Darin AveryDecember 13, 2015
Series: Advent 3 of 4
“Feed My Sheep” (John 21:1-21)
Introduction
What about you—do you love Jesus more than ‘these’? Pastors may need to reflect on this a little more given our more general leading and shepherding role in the church; but, because every Christian can have a shepherding role in someone’s life through personal witnessing and disciple-making, Jesus’ question is for all of us. Do we love Him more than we love the disciples? Jesus doesn’t settle for second place in our hearts. Putting the disciples first puts the cart before the horse. In order to put the body of Christ—the disciples—as high as we possibly can on our priority chart, Jesus must occupy the top spot. We can’t lead and serve others in Christ if they’re more important to us than Christ. To try and do so is ultimately to serve ourselves! So as we continue with the shepherding theme this Advent season, my thesis today is that leading and feeding others in Christ well means putting Christ first in our affections.
Today’s text is to me one of the most powerful passages of Scripture not only in the Gospels but in the entire Bible. You’d be incredibly hard pressed to find a text wherein God’s love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness are more amply and personally expressed to an individual than right here in John 21. For the third time since His resurrection, Jesus appears to His friends. And after providing the disciples (who were about to leave the boat empty-netted) a catch of fish, and after cooking them breakfast, with a charcoal fire crackling in the background Jesus takes Peter for a walk and proceeds to reinstate the man who only days earlier had denied even knowing Him three times. And Jesus does so with one question and command repeated three times.
Do You Love Me?
Instead of looking at each question and command pair in sequence, I want to talk about all three questions together first and then consider all three commands together as a unit. So let’s start with the question.
John says in v. 15, “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’” The heart of Jesus’ question is the same all three times – “Do you love me?” But when Jesus asks it the first time, He adds the clause: “Do you love me more than these?” Jesus isn’t asking if Simon loves Him more than the other disciples do; He’s asking, “Do you love Me more than you love the disciples?” Why is this important? Because Simon Peter’s answer will reveal his primary loyalty. If he loves the disciples—his reputation or his leadership role among the disciples—more than he loves Jesus he will obey the disciples before he obeys Jesus. But if he loves Jesus more than he loves the disciples then he will truly be able to lead and serve them, and others who would one day become disciples.
Peter replies to Jesus’ question, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” But it’s not as cut and dried as it looks! English misses an important feature of Greek here. As some of you may know, Greek has three words for love: agape is the strongest of the three, phileo (or its verb form philo) is a weaker word meaning affection or brotherly love (e.g. Philadelphia), and finally, eros (as in erotic or romantic love). Jesus first asks Peter, “Do you agape Me? Do you have the strongest of love for Me?” But what looks like a resounding ‘yes’ in English, isn’t quite so resounding in Greek. Peter replies, “Yes, Lord; you know that I philo you”—the weaker word for love. Peter isn’t giving Jesus a funny look, saying, “Do you really have to ask that, Lord? Didn’t you see me jump out of the boat? The other guys were worried about the fish, but I put you first; I swam to you! I wanted to show them and you how much I agape you.” That’s not what Peter is doing or saying! He is a BROKEN man! He’s saying, ‘Lord, you know I love you; but my love for you isn’t like your love for me.
Jesus again asks in v. 16, “Simon, son of John, do you agape me?” And Simon again says, “Yes, Lord; you know I philo you… I know you agape me, but the best I’ve ever been able to show you is phileo.’
Now it gets even more interesting. In Greek, when Jesus asks the third time in v. 17, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He says, “do you philo Me?”—not “do you agape Me?”
What’s Jesus doing? Is He lowering His expectations, settling for phileo when what He really wants and deserves is agape? By using the weaker word for love is He prodding Simon Peter to step it up and say, “Lord; I agape you”? We can only speculate at Jesus’ reason, but the result is clear. According to John who is watching and listening from a distance, when Jesus asks, “Do you philo me,” Simon is deeply and visibly grieved as he replies a third time, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I philo you.” He’s grieved not just because Jesus has now asked if he loves Him three times (the same number of times Simon had denied his Lord) but because Jesus is now using his word for love. It’s as if Jesus is saying, ‘Okay Simon, I’ll use your word; but I want to know if you really mean it.’ Simon has nowhere to go. He can’t say, “Lord, I eros you.” He doesn’t love Jesus with an erotic or romantic love. His shame and humility won’t let him say, “Lord, I agape you.” He’d be lying if he said, “Lord, I don’t love you.” Humility and honesty bind Simon Peter to phileo: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you [with deep, deep brotherly love and affection—even though my actions and words haven’t always shown it].”
Friends, the Church is full of ‘Simon Peters’. Every Christian has denied or will at some point and in some way deny their Lord. Whether with words or with silence, with actions or inaction we will all lie to the world and say, “I don’t know Him,” and even worse—because we can’t love what we don’t know—we will also be saying to the world, “I don’t love Him.”
That’s what Peter really said three times to those bystanders on the worst night of his life—the night Jesus was arrested: not “I don’t know Him” but “I don’t love Him.” That’s why Jesus doesn’t ask Simon three times, “Simon, do you know me?” but rather, “Simon, do you love me?” And that’s why this conversation hurts Simon Peter so much—because Simon Peter does love his Lord, and did love his Lord; and Jesus knows it. And He’s showing Simon Peter that though he failed once–twice–three times he’s not an utter failure. He still loves his Lord.
If the faith failings of your past haunt you—if having said to the world in word or deed, ‘I don’t know and therefore don’t love Jesus,’ pains your heart like a dagger, all is not lost. It hurts because it isn’t true. It hurts because you both know and love Jesus. And what’s more, as with Simon Peter, Jesus still has work for you—hard but noble work; sacrificial but rewarded work! And what is that work? It’s shepherding work.
Feed My Lambs
As grieved as Simon Peter must’ve been by Jesus’ one question asked three times, he also must’ve been reassured by Jesus’ one command given three times: “Feed my lambs; Tend my sheep; Feed my sheep.” Though we, like Simon, have denied our Lord; and though the Holy Spirit of Jesus may be interrogating you this morning, “Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?” we too can find comfort in Jesus’ command. The question calls us back to the command. The question, “Do you love me?” calls us to reengage in the shepherding work that most visibly, tangibly demonstrates our affirmative answer to the question, “Lord, you know I love you.”
And did you notice the beautiful progression there? Jesus begins with lambs: “Feed my lambs.” Jesus knows that in our work of shepherding others to Him we will have the high honor and huge responsibility of attending to the birth of baby Christians—baby disciples. These baby disciples will need constant care and nurture. They must be fed; they must be protected; they must be prayed for with great urgency and intensity. We must not just celebrate their birth and baptism into the fold of Christ; we have to follow-through on the hard work of nurture and development: discipline, spiritual formation, training in righteousness, loving correction when needed, and so forth. If the lambs in Christ that we as a church so long to see born into the kingdom are to have fighting chance, we (not just I) have to feed them. And we feed them God’s Word, both in proposition and in practice. It isn’t enough to tell a new believer what the Bible says they need to do; we must show them how to do it!
Then Jesus tells Simon Peter, “Tend (shepherd) my sheep.” Lambs who are properly shepherded don’t stay lambs; they grow into sheep. But that doesn’t mean our work is done. That doesn’t mean they’re not still going to stumble. They’re going to need tending: shearing, examining, checking for spiritual bugs and doctrinal diseases that spread to the other sheep, binding up of wounds that could fester, poison, and kill them, etc. Are you getting the metaphor? Are you following the analogy? It doesn’t matter how broad our discipling influence is, if we’re public about our faith in Christ (as all true Christians must be), and if we’re a visible part of a local church family (as all true Christians should be), then I promise you, somebody’s watching—somebody in the church who looks up to you and needs to benefit from your example, your tender, ‘tending’ care.
Finally Jesus commands Simon Peter, “Feed my sheep.” The feeding never stops. As pastors we want to move people to spiritual maturity; we want to see the sheep of Christ’s flock feeding themselves on God’s Word, but we still must lead. Yet even on a smaller scale, Jesus’ shepherding command applies. Husband, are you loving your wife by feeding your wife? Are you loving Christ with brotherly affection by philo-ing your wife who is a sister in Christ? Dad & mom, are you shepherding your kids, whether toddlers or teens, by feeding them a regular diet of God’s Word? Twenty something year-old young lady, are you shepherding a teen-something young woman in the word regularly? Thirty, Forty, Fifty-something year-old man, are you shepherding a twenty-something brother in Christ in the word?
Paul says in Colossians 1:28-29, “Him (Christ) we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” Don’t be deceived, there is little if any glamour in shepherding others in the faith. I have to keep this in perspective when I go to our P.O. box and pull out slick, glossy Christian magazines with the hip, young, best-selling author pastoring the fastest-growing new mega-church on the block staring back at me from the cover and all the “How to” articles. Real shepherding, whether we’re pastors or laymen, is never easy or pretty; and it’s never cheap; it’s always costly.
What about this Man?
And these reasons, make no mistake about it, there will be plenty of opportunities for us to lose our focus, just as Simon Peter did during his stroll with the Lord. After repeating His question and command three times, Jesus tells Peter in v. 18, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.”
Jesus is saying, “Simon, look, if you really love me your life belongs to me. To follow me and feed my sheep is going to cost you your life. You dress yourself today, but one day the last set of clothes you’ll wear in this world will be made of wood and stitched with nails. And this gruesome garment will bring Me glory, and will be a source of good and growth for my sheep.”
Jesus closes v. 19 by saying, “Follow me.” But Simon is distracted by another sheep. Looking back he sees John following at a distance. “Lord, what about this man?” he asks in v. 21. You may be wondering what this text has to do with Advent. And the answer is found in Jesus’ reply in v. 22: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”
You Follow Me!
Advent isn’t about the birth of Christ; it’s about the return of Christ. And until He returns we each have a shepherding task—some larger, some smaller—that we’re to be about. Peter’s task wasn’t to compare his particular task to John’s. Your task isn’t to compare your task to mine. And my task isn’t to compare my task to that of the pastor on the magazine cover. We each must listen to and follow our Lord’s map for our own lives. Christian community is healthiest not when we’re continually comparing, but when we’re continually caring in nurturing, leading and feeding ways, using the unique strengths, talents, and resources specifically entrusted to us by God, as we look and long for His coming.