Breakfast On The Beach

Have you ever let down someone? A sports fan? Your friend? A wife (give eg’s w/o naming people)

Senior Captain, my last soccer game: one own goal and another near miss

Let down my parents with my lifestyle choices the first couple years of university life

Letting down a professor by being more focused flirting with a female, than giving him respect in his class

Some people may feel very confident about who they are: achiever, overcomers (Lance Armstrong)

But many of us, if not most of us—even with our successes—can point to areas of failure and weakness and inadequacy

We could all pour a “cup o’ joe” and sit by the fire side and all tell our stories of failure, of inadequacy of who we are.

Peter, the headstrong, crazy disciple would not only be able to join us by that fireside of failure, he would point to the actual fireside where he failed: there, at Jesus’ kangaroo court, his hastily called “trial”, standing by a charcoal fire, he failed miserably

His friend was in trouble

His friend was in hostile territory

His friend was in a critical, lonely, and down to the wire trial of his very life

And Peter failed him.

Denied him

Cursed at the very suggestion of his friendship

He couldn’t have possibly stooped any lower, save, been the one who betrayed him in the Garden. And yet his denial was not too far off betrayal

You know what happened next: prosecution, indictment, persecution, execution

But Jesus didn’t stay that way for long. After his execution came his resurrection, and he spent his last few days appearing to his disciples, and setting the stage for his departure.

What might Peter have been thinking this whole time?

What would he expect Jesus to do?

READ: John 21:1-19

In this story, we glance back at the failure by the fireside to a filling by the fireside, to a call to following by the fire side.

In this very intimate story, we learn that

Big Idea: We have a Lord who overcomes our deficiencies and gives us what we need to follow Him

Overcomes our deficiencies

Fills what we lack

Strengthens our weakness

Forgives our failures

Takes our hand when we need him

Turns us loose to follow where he leads

1. Disciples who come up empty, a Lord who fills to overflowing

Peter has decided to go fishing. Fishing?—and the others follow him.

I don’t want to make too much out of this, it has been a hard few weeks, up and down emotions, but they have been his DISCIPLES, he is moving on (going away) and they are back home fishing?

• Take his mind off things?

• Do what he knows best? (he has messed up every where else)

• Are they unsure?

• Are they weak?

There, on the beach, in the midst of all these emotions and thoughts and possible confusion,

• Jesus reminds them in dramatic fashion He is the one who knows “where to fish” He is the one that supplies what we need. HE is the one who fills. He is the one who fills to overflowing:

Tom fishing in our river -- but nothing like the catch that they get

There net has 153 fish! (Can’t help but think of “fishers of men”)

We listen to Jesus, and we don’t come up “empty.”

Song: “Fill my cup up, let it overflow”

Red Sea Rules: Surely goodness and mercy . . . shall follow me all the days . . .

David prayed in Psalm 23 that goodness and mercy would follow him all the days of his life: Max Lucado says:

What a huge statement. Look at the size of it! Goodness and mercy follow the child of God each and every day! Think of the days that lie ahead. What do you see?

• Days at home with only toddlers? God will be at your side.

• Days in a dead-end job? He will walk you through.

• Days of loneliness? He will take your hand.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me—not some, not most, not nearly all—but all the days of my life.

And what will he do during those days? (Here is my favorite word.) He will “follow” you.

He further demonstrates his ability to “fill” in a very tangible way:

2. Disciples who are hungry, a Lord who makes breakfast

Been fishing a while, you work up an appetite!

Jesus makes them breakfast. Always the servant. Doing what he didn’t have to do, as Lord (in our human way of thinking)

Food/water streams of living water, never go hungry. Word

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst