back to health. Now here's the good news. Jesus Christ offers to love you and me and every person alive that very same way.

That's the good news. To people who've been damaged by conditional love, to people who've had conditional love demean their self-worth like I had, to people who had had conditional love rob them of all their self-esteem like it did me, to people who've had conditional love take all the joy out of their life like it had done to me, to people who've had conditional love turn them into dysfunctional disaster zones like I was. Jesus says to those people, come to me and I will love you back to health. No matter how badly you've been beaten up and bruised by people loving you conditionally your whole life, if you'll open yourself up to my unconditional love, I'll bring healing to the deepest part of your soul, I'll get down there where no scalpel, no drug, no therapy, no doctor can get to and I'll heal you where only God can get to.

Just open yourself up and give me a chance. Let me say if you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way and you've been running on a system of your own human performance, well I can perform good enough to make God happy with me and I can perform good enough to earn my way into heaven. I'd like to say to you that you need a higher basis for self-worth and for self-esteem than how you perform and you know why? The answer is because sooner or later, no matter how hard you and I try, sooner or later we are going to fall short in our performance. We're going to bitterly disappoint ourselves and other people and if your whole self-worth is built on your performance as a human being, friends, you have bought a ticket on the Titanic. It can't work.

That is a formula for disaster. I'm so glad God offers us a better system, a neater system, a greater system, a system that says look, it doesn't matter how you perform. I love you because you're you and I love you and when you perform good, I love you and when you perform rotten, I love you and I love you the same both ways. It doesn't matter and if you've never experienced that kind of love, then that's what Jesus Christ offers you in a personal relationship with him. A chance to get off the Titanic of your own performance and into the lifeboat of God's unconditional love.

If you've never done that, man, I sure hope you'll consider doing that. Well let's get back to those of us who are Christians because I know there are people here who are saying, Lon, you know what, I mean this is a great message and God bless you preacher people who stand up here and talk about this stuff. But friends, listen, this is not preacher people talk. This is truth that's supposed to change your life Monday through Saturday.

If you really believe that this is how Jesus loves you, it will change your life. You say, yeah well, but you know Lon, I gotta have some proof. I mean I've dropped my guard before. I dropped it with my parents, they slam dunked me. I dropped it with my ex-husband, my ex-wife, they slam dunked me. I dropped it with my friends at school, they slam dunked me. I dropped it with my boyfriend, my girlfriend, they slam dunked me. So what proof do I have if I drop my guard again?

God's not gonna slam dunk me, huh? Give me some proof because if you don't give me any proof, I'm not sure I'm ready to take this kind of risk again. I'd be happy to give you some proof.

You say there is some proof? Oh yeah, oh absolutely. Could I ask you to turn over in your Bible to Romans chapter 5? Jesus said greater love has no one than this, that somebody would lay down their life for somebody else. Dear friend, if you'd like to know how much somebody really loves you, I'll tell you a great barometer. Find out who'd die for you. Find out who'd die for you. Jesus said that's the greatest expression of love there is anywhere. You know that little girl in Manassas?

Every time I see that on the news, I mean I just feel like just weeping with this family. If you're a parent and you had a little two-year-old and somebody said to you, I'm either gonna kidnap your two-year-old and kill them or I'm gonna kidnap you and kill you, you make the choice. Isn't it true most parents would say well kidnap me and kill me? Now teenagers don't really count yet because that's different.

For two-year-olds this works. True? Okay. If you're a parent, don't you love your child enough you'd give your life for your child? I think you do. Now would you be willing to die however for your spouse? Same. Depends what day you ask me honestly. Alright, fair enough. Would you be willing to die for your boyfriend or your girlfriend?

If they're sitting next to you now, don't answer out loud. But probably not. Probably not. How about would you be willing to die for some good friend that maybe you see occasionally? Uh, nah, uh-uh. Don't think so. I want you to think of the worst enemy you've got.

I mean this is a person when I say their name, if I said their name, your blood pressure would just start going up. You got them? Would you die for them? Say not even remotely possible. Good. Look at Romans 5 verse 6. You see it says just at the right time when we were still powerless Christ died for the ungodly.

See friends this is the relationship that you and I were in with Jesus Christ when he went to the cross for us. We were ungodly. We were not righteous people. We were not holy people. We were alienated from God. We were separated from God. We were in rebellion against God. We were determined to go our own way and to do everything God told us not to do. In fact verse 10 says we were God's enemies. That's where we were.

Watch. Very rarely verse 7 will a person die for a righteous man though maybe for a good man somebody might possibly dare to die. But verse 8 but God demonstrates God puts on display his love for us in this that while we were still sinners, while we were still his enemies, while we were still alienated from him Christ went to the cross and he died for you and for me.

Folks if you'd cleaned yourself up and then Jesus had agreed to die for you verse 7 says that had been one thing but you didn't clean yourself up and you couldn't have cleaned yourself up and neither did I. It's while we were alienated separated and declared enemies of God in our own spirits and wills that he went to the cross and died for us and by doing so it says here he sat on display. He demonstrated the kind of love that he has for you and for me and for every human being in this world. It's a love that is not based on how I perform because when Jesus went to the cross from you and me we were not performing well. It is a love that's not based on us being perfect or even close to perfect because when Jesus went to the cross we were not. It's a love that is so deep and so fathomless and so unconditional that it really defies imagination. But that's the way God says he loves you and me and do I need to prove to you he loves you that way?

I can do it. All you have to do is look at the cross. There is no greater proof in the world that God loves you unconditionally than the cross. My mom wouldn't go to the cross for me but Jesus did. My dad never went to the cross for me but Jesus did. I don't have a friend in the world that I know would go to the cross for me but Jesus did because Jesus loves me better than anybody else does. How does this change our everyday life?

Pretty simply I think. I meet Christians all the time who understand this principle perfectly for non-Christians. But then somehow when we become Christians we think God changes the system. Now all of a sudden I'm on a performance thing. Oh you know I can't do this and I can't do that. If I want God to really love me, if I want God to accept me, you know I can't smoke and I can't drink and I can't cuss and I can't chew and I can't hang around with the people who do because God's not going to love me.

Excuse me a second. Would you mind pointing out to me where in the Bible it says that after you became a Christian God changed systems on you? That all of a sudden now he loves you because of your performance? Well but before you were a Christian he didn't love you because of your performance? If you can show me a verse in here then you ought to be up here talking because to the best of my knowledge there's not a verse anywhere in here that says God changes systems.

Churches would have you believe that but it ain't true. And friends you change systems. You let somebody talk you into changing systems into a performance system with God and you will take all the joy out of your Christian experience just like that. Because you can't perform well enough and neither can I. And I meet Christians all the time who are feeling terrible about their relationship to God because they feel like a failure and God doesn't love them anymore. And you know what?

A lot of times their performance has not been so great. I meet people who say hey you know I slept with my boyfriend, I slept with my girlfriend, I've blown it now you know I know God doesn't love me the way He used to. I lied at the office, I committed adultery against my husband or my wife, I had an abortion. God doesn't love me the way He used to. Man I made a commitment, I failed to follow through, I got people mad at me all over everywhere.

I cheated at school, I said something and hurt some people I shouldn't, yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda. Listen friends, if you're here and you're a Christian and you feel like a reject and you feel like a failure and you feel like you deserve for God just to throw you out, I want to say something to you. You need to believe what God tells you in the Word of God. Stop worrying about how you feel or what anybody else tells you, you need to believe what God tells you. And what God tells you is this, even though you may have messed up big time, even though you may feel like you've royally blown it, even though you may feel like your performance stinks and you know what, it may very well.

Because of that, the rest of the world may be ready to put you on waivers, but not God. God wants you to know He loves you just as much today as He loved you before you messed up. And friends, He's not saying that what you did was right, but what He is saying is you're still as acceptable and as valuable to Him today as you were before. And what He wants from you is for you to believe Him, let Him take you in His arms and let Him love you and let Him reassure you. He wants to let you know He's still with you and He's going to walk through the consequences of whatever you did right by your side. It hasn't changed how He feels about you one bit. You say, Lon, you got to know, I might be able to believe that in my head, but I have never had anybody in my whole life ever loved me like that. Well, you know what, at 21 years old, I hadn't either.

I made a lot of mistakes in my life, friends, but the greatest right decision I ever made was to open my life up to the healing, unconditional love of Jesus Christ at the age of 21 years old, drop my guard and let Him come in and begin healing my life. And that's what He wants to do for me. There's a song, one of the lines from the song goes like this, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. And every time I sing that hymn, I say, you know, those verses describe my Christian life for the last 25 years.

That's it. God's in field A and I turn around and all of a sudden, even though I love Him, I've wandered off and I'm in field X, Y, or Z somewhere. And I look around and I go, how do I get away over here? God's way over there.

What am I doing way over here? Would you notice in John chapter 21, who came looking for who? Would you notice Peter didn't go looking for Jesus, but Jesus came and found Peter.

And I've lost count of how many times when I'm in field X, Y, or Z, Jesus Christ has come looking for me, picked me up, said, come on, Lon, we're going back over here to field A again where you belong. You know why Jesus does this? Because the Bible says, even if we are faithless, He remains faithful. He cannot deny who He is. And I'm so glad, I'm so glad that God's love doesn't depend on my faithfulness because if it did, I'd lose God's love. It depends on His faithfulness. It doesn't depend on my performance. It depends on His character and who He is. And He's not changing.

Regardless of my performance, He's not changing. I need a system like this. Maybe you don't need a system like this. I need a system like this because my performance stinks often enough that I can't afford to be riding on my performance when it comes to the love of God. I need a system that doesn't depend on my performance. I think you do too.

I'm happy to report that's the system we've got. Don't mess it up. Don't mess it up by letting anybody tell you that any other thing is true about the love of God.

You say, oh, Lon, I get real nervous when I hear you talk like this. It means that we're just not dealing with sin the way we should. Nonsense. God didn't cheapen what Peter did.

He just said, Peter, it doesn't make any difference about how I feel about you. Oh, Lon, you do this, we're going to have license all over everywhere. We're going to have people just doing all kinds of crazy stuff. No, we're not. No, we're not. But I believe the greatest healing force in the universe is the unconditional love of God. Friends, I'm a personal living example of it. And I believe the greatest detriment in the Church of Christ today is that somehow we've bought into the lie that God loves us based on our performance. It is a lie. The healing truth is God loves you for no good reason.

I don't know why He loves you, but I sure am glad He does. Believe it. And you know some of you are going to fail before you get out the building today. It's true, you're going to say something, do something, definitely by next Sunday. You will.

So what are you going to do with it? You're going to walk around and let it rob you of all the joy in your life? Or are you going to say that was wrong? God, I didn't mean to do it. I'm sorry, but I'm so thankful.

It didn't make one bit of difference about how you feel about me. That is the truth. And I'm going to make myself believe that because it's true.

Let's pray. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for loving us with a love that we can't get anywhere else in the world. Many of us have been looking for love in all the wrong places, not finding it, at least not the kind of love we want. And I want to thank you that the love that you offer us is a supernatural love based in your character, not in our performance. And frankly, I'm at a loss to know why you love me, God. If I were you, I wouldn't love me. And I'm at a loss to know why you love all these other people. But I'm sure glad that you do. And I'm glad that I don't have to perform and they don't have to perform correctly for you to love us. Father, take this great truth. Help us let our guard down. Let us allow you to convince us this is really the way it is and turn this into a healing, restorative force in our lives. May it change the way we live today and the rest of this week and the rest of our lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.