Gospel of John, 21:1-

We are on John chapter 20 and we have worked our way down to verse 22. The Lord has appeared to the disciples. Thomas isn't there at this time. We talked last time about verse 21. verse 22 he received the Holy Spirit and what that means and then 23 he says if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them and if you retain the sins of any they are retained and my question was where we left off last time was do the disciples have the power to forgive sins?

They have the power to do it? So what does he mean here? See, if you grew up a Catholic like I did, this is where they hang their hat in terms of the priest having the power to forgive sins and, oh by the way, not to forgive him if he doesn't feel like you're sorry enough. It's exactly what it's done to say that. So what does this mean? What does this mean? Anybody's version say something different?

What's an ambassador of the reconciliation? What's his job? If you're an ambassador of the reconciliation, what are you supposed to tell people? What God has done for them. What's that? What God has done for them. More than that. What's the word reconcile mean? To make right. What's that? To make right. Not really.

What does it mean? needs to restore back, to buy back, right? So if you're the ambassadors of the reconciliation, your job is to go out and tell the world that God has been satisfied about the sin issue and it is no longer a barrier between you and God and that God has reconciled you back to himself. It's the same thing as telling people that your sins have been forgiven you. Now we've had this discussion around here where My friend across the street that lives in the White House, he's not a believer. No, over here.

This guy's not a believer. Have his sins been paid for? Is he forgiven? He's not a believer. Is he forgiven? No, he's not. But his sins are paid for, right? So how come he isn't saved? He doesn't acknowledge it. He doesn't believe it, right? So, when he tells the disciples that whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven, what he's saying to them, look, you go out and tell people that their sins have been paid for. If they believe in the person and work of me, they're forgiven and you can tell them that. If they don't believe in me, you can also tell them that their sins are not forgiven them. See that?

They don't have the specific power to make the decision as to whose sins get forgiven and whose don't. If you're a Catholic, you hang your hat here with the priesthood that this is the power given to the priest to decide whose sins are forgiven and whose aren't. The cool thing about the Catholic confession, and I'll make a confession here, once you figure out that scams If you go into a confessional box and you confess your sins and the priest won't give you what they call absolution, won't forgive you, you know what you can do? Go to the next guy. If this guy won't forgive you, well maybe this guy will. And you keep going to guys until you find one who will. It's crazy.

Their mission was to tell the world that the sins of the world were paid for and by faith in Christ their sins would also be forgiven. if they did not believe their sins would remain with them. Question 14. Who and what does Thomas represent in 24-30? And now Thomas called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

The other disciples therefore said to him, We have seen the Lord. So he said to them, Unless I see his hands, see in his hands the print of the nails, and put the finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand to his side, I will not believe. After eight days his disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood amidst, and said, Peace to you. And then he said to Thomas, Reach your finger here and look at my hands, reach your hand here and put it in my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing. Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God. And Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you believe. You have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

So let's talk about who Thomas represents here. Does he represent the Jews in the last days? Yes, he represents the Jews in the last days who believe when they see. They don't believe unless they see. The faith of Thomas is not concerned with the position of sonship. He acknowledges, as the remnant will do, that Jesus is his Lord and his God. He has not He was not with them in their first church gathering. So Thomas is a living demonstration of the power of Christ to dispel doubt.

Thomas was naturally pessimistic and his doubts were because he was of that nature. He could say the worst. He's one of those guys that would say The worst has happened just as I said it would. That was kind of his personality. I told you it was going to be bad and it is bad. That's the kind of guy he was.

So the Lord takes time with Thomas and submits him to a test to demonstrate to him the willingness of the Lord Jesus to accept him even though he doubts. See that? I mean, the Lord is very gracious here and condescends and is compassionate towards Thomas, even though he says, well, I don't believe that Christ is resurrected unless I see him and prove that he is Jesus, the one we know. I'm not going to believe you. Right? He must have been from Missouri. What do you think is weird about this? I mean, look at the arrogance of Thomas to put Christ to the test. Nobody in this room has ever put Christ to the test, right?

How many of you, when you see a doctrine of faith, I'll give you a good one, the fact that you were crucified, buried and resurrected with Christ, you were included in that, You say to him, well you're going to have to show me that, I'm going to have to somehow be entering or experience that, or I'm not buying it. What do you think?

And until you do, I'm just going to continue living the way I live. Yeah, I know I'm saved. But you tell me I'm a resurrected, I'm a new creature in Christ and I'm resurrected. You're going to have to show me that. Is that okay to do then? Thomas did it. I mean it's gutsy. The Lord is very gracious whichever way we go with it, you know. We don't understand how gracious the Lord really is. He can't restore us eventually. As an issue of faith, what does God ask us to do? Just take him at his word, right?

Somewhere in there it doesn't say he has to give you some sort of an experience and if he doesn't give you the experience or the clear understanding that you're not going to believe it or you'll only believe it a little bit until you get a little bit more confirmation. Or let's go at it another way. Does God confirm in you the truth that he has shown you before you believe it. Does God confirm in you a truth before you believe it?

I've got some people doing this. The answer is no, he doesn't. He gives us this, and he makes it very clear about Not promises, but facts that are true of us. And I think he waits for us to believe him. We have to believe him. That's our part. It's the non-meritorious, gracious part that we have. We get the privilege to believe him when he tells us something. You don't gain anything by believing him, because it's a truth that's already true of you and me. But you don't get to enter in and rest in that truth until you believe him, I think.

And that's part of what you're seeing with Thomas here now. When Thomas says, my Lord and my God, what do you think he's saying? When Thomas says to the Lord Jesus, you are my Lord and you are my God, what is he saying to him? He's trying to say that he believes him. He believes him to the point that he worships him. He's gone beyond the skepticism to the point that not only does he believe him, but he worships him. He says, you are my God. The resurrection made a difference between skepticism of despair and the worship which brings certainty, according to Merle Tenney.

Let's see. And I wrote down, and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which were not written in this book. Lots and lots of miracles were performed by Jesus in signs that actually couldn't be contained in all the books of the world.

So my last question here is verse 15, or question 15 is verse 31. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. And my question was to you, explain what that verse means. What does it mean? Jesus is the Christ and the word in the Greek on Christ is he is the one who came and paid for our sins individually. Okay, he says that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but why did he write it? Why did he tell us?

That others may believe, it's the key to your whole gospel. What I'm after is, why did he even do it in the first place? Do what? Write the gospel. He wrote it 35 years after all the other writers were gone. Why did he do it? future generations. This was to back up all of Paul's epistles because it was based on Christ being the Son of God. That's what I think this is the whole gist of why he wrote the whole book and why his is so different than the others. It points to Christ being the Son of be given that authority. But wasn't it, didn't he write it because God told him to write it?

Yeah, he did. Sure he did. And maybe the reason that he did was because, like what you said, it was time, you know, as things progressed and more and more of the gospel and more and more of Paul's epistles and the explanation of Christian life was coming out, maybe John was taking them back to the basics to say, Here's what really happened and I saw it. It was a first-hand eyewitness account to verify all the other things that had been written as well. What does faith have to have? It has to have an object, doesn't it? So what John is... John's job is to supply the object. He said, I write these things so that you might believe. I can say to you, believe. And you're going to say back to me, what? What do you want me to believe?

And that's what John's job was. He supplied the information that was to be believed. And he capsulizes it in the fact that Jesus is the Christ. What's that mean? Nope. Jesus is the Christ. What is the Christ? The Messiah. He's the Savior. and he's also the Son of God.

And then he says, and if you believe that, what do you get? You get eternal life. So that's his purpose. His purpose is to give you the object to believe. That purpose hasn't changed, not only with John, but with us. Why is it so important that we know our Bibles? For the very same reason. If I'm going to sit down and have a conversation with a non-believer or with a young believer who's growing, I better know what I'm talking about, so that I can lay out the information, or at least open it up and say, hey, take a look here, so that I can show you what you should believe, and in believing you might have life. And as the Lord said, you might have it more abundantly. It isn't speculation, it's not feeling, It's not experience, it's the Word of God laid out as to who Christ is. It's personal to this person Christ. Him. That's why it's so important, I think.

I wrote four or five paragraphs on why, but I didn't have time to go through them. OK, we're going to cruise on to Lesson 44 and try to get done. and which is chapter 21. There are a lot of people that think that chapter 21 is kind of an epilogue and really didn't need to be in the Gospel of John, but you know what, it's there. So, um, um, and chapter 21 is, uh, some days later, the apostles have gone or a group of them have gone back to Galilee and they're hanging around up there by, uh, the sea of Galilee. And Peter says, let's go fishing. Now, my first question was, what were the factors that contributed to Peter suggesting that they go fishing? Because what has happened? What has happened in the last couple of weeks to these guys?

Let's say you two tables of people and myself, we've been down in Jerusalem for two weeks. The man who we thought was the Savior was crucified. We were totally distraught. By the way, Jerusalem's not home for us. It's another town. And then we discovered that he's been resurrected, but he hadn't been around for a few days. And what are we going to do? So we go home. We go back to Galilee, where we're from.

Familiar surroundings. Incredible amount of things have happened in the last two weeks. And we're sort of hanging around and Peter says, well, let's go fishing. Because that's what we do for a living. That's the thing we're most familiar with. They could have needed money, right? You know, that's really right. They could have used some money. Maybe they were all broke.

Plus the fact that two weeks before now, they had spent three or four days with Jesus where he did nothing but teach them for three days. all the way up to the cross, non-stop teaching. So they have all this information, and all of these events that have all happened within a week, and they're worn out. So here they are back in Galilee, they'd seen their hopes of an outward kingdom shattered, they were hoping that Jesus was the Messiah, and from the Jewish mindset that he was going to take over, They've seen a person in their midst who was a betrayer, who was one of them, who betrayed Jesus to the chief priest. And then they also saw that every single one of them abandoned Christ when it got tough. They all took off and hid under a rock someplace. So in two or three hours they had been reduced from a position of disciples of an honored and popular teacher to that of a hunted partisan or a discredited imposter. That's what had happened to them. Then in addition to all this came the resurrection with the startling appearances and the unmistakable proof that Jesus had risen.

And in the middle of all of this Peter says, let's go fishing. I can certainly see why he would do that. Let's go do something we're familiar with. This stuff that's been going on for two weeks is just over the top. So was it proper for them to go fishing in light of the commands of chapter 20, 19-23 which was when Jesus appeared to them and said peace to you and then the Lord says there receive the spirit and oh by the way as the Father has sent me I send you. So wouldn't you think that they would gather up their gear and get ready to go? They didn't have enough information yet. I think. Or maybe courage. Courage? Information? What do you think?

They needed the Holy Spirit before they really were set out. See, and we know that. And that's really right. And if you went from here to the first chapter of Acts, you'd see exactly the same thing happening there. When Jesus is ascended, he tells them to wait. until the Spirit comes. And you know how long they wait? About a day. And then Peter rallies them and says, well, we need another apostle. Let's have a drawing.

He won't wait. And Peter is an impetuous guy. He won't wait for anything. He can't sit around. He's not that kind of a man. He's got to do something. So they go fishing. So, they're called to wait, or they're called to a ministry. They're not really practically ready for it. They don't know really what he means. And part of this chapter is going to explain to Peter exactly what he did mean about, you know, as the Father has sent me, I also send you. He's going to amplify that. So, why does John recognize Jesus at the shore? He said in verse 3, Simon Peter said, I'm going fishing. And they said to him, we're going to go with you also.

And they went out immediately and got into the boat, and that night they didn't catch anything. Gee, that sounds familiar. But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore, and yet the disciples didn't know it was Jesus. And Jesus said to them, children, have you any food? And they answered, no. And he said to them, cast your net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some. So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. Therefore, the disciple who Jesus loves said to Peter, it's the Lord. How did he know? Peter didn't get it, and the other guys didn't. How did John know? Okay, now, do you think it's a spiritual issue here? John is not any more spiritually alive than Peter, James, Andrew. Maybe. That's the answer right there.

He was the closest one. He knew Jesus the best because he always made sure he was close to him. He sat next to him. It's like Mary Magdalene. She knew Jesus better than anybody. Even John. Because she hung around with him. For us to think that we can't know somebody by not hanging with them is ridiculous. For us as believers to think that we can have an intimacy and a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and not hang around with them is idiocy. You have to. You have to know personally intimacy, the one that you love, which means you've got to spend time with them. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder.

Familiarity does. So do you think you physically recognized it? No. I think that the whole issue there about what was going on, because it happened before, He put two and two together and said, it's got to be the Lord. Hey, it's gotta be the Lord. That's what I thought. I just didn't know if he thought he recognized being close to him.

Yeah, he had better eyesight than Peter. I mean, does he recognize whatever his mannerism is telling him to throw the net on the right side. So you're the only guy who can do that. Yeah, because that's the way they don't normally throw the nets out on the right side. Yeah. So let's see.

Question four. Had Peter been restored yet by Jesus? Now, we're about to enter into a place where Jesus publicly restores Peter after he denied Christ three times. But the question is, had he already been restored privately by Christ? If you look at Luke 24-34, which I gave you one of the verses, it says, saying, the Lord has risen, has really risen, and has appeared to Simon.

Mark 16.7 says, But go, tell his disciples, and Peter, he is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him, just as he told you.

And then in 1 Corinthians 15.5, Paul says, And that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve. So I think that what the Lord Jesus did when he rose, is he went to Peter personally and restored him before this incident. I think there's enough evidence to show that he did that. Because Peter isn't crying in the streets anymore. He's hanging around with the rest of the disciples. They're up in Galilee. He's kind of reassumed his role of leadership. He's the one that says, let's go fishing. So I think he's been privately restored to Christ already.

Yes? Peter bragged to Christ that when he said, I'm going to go up to Jerusalem and die. And he said, well, I'll go with you. I'm going to die too. And the Lord said, oh, really? He said, before the cock crows three times, you're going to deny me. It says that he went and hid and wept bitterly in the streets.

So when Christ was raised, he went and found Peter and restored him back to himself. What do you mean by restored? Reconciled him back. Said, okay Peter, I know what you've done, you know what you've done, you're forgiven. He let him know he was forgiven, is what you're saying. Sure. You're still my disciple. That's why the Lord is so gracious. He does that to all of us. Yeah, that's really right. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Isn't he still either restoring him or challenging his heart? Absolutely he is, and it's an ongoing process. But now he's doing it publicly. And there's a reason I think he's doing it publicly.

I don't think the Lord Jesus, when he found Peter, privately asked him those three questions. But I wonder, I mean, that's what I think, you know, it's not until later that Peter finally, you know, Pentecost and through that, that he finally gets it all because he's still, you know, Oh, what do you mean? You know, he's still the same old Peter almost. Yeah. And as we dissect that, the change in words has, yeah, interesting. Yeah.

Why do you think Peter was restored publicly? Why didn't Jesus just let it go? I took care of Peter, but he's doing it publicly. I think the others needed to know. Say that again? I think the others needed to see that and know that. Okay. And it was sort of an acknowledgment of Peter's leadership to come. Yeah, it's interesting. If Peter is going to be called to be a fisher of men, The Lord, I think, has to show his confidence in Peter publicly to everybody to see. I think you're absolutely right.

He denied him publicly, so I think he had to restore him publicly. Yeah, he did, although he only denied him to three people, two people actually, and he did it in a public forum. I think the other disciples need to see that Peter was restored, reconciled to Christ, and that he's given a position of responsibility by Christ himself, even though he messed up.

Don't you find it interesting that in all of the Gospels and in the Epistles, God never hides the frailties of his servants? He never does that. He never says, oh, you know, Paul was mean. No, he shows you exactly what their frailties are, every single one of them. And I think it's cool that he does that.

Okay, so explain the difference in Jesus' questions to Peter using the word love and Peter answering using the word love. Now let's go through them and then maybe you can kind of get a handle on this. Verse 15. So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

And he said to him, feed my lambs. And he said to him again a second time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said to him, tend to my sheep. And he said to him the third time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me?

And he said to him, Lord, you know all things and you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Now, here's what's interesting. When the Lord Jesus said to Peter, maybe put it this way, in the Greek language there's two really important words for love. There's actually four, but we'll talk about two. There's the word agapa, which is the love of God. Usually it means to put high value on the object love.

Most of the time, like John 3.16 says, God so loved the world. That's the word agape. The other word is philio, which means I'm very fond of you as a brother, as a friend. I really care about you. Watch how this goes. The Lord Jesus says, Simon son of Jonah, do you agape me? more than these?" And his answer is, Lord you know that I feel you. See how that goes? Now, the thing about agape is that it's totally self-sacrificing. The love of God for you, that's agape, is totally resonant in him and it has nothing to do with whether you're worthy of his love at all. He just loves, because that's his character. The intensity of filial can be based on the fact that, well, you're doing a pretty good job, and so is the person you're loving. There are things about you I love. I love you, but there's things about you I love too. Well, if you stop doing those things, maybe I don't love you so much anymore. Agape is not like that. I love you because me, I'm the lover, and it doesn't matter whether you respond or not.

So when Jesus says, Peter, do you agape me? And his answer is, Lord, you know that I filio you. You pick up what's going on here? Says it to him a second time. Peter, do you agape me? Peter says, Lord, I filio you. You know that I do. And he says, okay, feed my lambs, tend to my sheep. But then the last time, the Lord says, Peter, do you filio me? And Peter says, Lord, you know all things. You know that I filio you. Why did the Lord change? Because the last time he asked him the question, he changed the word. Isn't that interesting? Why do you do that, do you think? Do you think the Lord Jesus doubted Peter's profession? Well, here's the interesting thing about it. Notice at the end of the last thing, Peter's upset with the Lord.

Isn't he? He's not happy. Why are you pushing me? Isn't that what he's saying? Why are you asking me this three times? Don't you know? I've answered three times. Why is he upset? If I came to Courtney three times in his face, do you love me, three times by the end of the third time he'd say, well, how many times are you going to ask me? I've answered in the affirmative every time. What's your problem?

Does it matter what's going on here? Is it because he started the old sin nature? Say that again? Is it because he started the old sin nature? What's he after with Peter? That's part of it. Go ahead. You know, when they picked this up in the language...

Because it was done in Aramaic? Yeah, we have known the difference in Aramaic. I read about that from whether, you know, we have love. Does the Aramaic have? No, Aramaic has only one word. That's what I was trying to figure out. And figure it out, you know, if it was in Greek. Well, what's interesting is that if the language was Aramaic, but then when John wrote it, he uses both words, how come? Wouldn't he have stuck with just one word?

Well, if it's by the Holy Spirit, right? Yeah, yeah. I think, do you think the Lord Jesus doubted Peter's genuineness of his profession? Why did he back off of the agape word then? I'm wondering if maybe he didn't, he perceived that Peter wasn't ready able to give agape yet? What's the Lord after here? He's giving Peter a ministry publicly, right? If you love me, feed my sheep. If you love me, tend to my lambs. Two things here. One, the most prized possession of the Lord Jesus is what? His sheep. His sheep, right? His lambs and his sheep.

And he's saying to Peter, it's going to take more than Phileo, buddy, to do this job. It's going to take more than fond affection for me to accomplish the job I'm going to call you to do. And that's why he used the word agape the first two times. knowing full well that Peter wasn't going to be able to do this until Pentecost. And so the Lord backs off and says, do you filio me? He says, feed my sheep. Now I want to go through something that will contribute to this.

In question 7, why is Jesus probing Peter? He is probing Peter's most innermost purpose for following him. The desire for personal success, eminence, achievement, reward, or even the relative unselfish motive of doing something for needy humanity is not enough. Only a complete love for Christ would be sufficient to carry him and his fellow disciples through the careers which awaited them in the future.

That's why he's using the word agape. When he probes Peter, he reaches the bottom of Peter, not a word of blame or reproach, but the Lord for the third time questions him. And for the first time, he takes up Peter's own word for special affection. Peter was grieved because he said to him for the third He said to him, Lord, you know all things you know that I dearly love you. Then Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. I think what the Lord is pointing out here, that when you're called of God to feed his sheep, love is going to be a very high motive, but it's got to be agape for it to work. There cannot be any sense of self-gratification, self-attainment in any of the work of the Lord. None of it. It's got to be all for Him. And it can't be done filial. It can't be done. As a matter of fact... I'm sorry. Miles Stanford used to say that even love is not enough of a motive if you're going to feed the sheep. You know what motive he said you had to have? What's above love? Grace? No. It's got to be a life motive.

In other words, if you're going to feed the sheep and feed the lambs, it's got to be in the life of Christ that it's done. It has to be his life that does it. Which includes agape. So I think that this is what the Lord Jesus is doing with Peter here. He's calling them to a ministry, but he's telling them, hey Peter, you know, you're the guy with all the bragging, and you're going to follow me to death, and you're going to do all this other stuff.

Well, I'm going to give you a new ministry to feed my lambs, but it's requisite on whether you love me or not, as to whether you can carry it out. And filio isn't enough. But then why did Jesus use filio there at the last, on the third time with Peter? I still don't understand that. Because he understood that Peter didn't understand. Does that make sense? Anybody else want to try to tackle that question?

Why did the Lord back down to, well I would say back down, why did he change the word to phileo? I don't know necessarily if he was trying to tell him, but he was using that word It's interesting, he would say, do you agape me? And Peter would say, yes, I phileo you. And then he'd say, OK, feed my lambs. And then he'd say, do you agape me? And Peter say, yeah, I phileo you. And he'd say, well, tend to my sheep. And then the last time, he says, phileo, phileo. And he says, OK, feed my sheep.

But I think the point that he's making here is it's going to take more than you are right now, Peter, for you to carry out the ministry I'm giving you. way more than you have the capacity even to do now. And that's why I use those words. I think that's why. Wouldn't it also, to confirm the ministry right now, even before Pentecost, to start, I mean, the Agape Familial, it was, you know, in my sheet now, almost kind of the public restoration and all that, before the rest of them, and before Pentecost and all that, I think that kind of is, This is your ministry, and you can do it right now, but you really need the agape and that will come at Pentecost. I think that's really important because I've always loved the character of Peter. He's a guy who you say, well, we have a job to do, and Peter says, I'll grab it, no problem. I'll take care of it.

And he's a very fleshy guy with a lot of capacity and a lot of energy. and probably was entrepreneurial because if you look at the disciples whenever they're hanging around with him they're staying at his house and he's got the fishing boats so he's a pretty aggressive fella and he is a guy that's a doer so there's a transition going on here between self-energy and something other that Peter doesn't really understand yet although he has been taken down through the denial and restoration of the Lord Jesus Christ to a point where he doesn't trust his own energy anymore.

And I think that's what the Lord's doing with him. He's taking him slowly, bringing him down to where he's learning ever so slowly that it isn't out of Peter's energy, commitment, or anything like that that's going to be able to feed these sheep. Nothing. It's going to have to be a whole other thing. He doesn't know what it is yet, but he's Maybe put it this way, he's done a pretty good job of destroying Peter's self-confidence, hasn't he?

Yet he's still given him a job to do. And he's given him a job based on love, not based on energy. I think this, you know, we went back to how all the frailties are shown, and all of them, I think, isn't it, you know, kind of going into our identification stuff, it's showing the fleshly, what's flesh and what is later after Pentecost but in this you know really identifying fleshly motives yes I mean that's in all these where they show weaknesses is to show the It takes a new life because you think about it. If the Lord calls you to be a shepherd of his sheep, what do you get in terms of the sheep? You get these highly spiritual, selfless people, right? The ones that are self-sacrificing and can't wait to help you, right? That have no needs. And all they think about is helping their neighbor, right? Nonsense. They stink.

And so if you're called to be a shepherd, it isn't going to be long before, if it was just one sheep, maybe you could handle it. But it's always more than one. And it's always dealing with, when you're a shepherd, what are you dealing with in the sheep? You're dealing with self, sin, all of that business. And what is your job? To feed them. How do you feed them? You feed them the word of God. And you're to feed them agape from the standpoint that no matter how much of a jerk they are, it doesn't bother you. Because you're pointing them to Christ. That's your job. That's why the criteria is so high.

If it's filial or anything to do with self, you're not going to last very long. Sooner or later you're going to think, you know what, this is not worth it. There's too much brain damage in this, too much work, and they don't care anyway. Because you're looking for rewards in the ministry rather than in Christ alone. When he calls you to feed his sheep, your reward is him only, not the success of the sheep.

See that? Lots of failures. And that's okay, because that's the way it is. What's amazing to me is that God would even call somebody to be a shepherd and give a guy like Peter an incredible ministry and a gift to his very most prized possession, which is his sheep. Isn't that something? That he would do that? He calls the Apostle Paul to do that.

Notice how much fitting out for the job has to be done. ahead of time. Look what Peter's going through now and what he's going to go through for a while until he's on the road and pretty well qualified. Look how much training Paul went through before he actually began to do some serious ministering. At least a minimum of three years with Christ in the desert. You all need three years with Christ in the desert before you even think about ministering to anybody. You see that? Let's see, I'll read a couple of things.

To tend or rule pastorally is not forgotten, but positive nourishment as of the lambs at the beginning remains at least the abiding task of the shepherd. The habitual need of the sheep is the issue. It demands enduring and deep love, not to scold perhaps or govern, but to feed. And not least of all, the least of all Christ's sheep. Only the love of Christ can carry one through this.

So, question 8, we've kind of dealt with that too with this in the discussion we just had. One thing that I wanted to point out in question 8, sometimes you forget who the sheep belong to. Who do they belong to? Now does the Lord give you 25 and they're yours? No. They never ever leave the possession of Christ. They belong to Him. You're tending them, but they're not your sheep. And that's a really important thing to keep in mind. Question 9.

Why would John put verse 18 in there? And verse 18 is, most assuredly I say to you, When you were young, he's talking to Peter, you girded yourself and walked where you wished and when you were old, you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.

What's he saying to him? He's prophesying his martyrdom, isn't he? Yeah, but think about things going on that he doesn't wish in that kind of language. When it is no longer possible for him to boast of his own strength or courage, as a helpless old man, Peter would enjoy from God the singular privilege not only of death of Christ's sake, which in younger days he had assayed to face and most ignominiously failed, but in that very death which the Lord had suffered with his prolonged agony and shame. What he's saying to Peter, you know, when you're out of gas and you're old, and you can't make decisions anymore, then I'm going to give you the privilege to die as I died, on a cross, slowly.

That's what he's saying to him. And that's a privilege. Peter took it that way, didn't he? You don't hear him complaining, hey, let's do it a different way. That's really what he's saying to him. And to be ready for, to be willing to go to the cross like that, you cannot have any ounce of self left. You see that? The Lord Jesus before Pilate says what?

You're not murdering me. I'm given my life freely. You're not taking a thing from me. When Peter is finally martyred, he has the same attitude. I'm given my life. You go ahead. You take me. Only, you know, I'm not worthy to be crucified this way, so turn me upside down is what the tradition is.

Verse 21. And Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, Lord, change of scenery. Then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved, which is John, following, who also had leaned on his breast at the supper, and said, Lord, who is the one who betrays you? Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, But Lord, what about this man? And Jesus said, If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow me.

So my question was, What does verse 21 tell us about Peter and about ourselves? The eye is to be kept on the Lord and your concern. You have a concern for other people but what the Lord is doing with them is between them and the Lord. Even though you may be a shepherd, your job is to keep them pointed to the Lord. And he says to Peter, hey, you follow me, and he follows me, and you don't need to be concerned about John.

So my question was then, what does follow me demand of you as a believer? What does it demand of you? Two questions, hurry up. This is the second person singular in the pronoun emphasized to personal. It's not a mass invitation, but an individual summons. You follow me. Personal. And question 12 we've answered several times. The whole purpose of the gospel will be fulfilled through those who read it. Thank you. It's been a great year. Enjoyed every minute of it. That's close.

Our dear Father, how we thank you for the time and the grace that you've extended to us to study this Gospel of John. We've learned so much about the knowledge and the glory of your dear son, Father, and that we may continue to grow in him, to be conformed to his very image, Father, and to manifest his very life. We thank you, we pray in his precious name.