Revelation For Reinvigoration
Notes
Transcript
ETS: Jesus revealed Himself to the Disciples to reinvigorate them with His Gospel mission.
ESS: Jesus reveals Himself to Christians to invigorate them with His Gospel mission.
OSS: Christians would be invigorated by the Gospel.
Subject: The Gospel Mission
9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
john 21:
Introduction:
On Friday, Jesus was a bloody pulp. The night before, the King of kings was arrested by a mob and the lamb of God remained silent as His accusers mocked Him, spat on Him, and struck Him. And on Friday, the Lord of lords and God of all gods was scourged, carried a heavy wooden cross up Golgotha, and breathed His last as He hung from His nailed pierced hands.
But on Sunday, Mary Magdalene and another Mary went to visit the tomb. And as they approached, the ground began to shake and a figure like lightning cracked across the morning sky. The tomb stone was rolled back and an angel sat upon it and spoke to Mary and said, “The Christ you seek in this tomb is not there, for He has risen!”
They bolted from the tomb with great fear and joy, racing to tell the disciples what they had sought. But on their way, they met the Savior Himself, and they dropped to His precious feet and worshiped the God of the universe.
As they continued to worship Him, Jesus gave them specific instructions. He said, “Go tell my boys to meet me in Galilee! Tell my men, my brothers, I want to meet with them there at the sea!” So, that is what they did. The disciples went to the Sea of Galilee and that is where we pick up our story in . Because when they go to the Sea of Galilee, they experience the encounter that Jesus had planned for them.
The Encounter
The Encounter
Just for a moment, imagine the frame of mind that the disciples had to have been in. You just spent three incredible years with a man that claimed that He was the very Son of God, the God of the Old Testament Scriptures you have studied your entire life. You saw Him prove this to you by doing the most bizarre and miraculous things you have ever seen in your entire life. You watched Him give sight to the blind. You witnessed Him charge a crippled man to take up his mat and walk home, and he did. You heard Him command a dead and rotting Lazarus to come out of his tomb, and the dead man walked out with his burial cloth still wrapped around him. You experienced a love and intimacy with this man that you have never known of before in your life.
But then, just as you thought he was about to stroll into Jerusalem and take His rightful throne as King, He told you that He was going to Jerusalem not to exalt Himself as King, but to humble himself and die. And when they came for you, you ran away. But if you were John, you saw - with your own eyes - the man who called Himself Yahweh hanging dead upon that cross atop of the hill called Calvary.
And Mary came and told you that He had risen, that He was alive and He wanted you to go to Galilee. To this point you have even seen the resurrected Jesus two times, but man are you confused. What does all this mean? What am I to do now?
So, Peter, in agony over his confusion, just goes back to what he knows best, to what he did before he met Jesus - He goes fishing. And some of the others went with him. They fished all night long and caught nothing. And that is where we pick up in verse 4:
And some of the others went with him
They fished all night long and caught nothing
And that is where we pick up in
4 Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” 6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. 8 The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.
john 21:4-
At His resurrection, Jesus intentionally instructs Mary to send the disciples (specifically Peter, James, and John) to the Sea of Galilee because He wanted to bring them back to the beginning, to remind them of the very first time they met Him.
We read of it in
A crowd was pressing around Jesus at the Sea of Galilee to hear the word of God. He saw some fishermen with two boats and used one of them to put out into the water to teach the crowd from there. When he was finished speaking, He made a strange request of these Galilean fishermen:
4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
Luke 5:
1 On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
Luke 5:1-
The similarities between their encounter with Jesus in and their third revelation of Him in are staggering.
Jesus intentionally brings the disciples back to when they first met and followed Him to remind them that they still had a mission
He wanted to remind them that they were no longer fishers of fish, but were fishers of men.
He wanted to show them that they could not go back, they could not let confusion and heartache send them back to the lives they once had before
Because Jesus had changed them and they were men on mission.
The Holy Spirit, in just a few days, was going to descend on them and create a Gospel movement that even the gates of hell could not prevail against.
He wanted to show them that He was the God of the Old Testament - the God they had lived with for three years and watched do incredible things.
And this mission that He was giving them - to spread His Gospel to the four corners of the world - would be a mission of success.
Jesus said, “Bring your net full of large fish and see that when I ask my disciples to fish for men, I do not set them up for failure, but will draw men unto myself and light this world on fire with my Gospel!”
Though men reject Christ’s Gospel in droves, His mission of evangelism is not in vain, because there will be men, women, and children who believe.
The disciples needed a pep talk and a pick me up to be reinvigorated by Christ’s plan - and so Jesus said, “Cast your net on the right side and see what I can do. See that when I fish, I catch fish, and I catch them in abundance.”
Jesus brought the disciples back to the very beginning to remind them of who He is and who they are.
They were fishers of men.
But before Jesus could send them out into the world on their mission, He had to restore them
Because every last one of them left Him and deserted Him when He needed them the most.
The Restoration
The Restoration
Before Jesus was arrested, He gathered together with his disciples for one last supper to observe the passover meal. And He revealed that one of them would betray Him. Later, Peter made the bold proclamation that he would never leave Jesus and would follow him both to prison and to death. And Jesus looked at him and said, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.”
When the temple guards came for Jesus in the night at the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter, who was eager to show his allegiance, unsheathed his sword and cut off the right ear of the High Priest’s servant. After Jesus healed the man’s ear, they arrested Him and took Him to the High Priest. Peter and another disciple followed diligently behind Jesus and slipped into the courtyard of the High Priest and found the warmth of a charcoal fire while Jesus was questioned about His disciples and His teaching.
A servant girl approached Peter and said, “Aren’t you one of this man’s disciples?” To which Peter said, “I am not.” Then again, some others looked at him and said, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples are you?” And again, Peter, who was a bit more agitated, denied it and said, “No, I am not.” About an hour later Peter’s accent gave him away and another insisted saying, “Certainly this man was also with him because he too is a Galilean.” Then, Peter, infuriated, said, “Man, I do not know him!” He made an oath that he did not know Jesus. It was if Peter was saying, “Cursed am I if I ever knew that man you call Jesus!”
Peter and another disciple followed diligently behind Jesus and slipped into the courtyard of the High Priest and found the warmth of a charcoal fire while Jesus was questioned about His disciples and His teaching.
And as Peter was screaming his denial of Jesus, they were carrying Him out and Scripture says that the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Immediately the rooster crowed and Peter remembered what Jesus had told him.
Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss for 30 pieces of silver; Peter betrayed Jesus with an oath of denial around that charcoal fire to save his own skin.
When Judas swung from the rope he used to hang himself, and as Peter gazed into the eyes of the Savior he had just denied so that he wouldn’t be arrested as well, Jesus’ words must have screamed in his mind:
“For whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
And, “whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my father in heaven.”
As Peter heard the rooster crow and as he looked into the sad eyes of a rejected Savior, he knew what he had done. He ran off and wept bitterly.
And that is why, here, at on the shore of the sea, Jesus reminds him of his threefold denial and gives him a threefold restoration:
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” 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.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”
In this restoration of Peter, Jesus reminded Peter of a fundamental understanding of the mission he was called to:
If you love Jesus, it will be evident by your service and your sacrifice
Jesus is telling Peter that if he is an actual follower, people will not just hear him say he loves Jesus, they will see him love Jesus.
The love of Christ cannot be separated from the service of Christ
The love of Christ cannot be separated from the sacrifice for Christ
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Jesus is saying, “If you love Me, you will feed my sheep, you will serve Me, you will give your life to my mission of spreading the Gospel around the world.”
Jesus tells Peter, “If you love me, you will die for me!”
Remember, “If anyone seeks to save his life, he will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
And Oh how Peter saved his eternal life by giving up his life here on earth!
Tradition says that Peter was crucified upside down in Rome!
After this restoration and the descending of the Holy Spirit at the night of Pentecost, Peter became a bold and courageous Gospel proclaiming machine that could not be stopped.
He stood before a council of Jews and fearlessly presented the Gospel:
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. 11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
8 And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
11 While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s. 12 And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?
Acts 3:
Acts 3:8-
And when they were charged to stop proclaiming this Gospel they refused:
19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
Acts
19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,
Every single one of the disciples would go on to proclaim the Gospel in different parts of the world.
Acts 3:19-
And every one of them, except for John paid for it with their life
Jesus had to restore Peter, who was just a representative of the whole group, to help them remember the action of the mission.
But before Jesus could get that kind of commitment out of Peter and the group of disciples, He had to reorient them.
The Reorientation
The Reorientation
After breakfast and the restoration, Jesus wanted to take a walk with Peter - the man he had appointed to lead this group of disciples. And when they got up to walk, John followed them. As Peter was walking with Jesus, he noticed John following them and became distracted.
21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” 22 Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”
John 21:
Peter was notorious for losing his focus of Christ
On a windy night waves slammed against the disciples boat. Jesus had instructed them to go to the other side of the sea of Galilee without him. And in the midst of the chaos of the stormy waters, Jesus came to them, walking on the sea.
Peter said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And Jesus said, “Come.” So, Peter stepped out of the boat and took his first step on top of the sea. A euphoria of bewilderment must have flooded his mind when his foot defied the laws of physics and did not plunge through the sea. And so he walked toward Jesus.
john 21:20-
20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” 22 Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”
However, Peter began to lose focus on Jesus when he began to notice the wall of waves around him. And the less he focused on Jesus, the more he sank. Until, the sea began to wrap its arms around Peter’s head and He cried out for Jesus to save him. Jesus picked him up out of the water and said, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
Peter was notorious for losing his focus of Christ
And, here, in , Jesus is beckoning Peter to quit worrying about what is going on around him and just focus on him.
The Gospel of John gives us a parenthesis of a sort saying that it was spread that because of Jesus’ statement, John would not die until Jesus came back.
Jesus’ statement had nothing to do with John’s death
It is as if Jesus is saying to Peter, “Peter you have an opportunity that few will have - to walk physically, side by side, with me - and I will not be here much longer, Will You Please Focus On Me?
Instead, he was
Have You had an Encounter?
Have You had an Encounter?
When Peter, James, and John met Jesus in , they were Galilean fishermen living in a society bruised by the burden of legalism - working hard to get back into good graces with God.
But Jesus showed them that their effort was not the answer
He showed them that his sacrifice was the answer
And he lifted the yoke and the burden off of their shoulders and replaced it with His yoke and His burden
And He said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
O, how he can do the same for us
He said, “Come to me all who are weary and tired, and I will give you rest.”
We can encounter the Living God and experience joy and wonder beyond our wildest dreams.
When Phillip ran to his brother Nathaniel and told him he had found the Christ - the promised Messiah - Nathaniel was skeptical. But when Jesus said He saw Nathaniel under the fig tree, he believed. And Jesus said to him, “You will see greater things than these.”
If you encounter the Christ and walk with Him, you will see greater things than you could ever imagine.
You will witness things more wonderful than your wildest dreams.
You will go where you would have never ever guessed you would go.
But listen, if you encounter the Savior, you are also called to His mission
Robby Gallaty
The gospel came to you because it was heading to someone else. God never intended for your salvation to be an end, but a beginning. God saved you to be a conduit through whom His glorious, life-changing gospel would flow to others.
Salvation may be a free gift, but it is not without a cost
It will cost you your life just as it costed Jesus His
There is no such thing as a lackadaisical Christian that is uninvolved with Jesus’ mission
The issue with the American Church, the reason we are declining, is that millions of people who say they believe in God and claim to have had an encounter with the King have not given their lives to Him.
And they have not given their lives to the King because they are not doing anything with their lives for the King
If you are called to Christ for salvation, you are called to Christ for mission.
J. I. Packer
The commission to publish the gospel and make disciples was never confined to the apostles. Nor is it now confined to the church’s ministers. It is a commission that rests on the whole church collectively, and therefore on each Christian individually… Every Christian, therefore, has a God-given obligation to make known the gospel of Christ. And every Christian who declares the gospel message to any other person does so as Christ’s ambassador and representative, according to the terms of his God-given commission.
We get wrapped up in the mentality that we need to get all of our lost friends and relatives to come to a church service so that the preacher can preach and evangelize to them.
Does it not seem odd to us that there are very few examples in the New Testament of people being saved at a “worship service”?
Instead, the majority of the conversions of the New Testament are from evangelistic conversations outside of the church building.
If we have encountered Christ, we will tell others about our encounter and how they can encounter Him as well.
Are You Being Restored?
Are You Being Restored?
Our first instinct when we are asked this question is:
Why do I need to be restored?
I haven’t flat out denied Christ like Peter did. So, what do I need to be restored from?
You may not have verbally denied Christ three times like Peter, but we, as 21st century American Christians, are in the same standing as the other eleven disciples were.
I like to call Peter big mouth Peter because many times throughout the Gospels we find Peter doing or saying things that cause us to slap our forehead and shake our head
Many times Peter gets the heat of chastisement blasted at him by Jesus for something he said.
However, do not be fooled. Peter is the representative of the whole group.
When Peter says something foolish, he is simply saying what the rest of the group is thinking.
Therefore, Peter’s restoration was not just his own
Because the other disciples were not so innocent, and neither are we.
Every single time you fail to serve God, you deny Him
Every time you say no to an opportunity He is laying in your lap, you deny Him
Every time you choose comfort over service, you deny Him
When the Holy Spirit pricks our hearts and moves us to act, and we refuse to listen, we are gazing into the eyes of a weary and dejected Christ and saying, “Cursed am I if I ever knew that man.”
We were created for a purpose. And when we fail to live in that purpose, we become useless.
God restore us to reinvigorate us to service, to mission, and to sacrifice for you.
Are You Focused?
Are You Focused?
So often we need a reorientation
So often, the Messiah Himself is trying to take a walk with us - to instruct us - and we are too distracted by what is going on around us to hear what He is saying.
We begin to sink and we cry out, “Jesus save me!” and he says, “O, you of little faith. Why did you doubt?”
Like we have already said, it was as if Jesus was saying to Peter, “Peter, you have an opportunity that few will have - to walk physically, side by side, with me - and I will not be here much longer, Will You Please Focus On Me?
But he is saying to us today, “Clay (insert your name), you have an opportunity that few will have - to have My Spirit live and dwell inside of you, to be My temple - because narrow is the way that leads to life and few will find it; Will You Please Focus On Me!”
God help us if we get so distracted with church work that we lose focus of Christ’s mission!
God help us if we become more concerned with church programs than we do the lost people those programs are meant to attract.
The growth of a church is not marked by how many show up on Sunday
The growth of a church is marked by how many have encountered the living God, given their lives to the King, and are striving side by side with the one goal of glorifying Him by bringing His Gospel to the lost and watching them rise again on the last day.
For so long, American Christianity has put a lot of money and effort into evangelistic events so we can stick one guy up on a podium or a pulpit to evangelize so we don’t have to.
But we have approached an era in our culture that is forcing us to do what Scripture has commanded us to do ever since it was penned - go out and spread the gospel personally and individually
Conclusion:
We have to evaluate whether we are being obedient with our Gospel mission or not.
We assume that we are all commanded to stay here and some are called to go - missionaries.
But, biblically, it is the opposite.
We are all called to go, but some of us are called to stay