John 21:15-17
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”
The world doesn’t want the church to preach about sin. They’ll have none of that, thank you very much. Speak of “having your best life now” or “achieving your goals” and you’re fine, your offering plates full. But speak of the depravity of man, the wickedness of sin that lurks in every heart, and you’ll be accused of being too negative. In fact, the opposite is true. It’s talk of the awfulness of sin that leads us to talk of the cross where God poured out His wrath upon Jesus, our propitiation! Christians are, therefore, the greatest realists on the planet as we aren’t afraid to see life for what it really is – with all its hardships and failures – because we know in back of all of them is the promise of Jesus Christ. Without that promise, that He goes and prepares a place for us, and that His resurrection is our guarantee of everlasting life, and that life will be spent in mansions God built and in the presence of God, we are without hope.
It’s a terrible tragedy, really. The world doesn’t want to talk about sin so it can’t, in fact, talk about a scene like this. The world sees the word forgiveness and has no idea what it really means. It thinks that to forgive we merely forget the offense of someone and “move on” or some such rubbish as that. This is the Devil at work again, though, my friends. Watch carefully how he (our Enemy) hijacks a great and deep and wondrous biblical truth and twists it into self-serving humanism. In truth, biblical forgiveness is radical! It’s the act of redemption, initiated by God, to bring rebels to Himself through the sacrifice of His Son. It isn’t merely “looking over” an offense, but the positive act of restoration through the paying a real debt, and not by the guilty party (the sinner) but by the offended party Himself. This is one reason why we don’t want to talk about sin because it brings us to the realization of who we sinned against and how impossible it is for us to repay the debt we owe except through faith in Christ. We’d rather hang on to our pretensions. Such is the madness and folly of our rebellion.
James Boice said, “If each of us knew how sinful we really are, we would not be so shocked or subdued by our failures. But most of us don’t know the depths of our own depravity. So we are shocked, particularly by a fall of serious moral sin or by our surprising ability to deny Jesus Christ.” You see, this isn’t a negative thing to say about ourselves in that for one, it’s the truth, and two, we have the promise of Christ at the bottom of it all.
One of the great tactics of the Devil, built upon the evil foundation of denying the evil in the first place, is that when we sin we’ve forfeited our place in Christ. This leads to the next terrible deception: if this is the case, we should just go on sinning. My friends, don’t let the Devil and the world define what you are to think about sin! God’s truth is that, yes, we are remarkably sinful, full of deceit, greed, lust, envy, violence and self-worship. But this is the very truth that leads us to the Christ that covers all of them! And, moreover, He doesn’t stop there…no, He comes to us and restores us through Godly discipline and mercy upon mercy as He does with Peter here.
Peter had abandoned our Lord in His greatest hour of need. Why did this happen? Let’s consider it.
First, Peter was inflated with a great sense of confidence – not in Jesus, but himself. This is dangerous ground. The world always preaches its false gospel of self-confidence. “You can do it!” That’s the world’s mantra. In John 13:37 Peter says, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” These are the words of a man who thinks he’s relatively okay and there’s evidence to think that Peter didn’t agree with Jesus’ low evaluation of him. In Matthew 26:33 when Jesus spoke of the disciples being scattered and His crucifixion and resurrection to come, Peter persisted in verse 35, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” Luke tells us that Jesus told Peter he had prayed for him. Nevertheless, full of self-confidence, underestimating the power of sin, Peter ambled off to his shameful error. We need to remember his (Peter’s) words. “I don’t know the man…I don’t know what you’re talking about…I’m not His disciple!”
This was no minor sin, my friends. Peter was, for all intents and purposes, a broken man who had repudiated his calling. Ah…but in the darkest chambers of sin’s captivity, Christ comes and bursts our chains and sets us free! Then, he leads us out of that horrific labyrinth through which pride, anger, greed and lust has led us all this time. He takes us by the hand and we pass by them all, every dungeon room of sin, and we’re going up, up and up forever more and we don’t see them – those awful passages that lead to hell. In our walk with Him, before we are glorified in Heaven, we sometimes try and twist away, sure that this turn or that is where we need to go, but our Guide will not let loose our hand! This is the marvelous Christ! Our wonderful Redeemer! Our Rock! He breaks our chains and then leads us, step by painful step, sweetly, lovingly, and completely to the Kingdom.
Have you broken away from Christ? Have you run down some ruinous path and found yourself in blackness and gloom? Cry out, friend, cry out, and Christ will come again and take you to Himself. Your salvation isn’t impersonal. You are saved by the sovereign Creator who hates sin so much that it must be accounted for and, so, He did it Himself. He is no sentimental, sappy, deistic being. No! He’s the righteous and personal God of the universe that judged sin on the cross for you. He paid it all in full. For you. Run to Him now and see Him as Savior and feel that roaring river of forgiveness flood your soul, sweep you up in its heavenly current and carry you for all your days.
Watch how He restores Peter. Peter, of course, denied him thrice, so Jesus, after the meal (see how He attends to His children’s needs!) reverses the order and gets him publicly to affirm Him three times. This is your heritage and your salvation. God doesn’t merely “forget” your sin as a business man might write off a loss. Rather, He pays for your rebellion Himself and then invites you to sit and eat and then, alas, He remakes your life in one glorious way after another. This is the true path to “your best life now” – there’s no other road, nor avenue, except to Calvary and the repentance of sin.
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