Today is our last Sunday in the series Resurrection. We’re going through, we ended, well, we had Easter Sunday with the resurrection story in John 20. So we finished with the resurrection accounts that happened after that in John 20 and we moved to John 21 where the disciples were standing around and Peter was tired of waiting on Jesus and he said, let’s go fishing.
So he went fishing and there were seven disciples there and they were out fishing and all of a sudden Jesus is on the shore and they recognize it’s Jesus. So Peter does a belly flop into the water and swims to the shore. The rest of the disciples bring in the load of fish after they hadn’t caught any all night.
They get to the shore and Jesus has the scene set with a charcoal fire to remind Peter of the setting when he denied Jesus three times and this time, last week as we talked about, he was asked a question three times. Before he was asked, do you know Jesus, weren’t you with Jesus and he kept denying him. Now Jesus said, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Three times Peter said, yes, Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you and Jesus would say, feed my sheep, tend my lambs, feed my lambs.
And then after dinner, they got up and they did a little walk and talk. Peter had a little one-on-one time with Jesus and the conversation was not easy. Will you stand as you are able? We’ll continue in John 21 starting at verse 18, reading to 25, the end of the book.
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 the 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 also leaned back against him during the supper and said, Lord, who is it that 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 this if it is my will that he remain until I come, what is it to you? This is the disciple who is 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 where every one of them were every one of them to be written.
I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. The word of God. For the people of God.
Amen. You may be seated. John 21 is considered by many to be the epilogue.
You know how some authors will write a book and then the book will be out there for a while and they’ll get feedback and then they’ll come out of it a new edition of it and there’s an epilogue that they added to it because something somebody was calling on. And here, a lot of people think the reason John 21 was added because at the end of John 20, it says, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples. They’re not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
It has a nice closing to it. But John would have had to go back to write this, some think, because John, how many of you know the tradition, how many disciples died, were executed, were killed by Rome? All but one. And that one was John, the author of the book.
So after the book went out and John wrote his book and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it probably didn’t feel like all of a sudden after what he went through, John was very, very old and close to death and people were saying, but Jesus said he would come back before John goes. So John showed the end of this conversation to clarify that Jesus said, if he is to remain until I come, what is that to you? To clarify what was happening with Jesus coming back. And then he also said at the end, now there are also many other things that Jesus did, were there, were every one of them to be written? I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
It’s kind of a way of saying, okay, I added this, there’s going to be no more added. Don’t come with questions and expect me to write another book. I’m tired.
Now in this time of walking and talking with Jesus, Jesus has some of the greatest teaching that he has. When we’re looking at this series on resurrection, we see so much through John’s eyes that Jesus had taught him, that had brought him the disciples to know Jesus better. Now remember they were, Jesus kept asking Peter, do you love me, tend my sheep? And then he said to Peter, as they were walking and talking, he said, when you were young, you had the freedom to go where you wanted to go.
You had the freedom to be wherever you wanted to be. You had the freedom to put on your own belt and get dressed when it was your choice. But the day is coming where someone’s going to stretch out your arms and dress you and take you to where you do not want to go.
And John has, it’s in parentheses in English, saying this is to signify the kind of death that Peter would have. Now tradition tells us that Peter was crucified and they asked, and when they said they were going to crucify him, he said, I do not, I am not good enough to be crucified, to die the way my Lord did. So he was crucified upside down, which couldn’t have been better.
After Jesus said this, he simply said, follow me. Now what great final words to say one-on-one with Peter, because in Matthew 4, 19, when he first came to Peter, remember he said they were fishing? And Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. So he reminded Peter of his original call.
Follow me. Sometimes you’re not going to like my timing. Follow me.
Sometimes you’d rather be fishing. Follow me. Sometimes it’s not going to be easy.
Follow me. And it’s going to even lead to your death. Follow me.
Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Keep feeding those sheep and follow me. Remember your original call before anything else is follow me.
And for all of us, our original call with Jesus is follow me. And when we follow Jesus, we feed the sheep, we tend the sheep, we take care of one another, we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with one another. That’s just what we do, what we’re called to do.
Peter was offered no promises of comfort. In fact, Jesus said, follow me, even though you’re going to die for it. Billy Graham said these words.
Then Jesus told his disciples, Billy Graham said these words. Based off of Matthew 16, 24, where Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. See what he was reminding Peter of? Take up your cross and follow me.
Billy Graham said when Jesus said, if you’re going to follow me, you have to take up your cross. It was the same as saying, come and bring your electric chair with you. Take up the gas chamber and follow me.
He did not have a beautiful gold cross in mind. The cross on a steeple, church steeple, or on the front of your Bible. Jesus had in mind a place of execution.
What are we willing to risk for Jesus? If we follow Jesus, then it’s not easy. We don’t go just where the easy downstream way of the world goes. We stand up for truth in Jesus Christ and trust in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Trust that no matter how much the world changes, Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever. That God is still in control and God is the one who gives us the strength to be who we are. Follow me.
Now part two of this is getting interesting also. Not only are you going to suffer for being my disciple, but they’re walking along and he notices John is following them, trying to listen in on their personal conversation. And I used to think, that John, that boy needs to be scolded.
This is one-on-one time with Jesus and Peter, with Jesus next to him, looks over his shoulder and sees John there. And he sees he’s going to die. So he goes, what about this guy? What’s going to happen to him? And Jesus said, if he’s supposed to stay until I come back, what concern of that is yours? What happens to him does not change my calling to you.
You follow me. So you keep your eyes on Jesus, just like Peter, when he was walking on the water and the storms came up and the wind and the waves and the rain came crashing in and he started watching that, took his eyes off of Jesus and he started to sink. So Jesus stuck out his hand and pulled him up and took him in and he kept going.
Follow me. Do you love me? Tend your sheep. Keep your eyes on Jesus.
Don’t be looking around and saying, I wish I could be like A.B. said. Is it about being as good as someone else? Is it about being who somebody else expects you to be? Or is it about following your call to tend the sheep, to follow Jesus, to keep your eyes on Jesus, to keep him there? Now as I read this, and I never really thought of this before, but for some reason when I was reading it this year, this popped in my head. Was John following Jesus and Peter because he was a snooper? I mean, after all these two had been at it before, John reminds you at the Last Supper when Jesus said, one of you is going to betray me.
And Peter looking across the table at John motioned to him, ask him, ask him who? And John was right next to him and leaned back on Jesus and he said, Lord, who is it that’s going to betray you? So Peter wanted John to get the inside scoop from Jesus. And now here’s John following closely when, I mean, this is Peter’s restoration. This is confession time.
This is, this is literally come to Jesus time. And John’s sticking his nose in the middle of it. And I say, be like John.
Why was John following them? He wanted to hear what Jesus was saying. He wanted to know what Jesus had, not just for Peter, but was there overlap for him? And I say that because he was following, trying to listen in, but it’s because Peter was walking with Jesus. He wasn’t there for Peter.
He was there for Jesus. So as we turn to the end of this resurrection section, I encourage you to follow the one who follows Jesus. Follow people who follow Jesus.
And it happens over and over in the Bible. In Exodus 33, Moses was in the tent of meeting with Joshua. Moses would go out there and it would say that the cloud would come down.
The presence of the Lord would be there and Moses would speak to God face to face as a man would a friend. And who was hanging out listening in to what God had to say to Moses? Joshua. Joshua, who was his servant, who was going to replace him, thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a man would a friend.
When Moses turned again into the camp, when he got up and went back into the camp, his assistant, Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent. He wasn’t just there to hear what Moses would say. He was there to capture the experience with God.
Let’s say it in a more direct way. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11, after he was going through, he covered so many arguments the early church had in 1 Corinthians. One of them was about what to eat and what not to eat and when to eat it and when to drink it and when to do it.
And Paul was saying, just be faithful in it. Don’t be tied down to the law on eating and drinking. Just be faithful in it.
And then he said these words, could you imagine telling someone to do this? Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. You know, I like Ephesians better where it says imitate Christ. And here Paul says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ.
Not saying I am Christ, but where you see Christ in me, imitate it. We don’t need to talk about where you don’t see Christ in me. Well, we do.
But that’s more for our hope builders groups. Imitate me. Can you imagine having, asking the boldness, the audacity to ask someone to imitate you? To imitate you as you imitate Christ, or as you exude Christ in your life.
If you think he’s too bold, the words of Jesus are bold. Jesus said, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do the, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand.
And it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, excuse me, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. W.H. Griffiths says it like this.
There are people in the world around us who never open, who never have read this book, but they are reading us. Are they able to see God in our lives? Are they able to say it to, of us to others? That man or that woman reminds me of Christ. Do we let our light shine so they may see us? Well, not us, but our Father in heaven.
That’s the real test. Let your light shine so that someone like John is going to want to follow, going to want to follow and going to want to experience Christ through you as you are walking with Christ. Let your light shine so someone who has heard all these rumors and false things about God lets you, when you let your light shine, they read Christ in you and they see how amazing God can be.
And some of them might go, well yeah, you were never that, you were never that happy before or you would never have joy in this circumstance before or you seem really strong in this situation. How do we let the light of Christ shine through us? It doesn’t usually shine through us when we let our anger get the best of us. When we get tunnel vision on, you know, like so many things happen on social media these days.
But let your light shine. Let others see Christ in you and want to follow and want to know God and want to love God because the love of God is bursting out of you. Let me close with this prayer from John Henry Newman that I think is so appropriate.
Lord, shine in me and so be in me that all with whom I come in contact may know thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and no longer see me but only Jesus. We pray this in Christ’s holy name.
Amen