Do You Love Me?

Breakfast in Galilee

Breakfast times, early in the morning, when maybe you’re not fully awake may be times when you don’t really want to talk a lot, I know I don’t, and you don’t really want to have some deep meaning conversation about anything but in our story this morning we hear a conversation that Christ is having with Peter.

We recently talked about this same passage several months ago but this time we are going to look at it from a different angle, more of a personal one, and how that affected Peter then, and us today.

When we hear the word “love” what do we hear, what does that word mean to us? By definition it means “an intense emotional feeling; deep feeling; deep pleasure and affection for something or someone.” What does that mean, what does that definition really mean, how do you use words to relay an emotion, to describe the feelings involved to describe such an intense and complicated emotion? I mean, this is a word that creates lasting relationships and bonds for one another and also used to start wars over. How can we really understand any definition for it and how should we show this love in a way that shows love in any substantial way?

Jesus is back at the beach, this marks six weeks that Jesus has been with them since the resurrection, appearing only now and then so they must learn to not depend on his presence as before, at least not in the ways they had known. The disciples were out fishing, Jesus on the beach and calls out to them if they had any fish, they did not, Jesus tells them to throw the net to the right and they would catch some and they did and Jesus tells them to come in and eat breakfast with him.

Now only John knew for sure it was Jesus but none dared to ask Him and they proceed to have perhaps the most awkward breakfasts in history.

There was a strained silence during the meal (v. 12), and naturally so. No one must have been quieter than Simon Peter. The memory of his swearing he didn’t know Jesus was still vivid. What could he say in the presence of the others?

Jesus lets Peter breakfast first, He lets him settle, before He puts His question, because it matters little what we say or do in a moment of excitement. The question is, what is our deliberate choice and preference—not what is our judgment, for of that there can be little question; but when we are self-possessed and cool, when the whole man within us is in equilibrium, not violently pulled one way or other, when we feel, as sometimes we do, that we are seeing ourselves as we actually are, do we then recognise that Christ is more to us than any gain, success, or pleasure the world can offer?

It was a merciful relief when they finished and Jesus invited Peter to walk with him. John makes it clear that the dialogue did not take place around the breakfast fire (v. 20). Difficult as it was being alone with his Master, there was now the opportunity to remove the barrier of that awful denial. Jesus did not chide him. He only asked him if he loved him.

This was a private conversation between Peter and Christ, this should also be your own intimate encounter with Christ, with issues known only to you and you hear His question and you know your answer. The answer to this question was the last put to Peter which should show how important the answer is to Christ and ourselves.

Jesus asks the question, “do you love me?” Peter has followed Jesus closely, been a part of his inner circle, he had his great moments and not so great. He had shown his trust and his insecurity and despite being warned beforehand, betrayed Christ when he was tested so Peter comes to this moment with fear, there was that cloud hanging over him and he wanted that to go away and the only way to do that is to address it which is what Jesus is getting ready to do because Peter was burdened by the weight of his sin.

Jesus asks three times, “do you love me?’ but it was only the third time that crushed Peter.

The New King James Version Chapter 21

17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?”

Jesus pulls us onto this beach this morning and asks us, “do you love me?” As we have been looking at some of the questions that Jesus asked others, he also asks those same questions to us and we must give an answer so now we must answer this question. In our walk with Christ we have been asked many things and tested in many ways but perhaps none as important is this, can we truly same we love Christ and what he represents?

If we love Christ then we are going to love the things that he loves, we are going to love the people that He loves and teach what He loves and can we sit here this morning and answer honestly that “yes, we love you!” We loves the things you love, we love the people you love and seek to carry out your mission in this world. If your answer is “yes”, do you have anything in your life that you or others can point to that will back that answer up?

Jesus is nearing the moment where he will be ascending to the Father and His time is running short so he is meeting with Peter to make the final plans if you will to establish his church in this world. The disciples are nearing the time they will be on their own and Jesus is trying to get Peter to understand what waits for him in the days ahead.

Christ requires us to love Him and invites us to consider whether we do now love Him, because this love is an index to all that is in us of a moral kind. There is so much implied in our love of Him, and so much inextricably intertwined with it, that its presence or absence speaks volumes regarding our whole inward condition.

This question asked of Peter was not the first but the last put to Peter by our Lord. Admiration we have; reverence we have; faith we have; but there is more than these needed. None of these will impel us to life-long obedience. Love alone can carry us away from sinful and selfish ways.

You can admire Jesus all you want but that’s not enough, we must love him because He first loved us. Peter was asked this question after he had been put through all the hurt that he and the others had gone through and after all of that testing comes the question to show us that Jesus is not testing the conduct but the heart of Peter.

The reason Peter was grieved was because the word Jesus used for “love” the third time, it was “phileo” which means a less than love, a love that you may have for an item or other thing. The emphasis is not on the kind of love but on the object of love meaning you won’t feed my sheep unless you love the sheep, you won’t love the sheep until you truly love the shepherd.

The reason for Peter’s grief was a change in the Lord’s vocabulary. Unlike His two previous questions, this third time Jesus used Peter’s word for love, phileō. He called into question even the less than total devotion Peter thought he was safe in claiming. The implication that his life did not support even that level of love broke Peter’s heart.

John F. MacArthur

Following Christ, being a disciple is God’s way of getting hold of us, attaching us to what is good, of making us holy and the method He uses is the presentation of goodness in a personal form, attaching ourselves to Him.

To recognise the beauty and the certainty of God’s method is not the difficulty; the difficulty is to use it, to find in ourselves that which carries us into the presence of Christ, saying, “Lord you know all things, you know that I love you.”

So the question remains, do you love Jesus? Peter thought he did even before this moment but then he sinned against Him, denied Him and when he was crucified, Peter and the others returned to their old way of life before knowing Jesus. When Jesus asked the question three times, he was making Peter confront his failure when he denied Christ and after his arrest he started following Jesus from a distance.

Matthew 26:58 “But Peter followed Him at a distance to the high priest’s courtyard. And he went in and sat with the servants to see the end.”

When we follow from a distance we begin to separate from Jesus. After Peter did all that he did, Jesus came and found him, forced to admit his failure, stopped doing things his way and had a renewed desire to be near the Lord.

Instead of staying as close to the Lord as we should, we begin to follow Him “afar off.” It may begin as simply missing a few services here and there. Maybe you just stop praying like you should. Maybe the Bible isn’t opened and read as frequently as it ought to be. Wherever and however it begins, it will eventually lead to the same place. It will eventually lead you into a backslidden and cold condition! Peter’s problem was that he found himself in the wrong place with the wrong people!

Dear friends, being just a clear as I can be with you, some of you are in the wrong place also! You aren’t as close to the Lord as you used to be. You need to rekindle that old flame and make things right with Him.

Alan Carr, “A Tender Moment (John 21:1–19),” in The Sermon Notebook: New Testament (Lenoir, NC: Alan Carr, 2015), 1835.

7340 When you come to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, he gives you a supernatural love that allows you to love your enemy whom you normally would not love.

Billy Graham

You cannot love a thing without becoming something like it. It was love that kept Jesus from calling 12,000 angels who had already drawn their sword to come take Him off that cross, no higher priority in the life of the believer than to love Christ, to love what and who Jesus loves, to love those that do not love you and then you MUST show this love. Do you show this love? Do you attack your neighbor or do you love them?

The New King James Version Chapter 5

14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

To love Christ is to love him and like Him, to love each other, this is the Christian life. Otherwise, we are not Christian. As Christians we live in Christ through faith and each other through love.

Dwight Moody says this,

If Christ is in your house your neighbors will soon know it.

Dwight Lyman Moody (Evangelist)

So Jesus asks again, “do you love me?”What