The post-resurrection appearances John 21:13-25
An eighty year old man was out fishing one day when he heard a voice. Knowing no one was around he just thought he was hearing things. Once again he heard, “Psst-psst hey you.” The man looked around and saw a frog in the water. The man said, “Are you talking to me?” The frog said, “Yeah, pick me up.” So the man picked up the frog and then the frog said, “Kiss me and I will turn into the most beautiful woman you have ever seen.” The man put the frog in his coat pocket. Pretty soon the man heard the frogs muffled voice again. He reaches into his pocket and takes out the frog. And the frog says, “Hey, didn’t you hear me? I said kiss me and I will turn into the most beautiful woman you have ever seen!” “No thanks,” said the man, “at my age I’d rather have a talking frog.”
Now, you’ll remember last week we left Jesus’ sitting around a fire with His disciples where He provided a meal of fish and bread and the conversation that follows is focused on Peter and Jesus has two purposes for this, first, He wanted to let Peter know that his denial was wrong and then second, He also wanted him to know that he was forgiven. You see, Jesus had great plans for Peter’s life, but as long as Peter was walking around with his tail between his legs he was useless. And let’s face it, guilt is good in the sense that it lets us know when we’re wrong but it’s crippling if we don’t deal with what caused the guilt.
You see, guilt is the regret, the pain or the flashing red light of our conscience that let’s us know when we’ve done something offensive and guilt is something we’re all familiar with. And there are several types of guilt, there’s the guilt we have when we do things we know we shouldn’t have done and there’s also the sense of guilt we experience when we know there are things that we should have done.
Guilt can be a merciless taskmaster that can drive us far from God but at the same time it can also lead us back to a right relationship with Him. And however we respond to guilt will determine the quality of our lives as believers and then for non-believers it can even determine where they’ll spend eternity.
You see, guilt plagues all of us to some degree because we all have to lay our heads on the pillow at night and accept the fact that we haven’t done as well or as much as we could have or we’ve just done things we know were wrong. Just think, it was guilt that caused Adam and Eve to hide when God came walking in the cool of the day. It was guilt over his adulterous affair that caused David to say, "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away from my groaning all day long." It was guilt that caused Isaiah to cry out "Woe is me for I am a man with unclean lips" when he came into the presence of the living God. And it was guilt that caused the Pharisees to drop the stones they were going to use to kill the woman taken in adultery when Jesus said, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." It was guilt that caused Judas Iscariot to take his own life after he betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and it was guilt that made Peter sit quietly at this meal and not say a word.
Guilt does funny things to us and makes us do funny things as well. The tax people once received a letter from an anonymous source. It said, "I have cheated on my income tax for the past seven years and tonight my conscience is troubling me to the point that I cannot sleep. I have enclosed a $100 bill as my way of saying ‘I am sorry.’ If I find that I still can’t sleep, I will send the rest of what I owe." There was a guy that was willing to pay at least a hundred dollars for some freedom from his prison of guilt.
Guilt is a consciousness of wrong but that doesn’t always mean that we’re ready to admit it and turn from it. I remember when John and Caitie were very small, he was about three and she would have been one and a half. Sally called me to come to Caitie’s bedroom and when I walked in John was pouring a whole container of baby powder over her head. And when he saw me, he was still holding the container with the powder pouring on her head and he said, “I didn’t do it.” You see, he knew it was wrong to do but that doesn’t mean he was sorry that he did it.
A while back it was reported that a man was arrested for stealing a car that was parked in a cemetery. And when he stood before the judge, he was asked to explain his actions and he said, "Since the car was parked at the cemetery, I just assumed that the driver was dead." Guilt makes you come up with the stupidest excuses.
Insurance companies hear the best rationalizations. Here are a few explanations people have given when filling out their accident reports. “One man said, ‘Coming home, I drove to the wrong house and collided with a tree that I don’t have.’ Another wrote, a pedestrian hit me and went under my car. Or, I pulled away from the shoulder of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and then drove into the ditch. Or, in my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole. And then finally, one man said, the pedestrian had no idea of which way to jump so I ran over him.”
And before we laugh too much at the stupid way people rationalize their mistakes, I wonder what our excuses must sound like to God when we are like Peter and we’re guilty of sin but we’re not willing to own up to it?
And on the other hand, there are many of us who’ve received God’s forgiveness but often we can’t seem to forgive ourselves. We say we’re forgiven by God, but at the same time we’re full of guilt for sins we’ve committed that no one knows about and we hope they never find out.
The baseball manager Gil Hodges said, once, when he was managing the Washington Senators, he discovered four of his players had broken curfew the previous night. Immediately, he called a team meeting and said, "I know who you are but I do not wish to embarrass you. You know the rules; you will each be fined $100. I have placed a cigar box on my desk. I expect the four of you who broke curfew to put your money in the box by 3:00 p.m." At the end of the day, Hodges found $700 in his cigar box! What Gil Hodges discovered is that a lot more people are struggling with guilt than he imagined.
Guilt lets us know that we’ve done wrong but listen, it doesn’t change the wrong we’ve done. When I pastored the one thing I hated most was counseling because the majority of the people who came to see me would tell me what they had done and when I’d tell them they had to go back and ask forgiveness they weren’t willing. And then they’d take an hour to explain why everyone else was the cause of their problems. The bottom line was, they would rather live with their guilt then make things right.
And this was Peter’s problem. He knew he had done wrong and he knew that he should have confessed and asked Jesus to forgive him but he sat there and ate while I’ll sure his stomach was churning because his heart was so full of guilt.
I mean, he had blown it every way you could blow it. He had denied Jesus. He ran away when Jesus was arrested and then even though I’m sure he had a few questions about the resurrection he felt like there were too many walls between him and Jesus and he couldn’t even talk.
And that’s a problem that we all have. We do something, say something or just act stupid and we know we ought to have the guts to ask forgiveness but like Peter we sit quietly and we think that somehow times heals all wounds but we know that’s about the dumbest thing anybody has ever heard.
Scripture tells us, if we’ve done wrong we need to make it right. The Bible talks about having a "good conscience" in 1 Timothy 1:5 and a "clear conscience" in 1 Timothy 3:9 but it also talks about a "weak conscience" in 1 Corinthians 8:12, a "seared" conscience in 1 Timothy 4:2, a "corrupted" conscience in Titus 1:15 and "an evil conscience" in Hebrews 10:22. Our conscience can become insensitive and if we refuse to listen to it long enough we become amoral and that’s where someone can do anything they want and it no longer bothers them. You hear about someone in the news who can steal, lie and even kill people and it doesn’t bother them. Well, I can guarantee you that it bothered them at one time but they ignored it for so long that they became insensitive to it. As Christians we do have a conscience and we are accountable to God but our conscience only works right if we keep it clear. Listen, when we sin we can ignore it, we can deny it, we can even distort it or we can deal with it.
And if you say, someone’s bitter at me about something but I’m only about 10% wrong but the other person thinks you’re wrong 100% wrong and since you’ve admitted to some fault then it’s up to you to make it right.
And look what Peter did. He left Jesus all alone after he bragged he would stand beside Him even if everyone else ran away and now he was sitting by the fire full of guilt. He knew he was wrong, all the other disciples knew it too and most importantly, so did Jesus.
And last week we saw that when Jesus had met them all in the upper room He said, “Go to the mountain in Galilee and wait for Me.” And they all went but no one felt like waiting and when Peter decided to go fishing, they all followed. So, he had decided to do his own thing and everyone else followed right behind him.
And then we saw how Jesus met him on the shore and provided an awful catch of fish and then He said, “Come here, Peter, I’ve cooked breakfast for you and the rest of the guys.” And we can well imagine that Peter was so overwhelmed by the goodness of God that he just couldn’t stand himself.
And so, Jesus began by saying, “Simon” and Simon was Peter’s original name before Jesus changed it to Peter and it was like Jesus was addressing him by the way he acted and he had been acting like he had never met Jesus before. As a matter of fact, that was exactly what he had said three times when he was in the courtyard. “I don’t even know the man.”
It’s interesting that Jesus didn’t take him aside privately to deal with his sin and I believe the reason He didn’t do that was because Peter had sinned so publicly that everyone knew it, so Jesus wanted to restore him and He wanted to do it publicly. You see, it wasn’t enough that Peter would know he was forgiven but Jesus wanted the rest of the disciples to know that he was forgiven as well.
So, Jesus said, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, feed my sheep.”
Now, this is an interesting conversation and the problem with understanding it is, there are differences in the Greek language that we can’t see in the English. In the English translations, it almost seems as if Jesus was more or less asking the same question three times but in the Greek, it’s clear that what Jesus is asking are three related, but different questions.
Let me explain, the Greek word Jesus uses for love has a much different meaning than the Greek word Peter uses. Jesus uses the word agapao which describes God’s love while Peter uses phileo which means "to be a friend". So, Jesus begins by saying, ’Peter do you agapao Me?’ or do you love Me with the kind of love that I have loved you?’ And Peter’s response is ’Lord; you know that I phileo you’ or in other words, you know that I really like you a lot’. And it’s like Jesus is saying, Peter do you love Me like a brother and Peter responds by saying, you know we’re really good friends. Then Jesus asked again, ’Peter do you agapao Me?’ or do you love Me?’ And Peter answered the same way he did the first time. And then, the last time Jesus asked him, ’Peter do you phileo Me?’ And what He was asking was, are you really My friend? So, the fact that Jesus had changed the word for love in His question is why Peter was so upset and it says he was grieved in verse 17 and the reason he was grieved is because he became conscious of how much he had failed the Lord. You see, Peter had said, that he didn’t know Jesus or that Jesus wasn’t his friend.
You notice in verse 3 when Jesus asked him if he loved Him “more than these,” there are several suggestions as to what He meant. There are the other disciples that were gathered around the fire and Jesus could have been asking, you said before that you love me more than everyone, well, do you? And then Jesus could have been waving His hand over all the boats, the nets, the fish and everything that went with it and said, “Peter, do you love Me more than you love your fishing? I mean, do you love Me enough to say goodbye to all this? And regardless of what He was referring to, what He was asking was, am I first in your life or is there something more important?
I like how this conversation ends on Peter’s part because he said, ‘Lord, Thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee.’ You know I’m your friend. And as shallow as he was knew he was he still believed that Jesus was God in human flesh because He said, “Thou knowest all things.”
There may be another reason why Jesus asked this question three times and that’s because sometimes you have to ask a question several times before someone actually hears what you’re saying. Have you ever said to someone, "How are you?" and they said, "fine" but you knew there’s something wrong. And then you asked, "Really, how ARE you?” And the person might say, "Well, I’ve got a few problems and my family is struggling.” And then you might say, "Yeah, but how are YOU doing?" And then you might just get an honest answer to your question.
We also see here that Jesus gives Peter three commands and they are to feed my lambs, take care of my sheep and follow me. And each time, Jesus is telling Peter that He’s entrusting him with spiritual responsibility because no matter what his past failures were, Jesus still had a job for him to do.
It’s interesting to see that Jesus drew a distinction between the lambs and the sheep because I think they refer to different kinds of ministries He calls us to. For instance, the “lambs" could refer to weak or immature Christians and when we love Jesus, we’ll love those who are weak and immature. And we "feed" them by teaching them the Word of God or as Peter said in his book feeding them with the pure "milk of Gods Word.” It’s the idea of strengthening them with the simple truths of Christian doctrine, like the assurance of salvation and the importance of prayer and Bible-study. And besides feeding them there’s also the idea of extending a warm welcome to the newcomer, being friendly to the lonely, encouraging the shy, loving the unloved, being role-models for the young, offering hospitality and of course praying for all.
So, the lambs are the younger believers and then in verse 16, we see Jesus telling him to feed His sheep. The word "feed’ means "to shepherd, to tend or to rule." In other words, besides feeding with the Word it also includes guiding, warning, protecting, disciplining and restoring. The word "sheep" refers to the more mature Christians. And when we love the Lord we’ll express our love to Him by influencing other believers by warning them against false doctrines, protecting them from wrong associations, disciplining them, training and even restoring those who are backslidden.
Jesus uses the word “feed” to emphasize that feeding with God’s Word is the most important way we can help Christians of any age grow. So, whether a Christian is a lamb or a sheep, they always need to be fed with God’s Word whether it’s through church, Sunday school or home Bible studies. And when Jesus tells Peter to, “feed My sheep” the word “feed” means to keep on feeding. It’s not the idea of throwing them a sandwich now and then but it’s a continuous process. It’s something that he had to continue. It’s like feeding your kids. It’s not just now and then but every time they’re hungry which seems like - all the time.
And so, Peter had disobeyed the Lord and had denied Him publicly three different times and then confessed that his love wasn’t all it should have been but Jesus said, I’ll take what little love you offer and here’s what I want you to do. Put these sheep above your fish. You see, love requires obedience.
And He calls us the same way He called Peter. He’s already demonstrated His love for us and now He wants to know if we love Him. And if we do, then we’ll put Him first above every other commitment we have. And just like Peter He’s offering all of us the same opportunity to leave all our failures behind and to start over with a clean slate.
As Christians, we frequently talk about commitment. And, I’m sure you’ve heard many preachers say you need to be more dedicated, more committed, consecrated, re-consecrated, re-dedicated and so on. And what they were saying is valid because what they’re talking about is the idea that now that you’re a believer you need to give your life into Jesus’ hands and then you’ll understand His will and experience His power working both in you and through you.
You can always tell the people who love Jesus because they’re the ones who are busy for Him. Max Lucado illustrates the kind of love taught by Jesus when he said, “The best example of love that I can think of occurred at the death of my own father. I remember a lady who was a distant relative of our family. She drove six hours to get to the funeral. She walked in the house and went immediately into the kitchen and began washing dishes. I didn’t even know she was there. She straightened up everything and helped to prepare the meal and then she came to the funeral. After the funeral, she came back and did all the dishes again, got in her car and went home. As far as I know, she never said a word to anyone. She never even introduced herself but when I looked around; I realized that love had been in our house.”
The wonderful thing about Peter is, he got the message of loving Jesus and he did it. He spent his life feeding the sheep. And you can read 1 and 2 Peter and see that when he wrote these books, he was so excited about feeding sheep that he said, “I have put you in remembrance and I’ll continue to put you in remembrance, and I’ll write it down so you’ve got it in remembrance when I’m gone.” You see, he fed the flock of God until the day he died and made sure there were others to take over when his time was done. Why did he do this? Because he really did love Jesus.
And so Jesus met Peter at his greatest point of need which was where he needed to repent of his sin and then he was restored, rehabilitated, re-commissioned and reconciled.
And then I want you to notice what Jesus says in verses 18 and the first part of 19. He says to Peter, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee when thou wast young thou girdest thyself and walkest where thou wouldest but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.”
In other words, He’s was saying, “Peter, when you were young you just did your own thing and went your own way and nobody bothered you but when you get old you’re going to die the same way I did. My first thought when I understood this was, Peter, who hasn’t had a very good track record is going to say, “I don’t think so.” But, to Peter, this was another chance to prove that he really did love Jesus. And when Peter actually got to the end of his life and they were about to crucify him legend has it that he said, “No, I’m don’t deserve to be crucified like Jesus, do it upside down,” and history tells us that was exactly what happened.
Notice in verse 19 it also says that his death would glorify God. And we might wonder, how? Well, because anyone who dies for their faith in Jesus Christ is doing it to the glory of God.
And then look at the end of verse 19 where it says, “And when Jesus had spoken this, He said to Peter, follow Me.” Now, there are those who’ll say, “The Christian life is so complicated” but it isn’t really, there’s only one key to the Christian life and that’s follow Jesus and everything else will fall into place.
You see, Jesus asks all of us the same question He asked Peter when He said, "Do you love me?" and if we say yes then He says to us as He said to Peter, "Follow me!" And do you see the connection? We can only really follow Jesus when we really love Him. And we can’t love Him without following Him.
Have you ever seen people on TV standing in line for hours or even days to buy tickets to a rock concert or a football game? Why do they do this? It’s because they love the band or the football team. You see, love makes sacrifice a privilege, it makes service an honor and it makes suffering a joy.
So, true commitment to Jesus means that we’ll go where He leads and following Him also means patterning our lives after His attitudes, His holiness, His purity and His obedience to the Father. Following Him also means to be willing to suffer for His sake. In Matthew Jesus said, “If any man follow Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me.” And that’s talking about the sacrificial side of following Jesus where we might have to actually suffer because of our identification with Him.
Taking up or bearing your cross is very descriptive language and if we were living in New Testament times we would have seen the victims of crucifixion carrying the crossbeam of their cross on their back as they were marched to the place of crucifixion. And as Jesus said this His disciples could visualize what He was saying because when the Roman General Varus had broken the revolt of Judas of Galilee, he crucified two thousand Jews and he placed their crosses along all the roads that led through Galilee so that everywhere people went they could see people hanging on these crosses. And all them had carried their crosses to their place of death. And so what Jesus is saying here was just as vivid as could be because they understood that following Him meant they have to be willing to sacrifice themselves for Him.
As I read about all these people dying for their faith on the sides of the road it made me think about Christians arguing over issues like tithing and my first thought was, they just don’t get it. Listen, if your whole life belongs to Jesus then so does your money. And if you can’t even give him 10% then you might as well keep all your loose change because the fact is, you probably don’t belong to Him anyways.
Listen, this is the simplicity of the Christian life. You just do what Jesus wants you to do, when He wants you to do it and whatever He wants you to do it because He’s either Lord of all or He’s not Lord at all. I mean, bearing your cross means to follow Jesus and if that means not getting all your dreams fulfilled and not having all the toys in the store then that’s not only what He wants but that’s what He knows is best for you.
Well, there are a lot of responses that Jesus could have had to Peter. He could have treated him with silence and have given him the cold shoulder. He could have made it clear that He was really ticked off and let him suffer. Or He could have even "punished" Peter and every time Peter made a promise Jesus could have raised an eyebrow as if to say, "why should anyone believe you?" Or Jesus could have said, "You know Peter, I usually would have asked you to do this but I just don’t trust you anymore." He could have brought up the denial in every conversation and said something like, ‘Remember that night when Peter denied me?’ He could have even excluded Peter from the things he invited others to do. He could have found subtle and not so subtle ways to let him know what a loser he was. And if He ran out of ideas he could have even asked one of us because we all know how to get even with those who do us wrong.
But listen, this is not what He did; instead He gets right to the heart of the issue. He wants Peter to grow from this experience and not be hung up on what he did wrong. So, Jesus simply forgave Peter and we know this because He goes on to tell him about his future role in the ministry.
I’ve met a lot of people in my life who were tied in knots with resentment and bitterness. Something happened in the past and they live it over and over again. I remember one girl who used to come to my office once a week to talk about the difficult relationship she had with her father. Her whole life all she wanted was to hear him say that he loved her and he never did and then he died. And it seemed like the pain of her past was surpassed by the pain of the fact that it could never be resolved. But listen, every one of us has had someone who hurt us. Sometimes it was intentional and sometimes it wasn’t but it still hurt. They might have said something awful or they might have cheated us out of some money, it might have been a parent who was abusive or children who didn’t appreciate all we did for them. The fact is, all of us have a Peter or two in our lives. And the question is: what are we going to do about it? Are we going to do what we can to resolve and then forget about it or are we going to drag it around like a rotting corpse for the rest of our life?
Lewis Smedes writes, “The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiving. When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was ourselves.” Jesus says, if we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven. Now these words are very difficult because we know we don’t earn salvation by what we do, so, this isn’t an "arrangement" with God but it’s the evidence that we’ve been forgiven. The forgiven forgive.
I think Max Lucado might have something when he said, “In any given Christian community there are two groups: those who are contagious in their joy and those who are cranky in their faith. One is grateful, but the other is grumpy. One sees the rainbow while the other just sees the rain. And yet, both are saved and on their way to heaven.”
There used to be an old Amos and Andy routine where Amos asks Andy what that little bottle was he was wearing around his neck. "Nitroglycerine," he answered. Amos is stunned that Andy would be wearing a necklace of nitro, so he asked him why. Andy told him about a fellow who had a bad habit of poking people in the chest while he’s speaking. "It drives me crazy," Andy said. "So, I’m wearing this nitro and the next time he pokes me, it’ll blow his finger off." Well, you know, there’s nothing like the feeling of getting even.
So, Jesus not only forgives Peter but He also puts him back on the right course. And He does this by spelling out for Peter what He wants him to do. He wants him to feed and care for the sheep. And this tells us that Jesus doesn’t call us to entertain the sheep, administrate the sheep, develop support groups for the sheep, or even make the sheep feel better about themselves but we are to feed the sheep.
And then notice three things, first, they are God’s sheep and they’re not ours because we’re not building our Kingdom but we’re building the Kingdom of God. Second, all sheep are not the same but some are sheep and others are lambs. And the way we minister must be tailored to those we minister to. Some might need meat while others need a bottle. And then third, we also need to care for them because there’s more to taking care of sheep then just putting food in the trough. We need to get involved with people and help them where we can.
Now, between verse 19 and 20 we know that Jesus had gotten up and He began to move because it says the disciples began to follow Him and as Peter is walking beside Him verse 20 says, “Then Peter turning about seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who leaned on Jesus’ breast at the supper and asked who betrayed Jesus.” Verse 21 “Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, ‘Lord, and what shall this man do?’” In other words, what about him? You know, I know I’m going to be crucified but what’s going to happen to John?
And again, we see his old nature coming out because Peter seems to be more concerned about someone else’s situation than he was own. And let’s face it, it’s always easier to be busy about someone else than it is to be pre-occupied with yourself. His business was to attend to his own duty, fulfill his own course and leave the future of others in the hands of God. After all, what good would it do for Peter to know whether John was going to live a long life or a short one, to die a violent death or a natural one?
And this wasn’t a question of idle curiosity but it was almost as though Peter was saying, "Well, if I have to die for you, what’s going to happen to him?" And notice the way Jesus answered him, "If I want him to stay alive until I come again, what is that to you?" And we wonder about the tone of Jesus voice when He said this but think of it this way, there are times when those of us who are parents have told a younger child that they have to go to bed earlier than the older one and the younger one says, "Well, what about them? When do they have to go to bed?" And if we find that comment out of place we might just answer by saying, "Hey, if I say they can stay up until midnight, then what is that to you!" And even though we might say midnight we certainly don’t mean it and every body listening would know that, but you exaggerate a little just to make a point and the point is that the child had asked a question that has nothing to do with them.
And Jesus was pointing out that Peter was a little bit too self-absorbed. He was too focused on himself and what he had to do. You see, the fact was, Peter had a long ways to go spiritually! He has been restored and reassured of Jesus love by being given a ministry to perform but he certainly wasn’t home yet. The old Simon Peter was still alive.
And Jesus repeats what He already said in verse 22, “Jesus saith unto him, if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” And what He was saying was, if I want John to live till the rapture, that’s none of your business, you just follow Me and get your eyes off of everybody else.
Now, why was that necessary for the Holy Spirit to add this to the book? I believe that Jesus was telling Peter that the issue is not what is John going to do but what are you going to do? And it’s the same with us today. The issue is not why is God blessing the other guy and not me but what does God want me to do with my life. It’s never a question of whether someone else is faithful but am I as faithful as I can be? You see, Jesus words to Peter apply to you and I today.
And yet verse 23 says, “Then went this saying abroad among the brethren that that disciple should not die.” And so John says, Jesus didn’t say that, and His point was it’s not a question of whether he will or will not die, but the question was, what business is it of yours?
Verses 24 and 25 end it all with, “This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” And John is saying, if I want to I guess I could go on writing for the rest of my life and I wouldn’t even scratch the surface when it comes to saying all there is to say about Jesus.
I read some words that were written in pencil on the wall of an asylum and they were said to be written there by a man whose dead body was found in this little room. And here’s what he wrote, “Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made, were every stock on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.”
We read that and think, this man certainly doesn’t sound crazy to me because he was saying was the same thing John was saying when he said, you can never exhaustively write about God’s love because the whole universe couldn’t possibly contain it.
Well, in this portion of scripture we see a two-fold direction for the church. First, we must follow Jesus in seeking the salvation of others and that’s called evangelism. And then second, we must shepherd the souls of those who are saved and that’s pastoring and teaching. I believe these two commands are not only given to Peter or the seven disciples that were present but these were also the general commands that were given in the great commission of Matthew 28:18-20 that says, “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” And listen, every one of us who are believers have some part in this. And so, the question I want to finish with is, what’s your part?
