Would you open your Bible with me please to the Gospel of John, the 21st chapter, as we open our ears to hear what the Lord would say to us today? Of all the freedoms that we should use and should extend to others, I say of all of those freedoms, perhaps one of the most important is the freedom to fail. We must not expect the perfection of others and from others, which we ourselves cannot attain. For that matter, we should not expect perfection in ourselves that comes only from God.
We must guard against and deny the tendency that seems to be in most of us to reject those who have experienced some kind of failure. Neither should we be surprised when someone fails. The Lord Jesus isn't. He was not surprised when his servant Peter failed. In fact, he had predicted that Peter would fail. Peter said, Lord, all of these may fail you, but not me. Then Jesus gave his prophecy that in fact before morning would come, three times, Peter would deny him.
Peter's denial did not cast Jesus by surprise. And frankly, when you and I fail Jesus, he's not caught off guard either. You see, he knows us. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our hearts. He knows our futures with all of their ups and their downs. And the fact is, amazingly, that he loves us anyway without any strings attached to that love. We see in our text today the Savior seeking out a servant who has failed.
He had done this once before on the first day of his resurrection when he sought out Peter to restore him on that occasion to fellowship with himself. It was a private meeting. But now publicly he comes to Peter to restore him not to fellowship, but to usefulness. The Lord does the same for us. Sometimes restoration to service or to usefulness is not always immediate. It wasn't for Peter. There was a period of time here, whether days or weeks, when he had not been restored to usefulness.
The fact is that the same thing happens to us. Our failure may be great enough in some way or another that we need time to heal, or we need time to be proven, or time to rebuild. Restoration to service is not always to the same place of service that we had before either. For sometimes failure exposes that we were in the wrong place to begin with. But the fact is that when we have failed, our Savior comes to restore us to fellowship and to usefulness.
You see, our Lord knows the potential that is within each of his servants, as well as the purpose that he has for each one who has been redeemed by his precious blood. He desires that that God-purposed potential be fully realized. The servant of Jesus Christ can experience the excitement, the challenge, and the fulfillment of a life fully reaching its God-designed potential. That is possible for every person who has seated here this morning, however greatly we may feel that we have failed.
In his conversation with Peter, Jesus points to three priorities for restored servants. And I would like to say quite honestly this morning that every person listening to me who is a Christian is either a restored servant or one who is in need of restoring. All of us at some time fail. The failure may be small and unnoticed by others. It may be a private commitment that we have made to the Lord that we have not kept. Or on the other hand, that failure may be very public and even scandalous.
But our Savior desires to restore us from our failures wherever we may be this morning. And when he has restored us, he wants us to place into our lives three priorities that are essential if our lives are going to go on and accomplish what God wants them to. Notice with me beginning in verse 15, it says, So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, I want you to understand the dynamics of this situation.
Several of the disciples have gone back to Galilee and have spent the night fishing, a rather fruitless effort, until someone on the shore, perhaps it was misty there in the early morning hours, and they didn't recognize who it was. But the man said, put your net in over here. And they did. And the net was filled immediately with fish. It was John who first recognized that this was the Lord. And he said so to Peter.
Many are not wanting to wait until the boat got to shore, girded themselves, and got out into the water and got to shore first. But it was not long before the others joined them, dragging the net full of fish behind them. And they noticed a fire that Jesus had built, and on the fire fish and bread for their breakfast. Jesus had come and dined with me. And Jesus spent time fellowshipping with those men around the fire beside the Sea of Galilee.
And then, when the meal was done, in front of everybody there, Jesus turned to Simon Peter and he asked him a question. He said, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Now I want you to understand what's in Peter's mind at this point. Still nagging at Peter is his failure. Still echoing in his mind are those words spoken now some weeks ago when on that night of the Lord's trial he had failed Jesus.
And when Jesus had predicted that failure, Peter had said, though all of these may forsake you, I won't. And now there are some familiar words as Jesus asks him, Simon, do you love me more than these? And asking the question, Jesus used the verb in the Greek agapao, agape love is in mind here. Simon, do you love me with the kind of love that comes only from God? The kind of love that is willing to sacrifice everything for me?
The kind of love that will seek my good and my glory in everything you do? The kind of love that will put me first? Do you love me with that kind of love? And he said to him, yes Lord, you know that I love you. And in his response, Peter selects a different verb. It is the verb phileo. It's the kind of a word that describes friendship, love. It's a meaningful word. It is not a cheap word. It is a word used in this Gospel, chapter 5 and verse 20, of God the Father's love for his son.
And it's a word used in chapter 16 and verse 27, of God the Father's love for you and me who are followers of the Lord Jesus. This is not a cheap word, but it's a lesser word. In essence he says, Lord, yes, I have a deep affection for you. Well Jesus' response was, tend my lambs. And then Jesus again phrased the question to Simon, son of John, do you love me with the deepest kind of commitment and purpose? And Peter said, yes Lord, you know that I have deep affection for you.
Both of them again using the same verbs they had the first time. So Jesus said, shepherd my sheep. And he said to him a third time, son of John, Simon, do you love me? This time Jesus changed his word and he used the same word that Peter had used. He said, Simon, son of John, do you really have deep affection for me? Just as Peter had denied our Lord three times, so now he has given the opportunity three times to profess his deep affection for Jesus.
Jesus in asking the questions he had was trying to lead Peter on to a deeper expression of love but Peter held back. And this time he was grieved because of the same question. And he said, Lord, you know all things. You know I love you. And he used that same word, I have a deep affection for you. And Jesus said to him, tend my sheep. I believe the first priority of a restored servant is the priority of humility. Now here's why I say that.
I believe that Jesus was measuring Peter's heart and confronting Peter's boast before he said, Lord, everyone else may fail you but I never. Now Jesus comes to him with a probing question, do you love me with that kind of commitment? In those intervening days, Peter has learned a lesson in humility. Peter has learned that he should not express commitment and devotion to Jesus Christ that did not truly represent his heart.
And so when our Lord tests him with the strongest possible word, Peter refuses to use that word, backs away from it, and uses a word that more accurately describes where he is. Lord, you know that I have a deep affection for you. I believe what Jesus was doing here was showing Peter the importance of humility, of not speaking and acting beyond where he was in his commitment to Christ. It is the humble servant.
Filled perhaps through the experience of his own deep personal failure who can in the end serve Jesus Christ most effectively. Because genuine love and devotion flows from that kind of a heart. And that's the kind of heart that Jesus seeks in his servants.
I believe a major lesson here is this, that no servant can serve Christ with effectiveness who boasts in his own commitment, who is filled with confidence in his own dependability, and who makes claims beyond the truth of his own heart condition. It is the servant who has learned more accurately the true commitment in his heart by his failure. And who then acknowledging that, who can go on to serve Jesus Christ effectively.
I want to encourage you today to see your failures as one of God's greatest tools in your life. We all enjoy successes, but understand that your failures are God's tools. He allows you to be broken by the experience of your failures so that you might be usable to him. The first priority for a restored servant is humility. For out of that humility will flow genuine devotion to the Lord Jesus.
There's a second priority that we have to look at and that is the priority that is found in Jesus' response to Peter. Peter said, Lord, you know I have deep affection for you and three times essentially Jesus says, feed my sheep. Time enough had been wasted by Peter. His restoration signaled a new beginning for him. For Peter, duty meant feeding the sheep the flock of God. That was his responsibility. That was his calling. That was his gift.
Days had been spent as Peter thought through these things. Now the time of restoration to usefulness has come and priority number two is duty. Duty. Peter, it's time for you to get back online now. Feed my sheep. Don't stay around the Sea of Galilee and fish. That was okay for the time. Now duty. This is what I've called you to do. Attend my flock. All of Christ's servants, all of us who are saved by God's grace have assignments that we have been given from him.
He has gifted us and called us to participate for the advancement of his kingdom. No spiritual gift that any servant has ever received was given just for himself. Those gifts given to us are meant to be employed for the sake of others. Gifts are not ends in themselves. They are means to the end. That we might be a blessing. Some people when they have failed and are restored continue to wallow in their failure.
For they are still so overcome by the guilt and the feelings of failure that they think they can no longer be used. And sadly sometimes there are other Christians who try to tell them the same thing. I believe that the second priority when one is restored to fellowship is duty. Getting back on the line, getting back to that place where God wants us to serve him. As I said before it may be a different kind of service.
It's possible that our failure has been so tragic that we are disqualified for some kinds of service. But I want you to know that if you have been restored, God wants to use you. And he wants you to get back on duty to that place where your gifts can be used within his will. That may be within the walls of the church. But it may well be without the walls of the church too. It may be in some program that has been established. Or it may be outside of any organized program.
In fact I am convinced that most ministry must be done outside the formal structure of the church. We tend to think that our ministry is done here on Sunday or on Wednesday night or it's within the confines of the building. Not so. There is ministry there. But much ministry is beyond that as God uses us to touch the lives of people. Get back on duty after you have been restored from failure. We are saved to serve.
We are saved that we might invest ourselves and others in helping them to come to know Christ as Savior and to become mature and useful servants of God themselves. And so I plead with you if you have failed Christ not to wallow in your regret or in your remorse. If you have repented of your failure and you have been restored, then determine what place of duty Christ has assigned you now and get on with it. Understand that that is a priority for you in your restoration.
But we come now to a third priority. I'm not saying which of these is most important necessarily. They all kind of come together in the same conversation between Jesus and Peter. Verse 18, truly, truly I say to you when you were younger you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished, but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you and bring you where you do not wish to go.
And John puts the footnote in here in verse 19 that that signified the death by which he would die, crucifixion. And Peter understood that. By the way, tradition says that Peter was crucified some 30 years after this. He didn't want to be crucified like his Lord, feeling unworthy of that. He asked that he be crucified upside down and was. Immediately after Jesus predicted the death he would die, I want you to notice the two words in verse 19 that end the verse, follow me.
Priority number three for the restored servant is obedience. In Peter's case it was to follow Jesus to the cross eventually and literally. Obedience might be defined as compliance to directions or commands given to us by some God ordained authority in our lives. When we met for our spring conference a year ago, Vernon Brewer defined obedience this way doing exactly what God says immediately and with the right heart attitude.
Doing exactly what God says immediately and with the right heart attitude. Obedience implies in the first place my recognition of the right of another to order me. And it implies secondly the submission of my will to that superior. I yield to that superior my rights to conduct and control my own life. I recognize his right and I deny my rights and I give them to him. And I think obedience implies thirdly release. Release on my part of all the potential conflicts that my obedience might create.
Some of us when God tells us what to do we look at it and we say, Lord if I do that then this and this and this may happen. My obedience to the Lord involves my release to him of all those potential conflicts. I don't have to be afraid. He's out there in front of me. After all he didn't say, now you go this way and I'll meet you somewhere. He said follow me. He's with us. And he goes before us in all of those potential conflicts because of our obedience. And he says follow me.
Priority number three is obedience. These priorities, humility, duty and obedience are absolutely essential if we would realize the God given potential in our lives. All of us, all of us fail. We not only fail God, we fail each other more than we would like to think about. We fail each other in families. We fail each other in church. We fail in our devotion to the Savior. We fail in our witness to the world. All of us fail. It is a part of life and we have the freedom to fail.
Let's give that freedom to others as well as use it ourselves. But when we have been restored from that failure, let's remember these priorities and get them busy in our lives. Lord humility that gives to you devotion, duty, where do you want me to be involved? Obedience. Lord I will follow you, I will do exactly what you tell me to do immediately and with the right heart attitude. We must not allow our failures dear people to rob us of coming to grips with these priorities.
We must not allow our failures to keep us from experiencing that fulfilling God-purposed potential in our lives. Life is a precious gift from God and the very best thing that you and I can do with it is to give it back to Him and to declare Him the Lord of every hour and every day. I ask you today to let your failures bring you to the Lord and a restoration to Him.
A few weeks ago, I guess it must have been two weeks ago now, my wife and I drove into our garage or started to late one evening, we had been away for the evening and as the garage door opened I looked in the corner of the garage and was amazed because you see in that corner of the garage years ago I had built a shelf and on that shelf through the years I had placed a lot of junk.
It's hard to describe what goes on a shelf like that but I don't think I need to because most of you have a shelf like that somewhere. There were pieces and bits of this and that and the other thing but on the shelf too was a gift I had gotten several years ago was a plastic box with about 20 drawers in it and in those drawers were nuts and bolts and washers and screws of different sizes and assortments and they were carefully sorted out in the drawers. It's a nice gift.
But that night one of my children was looking for something that he or she thought was up on the shelf and in the process of looking for it reached up and pulled down on the shelf and when I drove into the garage what I saw was everything that had been on the shelf in one big pile on the garage floor. When I got out of the car and I looked at that I was absolutely overwhelmed. I don't remember my exact words but I communicated to my wife who was there in the garage with me that I was distressed.
When I'm telling you inside I felt like that pile of junk and other things was as big as pikes peak to me and you know what my wife said? She said honey don't worry about it I'll pick it up. Isn't that wonderful? I was so moved by that you know what I did? I let her pick it up. It was so nice to have someone who cared enough for me to take care of my problem that I could not possibly face.
And then as I was thinking about that story I was reminded this last week I went into a local grocery store carrying two cartons of bottles, Coke bottles, sixteen of these things. My assignment was to take these to the store to exchange them for two cartons of bottles that were filled. It doesn't sound too hard does it? But you don't know me that well.
So I went into the store carrying my two cartons of empty bottles and in this store you're supposed to present them to the cashier to get credit so that you get the proper credit and they know you haven't tried to cheat them when you come back through. Well as I looked at the cashier lines they were long and the cashiers were busy counting up all the money that they were going to ask from people and I hated to interrupt them.
So I decided to take my cartons with me through the store and present them as I came back through. But my problem was I couldn't get two more cartons because my hands were already filled. So logical person that I am I saw a grocery cart and it was in a long line of grocery carts so I decided to use one. But I couldn't get the cart, my hands were filled. See how logical this is? You men will appreciate that. So I went over and set my first carton down into the grocery cart.
Took my hand, this one right here, and I pulled the cart forgetting that as a cart comes out that way that back that is held up comes down. So as I pulled the cart out the back came down and took right out the back of it my carton of Coke bottles which then went smashing to the floor and two of them busted up splintered pieces going everywhere. Have you ever felt lonely? I felt alienated from the world, unclean as every eye in the store focused on me. Embarrassed? Yes, very.
I immediately reached down. I wasn't sure whether it was to try to pick up the glass or to lift up the cart to get under it. But since I couldn't get under it and hide myself I decided to start picking up the glass and then there was a voice. It was the store manager. He said sir, now he might have said where were you when brains were passed out? But he didn't. He said sir, don't worry about that. We'll send one of our boys over to sweep it up and you go on. You know what I did?
That's right I went on. You may be feeling that way today. You have dropped your bottles, your assignment. Or maybe it is that somebody else has pulled down your shelf. It's been out of your control but you've got a mess on your hands. A relationship has failed or so it seems. And you are overwhelmed and overcome. And maybe you feel kind of lonely too. And maybe you're embarrassed or even ashamed of what's happened.
Isn't it wonderful that we have a savior that says my child, I'll take care of it. Give it to me and he'll restore us and use us again. I'm glad our Lord's like that because I need it. Let's bow together. Would you sing with me the chorus? I think a lot of us know. Jesus never fails. Jesus never fails. Heaven and earth may pass away but Jesus never fails. But the fact is that we do.
There are some of us today who need to come to him with our broken pieces and our failures and respond to his words, my child, let me help. Let me restore. Will you let him do that right now? Tell him so. It may be that there is some failure with another person in your life. It may be a child. Maybe you failed your parents or your spouse and you feel like your life is in a mess. Will you let the Lord Jesus bring about restoration from your failure? Acknowledge your failure.
Acknowledge your mess. But he's there to help you. And then will you tell him that you will put these priorities in your life? That you'll learn from the lesson of failure you've been through? Whatever character quality that may be, perhaps humility. That you'll get back on duty? Will you put the priority of obedience in your life? It may be that your failure is that you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior. I invite you to do that this morning right where you're seated.
The reason your life is in a shambles today is because you have failed to acknowledge Him and trust in Him. He's willing to come into your life and save you today to put the pieces back together and begin that process. Will you trust Him right now, right where you're seated? If you will, tell Him. Tell Him to come in and give Him the pieces. Would you stand together with me please? Lord Jesus we thank you that you have never failed.
But as we say that we also acknowledge that we have many times failed. How faithful you have been to restore us. And I pray that just as Peter was restored, not only to fellowship but to usefulness. So every one of us would experience that restoration too. And then may we set into our lives the priorities you gave to your servant back there beside the Sea of Galilee. And go on to serve you. Thank you for your grace, your mercy, your faithfulness with us at all times in life.
And may we express that same kind of love and patience with others around us who may fail us and be restored to them. We believe that to be your will for us. Make us peacemakers in Jesus' name, Amen. No hard business.