[0:00] Today we'll be in the book of John. And before we get into it, to get our minds thinking along the right lines, I want to talk about relationships.
[0:11] And specifically, I want to talk about loving relationships. I'm sure everyone has some kind of relationship that comes to mind when you think of that. It may be your spouse if you're married.
[0:25] It may be a romantic relationship. Your fiance, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. It may be your close family. Your love for your mother, hopefully, today you're thinking of that.
[0:36] It could be your children. It could be your close friends. Non-romantic love, but a strong connection, a bond, an intimacy.
[0:49] I want you to think for a moment about these different relationships you have and what stands out to you. What are the strongest relationships you have? Because we're going to be talking about this today.
[1:02] And what we're going to be wondering is that question that comes to mind, especially in a romantic relationship. It's usually implied. It's somewhere under the surface in our other relationships.
[1:13] But in a romantic relationship, you're always wondering two things. Do I love this person? And do they love me? In the timeline of a relationship, that's obviously a pivotal point, right?
[1:27] That's the climax in the rom-com and you've got mail, you know? Right at the very end, bringing everyone to tears when they finally confess that love, they make that entrance.
[1:38] But that's also an ongoing part of our relationships, right? Anyone who's married knows that you transition. You move through different seasons. Your relationship changes.
[1:49] You settle into new seasons. But that question doesn't go away, right? The question remains, do I love this person? And do they love me?
[2:01] This is a, I think, a reality for every human experience, whether it's romantic, familial, friendship. We all have this desire for this connection for love, whatever our definition of that may be, right?
[2:18] Everyone's got a different idea of what love is. I feel like we used to sing about love. They don't sing about love anymore. They just sing about money and cars and mumble and stuff like that. But we used to sing about love and we used to get these ideas from movies, from literature, from songs about what love is.
[2:34] But whatever it is, everyone in this room has some relationships where you feel like maybe either that love is broken, maybe you've had experiences which has damaged your relationship with someone, maybe you have relationships where it's unsure and it's uncomfortable, you're not sure if you have that loving connection with this person.
[3:04] And then I hope all of us have those relationships where we have that steady love that we long for to have someone who we can rely on and count on. Now, I get us thinking about this kind of question because it's exactly the question we're going to encounter in our passage today.
[3:23] This is the last section of John and before John wraps up his gospel, before he finishes telling the story of Jesus' activity on earth, he has one last interaction he wants to make sure he connects to and that is a moment of connection between Peter and Jesus.
[3:45] Jesus is going to ask him this very question, do you love me? And I want us all to consider that question because every one of us, me included, everyone in these seats, today and every day forward from here, Jesus is asking us the same question.
[4:09] Do we love him? And let's pray together. We're going to work through this text. We're going to understand what that question rightly means, but we want to start at the very beginning by understanding that we all have a need for love and connection.
[4:28] And what we're going to test in our own hearts today, this is not a casual sit and listen to the passage sermon. This is a soul searching sermon. The question is, what do we love?
[4:42] Do we love our Savior? Let's pray. God, I thank you for your word that guides us through life, that gives us the truth.
[4:55] And I pray that you'd help us to understand it today, open our minds, our hearts. Please speak clearly through your word so we can know the truth of who you are.
[5:12] And I pray you form our hearts to love, to delight in you out of gratitude, God. In your name, amen. Amen. Amen. This is, every now and then in my house, this question comes up.
[5:28] Do you love me, you know? And it's this question that, you know, every relationship you're going to have, every romantic relationship, at some point you're going to define the relationship, right?
[5:40] I've been married for a number of years to my wife, and she'll ask me this question. Reasonable, right? Husbands, does your wife ever ask you, do you love me? We reassure them all the time, but it's still, they ask.
[5:53] And despite having read the Bible, I've read the Bible a number of times, despite having a Master's of Divinity, I went to school to read the Bible, my wife will ask me, do you love me?
[6:06] And I'll say, yes, of course. I love you, hon. I love you so much. And then she'll think for a second and get kind of calm and stoic and look at me and she'll say, then feed my sheep.
[6:21] And I'm just demolished by her epic wit and cleverness, and somehow I don't see it coming. She's done this multiple times throughout our life.
[6:32] Do you love me, Peter, my husband, then feed my sheep? And I never see it coming. And I just have to give her props.
[6:42] I just have to say, you got me 100%. That was an amazing, killer joke. But obviously, if you, as Rusty read, this brings to mind our passage that we have today where Jesus is going to ask this very question.
[6:56] Now let's set the scene here. Pastor Brent preached last week on the first section of this interaction where Jesus appears a third time to his disciples in the midst of the mundane, right, their everyday lives.
[7:10] They'd gone back to work as they had to. And Jesus has a conversation with them. And now we're picking up right after that conversation. So if you can transport your mind to the Sea of Tiberias, it's a large lake.
[7:23] They're sitting on a mixture of sand and dirt with reeds, with plants. They can hear gently water lapping up against the shore.
[7:36] You can hear winds blowing. It's cool. It's early. They'd fish all night. It's early morning at the beach. The sun is coming up. They just finished breakfast.
[7:47] They have the warmth of the fire, the fish smoking and filling up their senses. And as they're sitting there, Peter sitting, Jesus sitting next to him, we're going to catch up in John 21, verse 15.
[8:04] It says, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus sitting next to him looked at Simon Peter and said, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?
[8:21] And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my lambs. He said to him a second time, again, they go back to their fish.
[8:36] They're cleaning up their utensils. They're tending the fire. And he looks up at him and says, Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
[8:53] And he said to him, tend my sheep. And he said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Do you love me?
[9:03] Do you love me? Do you love me? Now, I want us to orient ourselves to get a good understanding of what this question means, right?
[9:16] Because this could mean any number of things. Just in our current modern day, we could have lots of different ideas of what love means, whether it's intensity or it's casualness.
[9:29] What does it mean to love someone? What does it mean to be loved by someone? So we want to orient ourselves because this is 2,000 years ago, and this is Jesus Christ asking this question, do you love me?
[9:43] And so in order for us to answer this question, do you love me, we're going to ask three clarifying questions. All right? Three clarifying questions to kind of investigate the question, do you love me?
[9:55] In order to have a good, solid answer for ourselves. And the first clarifying question we're going to ask is, how do we love Jesus? How do we love Jesus?
[10:06] What do we do in order to love Jesus? All right? And in order to get an answer for that, we're going to do some flashbacks. Flashback. We're going to flash back to the teachings of Jesus because John has been bringing to the surface all of Jesus' teaching on love.
[10:25] More than any other gospel, Jesus is always talking about love. And he, in 1 John, if you've read it, you know John, he brings love as the central theme in that book.
[10:36] And so we're going to investigate this question. How do we love Jesus? We're going to flashback to Jesus' teaching to find out what does he mean? What does he mean? How do we answer this question?
[10:47] How do we love Jesus? And in John 14, 21, Jesus answers this question for us. He says, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word.
[11:02] There's our starting point. He will keep my word. And we could relate to this easily, right? We're Christians. We're here today. Our church is founded on the word.
[11:15] We encourage spiritual formation through scripture reading, through memorization, through study. We have Bible studies. We sing. Our songs are all around the word. And Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my word.
[11:29] He's saying, I, as God in the flesh now, am the one who is speaking God's word to you. And if you love me, you're going to listen to it. You're going to pay attention to it.
[11:40] And as we're going through these, we're going to go through a number of these teachings on love. I want you to kind of assess. Take a moment now. Does this relate? Is this your experience of love for Jesus?
[11:54] Do you hold fast to his word? And I know we have a number of different kinds of people in this room. Some of you in this room may see this and say, honestly, not a lot.
[12:10] You know, maybe you are visiting church. Maybe you are honestly not sure about following Jesus, if you love Jesus, if you're going to keep his word.
[12:21] This is a key foundational element to answer how you feel about Jesus, is how you feel about his word. For us believers who have been here, maybe our members who are committed, covenanted into the church, or other believers who frequently come are a part of our church family, if you love Jesus, you will keep his word.
[12:44] But we need to clarify this a little further. This isn't all there is to it, right? Is this all there is to loving Jesus? No, it's not. You guys can talk to me. I actually prefer that.
[12:56] You guys can talk to me. This isn't all there is to loving Jesus. So we're going to continue on, because Jesus clarifies it further and further. In John 14, 15, he says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
[13:10] All right, and now he's bringing in an idea of obedience. Right, he's saying, I'm now, as God, I'm interpreting Old Testament commandments.
[13:20] I'm presenting to you scripture. If you love me, you're going to obey me. And we could agree with that, right? That's an aspect of the Christian life. That's a huge aspect of the Christian life.
[13:32] Keeping God's word, obeying his commandments. Following him. Obeying him. And he gives us, Jesus is a wonderful teacher.
[13:42] He gives us a further definition. He explains to us what he means by his commandments. In John 13, 34 and 35, he says, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.
[13:56] Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. So Jesus is clarifying what his commands are, right?
[14:11] And he summarizes them as loving others, loving your neighbors, and loving God. These are the two greatest commandments. And he's saying right now, if you love me, not only will you keep my word, you'll obey my commands, but you're going to take my love and express it to others.
[14:29] Particularly other believers. If you love me, it's going to show in your life. All right? In your church. In your church family. And this is a way we can assess ourselves.
[14:41] He says, This is how you'll actually be identified as a Christian, is by loving your brothers and sisters in Christ. That's a good challenge.
[14:54] That's a good one to reflect on. At any point in your life. Where's your love and your care? How do you express your love to...
[15:05] We have this relationship, this faith relationship with the God who created this world. And he says, If this thing is real between us, you're going to love your brothers and sisters. This should impact every aspect of our community life in the church.
[15:22] And this last one, he says, In John 15, 12, he says, This is my commandment, that you have love for one another as I've loved you. He ups the ante, he clarifies what it means to love each other.
[15:34] He says, Greater love has no one than this. That someone lay down his life for his friends. We'll keep his word.
[15:45] We'll obey his commands. We'll love our brothers and sisters. To the point of following Jesus' example and giving up our lives for them. Our love for Jesus is supposed to impact us so deeply that it spreads out into our treatment of our brothers and sisters.
[16:04] For our cares for those of others. And we know that this interaction, right? Coming back to Peter, he's interacting with Jesus. We know that this impacted him greatly because Jesus adds on a few more explanations of what it means to love him.
[16:17] Right? We're exploring that. In 1 Peter, right, Peter writes a letter to a church. We can tell that this experience impacted him greatly because he says that you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.
[16:37] Jesus calls him to feed his sheep. And Peter understood Jesus is the shepherd above all of us. And then following later, he's talking to pastors. He's talking to elders.
[16:47] He says, I exhort the elders among you. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you. Now, for all of us here, if we're thinking through this question, do I love Jesus?
[16:58] Do I love Jesus? Well, how? How do I love Jesus? Jesus has been expressly clear in what this is supposed to look like. To keep his word.
[17:10] Follow his commands. Love our brothers and sisters. For pastors, it's to, under the leadership of Christ, to shepherd the flock, our brothers and sisters.
[17:24] But for all of us to serve one another in whatever role you have, whether you're a pastor or a deacon or a member, to serve your brothers and sisters. And I want to take a moment to think through how directly this resonates to your life.
[17:43] Where would you assess yourself? Like those self-assessment tests. One to seven or one to ten.
[17:55] Where are you at? Right? And we can do this. We could assess our love for the Lord by how closely we're keeping his commands. And these are all true.
[18:06] These are all real. But I want us to, this begs our second question, okay? Our next question. Because is this all there is to love? Zach?
[18:20] No, this is not all there is to love. This is not all there is to love. It's Mother's Day. You give your mom some flowers and a card. Those are all correct.
[18:31] You're respectful. You say you love her. Is that all there is to loving your mother? No. Not at all. And so, yes. How do we love Jesus? Jesus gives us an example. But we have to dig a little deeper here.
[18:43] And we're going to have some fun right now. This is the fun part of the sermon. Most of the people here are at least my age or older. So, how many of you have seen Fiddler on the Roof?
[18:56] Okay. Decent showing. Decent showing. Not everyone. And let me catch everyone else up for this. It is a very high caliber play, musical, and movie especially.
[19:08] They recorded it. So, it's a musical. It's a movie. And it's about Russian Jews pre-World War II and how their strong historic traditions are being challenged by the world changing around them.
[19:24] All right. So, World War II is coming on. Society is changing. Persecution of Jews are coming on. And they're trying to understand where do we fit into life. And it focuses on this one family with this father and this mother, Tevye and Goldie.
[19:43] All right. And what their experience is, is they had been arranged for a marriage. A matchmaker, someone who arranges marriages, had proposed to their fathers that they make this arrangement.
[20:00] The fathers have made an agreement. And then they were wed. All right. That's their tradition. That's their understanding. It's wrapped up in their religion that this is how it happens. Now, Goldie and Tevye have five daughters.
[20:13] All right. And so, the movie progresses through each of their romantic relationships. And each of them increasingly challenges that idea of the tradition, of what they expect to happen.
[20:27] And they have to wrestle with that. Is this a part of tradition we can abandon? Is the arranged marriage, we don't need that, we can move forward? And eventually, it gets to the point where one of their daughters is seeking to be married to an unbeliever, to a non-Jew.
[20:44] And Tevye says, no. No. This is too far. All right. But backing up, there's the first daughter, the eldest daughter. She takes it easy. She's not marrying a non-Jew.
[20:55] She's not marrying just a Russian atheist. She has this Jewish boy that has fallen in love. All right. There's our big question at the beginning. They've fallen in love. And Tevye's like, what?
[21:09] Fallen in love? This is not how it happens. This isn't the tradition. The father's making agreements and we move forward. That's how it happens. But they say, we've pledged to be married to each other and we are asking for your blessing.
[21:24] And Tevye roots through it. He thinks it over and he says, okay. This is fine. We can abandon this part of the tradition. It's just tradition. We can embrace this.
[21:35] He's a godly man. He loves her well. He'll care for her. All right. That's the background. Now, what I want us to think through is this one wonderful scene. For Tevye, the father, comes to Goldie, the mother.
[21:48] Of 25 years, dirt poor family, milk delivery man with five daughters, no hope for them to return financially on his investment in them.
[21:59] I'm sorry. Anyone who has five daughters is different now, which is good. All right.
[22:10] But he's thinking through this idea because his daughter was like love. This couple comes to love. And Tevye was arranged in a marriage, right, to his wife 25 years ago. And he comes to Goldie.
[22:22] And she's cooking Passover dinner. And he says, Goldie, do you love me? And she says, what? What kind of a question is that?
[22:34] And he says, I want to know if you love me. And she says, we've been married for 25 years. For 25 years, I've been making your dinner. I've been milking your cow.
[22:45] I've been having your kids. Why are we asking this question now? Right? And he's like, I want to know. I want to know. Is this like, I know. That's all that. That's all fine.
[22:55] I want to know, do you love me? And that question gets to exactly the heart of what we're saying here because Goldie lists off all the things they've done.
[23:07] They've been, they've said, we've cried together. We've laughed together. We've starved together. We've shared a bed for 25 years. She's done all these things.
[23:20] But is that all there is to love? Zach? No. That's not all there is to love. Because she could have done all those things for any number of reasons, right?
[23:33] She got arranged in a marriage. She could have been like, well, I'm going to uphold my social and familial duty by executing my role as a mother. She could have said, well, I need to be taken care of, so I need to uphold my end of this bargain so that this man cares for me.
[23:49] She could have just delighted in being a mother and then running a household. It could have been any number of reasons. But none of those reasons would have necessarily implied love.
[23:59] Love. And here's the heart of what we, how this relates to our question here. Love is the motivation for the actions.
[24:10] All of us can come to church, read the word, memorize it, sing, go to Walk for Life, volunteer at the food pantry, pray, without loving Jesus.
[24:30] And I want all of us to hear this today, whether you are a member, a young Christian, especially anyone in here who's convinced yourself there's such a thing as a casual Christ follower.
[24:49] There's not. Love is not just the actions we do, how we love Jesus. Love is the motivator. Why we're doing that.
[25:02] And so that brings us into our second question. Of course, Goldie answers, I love you. She says yes, unemphatically, that even though they were married with an arranged marriage at a young age, they grew to love each other and they have this bond and this connection.
[25:19] And that connection is the motivator that drives their actions. Love results in action, right? Love without actions is, I don't know what it is, it's not love, but it's the motivator for our actions.
[25:32] The care, the intimacy, the longing, the desire for the other's good, that is the love. So we're going to move into our second clarifying question.
[25:46] We've looked at how we love Jesus. Now we need to understand this motivator. Why do we love Jesus? Why do we love Jesus? And in order to understand this question, we've got to do another flashback.
[26:05] Second flashback. It's like lost season five. We're going to flashback to see Peter's journey because we're coming to the end, right? This is the last word for Peter's story, but he has been developing on a path for a long time.
[26:21] So we're going to look back and see what has brought Peter to this point, all right? And so just listen as I catch us up through the highlights, all right?
[26:33] This, for a timeline, Jesus is risen from the dead, all right? He died on Passover. 50 days later, there's another holiday called Pentecost, and that's in the book of Acts when the Spirit will come.
[26:48] All right, so we know we're in that 50-day span, just to orient ourselves. We don't know exactly where Jesus appeared a number of times before ascending to heaven, but we're knowing that time frame.
[26:59] So just a few days maybe, a week earlier, zoom from this beach barbecue, this fish fry, maybe a week earlier, everything was good.
[27:14] There was no crucifixion. There was no arrest. There was no trial, and all the disciples are in a room getting ready with their leader who they followed for three years, who they believe is the one who has the words of eternal life, who's the Son of God.
[27:30] And put yourself in that room with those disciples, having that meal. I'm going to read from John 13, starting in verse 33.
[27:44] Judas has left to go and betray Jesus. And Jesus says, little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me.
[27:57] And just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. And then just a moment later, Simon Peter says to him, Lord, where are you going?
[28:13] And Jesus answered, where I am going, you cannot follow me, but you will follow afterward. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.
[28:28] This is Peter. He's a zealot. He's passionate. He's a revolutionary. He wants to follow Jesus, and he says, I'll do whatever we have to do in order to follow you.
[28:41] I will die for you. And Jesus says to him, will you lay down your life for me? Listen, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.
[28:57] This is Peter, passionate, filled with energy, and then we're going to move forward. Jesus has a long discipleship session with his followers, and then they leave to the Garden of Gethsemane.
[29:14] Picking up in verse 10, the high priests have sent out a group of soldiers to capture Jesus, to arrest him, to put him on trial at night.
[29:25] Judas has led them to him. They've identified Jesus of Nazareth. And Peter, the one who said, I will die for you, is like, this is it. This is the moment. We can't let our Savior be taken.
[29:39] We need to follow through on this. And so he draws his sword and strikes the high priest's servant and cuts off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus.
[29:53] But Jesus says to Peter, put your sword in its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me? Peter's blood boils over to the point of violence, attacking someone, thinking that he's going to now lay down his life possibly for Jesus.
[30:11] He's going to get this revolution going, to throw off the Roman government. But Jesus puts away his sword, and Jesus says, I'm going to drink the cup that my Father has given me.
[30:25] All right, we're going to continue on in chapter 18. Jesus has been brought up to the Jews. He's brought to the high priests. He's being interrogated. We went through those passages a few weeks ago.
[30:37] And in 1815, it says, Now Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. And since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest.
[30:50] So Jesus is being escorted by a bunch of soldiers into a large home, into a courtyard in the home of the high priest. And it says, But Peter stood outside the door.
[31:02] He wasn't let in. He didn't have the connection. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl, who kept watch at the door. He makes a side deal, and she brings Peter in.
[31:14] So Peter gets brought in through the side door. And that servant girl looks at Peter and says, Aren't you one of this man's disciples? Now here we're at a point, right?
[31:30] Peter, at dinner, earlier that night, had said, I will die for you. Afterwards, in the garden, he had attacked a man trying to defend Jesus. And now he's, maybe that time between here has settled in his situation.
[31:49] That death that he had said he would go through with is possibly imminent. And he's afraid.
[32:00] He's worried. He knows I could actually have that fear ahead of me. And what does he do? He says, I am not.
[32:14] Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold. It's nighttime. They were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself. And Jesus is being interrogated.
[32:28] The high priests are questioning him. And it says, Simon Peter was standing warming himself. And they said to him, You're one of his disciples, aren't you? And he denies it again. He doubles down. No, I'm not.
[32:39] And now one of the, I can't imagine this. One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter cut off, sees him and asks, Did I not see you in the garden with him?
[32:56] Now all of Peter's fears come crashing down. Not only is he being identified as a disciple of Jesus, there's someone who knows the man he attacked and is identifying him as the culprit, someone who was in the garden with Jesus.
[33:10] And Peter denied it again. And at once the rooster crowed. Peter's gone from a passionate zealot to a violent revolutionary to now a betrayer of his savior.
[33:30] And now we move back to our text, to John 21, verse 17. Now all of that is behind. Jesus has been crucified. Three days have gone by.
[33:41] He's risen from the dead. And now he's sitting there in the sand with Peter. And he asked him, Do you love me? Do you love me? And he said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
[33:56] And 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.
[34:08] And Jesus said to him, Feed my sheep. At that third question, Peter's mind made all the connections. And he confesses, Lord, you know everything.
[34:22] You know I betrayed you. You know I abandoned you. I can't hide anything from you. And he says, I love you.
[34:35] As the weight of his guilt comes crashing down on him. Now we return to our question, Why do we love Jesus? We know how to do it, right? How to be a Christian. But we need to understand our heart motivator.
[34:48] It is right here. Because when Jesus asks this third question, Do you love me? He's at once acknowledging all of Peter's sin.
[35:02] He's acknowledging him as a betrayer. And Peter knows it. He says, You know everything. But in this look, and in this request is something else.
[35:19] And Jesus asks each and every one of us, Do you love me? With that same knowledge, knowing all of our sin, knowing all of our betrayal, all of our guilt. But when he asks you that today and every day forward, with the question is an invitation of forgiveness and reconciliation.
[35:43] He doesn't condemn Peter. He invites Peter to acknowledge his guilt with an offer of forgiveness and an invitation to renewed fellowship.
[35:57] And brothers and sisters, this is why we love Jesus. Because we all are betrayers. Every single one of us. We're all betrayers.
[36:08] The question is, are we Judas? Jesus, or are we Peter? The answer to that question is whether or not we love Jesus.
[36:23] And we love Jesus with our hearts, with all of our desires, with all of our longing and our joy and our passion because he offers us forgiveness. In our sin, in our betrayal, in our rebellion, day after day, he meets with us and offers us, do you love me?
[36:46] Do you love your Savior? You can do all those Christian things. You can obey how we love Jesus. But if you don't answer why we love Jesus and know for a fact every day why you love Jesus, then you could be fooling yourself.
[37:10] Love Jesus today. He is our only hope for forgiveness. We're Judas or we're Peter. We're all guilty. And this leads to our last question.
[37:23] Will you love Jesus? Will you love Jesus? We're going to read through the last section beginning in verse 18. Jesus says, listen, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted.
[37:43] But when you're old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go. This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.
[37:54] It's well documented throughout church history that Peter was crucified. He was martyred. So his hands will be stretched out in crucifixion. Jesus tells him, you're going to follow the exact same fate I did.
[38:09] And after saying this, he said to him, follow me. And then Peter turns and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, John, the author of this gospel.
[38:21] The one who had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, Lord, who is it that is going to betray you? So Peter sees John and says to Jesus, Lord, what about this man?
[38:34] He just got a very unique prophetic word that he will be martyred, he will die, and he wonders about his friends. And Jesus says, if it's my will that he remains until I come, what is that to you?
[38:50] You follow me. So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but if it is my will that he remains until I come, what is that to you?
[39:08] All right, so John's doing some housekeeping. All right, this is after the resurrection. He's been teaching. He's been a leader in the church, and there's been some rumors that he's not gonna die until the return of Christ.
[39:19] And he's saying, uh-uh. He's saying, Peter knows his fate. He says, I do not. And now this is where it addresses us because very few people know their fate.
[39:36] There may be some things, all right, you may have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, a chronic illness. You may be trapped into some kind of financial situation that kind of determines your path forward.
[39:51] But very few of us truly know the future. Most of us fall into this second category. We're like John. We don't know what's gonna happen to us. And the question today is, will you follow Jesus?
[40:05] Come what may. It may be persecution. It may be a peaceful life till the end of your death.
[40:17] Will you follow Jesus? And I want us to think just for a moment, what is that thing that may tempt us to betray our Savior? Because that's the thing we gotta get hold of.
[40:30] Could it be your finances failing you? Could it be your health failing you? Could it be your current struggles that seem to stretch on for eternity and you don't see any hope of change that bear so heavily on you that you can't continue to love Christ?
[40:51] What is it that would challenge you to betray your Savior? We don't know our future. All we know is that we are called to follow Jesus.
[41:06] Come what may. to identify our fears and like Peter says, to give them up to the Lord. You know everything and say we love him.
[41:21] This last passage, verses 24 and 25, says this is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things and who has written these things and we know that his testimony is true.
[41:33] Now there are also many other things that Jesus did where every one of them written, I suppose the world itself cannot contain the books that could be written. John closes out his gospel with a testimony to how much Christ has done and with a call to us to hold fast to our love of Jesus.
[41:55] Do you love Jesus? And I'm so excited because in a couple weeks we're going to get into the book of Acts. As John finishes his account of Jesus' activity on earth that he identifies as a portion of Jesus' activity, we're going to look forward to the activity of Christ through the Spirit in the church that is ongoing today with every single one of us who love Jesus.
[42:27] So let's pray for strength to continue daily to place our love and our faith in Jesus. Let's pray. Amen. We pray for strength