If you’re trying to DO ministry without the love of Christ in your heart, you’re wasting everyone’s time.
Tonight’s passage is one that is specifically for the church and its ministers. It has one great lesson: love is the one basic essential for ministry. Without love, ministry counts for nothing. Paul said it this way: READ 1 COR. 13: 1-3. This passage concerns three questions asked by Jesus.
After the meal on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus focused on Peter and asked:
1. Do you love me more than these?
2. Do you love me with God’s love?
3. Do you love me as a loyal brother?
READ verses 15-17.
The meal was finished. Jesus and the disciples were sitting around talking and sharing together after the meal. Now remember four things:
1. Jesus had already met Peter all alone in a private session to discuss Peter’s denial and to make sure he was fully restored. 1 Cor. 15:5 says specifically that Jesus appeared to Peter.
2. Peter’s leadership needed to be reinforced publicly among all the disciples. They all knew about Peter’s denial.
3. Jesus had to make sure Peter would never deny Him nor fall back from his mission again.
4. Jesus needed to teach the disciples the one basic essential for ministry. None of them, not even a charismatic leader like Peter, could ever minister unless he loved the flock of God.
A person may be the most gifted person in the world, but they are nothing and can do nothing of value in God’s eyes unless they first love. Abilities, talents, gifts, commitments, good deeds, and works don’t make a person acceptable to God. The only thing that makes a person acceptable to God and qualifies that person to serve God is love.
If you want on a committee this next year to show off or to teach others a lesson on how something should REALLY be done in your opinion, that’s the wrong reason. If you don’t love God’s people, you shouldn’t be TRYING to serve.
These are the reasons for what Jesus now did. He turned to Peter, called him by name, and reminded him that he was the son of Jonas. This did two things:
1. It attracted everyone’s attention, stressing that what was to follow was important—more important than usual.
2. It reminded Peter where he had come from. He was of humble beginnings, from a lowly father. All that Peter had become and would become was of God. Peter was nothing apart from Christ and nothing apart from the mission he was about to receive.
This should remind us that we are nothing apart from Christ. I couldn’t do this pastor thing if it wasn’t for Christ. Every one of us needs to realize that whatever capacity in which we serve, it comes from God. You are not doing that job for any other reason. How much more can you do for Christ if you would fully surrender to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus asked three questions. There is a difference between the 3 questions that many times we don’t recognize. Question one asked Peter who he loved the most, the Lord or these. Just what is meant by these is not clear. Jesus could have been pointing to the disciples when He said it. If so, He would have been asking if Peter loved Him more than His friends and family. He could have been pointing to the fish, the nets, and the boat. If so, he would have been asking if Peter loved Him more than his career. I think Scripture is unclear at this point in order to make “these” apply to anything and everything in our lives.
Question two asked Peter if he loved with God’s love. This is seen more clearly in the Greek text and the word for “love.” Jesus used one word and Peter used another. Jesus used the word agape, the highest form of love, the love of God Himself. Peter didn’t reply, “Yes, Lord, I agape you.” He said, “Yes, Lord, I phileo you.” That is, I love you just like a brother; I love you with a brotherly love.” Phileo means brotherly love, the love between two brothers.
Question three probed the genuineness and loyalty of Peter’s love. Here Jesus descended to the human level of love. He used phileo. He asked Peter, “Peter, do you really love me even as a brother?” Questioning the loyalty of his love grieved Peter. But Jesus assured Peter that one day his love would reach the ultimate height. He stressed this in verse 18 which we will start with next study.
Peter would be called upon to demonstrate agape love, the sacrificial love of God. Peter would be called upon to die for Christ, to give his life for preaching the love of God to those who don’t care for it and who react violently against it.
Jesus was preparing His disciples for a new kind of love that was yet to come. Up to the time of Christ’s death and ascension, the greatest love known to man was phileo love, the willingness to die for a friend. But in Christ, God was showing the world a new kind of love—agape love. Agape love is the kind of love that is willing to give and die even for an enemy.
Peter and the disciples didn’t yet understand this. They couldn’t because the Holy Spirit hadn’t yet been given, and agape love is shed in the heart only by the Holy Spirit. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Three times in this passage Peter was commissioned to feed and tend the flock of God. If Peter really loved the Lord, then he was commissioned to be a shepherd of the flock of God.
Scripture identifies the lambs and sheep as the flock of God, the church of God. Jesus was talking about feeding His church, His disciples within the church. READ Acts 20:28. In this verse the charge is to guard oneself as well as the flock of God. This is similar to what Jesus was saying to Peter: if you love Me, guard yourself and be faithful; feed my lambs and sheep, my church.
The flock of God is made up of both lambs and sheep. Lambs are the children, young converts, the special cases, believers who need special attention. Sheep are the mature believers, believers who have walked and grown in the Lord for a long time. Which are you, lamb or sheep?
The ministry to the flock or church is twofold.
a. The first ministry is to feed, to give food, teaching both the milk and meat of the Word, to guide into the study of the Word.
b. The second ministry is to shepherd. Shepherding involves all the works of the ministry.
In verse 17 Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him with agape love or phileo love. Did he love Jesus with deep feeling from the heart or with a self-sacrificing love? Let’s look closer at the difference between phileo love and agape love and we will stop for tonight.
Phileo love is the love of tender affection. It’s the deep and precious love of those near and dear to one’s heart. It’s brotherly love, a love between family members, a love that would die for its brother.
But agape love is a love that is born of choice. By that I mean you simply choose to love regardless of feelings. If someone insults you, or injures you, or humiliates you, you still seek the highest good for that person. Agape loves means at least 8 things:
1. Agape love is not only a love of emotions. It’s a matter of the mind as well as of the heart, of the will as well as of the emotions.
2. Agape love is God’s love—His very nature. It’s the love that God extended toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
3. Agape love is a seed that can be planted in the heart only by Christ. It’s a fruit of the Spirit of God.
4. Agape love is the great love that God holds for His own dear Son.
5. Agape love was perfectly expressed when God gave up His own Son to die for man.
6. Agape love is the love which holds believers together. For 3 years Jesus had held the apostles together. Now that He was about to leave them, what was going to keep them together and keep them at the task? One thing: the new commandment—agape love. Agape love is the love believers are to have for one another.
7. Agape love is the love which believers are to have for all men.
a. It seeks the welfare of all.
b. It works no ill or holds no grudges against its neighbor.
c. It seeks opportunities to do good to all men, especially to those of the faith.
8. Agape love is proven by obedience to Christ. Doing as one wishes instead of doing as God wills shows that one does not have agape love.
That is why it was so important that Jesus get this set in Peter’s and the disciples’ minds before He left them.
