The Failure

Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer talks about overcoming our greatest failures. You understand that you are a sinner, yes, but your sin, even though you know it's bad, there is something in you that knows that God is gracious and that God is drawing you to himself and that you know that God is good, God is tenderness, and God is love, and you want to come close to him. The work really is complete. Welcome to Summit Life, the gospel-centered Bible teaching ministry of J.D. Greer, pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

As always, I'm your host Molly Vidovitch. You know, if we're honest, we've all had those days where we've messed up big time. Maybe you fell back into an old sin or did something you swore you would never do. And in that moment, I bet you wondered if God could ever forgive you.

Maybe you felt broken like damaged goods. Well, don't worry. We've got some good news. Today Pastor J.D. explains how God can redeem even our greatest failures. It's part of our series in the book of John called Can't Believe. So let's dive right into the book of John. Pastor J.D.

titled this message The Failure. John chapter 21 verse 1. After this, Jesus revealed himself again. Now, after what?

What is the after there referred to? First to the resurrection. You see, when you're reading the gospel of John for the first time, you get to the end of chapter 20, and by every indication, the gospel is over.

Right? Because, I mean, you've had the ultimate revelation of Jesus. He's been risen from the dead. And all the disciples believe, and they worship him, except for one holdout, a skeptic named Doubting Thomas.

And he says, unless I see the nail prints in his hands and the scar on the side, I'm not going to believe. And so Jesus walks through a wall and shows himself to Thomas. It's like, Thomas, how you like me now? I just walked through that wall.

Here's my hands and my feet. You were asking about that, weren't you? And Thomas falls on his face, and he lifts up his hands, and he says, my Lord and my God. And then John, the author, adds in a little kind of concluding statement.

It's verse 31. These things, all these stories were written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you would have life in his name. Now, that is a kind of wrap-up, concluding statement. This is in every way the climax of the book. But then, kind of unexplainably, there's a chapter 21. It just kind of keeps rambling on.

It just looks kind of like it's tacked on there. Jesus reveals himself again. Why? Why this tacked on chapter?

Here's why. There has been one key guy who has been noticeably absent from these resurrection narratives. One guy, Peter. Peter, you see, has been one of the main characters of the Gospel of John.

More often than not, he is carrying the plot. He's the one making the conversation. The last real significant mention that you have of Peter in the Gospel of John is Peter making a fool out of himself. Jesus had just told the disciples that they're all going to forsake him. And Peter stands up, and Jesus says that, and says, you know what? All these other fools may forsake you, but not me, because I'm super Christian.

And I don't care if they even take my life. I will never deny you. Jesus looks back at Peter. He says, well, Peter, actually, not only will you forsake me, you're going to deny me three times before tomorrow morning, before the rooster crows. And Peter's like, whatever. He's like, these are the fools.

They're not strong, but I'm a man. I'm a spiritual man. I'm your biggest follower. And then he kind of flexes his spiritual muscles in front of everybody and strikes a pose. And he's like, look at me.

I'm your most faithful disciple. And then he goes out, and a few hours later, he's standing around a fire. And a teenage girl looks at him and says, hey, aren't you one of Jesus' followers? And Peter's like, what? Who?

No, no, never heard of the guy. He gets scared. He denies Jesus not once, not twice, but three times. And as the words are coming out of his mouth that third time, that rooster crows somewhere in the distance. And that rooster crowed at least two times.

It would not shut up. Then you know that Peter wants to go over and just throttle that chicken and be like, shut up, because it's reminding him of his failure. And so he's driven out. He is embarrassed.

He is humiliated. He knew that he had failed Jesus in just about the worst possible way. And this gospel cannot come to a conclusion until Peter has been brought back in. You see, that's because the gospel is not just Jesus' story. The gospel is Peter's story as well. The gospel is not just a story of Jesus' resurrection. The gospel is not complete until that resurrection has been applied to you. And so even though the ultimate revelation has happened, Jesus has been risen from the dead, everything has changed for the world, but everything has not changed for Peter. The gospel is not just his story. It is your story. And he can't end this until this story has been applied to Peter. Before we look at it, can we all just get on the same page for a minute? Have you ever been where Peter is?

Have you ever been there? Mr. Bold and confident, Mr. I'm never gonna deny you Jesus, Mr. I'm gonna make some grand promise about how I'm gonna follow you, and then you have just abject, embarrassing spiritual failure.

You ever had that? You cave, you fall back into the temptation again? You embarrass yourself? You embarrass God? One of our pastors this week was telling me that when he came to Christ, he said, I had a really bad pornography habit, and he said, I smoked a lot of weed. And so when I got saved, he said, man, it was like this big, huge turnaround. And I was kind of the glory story in the church. I was the guy they were making the videos about. They were putting me on screen because I was becoming a leader in the church, and here's a guy that's gone from this kind of totally pagan lifestyle.

Now I'm an excited Jesus follower, and I'm leading Bible studies, and I'm a small group leader. He said, but after about several months of being in this position, he said, I got really depressed. My business wasn't going well, and things were falling apart. He said, so I got back into pornography. He said, for about two months, it was worse than it ever was. He said, I went back to smoking weed. He said, I smoked it all the time, just for two months. He says, I just went back as bad as possible. He said, I was embarrassed. I didn't know how to acknowledge this to people, because here I was, mister, I'm the Christian leader.

I'm the guy on the video, and I've fallen back into my old ways. Have you ever been there where Peter is as a Christian? If you've known me for a while, you know that I spent a couple of years as a missionary over in Southeast Asia. And there was a situation in Southeast Asia, which I will not go into detail about, but there was some danger involved. Some friends of mine that were on our team got put into prison. There was some mob violence that was directed against them.

Their cars had been taken and burned to the ground. They were in prison, and I found out that the mob had targeted us, and we were in danger. And I remember being there in my house, afraid. I was kind of under house arrest, essentially. And I thought the mob would just show up at my house, and I was going to be drug out into the street, and I thought there's a real chance that I could die. And so I went and I dug this hole in the backyard because I was trying to hide all the Bibles, all the things that would show that I was a missionary.

I hid them all in my house, or else I couldn't hide them all, so I just dug a hole and I buried them. Now, I'd been the guy that, leading up to that, had stood up in front of people and been like, you need to be ready to give your life for Jesus. I'd said that boldly. I'd preached at it, and people had come for commitment. I'd written newsletters about it. In fact, there's probably a few of you in this room that got my newsletters where I talked about, we've got to be willing to give up everything for Christ.

I'm going to tell you one thing. It's a whole lot easier to stand in a room like this one and make statements like that than it is to be in a place where somebody's about to take you up on that offer. And so when it happened, I was like, Peter, I caved. I caved, and I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed. It was almost like, how does God still have a plan for me? Because in my moment, in my moment where it was time to declare, in my moment where I said, I'll never deny you, Jesus. I caved just like anybody else. Have you ever been there? Maybe not that situation.

Maybe you had nothing to do with pornography or marijuana. Maybe it's just you know what it's like to start and then to fall and say after that and then this, how possibly could God have a plan for me? John chapter 21 is for you. Jesus reveals Himself again for you. He does this for Peter. He does this for believers. He does it for the moral and spiritual failure to show you that He's not finished and the greatest things He's going to do in your life are just beginning. Jesus revealed Himself again to the disciples by the sea of Tiberius, and He revealed Himself in this way, in this way.

It's very important. Verse 2, Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, Nathaniel of Cana and Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples were together. By the way, how would you have liked to have been those two other disciples right there? This is your one chance to get your name in the Bible, right?

Everybody else in this picture gets named but you. There was Simon, there was Thomas, there was Nathaniel, and two other guys. Verse 3, Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. Now fishing, you know, was what Peter did before Jesus called him. So Peter, now depressed over his failure, watch this, is going back to his pre-Jesus life. Has that ever happened to you? You're depressed over where you've been, what's happened, so you just go back to what was familiar to you.

You go back into the relationship with the boyfriend, the drugs, the parties, the whatever. They, Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of Zebedee, and two other guys, they said to him, we will go with you. They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. See, he went back to his old life but it wasn't the same anymore. He fished all night and he caught nothing.

How about that? Has that ever happened to you? You're discouraged spiritually and you go back to your old life but you just can't find the same enjoyment in it any longer. Verse four, just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Verse five, Jesus said to them, children, do you have any fish?

They answered him, no. Verse six, he said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. All right, now this has to be like the worst set of things that you could say to a fisherman. First of all, he called them children.

They are grown men. Secondly, secondly, after knowing full well they had fished all night and not caught anything, he's like, hey, you kids catch any fish? Thirdly, he gives them fishing advice. Maybe you should have tried your nets on the other side of a boat. I mean, can't you see Peter, who's got no idea, by the way, this is Jesus, saying, oh, on the right side of the boat. We didn't think about that. Hey, you two other guys, why don't you throw the net on the other side of the boat?

Why don't you do something? Just throw it in for spite. I mean, that's what he had to have done.

Quick question, y'all. Why is Jesus doing this? Why is he doing this? Why does he ask questions like this when he knows the answer? Because he always wants you to be honest with yourself, about yourself. He needs Peter to be honest that he has fished all night and caught nothing. He needs Peter to be honest that he's not happy. Because finding God's plan for your life always starts with being honest with yourself, about yourself.

You see, the first person that you need to quit lying to about yourself is you. You need to be able to just admit, I'm just not that happy. I'm not happy where I am in life. And at some point I gotta wake up and say, I just can't keep throwing the net on the different sides of the boat. I just can't keep on the different sides of the boat thinking that it's all going to change. I'm not happy. I've fished all night long.

I've labored all life long and I am just not happy. That's what he needs Peter to admit. Well, Peter spitefully casts his net on the other side.

The whole right side of the boat when he does that submerges in the water under the strain of fish that are now filling the net. Verse 7, that disciple whom Jesus loved, which is, by the way, John's reference for himself. That disciple whom Jesus loved says to Peter, it's the Lord. When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment for he was stripped for work. And he threw himself into the sea. Verse 8, the other disciples came in the boat.

By the way, I don't know anybody that can outswim a boat. I mean, Peter's in the water. He's just trucking. He's just freestyling. He's fighting against the waves. And you just see these other guys like, you know, kind of rolling alongside him. Like, Peter, you know, man, you can just ride. Seriously. We got room. We're all going the same direction. I'll show you.

I'll show you what's significant about that here in a minute, because there is something significant about it. They were not far from the land. They were about a hundred yards away. Verse 9, when they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread. Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish that you've just caught. Verse 11, so Simon Peter went aboard.

Right? He just swam in. He went aboard and hauled the net of shore full of large fish, 153 of them. By the way, you notice the detail 153? You know what's symbolic about the number 153? Nothing.

Nothing. It's just a random detail. And the reason I point things like that out to you is so that you'll realize that the idea that these are legends that are written by somebody a long time later, it just doesn't hold up, because when you're writing legends, you don't throw in random details like that. It's just a detail, because this is an eyewitness account. Anyway, Peter's gotten out of the water from his swim.

Did you see that? Now he's hauling the net full of fish. 153 big ones back up from the shore. Question, stop.

What characterizes Peter in these verses? Strenuous effort. Right? He's swimming. He's not riding.

He's swimming. He's hauling the net in by himself. I got it Jesus. I got it. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. I'm swimming. I want to see you more than everybody else. See, I'm swimming.

They're riding. Oh, there's a net. I'll go get it, Jesus. And he's trucking it in by himself. Got 153 fish in it.

He's dragging it up the shore. Meanwhile, Jesus is standing there beside a breakfast that he's already prepared for Peter. Did he need Peter's fish?

No. Did you notice the detail in verse nine that Jesus already had fish on the fire? Did you see that? John made sure he included that detail in there. Where did he get the fish? He's Jesus. I mean, he's got a really interesting relationship with fish in the Gospel of John. He can take five fish and multiply them and feed 15,000 people with them. He can make fish swim where he wants to swim.

He can create them out of nothing and just make them appear on the fire. He doesn't need Peter's fish. The contrast in this chapter, get this.

This is the whole thing. The contrast in this chapter is between Peter's feeling like he needs to prove himself and Jesus' invitation of rest to him. That's the contrast in this chapter. Peter's feeling like he's got to always be proving himself. Peter in this chapter is tired. He's tired because he's guilty. He's tired because he's been swimming. He's tired because he's hauling fish for Jesus all the time. Because see, for Peter, his relationship to God has always been about strain and work and proving himself.

His relationship to God has always been based on him being the best. I won't deny you, Jesus. I won't deny you, even if all these other fools do. I'm swimming.

I'm hauling. But Jesus is not asking Peter to prove anything. He didn't even need Peter's fish. He's already prepared a table for Peter. By the way, I think at this point Peter has gotten half of the Gospel. Half.

Let me tell you why I say that. This whole cast your nets on the other side and fill them up with fish, that's not the first time that happened to Peter. When Jesus called Peter to be a disciple, that was the very thing that he used to call Peter to himself. Peter was a fisherman, didn't know who Jesus was. And Jesus said, hey, why don't you cast your net on the other side? Peter does it, fills up with fish. And Peter, overwhelmed with a sense of Jesus' glory and majesty, realizing that he's the Son of God, falls on his face and says, depart from me because I am a sinful man.

Get away from me. His sense of his sin and God's holiness made him want to run away from God. Now you see the exact same thing, but instead of Peter saying, get away from me, God, Peter's jumping out of the boat, trying to get close to God. That's the first part of the Gospel awakening in your heart.

You understand that you are a sinner, yes, but your sin, even though you know it's bad, there is something in you that knows that God is gracious and that God is drawing you to himself and that you know that God is good, God is tenderness, and God is love, and you want to come close to him. Peter gets that half of the Gospel, but he still hasn't found the rest of the Gospel that he has found the best in the Gospel. He knows God loves him. He knows he wants to be close to God, but he still thinks he's got to prove himself to God. So he's always working, always trying to show that he is worthy of Jesus' love because he works harder than everybody else. You see, that's what Peter is in.

Peter thinks that he earns his position with Jesus by how hard that he works, and that's what he's trying to do. The last part of the Gospel is that Jesus has given you his acceptance as a gift, purchased by him, not added to by you. The work really is complete.

There really is nothing that you could do to make God love you anymore because he has completed the work of your salvation in Christ, and he said it is finished. His last words on the cross were not, based on 90% of me and 10% of you. His last words were, it is complete. It is finished.

It is done. You rest in what I have done because my closeness to you, my acceptance of you, is not based on how well you've done. My acceptance of you is based on what I accomplished on your behalf, and you are going to receive that and rest in it. So the question is not, how close do you feel to me?

The question is, how close have I made myself to you? The Gospel leads you to a profound rest. Rest in your spirit. Rest where you're not proving yourself to God. Rest where you don't feel like God is depending on you.

Let me just ask you this. Do a very sober kind of reflection. Which is a better picture of your relationship with Jesus? Swimming for Jesus and hauling fish or a breakfast on the beach with him? Which one is a better picture of your relationship with God?

Listen, don't hear me wrong. Christians work hard. They do, but they do so with an entirely different spirit than Peter has here. They work hard not in order to be accepted by God. They work hard because they have been accepted by God. They work hard not in order to earn God's approval. They work hard because they've been given it as a gift, and they love Jesus in response.

They work hard not because Jesus needs them, but because they delight to cooperate with Jesus and his mission to reach the world, and they want to offer themselves for others the way that Jesus has offered himself for them. The Gospel changes you fundamentally because it takes a heart of duty and transforms it into one of love. And you will never have that heart of love for Jesus until you understand that his acceptance is given as a gift and not according to your merit.

When we say around here God could not love you any more than he does right at this moment, that's not because God's a sentimental sap. It's because God has finished the work of your acceptance in Christ. Every single thing that would separate you from God, everything that would displease him about you, every sin you committed has been put upon Jesus' head.

He died in your place so that you could have his position of righteousness, which means that regardless of how well your week has gone, you are as close to God the Father as Jesus Christ himself is. And when you understand that position of grace, that's going to change you and it's going to change Peter like nothing else could. So Jesus gives Peter another Gospel invitation in verse 12. That's how you got to read verse 12 is you got to read it as a Gospel invitation, probably the most unusual one you've ever heard. Now how would you give a Gospel invitation? Here's Jesus' come and have breakfast.

Why don't you come eat a breakfast that I've prepared for you? Verse 15. When they finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, watch this, Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?

Do you love me more than these people? Peter kind of looks down. He's like, oh, Jesus, yeah, sure.

You know, I love you. Jesus looks at Peter and says, okay, then feed my sheep. Never breaks his gaze. Keeps looking Peter eyes. And he says the second time, Peter, do you love me? Peter said, I just told you that I love you.

Feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? John says that when Jesus asked him this a third time, he was grieved. Why was he grieved? Why was Peter grieved? Because he recognized that Jesus was asking him three times if he loved him because he had denied him three times. In fact, if you learn to read this the right way, you can see that Jesus set up this whole scenario to remind Peter of his failure.

He asked him around the fire. Peter had denied Jesus around a fire. He said, Peter, do you love me more than these? These other disciples love me. Remember what Peter's boast had been? Even if all these fools, all these losers forsake you, I never will.

And Jesus is like, really, Peter? You love me more than these? Because what does the record show, Peter?

Record doesn't look that good on your behalf. You boast that you love me more than these, but they forsook me. You forsook me and denied me. How'd you do, Peter? He asked him three times, why is Jesus doing this? Why is Jesus doing it this way? Is he trying to embarrass Peter? Is that what he's trying to do? Is this cruel? No, it's not cruel.

It's actually tenderness. Jesus is trying to show Peter that he's accepted, not because of his performance, but based on his own finished work on the cross. Thank goodness, we don't have to earn that acceptance on our own. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer and a message titled The Failure. We'll hear more on this topic Monday when J.D.

wraps up our current teaching series. In the meantime, if you've missed any part of the study, you can find all the messages free of charge at jdgreer.com. All of the online resources are available without cost getting in the way because people like you have donated to support this ministry. When you give to Summit Life, you're giving to people across the country and even around the world. Last month, we received a call from a man who was recently incarcerated. After listening to Summit Life for three to four weeks after his release, he called to thank Pastor J.D. and let him know his teaching had been the only thing keeping him alive. Help us continue to reaching people like this listener by joining the team of gospel partners who make this ministry possible. A gospel partner commits to regular monthly giving because they believe in this ministry.

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Box 122-93, Durham, North Carolina, 27709. And if you're not signed up for our e-newsletter, be sure to do that while you're on the website to make sure that you never miss a new resource or blog post. Sign up for the e-newsletter when you go to jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bidevich, so glad to have you with us. And be sure to tune in next week as we conclude today's message as well as this teaching series called, Can't Believe. We'll see you Monday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.