or organizing, there's a lot of work that goes into that. I'm grateful that we had many people involved in helping with that. As I was preparing myself for the small portion that I had to play, I was remembering that a year ago, at that time, I was elk hunting for three days. I was on my way back from the mountains of northern Montana. to get back in time for this Christmas dinner last year. And I was thankful that I was not scrambling as I was last year. Last year I had the privilege of hunting with our missionary in Poland. I wasn't in Poland hunting. He hadn't gone there yet, but I had the privilege of hunting with him, Tanner, on his family's large mountain ranch. We stayed in this rustic log cabin built years ago by his dad. I have a picture of it there. It was a pretty incredible experience staying in that old one-room cabin with a half loft. no running water, and this old cooking stove that served both for our meal prep and for our heat. The history of that cabin was just enthralling to me, as it was filled with old fading photographs, old deer and elk antlers, and old cowboy hats from many years ago. And sadly, the life of this cabin is limited and it's near its end. Tanner shared with me that the foundation is completely rotting and it is falling over. And they've had contractors try to look at it, but it's just cost prohibitive to fix it. So it won't be long before the foundation completely gives way and the cabin will no longer be standing. Foundations are critically important. If the foundation is bad, it's just a matter of time before what is built upon it comes to an end. And when Jesus comes to the disciples in John chapter 21, a central theme is what is the foundation of their faith? As we're gonna see, that foundation must be love for Christ. Last week, we saw Jesus appearing to his disciples on the Sea of Galilee, just as he promised that he would. We saw the disciples had a fruitless night of fishing, and as they are in the dawn light, a man appears on the shore and says, cast your nets on the right side of the boat. And they catch 153 large fish. And John realizes that the man on that shore is Jesus. And he shouts out to Peter, it's Jesus. And Peter dives into the sea and swims 100 yards. to Jesus, while the rest of the disciples bring the boat in, dragging the net of fish behind them. And so remembering that's where we left off, let's turn to John 21 verse 9. I do want to read part of what we covered last week as well, though, because it pertains to where we go next. In verse 15, so if we look at verse 9, Chapter 21, Then as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread. And Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish which you have just caught. And Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three. And although there were so many, the net was not broken. Jesus said to them, come and eat breakfast. Yet none of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? Knowing it was the Lord. Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them and likewise the fish. This is now the third time Jesus showed himself to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? And he said to them, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. And he said to him a second time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know I love you. He said to him, tend 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. You know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish. this he spoke signifying by what death he would glorify God and when he had spoken this he said to him follow me let's pray father we thank you for your word that is faithful and true it is truly your full revelation to us and we give you thanks for the gift that it is we often fail to to consider the reality of if you had not spoken to us, we would be left to merely guess what it is you required of us, merely guessing at who you really are. But you and your word have revealed yourself and you have revealed your son to us in order that we might know you, in order that we might walk with you, that we might know how to be restored to you. And so, Father, we praise you for these things. And as we continue to move through John chapter 21 this morning, Lord, we beg of you for your help. If you do not help, Lord, there is nothing that we can do here that will be of any eternal value. And so, God, we ask that you, through your spirit, would work through your word to produce in each one of us and in our church as a whole that which you desire to produce in us. And so, Father, we cast ourselves before you utterly helpless. We need you and we need you to work. And so, God, we pray that you would do so for your glory and for our good. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So, the disciples arrive on shore. They see this fire of coals. They see fish cooking there. They see bread there as well. And Jesus invites them, come and eat, ministering to their physical needs that they had after a night of fishing. Jesus, the sovereign king, the resurrected Messiah, then served them, we read, food. The emphasis on verses 1 through 14, as we looked at last week, was Jesus revealing himself to these disciples. He is the fully resurrected Lord. And this impacts how they are to live, this impacts how we are to live. Which brings us to our only point this morning, those who like really simple outlines. This is really simple today. How will you live? It would seem that this breakfast on the shore was an awkward one. We can only imagine, because throughout the whole breakfast, the disciples are wanting to ask Jesus, is it really you, Jesus? But they don't, because they know that it is Jesus. And so, there's this awkwardness throughout the whole time. As we discussed last week, Jesus rose from the grave with a glorified body that reflected his earthly body, but now it is in a glorified state. A body free from the effects of sin. A body that is not bound to earth. A body that appears somewhat different. And it was an awkward meal. I'm sure that you have probably had awkward meals as well. I think it's one of the job descriptions of being a pastor, must be able to survive awkward meals. I have lots of them, but one of the most awkward one was actually before I was ever in ministry and that was when I invited my hope to be father-in-law to dinner to ask for my wife Jessica's hand in marriage. That was an awkward dinner. The waitress could have served me sawdust and I would not have been able to tell the difference that night, I don't think. This is an awkward meal and Jesus lovingly and wisely makes it all the more awkward. Thank you, Jesus. As they're eating, Peter seems to remain silent. He was overjoyed to see the Lord, relieved to be once again in the presence of Jesus. And yet here there are no words of Jesus recorded up to this point. From the denial of Peter. We don't know what conversation had transpired before this meal on the Sea of Galilee, but it seems clear, certain, that they had not discussed Peter's denial. And thus, as the saying goes, there's this massive elephant in the room. And everybody knows it. And as Peter ate, he must have stared into that fire of coals and thinking of the last time he was looking into a fire of coals in the presence of Jesus. It was at that fire of coals that he stood by for warmth on the night that he denied ever knowing Jesus to seemingly irrelevant people. We read in John chapter 18, then the servant girl who kept the door, not a powerful figure by any means, said to Peter, you are not also one of this man's disciples, are you? And he said, I am not. Now the servants and officers who had made a fire of coals stood there for it was cold and they warmed themselves and Peter stood with them and warmed himself. We read from Luke's account that Peter denied Jesus the three times just as Jesus said he would, but Jesus was in the sight of Peter and Peter saw Jesus. In Luke 22, verse 60, we read immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. So Peter went out and wept bitterly. He and Jesus making eye contact there the last time they were at a fire of coals after Peter had denied Jesus. Now here they are standing over a fire once again with this big elephant in the room. I've told this story before but it bears repeating. I grew up fairly poor in western Montana and our family car, for those of you who understand these cars, our family car was a 1976 Ford Pinto station wagon. Now they're mainly good for demolition derbies. But that was our family car, and one day, my buddy and I, well, my dad was at work, took our car up in the mountains, and we were driving on this little old mountain road. It was barely even a two-track, but it was a great spot to find grouse. And I saw movement out of the corner of my eyes, and I turned to look, and if you know mountain roads, they didn't necessarily build them for high speed and gradual turns. The road did an immediate 90 degree, and God strategically planted a tree right on that corner, which I proceeded to hit. with the front fender, driver's side fender, that's how far off I was, with the car. Now, I got out of the car panicked because not only had my buddy, you know the ball caps, they have the little metal thing right there. My buddy's head had hit the windshield and starred out the windshield. He was okay. But I was more worried like I'm going to die. My dad is going to kill me because I can't open the driver's side door anymore because the fender, back then they made fenders like metal and stuff. And the fender had pushed against the door and over the door so the door couldn't open. And so in a panic I thought I'm going to fix this. I grabbed the tire change out of the back of the car. wrap it around the tree, wrap it around the fender, and put it in reverse. Tire chains were not made for body repair. They immediately came apart. We drove home, me sweating bullets, thinking, what in the world am I going to do? I found a bigger chain at home. I hooked it to another tree at home and hooked the other end to the fender, backed up, and sure enough pulled the fender out, and I thought, phew, I'm saved. So my dad got home from work and said, I'm driving you to school tomorrow. That was an awkward drive. because I chose the route of hoping my dad would not notice the car. Now, the car had a small dent in the fender and, of course, a start-out windshield, and I just thought, well, maybe he won't notice. Now, dads have a superpower, and that is knowing if so much as a mosquito hits a vehicle. And about 10 minutes in the drive, my dad finally turned to me and said, so, what did you do to the car? This is Peter's feeling here only to a much, much greater degree. Sitting around the fire, knowing the last time he stood over a fire and was in the presence of Jesus, he had denied Jesus and this situation had never been addressed. And perhaps Peter is staring into the fire thinking maybe Jesus has forgotten. Maybe the pain of the crucifixion and all of the horrors of all of that, maybe that has now slipped Jesus' mind. Maybe it won't matter. Maybe Jesus is just gonna let it go. And then suddenly, in this already awkward meal, Jesus looks across the fire at Peter, dead in the eye, and says, Peter, you love me more than these? Can't help but wonder if Peter thought, really, Jesus? You're going to ask me that in front of all the guys. And we may wonder, why did Jesus ask it in front of all of them? Because that seems to be the indication of the text. The public nature of Peter's sin required a public confrontation and a public repentance. And while it's clear the disciples still looked to Peter as their leader, it was necessary for them to know Peter's standing with Jesus going forward. The fact that Jesus addresses Peter by name here, Simon, son of Jonah, speaks to the seriousness of the situation and that this is a solemn moment. When Jesus asked this question, I imagine there was complete silence and everyone just probably stared into the fire just thinking, oh boy, sure hope Jesus doesn't ask me about my running away that night. When Peter asks or is asked of Jesus this question, Jesus is driving straight to Peter's heart. Jesus is essentially asking Peter, do you love me, Peter, more than the rest of these guys? Is your love for me greater than these guys love for me right here? And what Jesus is doing here is driving straight into his heart because he is addressing Peter's pride, his self-righteousness and self-reliance. Jesus does not speak specifically to Peter's denial because Peter's denial was not the core problem. Peter's denial arose out of a heart of spiritual pride and self-reliance. Here, we have to remember the spiritual pride that Peter had. Aren't you glad that your heart is not laid bare on the pages of scripture for all to read? Matthew 26, verse 33. Peter answered and said to him, even if all are made to stumble and the all there are the rest of the disciples there. If they're all made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble. Jesus said to him, assuredly, I say to you that this night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Peter said to him, even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And so said all the disciples. Likewise, in John 13, after Jesus had washed their feet and the disciples wondered, where are you going? Jesus answered him where I'm going, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterward. And Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for your sake, he says. Peter had boldly stated in front of all of them, when Jesus said, you all will be made to stumble, he said, yeah, these guys may be, but not me, Jesus. I'm the man. I would never stumble like that. And then he says even stronger, Jesus, I would lay down my life for you. That's how devoted I am. That's how faithful I am. That's how strong my faith is. That's how strong my biblical knowledge is. Peter looked at the others and suddenly thought, I've got more faith. I've got more knowledge. I'm stronger. I'm more reliable. And we see Peter like this, and we shake our heads very often, and yet we are far more like Peter than we realize. We suddenly compare ourselves to others to reassure us of our devotion to the Lord, or our spiritual maturity. We take pride in our spiritual maturity because of where we go to a church as opposed to our friend who goes to that shallow church down the street. We look at someone trapped in sin and we just think, I don't know how they could have ever gotten there. What in the world happened? Write them off. Likewise, we write off others who disagree with us theologically or hold views contrary to our own. We subtly replace love for Christ with theological knowledge and think because of the knowledge we now have, we must love Christ more. But the most dangerous of all is we trust in ourselves and our spiritual maturity much more than we realize. When we consider ourselves before God, we put our confidence in various things such as Bible reading and church attendance and evangelism. And when we lay our head down at night, we take comfort in what we have done well for the Lord, or we're in angst because we did not perform well for the Lord that day. A great sin we struggle with is the same as Peter, spiritual pride. and self-reliance. We put hope in ourselves and we put hope in our performance. We take pride in what we know. Spiritual pride and self-reliance comes when we think of ourselves more highly than we should, and we think of the gospel far less than we ought to. Richard Phillips puts it this way, he says, beneath Peter's sin was a dangerous self-confidence. Peter had boasted of laying down his life for Jesus when Peter really needed Jesus to lay down his life for him. And the same is true for us. You see the answer to our spiritual pride and self-reliance is the cross of Christ. That's where our hope is. This is why we must stay close to the cross and we must stay close to Christ. We must stay close to the gospel. The cross shatters our illusions of spiritual pride and self-reliance. It renders silly our justifying of ourselves by comparing ourselves to others. When we are at the foot of the cross, we realize that we have nothing to offer in and of ourselves. It's not like we are there at the cross and and we say, Jesus, I see your crucifixion and I raise you my Bible knowledge. No, we realize it is equal footing at the cross. It's only there at the cross that humility becomes possible and we can leave behind our illusions of how spiritually strong and mature we are. Peter's answer to Jesus' question is, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And if we think about this, Peter's answer here is really fascinating. He puts the focus on Jesus' knowledge of himself rather than on his own strength as he did before. He has learned he cannot trust himself because his actions actually pointed to the reality that maybe he didn't love Jesus. denying Jesus wasn't exactly stellar proof of his love for Jesus. Rather, taken alone, it seems to indicate he actually did not love Jesus, and thus Peter refuses to refer to himself now like he did before. Instead, he entrusts himself to Jesus, who has perfect knowledge of himself. We see two really interesting things here. First, we see that Peter must indeed have genuine faith in Jesus because only a true believer entrusts himself to the Lord like this. He trusts Christ with his heart. And he's here as an inviting Christ, look at the depths of my heart. You know me. Only a true believer does that. just as his sin did not prevent Jesus from diving into the water to swim and flee to Christ. So now. He does not flee trusting himself to Jesus. Richard Phillips says Peter shows that only a genuine believer can take solace in the Lord's true knowledge of our hearts. For the unbeliever wants to hide that. But the second interesting thing to note here is Peter has come to the realization that he cannot trust his assessment of himself. And this is something we would do well to learn as well. Because we often put great confidence in our ability to assess ourselves and our motives and our hearts. But Peter here realizes he cannot reassure himself by his knowledge of himself. His only assurance is Christ's knowledge of himself. He realizes the deceitfulness of sin that has blinded him to being able to accurately evaluate his heart. And he's saying to Jesus, you know my heart far better. Whereas before he said, I know my heart, I would lay down my life for you. Now before we go on here, some of you have probably done studies on this or encountered this reality or there's notes in your study Bible that there's two different Greek words used for love here throughout this discourse. The first is agape and the second is phaleo. Agape usually means sacrificial, unconditional love, a more perfect love, a pure devotional love, while phileo refers to tender affection or brotherly love. Twice, Jesus asks Peter, do you agape me, that unconditional love? To which Peter responds each time, I phileo you, the tender affection love. And then the third time, Jesus asks Simon's son of Jonah, do you phileo me? And Peter responds with, I phileo you. And thus it is often said that Jesus is essentially asking Peter, do you perfectly love me? To which Peter responds with, no, I have brotherly love for you or tender affection for you. And the focus then becomes on the nature of Peter's love for Jesus. And so we wrestle with this a little bit. Is this how we understand this? Is this an example where the Greek in this instance sheds far more light on this dialogue than the English does? And that's possible. I would say perhaps. But I also urge caution here. The reason is because John uses throughout this whole book these two words interchangeably in the same instances, sometimes in the same dialogue. So, for example, the same two words are used in John to describe God's love for Jesus. At one point, Jesus is described as being agape by God, another time phileoed by God. It's also both words are used in describing God's love for his people in John. Both words are used by Jesus when he describes his love for Lazarus. And both words are used to describe Jesus's love for John. And so I think at most what we could say here is that Jesus's use of agape further exposes Peter's spiritual pride. Because we could assume that had Jesus asked Peter before the Nile, do you agape me? We would expect Peter would probably say, yes, Lord, I love you with an unconditional, near perfect devotional love. But now he says, I phileo you. And so if we are to see there is indeed a distinction here, this distinction is just simply to further expose and address Peter's spiritual pride and self-reliance. But I think if we make too much of this, as is often done, and try to do too much of a hard and fast distinction between these two words and put the emphasis here, I think we run the danger of losing the main point of this text. The main point is not the extent to which Peter loves Jesus, nor the proper definition of Peter's love for Jesus. Rather, the main point of the text is, does Peter love Jesus, period, and is he repentant of his spiritual pride and self-reliance? That's the main point of the text. And sometimes we can get overly excited about the meaning of a great word and make it say more than it actually does and cause it to carry more weight than it actually carries. And so we just have to be cautious here. Now, upon Peter's statement that Jesus knows his heart and he does indeed love Jesus, Jesus then says to him, feed my lambs there at the end of verse 15. The word here refers to the action of a shepherd to provide feed for his flock, for his lambs. And here it's to refer to spiritually feeding Jesus's lambs, which is teaching God's word. You may remember God rebuking prophets in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel for not feeding the people God's word. Likewise, this same kind of language is used in the New Testament as well in Hebrews 5.12, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God and you have come to need milk and not solid food. So this concept of feeding means to teach and to preach God's word. Jesus, then in verse 16, repeats this a second time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? It's interesting to note here, Jesus drops the do you love me as much as these guys now, it's just simply, OK, then, Peter, do you love me? And Jesus responds to Peter. As he says, he loves him with a different charge than the first. He says, tend my sheep. This word, tend, carries the connotations of the duties of a shepherd, to not just feed the sheep, but to care for them, to protect them, to guard them, and to oversee them. Shepherd must do more than just feed here. Jesus is referring to the need to care for God's people and to to watch over God's people and to lead God's people, to guard them, be an authority over them. We see these words used frequently in Acts 20 verse 28. We know that Peter took Jesus' words to heart because he closes 1 Peter with descriptions and instructions for how to shepherd the people of God. So he says in first Peter 5 to shepherd the flock of God, which is among you serving as overseers. Jesus then repeats this question a third time in verse 17. Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? This time. Jesus uses the Greek word phileo, do you phileo me? were to see a distinction in the words here, Jesus, it would be asking Peter, do you then you're not going to say you have unconditional, perfect devotional love for me. Do you have tender affection for me? In other words, Jesus is using this term that Peter has been using all along. So you're saying, Peter, this is how you love me with tender affection. But as I said before, I think we should be hesitant in reading too much into this because then if we read too much into this, we see Peter's grief coming because Jesus now uses phileo instead of agape. But it seems clear from the context and from the pen of John that Peter's grief is not because Jesus essentially says, OK, your love for me is lesser, but rather because he has denied him three times. We see this at the end of verse 17. Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time. Do you love me? It is the three-time question that mirrors the three-time denial that causes Peter deep grief. And so I think we need to see here that the focus here isn't on the depth or the description of Peter's love for Jesus, but on the fact that Peter denied Jesus three times, and thus Jesus asks the question, do you love me three times? In other words, Jesus' questions match Peter's denial. This is what broke Peter's heart and moved him into distress. And we might ask the question, why did Jesus do this? Why did he ask him three times? Why not just simply say, hey, Peter, about the other night, you know, when when you denied me, what was going on there? Why didn't Jesus do that? Why does he do it three times and just seem to like drag Peter's sin through the mud back and forth under his nose? Not only that, but shouldn't Jesus have addressed him privately? But I think the fact that those questions rise up in our mind reflects how little we take sin seriously. How little we think of the seriousness of sin. You see, Peter needed to be fully confronted so he could fully repent. Not only that, but just think about from Peter's standpoint, he needed to know that his sin had been fully dealt with. He could not go into ministry with this nagging thought in the back of his mind, am I really fully forgiven? Has my denial been fully dealt with? The rest of the disciples likewise, why was it public? Because the rest of the disciples needed to know, had Peter's sin been fully dealt with? so they could fully trust him again. You see, his sin was serious. We often don't take sin seriously enough. Just consider the sin of David. Here's all the glories in 1 Samuel. David just seems like he's almost like a messiah. Do no wrong almost. And then he has one mess up with Bathsheba. And his sin is confronted, yes. Forgiven, yes. But turmoil and angst enters his life because of that one sin for the rest of his life. Because God takes sin seriously. See, the fact that Jesus asked him three times about his love intentionally matched Peter's three denials so that Peter could know every ounce of my denial has been dealt with. Every little bit of it. Each time Jesus asks the question, it just further drives the stake into Peter's heart of selfishness, pride, and self-reliance. Had Jesus not fully dealt here with Peter's self-reliance and his spiritual pride, it would have eventually destroyed Peter and destroyed those whom he sought to minister to. See, our sin requires repentance, a turning from our sin to turning to Christ. One of the most incredible passages on this is 2 Corinthians 7, Paul writing to the Corinthians, about his confrontation of their sin and their repentance. He says, for godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication. In all things, you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. You see what Paul says there? You fully dealt with your sin. You didn't leave this little part just sitting over there. You dealt with it all. See, it's because of the reality of the death of Christ and His resurrection that we can honestly face our sin and speak of our sin and turn from our sin to Christ. That's the power of the gospel. I'm not sure anyone's written more on this than Paul Tripp, and he puts it this way. He says the gospel of God's grace is a welcome to personal and community candor. That's honesty, because we know that nothing can be known, revealed, exposed or confessed about us that has not already been covered by the life, sacrifice and victory of Jesus. You don't have to fear. When someone confronts your sin. You don't have to fear your sin becoming exposed if you're trusting in Christ because he's covered it all. And so we have to ask ourselves this question, do you take sin as seriously as you should? Or, you tend to brush it off, excuse it, make excuses for it, blame others for it, or just minimize it. It wasn't that bad. Jesus takes sin seriously, but He also takes forgiveness seriously. We spoke in these last few weeks of the incredible grace of Jesus in coming to His disciples after they had all failed Him. And yet he comes to them and he even calls them my brothers. Incredible grace. It's astounding. And while the addressing of Peter's sin here is sobering and should cause us to go, who I need to look at my heart more clearly. I need others to look at my heart more clearly. At the same time. The extension of grace to Peter here. Is astounding. After the third question, Peter says, you know, all things, and then he says, you know, the verb there is you have perfect knowledge of my heart. You perfectly know me. And, you know, I love you. Jesus then responds with a third command, feed my sheep. Jesus here is sending Peter fully into ministry, caring for Jesus's people. Now, let me ask you something. If Peter was your pastor and he failed you like this. Would you welcome him back into ministry? Just as we should not, or we tend to not take sin as seriously as we should, we also don't take grace as seriously as we should. We need to ask ourselves, do you take grace as seriously as you should? When those around us sin, we so often tend to write them off, discard them, and move on to someone who cares as much about righteousness as we do. Not Jesus. He offers this astounding grace and puts Peter back into ministry. And not just an administrator stuck in a back office somewhere. He sends him out as primary under shepherd of his sheep. Appointing him and trusting his people to Peter. I was at a conference several years ago, and there was a speaker there who had spoken at the conference before and had spoken several times at this particular church where the conference was. And and shortly after the conference that year, it came out that the speaker had a moral failure and the church that had held the conference responded to it by scrubbing everything about that man from their website. So he was completely gone. There was no messages. There was no scripture. There's nothing. It was as if the man had never existed in the church. Now we can certainly describe and discuss and have a hearty dialogue on a wise response to a pastor's moral failure, but the one thing that seems to consistently be lacking for those who fail is grace. Christians simply move on and run to the next one who they like. Likewise, something that is consistently lacking in our own relationships is grace. The proof of that lies not in the grace we give to, for example, a single mom who comes in that's down on her luck and visits the church. We do pretty well there. The proof of our failures at grace lie in our closest relationships. How do you respond to your husband when he fails to meet your expectations? How do you respond to your children when they sin? How do you respond to your coworker when they just blatantly drop the ball? Do those close to you feel and believe they have the freedom to fail? Not that sin is OK. But do they live knowing that if they fail, you are going to be coming down on them? We need a fresh understanding. The grace of Jesus. And I fear that one of the reasons that we struggle to give grace is either because our failure to believe God is gracious with us. And likewise, we're not gracious with others. Or we pridefully think we don't need that much of God's grace because we're really spiritually mature. Either one of those two roads is going to lead to not being a gracious person. In this awkward, yet necessary conversation, Jesus goes right to the heart of Peter's sin. He addresses his pride and his self-reliance, but he also speaks to the foundation of his faith. Is it based on love for Peter, or is it based on love for Christ? Does Peter truly love Jesus? Will Peter live? Loving Jesus more than he loves his illusions of spiritual strength. Peter responds three times, Lord, I love you. Jesus then responds three times, essentially shepherd my people. Jesus sends him into ministry. With love for Jesus at Peter's foundation. So we have to ask the question, friends, what is your foundation? What is it built upon? Is it true and genuine love for Jesus? Do you love Jesus? Not like him, not be OK with him, not like what he might do for you, not like the feeling you get when you're around people that love Jesus. Do you love Jesus? If everything was stripped away from you, would you love Jesus? Does your life show evidence of love for Jesus? Do you love Jesus? Is love for Jesus the reason why you come to church? Is love for Jesus the reason why you have someone over for dinner? Is love for Jesus the reason why you open up your Bible each morning? Or whenever you read? This love for Jesus, what drives you to prayer? Is love for Jesus. The motivation for how you function at work. Is love for Jesus how? You love your spouse. Is love for Jesus how you live in your singleness? See, it started with the question, how will you live? In spiritual pride or self-reliance? In self-reliance or will you live loving Jesus? You see, the same question that Jesus asked of Peter, I think part of the reason it's here, he's asking us the same thing. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Let's pray. Father, there is a weight and a soberness to this text, as there always is with sin. Even though it's not we who denied you. And thus it's not specifically our sin being addressed. We cannot read this without thinking about the sin that lies in our own heart. The spiritual pride that resides there. The lack of humility we so often exhibit. The self-reliance we constantly fall into. The self-righteousness we hope in. We know that like Peter, We deny our love for you all the time in the way that we function, whether it be as a husband or as a wife or as a child, as a coworker, as a boss. As a friend, as a neighbor. Father, we know in our hearts that we often fail. To live out of our love for you. And God, we thank you that there's grace. Because of the cross of Christ, because Jesus is alive, because Jesus is resurrected, there is grace for our sin. And may we rest in that grace, recognizing more and more how much we need it. God, would you open our eyes? More and more to how desperately we need your grace. And would you grow us in being gracious people, being gracious with our spouses, being gracious with our children, being gracious with our parents. Gracious with those whom we live around, who we work with. God, may our lives be marked with grace because of the incredible grace we have received from you. And Father, would you grow us in our understanding of your love for us? And would you grow us in our love for you? That we might have a stronger foundation, that we might have motivation for that which we do based not so much on just routines or or pride or self-righteousness, but rather out of our love for you. God, as we open our Bibles this week, Would you impress upon our hearts a deep love for you? We are opening our Bibles that we might be with you. We might love you more. Lord, help us with these things. For it's out of loving you more that we will grow in loving one another better. And so, Father, we pray that you would do this work in our hearts. Strengthen us in these things, Lord. We ask in Christ's name. Amen. guys are going to come up and take the offering and we're going to sing one more song in closing. When troubles come, when darkness crowds, when fortunes fail and love surrounds, my soul is weak, but Christ is strong, and so to Him I leave it all. For He who holds all things Can bear each care I bring So I'll lay it all on Jesus Steadfast is the love of Jesus He hears my cry and is faithful I lay it all on Jesus When questions rise, when faith wears thin When fears come fast and truth grows dim The one who saves will not forsake I'll trust His word and trust His way He who bore my blame Can't bear each care I name So I lay it all on Jesus Steadfast is the love of Jesus He hears my cry He laid it all on Jesus I am weak, you are strong. Jesus, come and take it all. All my cares I cast aside. You are strong Jesus come and take it all All my cares are cast on You So I lay it all on Jesus, steadfast is the love of Jesus. So I lay it all on Jesus, steadfast is the love of Jesus. He hears my cry, His faithful eye, Lay it all on Jesus. I lay it all, I lay it all on Jesus. I lay it all, I lay it all on Jesus. I lay it all, I lay it all on Jesus. I lay it all, I lay it all on Jesus. He hears my cry. Lay it all on Jesus Amen to that. Everybody, have a wonderful Sunday. You guys are dismissed. Don't forget, tonight, Fight Club, 6 o'clock, and also Youth Group Party tomorrow, 6.30, and Worship Prayer Night, Wednesday, 6.30 here. Have a good day, guys. But it can never fail, so leave it all behind.