How many of you have heard about or read the book “The Peter Principle”? The basic premise is quite simple. It is the idea that in a work place environment, given enough time and enough promotions, people will rise to their level of incompetency. Basically, they will get to a place where their skill set does not match the job requirements. In other words, they will be in over their head when it comes to the work. As this image illustrates, when they get up to that point, what may happen at a minimum, they may be demoted. At a maximum, they may actually lose their job. The book was written by a man by the name of Dr. Lawrence Peter. As I thought about today’s sermon, I realized that the book could have been written by the apostle Peter. Because the apostle Peter was somebody who, in many ways, rose to the level of spiritual incompetency. He rose quickly up the ladder of success amongst the apostles, but he got to the point where pride crept in and he experienced a bit of a fall. Fortunately, though, as we see in today’s reading, even though he fell, Jesus was there to catch him. Jesus was there to be able to restore him to his rightful place of honor and status. If you have your Bibles today, please open up to the book of John 21:15. If you have been here for a while, you know we have been going through the book of John. Fourteen months we spent on the book of John and today is the last sermon on the book of John and no applause please. It is a good book. I was kind of disappointed when I got to the end here because I didn’t like the ending. The ending in this chapter if you read 15 on, it is kind of a disjointed ending and it is all about Peter. It is a focus on Peter. I just didn’t like how it was laid out. It was a very difficult sermon to put together. But when John was writing the gospel, he didn’t say Chuck what should I put at the end. He didn’t ask my opinion, so that is what we end up with. John 21:15 and we will be reading right to the end of the book. (Scripture read here.)
We have to back track to Easter. You may recall the resurrection story. You may recall that Jesus made some subsequent appearances. He appeared first to Mary Magdalene at the tomb. Then he had a subsequent appearance to the disciples in the upper room, all the disciples except for Thomas. Then he made a special appearance behind closed doors to the apostle Thomas. Because remember Thomas wanted to be convinced that Jesus was alive. Thomas was the one that wanted to make sure he could touch him and put his fingers where the wounds were. He could put his hand in his side where he had been struck with the spear. Jesus appeared to Thomas and he told Thomas “You have seen and you believe but blessed are those who have not seen yet believed.” That was the second appearance he made to the disciples. As we saw last week, he made a third appearance to the disciples on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus was walking along the shore and he saw the disciples were out there fishing. Following the resurrection, following the appearance in the upper room, they really didn’t know what to do next so they did what came naturally, which was to go fishing. Unfortunately, as mentioned last week, the fishing that particular day was not good. Jesus came walking along the shore and said have you caught any fish? There was probably this collective no we haven’t. So what does Jesus do? He says cast your net on the other side and see what happens. Sure enough, they caught so many fish, I think it was 153, that they could hardly drag it into the shore. It is at that point that Peter recognized Jesus and he said it is the Lord and he jumped out of the boat and waded to the shore. Jesus was there sitting and having a breakfast fire for the disciples so they gathered around. It is in this particular setting that what we see is the restoration of Peter. If you have the New International Version, this section may be titled Jesus reinstates Peter because that is what is going on here.
Before we can appreciate exactly what is going on with this reinstatement of Peter, it is good to be able to go back and reflect on the life of Peter. If you go back to the early part of all the gospels, you see that Peter was indeed a fisherman. Jesus received his call from Jesus as a fisherman from his boat. Peter was so excited that he left his fishing business and followed Jesus. From that point on, he was a very loyal disciple. He was a bit impulsive. We have the stories back in the gospel where there was a storm on the Sea of Galilee. Out of the blue, Jesus comes walking on the water. The apostles were so afraid they thought it was a ghost. Peter said if it is you Jesus, you ask me to come to you and I will come. Jesus says come so Peter gets out of the boat and tries to walk on the water and begins to sink. But it demonstrated that Peter was a committed follower of Jesus Christ right from the very beginning there. We see ongoing stories that demonstrate the commitment of Peter to Jesus. One of the best stories I believe is out of John 6 when Jesus had what is called the Bread of Life discourse. He had just finished feeding the 5,000 people. He is trying to figure out who are his real followers. He starts talking a little bit strange. He says “If anybody is to follow me, he needs to eat my flesh and drink my blood.” Some of those people are saying Jesus you are getting a little bit too weird for me. I am going to get out of here. I don’t like this. It is about that time that Jesus turns to Peter and says are you going to leave too? What does Peter say? He says Lord where would I go? You alone hold the words of eternal life. Once again, what we see is the loyalty there. We see the loyalty of Peter. Then I think the greatest example of his loyalty, his knowledge of who Jesus was, happened when the setting was where Jesus was trying to find out what his followers thought about Jesus. He said who are people saying who I am? What are people saying about me? What did Peter say? He said some say you are John the Baptist. Some say that you are Elijah. Some say that you are Jeremiah. And he said who do you say that I am? What does he say? Peter says you are the Christ. You are the son of the living God. He goes on to say that “Simon I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church. The gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.” At this point in the story, Peter is on this spiritual high. Could you imagine? Jesus Christ himself says I am going to give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. I have people around here get excited if I give them a key to the back door or the copy code for the copy machine. They think they have arrived. Here Peter has been handed the very keys to the kingdom of heaven. He has been feeling probably pretty high about this time. Probably feeling pretty good. Possibly even feeling a little bit puffed up. When you get promoted real fast and all of a sudden you have this new position you are feeling I have arrived. I finally made it. My ship has come in. As we know, what happens sometimes pride results in some sort of a fall. In fact, there is a Proverb 16:18 that says “Pride goes before destruction, the haughty spirit before a fall.” Isn’t that true? That is a great Proverb. As we see, that is what happened to Peter. Peter got really puffed up about himself a little bit too fast. I think he got promoted too fast. In some sense he reached his spiritual level of incompetency. How do we know that? We know that because remember the story about the Last Supper when they are sitting around and Jesus is predicting who is going to betray him. He predicted Judas was going to betray him. But he didn’t predict just Judas. He predicted that they were all going to betray Jesus. In the middle of that, what does Peter do? Peter stands up and says “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” You get this sense of this spiritual superiority. What does Jesus do? I don’t have the passage on the screen but in Luke, he looks at Simon Peter and says “Simon, Simon” listen to me, “Satan has asked permission to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you Simon, that your faith may not fail. When you come back, you need to strengthen your brothers. You need to strengthen your sisters.” He is telling him that things are going to get bad before they get good. In fact, he went on to say “Before that rooster crows, you are going to deny me not once, not twice, but three times.” We know the story that he did do that. You get the idea when that rooster finally crowed, you get the idea that maybe Satan is back there just kind of rubbing his hands together saying Peter you messed up big time. You are not a follower of Jesus anymore. Jesus doesn’t need you anymore. You have proven to yourself that you are not loyal at all. You are a loser. You are not a follower. You don’t love Jesus.
As we come to today’s story, we see, in fact we see through the entire gospel of John and all the gospels really, that Jesus is about restoration. He is about reinstating people to their rightful position. That is what is going on. That is what we see as we come to this meal around the fire. Before Jesus could restore Peter, he had to deal with Peter. In fact, Peter had to deal with some things that were going on inside himself. You have this situation where they are sitting around the fire and if you remember the reading last week, you get the idea that there wasn’t a lot of conversation going on there. Things were quiet. I think what they were all doing was they were all being quiet because they knew that Peter had to be dealt with. They are sitting around the fire, but there is this big elephant in the room called the three denials of Peter. The apostles are sitting there man what Jesus is going to do? Is he going to let down the hammer on old Peter? What is he going to do to him? Unexpectedly, what does Jesus do? He simply turns to Simon Peter. Jesus says to Simon Peter, “‘Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?’ ‘Yes, Lord’ he said. ‘You know that I love you.’”
I have to stop there for a minute because there is question as far as what did Jesus mean when he said “Do you truly love me more than these?” The way it is worded, he could be saying do you really love me more than you love these guys, these friends of yours? Some even suggest that he could be looking at the fish and saying do you love me more than these fish? In other words, do you love me more than your fishing business? I just appeared to you and what did you do? You went back to the Sea of Galilee and went fishing. Do you love me more than these fish? Or could it be do you love me more than these people love me? In other words, is your love superior to these? This is very important considering the fact that what did Peter just do? He had said even if all leave you, I will never leave you. In other words, my love is superior to all the other apostles. What Jesus was doing here was he is basically bringing Peter to a place where Peter had to be brought low again. Peter lost all his bragging rights with those three denials, and he knew it. He was feeling pretty low. He was getting placed back to humility. Getting back to a humble heart which you know is really part of the job description. If you are to be a Christian, the chief characteristic of Christ was his humility. He is bringing him back in line. Peter lost all of his privileges of saying that my love is superior than the other apostles.
Then he goes on and he has him repeat it. He asked him over again do you love me? Do you love me? Why did he ask him three times? The simple answer is because he denied him three times. I think in Jesus’ own subtle way what he was doing was trying to get Peter to at least admit to the sin. He wasn’t trying to hammer him, but he had to get to a place where he acknowledged his sin. The way he did it was by asking these questions. Peter probably didn’t know where Jesus was going. He asked him once and then twice. But the third time, you guarantee that something triggered in his mind the recall of that night when the rooster crowed. It hurt Peter. It goes on to say “The third time he said to him, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’” Was he hurt because Jesus wasn’t understanding Peter’s love for him? I think it had to do with his sin. He was hurt because of the recall of this sin, of this memory. Jesus was forcing him to get to a place where he would recognize the sin. He denied him three times but he was not going to let him deny the fact that he sinned. Peter goes on and responds three times really. He says of course I love you. I do love you. He goes on and says it over and over with not too much variation. Except when he goes on and he says “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” That is the third time. The first two times was basically “‘Do you love me?’ ‘You know I love you.’” This time he added a little bit to it. He added this little phrase “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” This is important. He can no longer appeal to his track record. He can no longer appeal to his own past. He can no longer say to Jesus you know I love you because look it I was there in the beginning. I served you. I followed you. I got all the answers right. I tried to walk on water. I cut off the centurion’s ear in the garden. I did all this stuff. He could no longer point to that. All he could appeal to was the divine knowledge of Jesus Christ. This is really important because Jesus had the ability to look into the hearts and know the people. Know the good, the bad, and the ugly. In fact, there is a passage back in John 2 that spoke of this. You might remember that Jesus’ popularity started rising up. All these people were saying wonderful things about him and wanted to make him king and all this stuff, but Jesus knew the hearts of the men. In fact, in John 2 he says “Jesus would not entrust himself to them for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man for he knew what was in a man.” He knew the man’s heart. Peter knew that Jesus knew that Peter loved him. But why did he make him repeat it three times? I think because Peter didn’t know it. Because of those denials, there was some doubt going on in his head. He was beginning to doubt not Jesus’ love for him. He was beginning to doubt his love for Jesus. As long as that doubt is there, he couldn’t be effective because Satan was having a field day in his head. Satan was saying you don’t love Jesus. How can you carry on Jesus’ agenda? How can you carry on the work of Jesus if you are not even sure if you love him? Satan is having a field day in his brain and trying to pick at him and gnaw at him and say you don’t love Jesus. You are a loser. How can you be an apostle? How can you do anything? How can you hold the keys to the kingdom? You can’t. In other words how can you carry on the agenda if you are not sure if you love Jesus? What was the agenda?
Jesus’ response to Peter’s response is basically okay, if you love me, then I want you to continue your assignment which is take care of my flock. He says it basically three different ways. In John 21:15 he says “Feed my lambs.” Take care of those little lambs that really need a lot of nurturing. Need some help feeding themselves. Then he says “Take care of my sheep.” Take care of the ones that have walked away. Take care of the ones that have strayed. Then he goes on and says “Feed my sheep.” Care for the ones that are older. The ones that need some help. The ones that need some extra-special attention. Take care of the flock of God. We see that imagery all through the gospels. Jesus compared the believers to sheep without a shepherd. Jesus is about to depart so he is telling Simon Peter it is time for you to take on this responsibility, but the care of the sheep has to spring from the love of the shepherd. That is the most important thing. That is why Peter needed to know Jesus needed to know that Peter truly loved him. There is a little devotional written by this guy Ken Gire. He seems to really hit to the point here. He says “The work that Jesus called Peter to do was the work of shepherding the flock of God. There could be only one motivation: love. Not love for the open fields. Not a love for shepherding. Not even a love for the sheep. It had to be more than that. It had to be a love for the shepherd himself. Everything had to come from there.” The care of the sheep springs forth from the love of the shepherd. That is why he needed to be sure of that. Jesus is saying okay Peter; we have dealt with your sin. We have gotten you to a place of humility. You have come back. Now time is wasting. There is a lot of work to do. Get going. Get busy. Quit looking back and start looking forward because there is a whole flock out there. There are people that need shepherding. Look down the road towards your future.
The sad thing about this, as we see as we read on, is that we see that not only were there sheep in the future of Peter; there was a cross. It is not very clear. I am going to read starting at verse 18. This is Jesus speaking and it says “I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this, but it is the idea that stretching out your hands is the idea of the cross. That is basically what it means. When you were younger you were on your own and did your own thing. When you get older and get more mature in your faith, you are not going to have as much freedom as you want because you are going to be tied closely to the shepherd, the shepherd who went to the cross. We know this is true because we go on and read. It says “Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, ‘Follow me.’” It is kind of interesting how he ends this. He started with Peter on the Sea of Galilee and he started with the command follow me. Now he is back to the Sea of Galilee and after the three denials, he is now renewing the call to follow him. What is cool about this little setting around the fire that day, Jesus does some amazing things in this little conversation. In just questioning him, he brings Peter back to a place of humility. He puts him back in his spiritual place. What else does he do? He forces him to confront his sin. He renews the assignment to care for the sheep and he renews the call to follow him. All in that little conversation.
In closing, when we think about this sermon, I entitled it not The Peter Principle, but The Peter Principles because I believe there are a lot of good principles, at least three good principles, that we can take from this experience of Peter. The first one being quite simple. All believers will rise to a level of spiritual incompetency. You may not want to hear that, but that applies to everybody in the room, including me. It really does. It doesn’t take much to prove it. From day one when we come out of the baptistery and we accepted Christ as Lord and we start off on that spiritual journey, we really are not qualified. We don’t have the skill set to deal with the title. If you are familiar with Ephesians and familiar with the New Testament you see that believers are called a new creation. They are called children of God. They are called saints. It says that they have been seated with God in the heavenly realms. Is there anybody in this room that feels qualified for that position? No one. Because you are not qualified, what happens is we often get to a place of spiritual pride. Really what we are doing is we are set up for a fall. Given enough time, we are probably going to fall. We are going to commit some sort of an offense. We are going to deny Jesus either in thought; we are going to think something we shouldn’t be thinking. Or in word; we are going to say something we shouldn’t be saying. Or indeed; we are going to do something that we shouldn’t be doing. It is a reality. It is going to happen. If you are a Christian long enough it is going to happen, including for me. Some of you sometimes are in a meeting with me and I usually have a notepad. Lately you might notice that I put some letters at the top of the notepad really pretty big so I don’t forget that they are there. The letters are Q T L S T S. It comes out of the book of James 1:19. “Quick to listen, slow to speak.” I have foot-in-mouth disease. If I talk long enough, I will eventually say something that I regret. That is why Debbie only lets me preach for 25-30 minutes. When I go to 40 I eventually say something I regret. I am sure some of you also have that foot-in-mouth disease. If you do, I would suggest that you put those letters up there. Put them on your notepad. Put them in your car. Put them on your desk. Put them on your computer. It is only a matter of time that you are going to say something that you regret and then you have to back pedal and backtrack. I do it all the time and that is why Debbie sits next to me in meetings because she kicks me all the time. No one is immune from that. We are all going to reach our level of spiritual incompetency.
The good news is when we go around and experience that denial or whatever it is. When we say things, or think things, or do things we are not supposed to, Jesus is out there hanging by the fire saying come on over. Have a meal with me. Sit on down Peter. Come on back in and we will talk. We will have one of those come to Jesus meetings. We will sit down there and it is not always going to be pleasant. The first thing you have to do is allow Jesus to bring you back to that humble place. You have to allow Jesus to bring you back low before he can lift you back up. You have to allow him to humble you a little bit. You also have to allow him to confront your sin. He will keep you by that fireplace until you recognize, until you are willing to admit that sin. Not so he can hammer it. So he can wash you clean of it. There is a verse in 1 John 1:8 that says “If you think you do not sin, you are a liar and you have deceived yourself.” If anybody says they don’t sin, they are a liar. But he says the good news is “If you confess your sins, he is faithful and he will purify us of all unrighteousness.” If you sit at the feet of Jesus long enough, he is going to clean it up. He is going to purify it if you confess it. When you come to that fire, we are not just talking about being humble and admitting your sin. You are coming there because you need to oftentimes be reassured that Jesus loves you but I think more importantly that you love Jesus. You don’t go there with your track record. You don’t appeal to the idea that I attend church every Sunday or I give money to the poor or I give money to the church or I go down and serve soup under the bridge. You can’t appeal to that because that current situation overshadows that past. What you can appeal to is the divine knowledge of Jesus. You know that Jesus knows that you love him. You are going to appeal that Jesus you know all things so you know that I love you. Until you settle that in your brain, you are not going to be effective. You are going to get smacked around by Satan. He is going to get you and hold on to you. He is going to say you sinned. Look what you did. Look what you said. Look what you watched on TV. Look at that addictive behavior. Whatever it is. You call yourself a Christian. You are not a Christian. You don’t love Jesus. You are not a follower. So you have to get to the place where you know that Jesus knows you love him and you base that not on your track record but the appeal that says you know all things and so you know that I love you.
I was thinking of another illustration, and this one is definitely dated. Has anybody ever heard of or seen the movie Love Story? Be honest you old people. Raise your hand. 1970. If you are over 40 years old you probably know it. It was a good movie I guess. I don’t know if I have even seen the whole thing. It was with Ryan O’Neil and Ali MacGraw. You do know there was a famous line in that movie. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” What does that mean? Who knows what that means? That is the stupidest line of any movie ever. I don’t know what it means. But somebody suggested, and I definitely don’t agree with this, that if you are with somebody that you really love, you will never do anything to have to say you are sorry. But really, that is a bunch of bunk. If you are with somebody long enough, if you are with them a day or an hour, you are going to do something stupid. You are going to leave the toilet seat up. You are going to clip your toenails at the dining room table. That doesn’t earn you any brownie points with the Mrs. That really doesn’t. You are going to do something. If you are with somebody long enough, you are going to do something stupid and you are going to have to say you’re sorry for. I don’t think that is what it is saying. It is saying that when you live with somebody, when you work with somebody, when you are with somebody all these years, you get to a place where when you mess up and do something dumb, you don’t have to say oh please forgive me. I am so sorry. Do you love me? Please tell me you love me. You don’t have to get that. Why? Because you know that person knows that you love them. When I mess up, I don’t have to beg forgiveness. I don’t have to say I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love you, I love you, I love you. Do you love me? I don’t have to say that to Debbie. She likes that, but I really don’t have to say it that much. It is just when I am clipping my toenails at dinnertime. She just really doesn’t like that part. You don’t have to beg forgiveness because you know the person loves you. You really do. It is the same thing with Jesus. Jesus is saying I know it. Okay, you said you’re sorry and I confess it. Now move on. Get on. There is a lot of work to be done. So quit beating yourself up over your past. Quit it. Stop it.
Which basically brings me to the third point and the final point. If you love the shepherd, you will feed and care for the sheep. If you truly love the shepherd, you will go on and do the work that he has called you to do. Feed and care for the sheep. It is the feed the little lambs. Feed the brand new believers that need some spiritual milk. It really frustrates me because we have a lot of new believers but we don’t have enough people to disciple them. You have people that can’t even find the book of John let alone a verse in the book of John. People out there are just craving milk and are excited for the word and there is nobody there to teach them. We have a men’s group that meets once a week Wednesday night. We have been meeting for about a year and a half going through the Bible in two years. What is really cool is that I am able to get to a point now where I can kind of back off. I don’t even have to come in there with a lesson plan because the new believers are starting to teach each other. I just sit back and observe and interject something here and there, but they are feeding each other. I just wish we could develop that culture where believers are taking care of the little lambs. But we also need a culture where we care for the sheep. We take care of the people that are straying, which on any given day of the week, there is somebody not here because they have gone out and strayed away. They have gone to different places. Maybe they are doing things they shouldn’t be doing. They are chasing things. They are in bad relationships. There are in addictions. They are in pornography. Whatever it is, they need pulling back. They need ministering to. They need to be pulled back into the fold. Boy I wish there were some people that were willing to do it and not wait for Chuck to tell them to do it. Just do it because that is what Christians do. That is what believers do. People need to feed the older sheep. The people that have gotten up there in age. The only feeding they need is someone to take them communion once in a while. Once a month take somebody communion. They are just waiting in the nursing homes. Waiting for somebody to come along and give them communion. That is what I think Jesus is talking about here. If you love the shepherd, you will care for the sheep.
In closing, that is what we are called to do. It is a nice little picture there. Unfortunately, for Peter, the future didn’t just hold sheep. It held the cross. That is what we have to remember. When we come to that fire, when we come to the place of restoration, when we are directed to go and take care of the sheep, there is always a cross there. We talk about when you become a member here. You don’t get a certificate. What you do is you get a cross. It is a reminder that for Christians, the only privilege is to deny themselves, to take up the cross, and to follow Jesus. Every single day is living out that death on the cross and life in the resurrection because every day we have to deal with some sin. That is the close of the book of John. When I think about the book of John, we did spend 14 months there, but I skipped a lot of stuff. A whole lot of stuff. I think about there are so many more sermons I could have gotten out of this book. I believe I could preach on John the rest of my life. I really do. Every single verse is a sermon in itself. That is just in the book of John. Think about the stuff that hasn’t been written. Think about all the stories that weren’t written down. That is what John says at the end there. He says “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” I got a kindle last year. I love my kindle. It holds 3,000 books. I don’t know why I need 3,000 books but it holds 3,000 books and it is an old version. They have new kindles out now that can hold more books. I think what John is saying if you take all the kindles and put them on a big table, they would not be able to hold all the information, all the stories about Jesus. You say Chuck I don’t know if I buy that. We have four gospels. No, you are missing it. There are so many things that haven’t been said. Jesus did many other things besides what is written down. I can prove that. All you have to do is go back to John 1:1. “In the beginning was the word. The word was with God.” What was he doing back there at the beginning? What were they talking about? What were they thinking about for all eternity? Do you think a book could be written on that? What about when he became incarnate at Christmastime? “The word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us.” Do you think there are more books that could be written about that about the whole process of the king of the universe taking on the form of a child and what happened in that whole process. Do you think a book could be written about that? I think tons of books could be written. Not only that incarnation but when he spent those 33 years on the ground with the disciples and all the people that passed by. We just hear from the disciples. We don’t hear about all the other stories. All the other people that he contacted. We don’t hear those stories. Could you imagine what it would be like if those were written down. Most of all, you have to think about the stories that could be written in our heart. As we know, Jesus went up and the Holy Spirit came down. Where did the spirit go? Into the church and into the lives of every believer. Everyone that says Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, they have the spirit of Christ within their heart. Constantly, day after day, there are new stories being written. New stories of failure but new stories of resurrection. New stories of despair but new stories of hope. That is all going on in the believer’s heart 24/7. Going on and on in their hearts creating new stories. Creating all sorts of stories that, if they were written down, as this passage says, “I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” Let us pray.
