Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture: John 21:15-25

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A Look At The Story

 

Ø      A group of discouraged disciples.

We have a group of discouraged disciples who had suffered the ultimate defeat and had returned to what was familiar to them.

There was safety there – they knew that they would not fail with their nets.

They had know that life before and the dreams that Christ had awakened within their lives had vanished.

There was no leader now – no one to follow and so they retreated.

Spurgeon:  called to a church at 23, addressing crowds of 5000 at 30.

He wrote this:

 

Before any great achievement in my life, some measure of depression is very usual.

Such was my experience when I first became a pastor in London; my success appalled me and the thought of that career which seemed to be opening up, so far from elating me, cast me into the lowest depths out of which I uttered my misery.

I found no room for a Gloria in Excelsis.

Who was I that I should continue to lead so great a multitude?

I would slip away to my village obscurity or prefer to emigrate to American and find a solitary nest in the backwoods.

It was just then that the curtain was rising on my greatest life's work and I dreaded what it might reveal to me.

I hope I was not faithless!

But I was timorous and filled with a sense of my own unfitness.

This depression sweeps over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my life and ministry.

Some of you are right at the door.

Encouragement and Discouragement:

 

A number of frogs were traveling through the woods.

Two of them fell into a deep pit.

All the other frogs gathered around the pit.

When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.

The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might.

The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead.

Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up.

He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could.

Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die.

He jumped even harder and finally made it out.

When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?"

The frog explained to them that he was deaf.

He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches two lessons:

 

1.

There is the power of life and death in the tongue.

An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.

2.

A destructive word to someone who is down can be the push over the edge.

Be careful of what you say.

Speak life to those who cross your path.

Anyone can speak words that can rob another of the spirit to push forward in difficult times.

Special is the individual who will take the

time to encourage another.

Be kind to others.

Ø      A relationship with Peter that was not reconciled.

This is the first record of Peter – speaking with Christ since his denial.

He was perhaps the most wounded for he had been the most vocal.

He was ready to follow Christ to the death or so he said.

He was the only one who had spilt blood in the garden of Gethsemane and then when Christ told him to lay down his arms, he could not seem to find it in him to die without a fight – perhaps with a fight he could have faced death but that was not to be.

So he chose to flee.

There is only one way to heal a fractured relationship – that is to sit down and talk with the person face to face in total honesty.

Not accusing or defending, merely reporting what you are experiencing in your own heart and then talking about that together.

Someone has to make the first step.

To excuse what can really produce good excuses is not Christian charity; it is only fairness.

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

This is hard.

It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single injury.

But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life -- to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son -- how can we do it?

Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

We are offered forgiveness on no other terms.

To refuse it means to refuse God's mercy for ourselves.

There is no hint of exceptions and God means what He says.

... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), "On Forgiveness"

 

!! FORGIVENESS

 

Forgiveness is something we give without expectations.

If we forgive with expectations it is not forgiveness at all.

Forgiveness heals our soul and brings us to peace.

When we forgive we set ourselves free.

Free from judgment of others and judgment of self.

So forgive yourself and others as soon as you possibly can.

Forgiveness is the key to being a happy and free person.

When we harbor resentment we become a prisoner of our own making.

Annie

 

 

Ø      His flight precipitated his denial.

Once you start running it’s difficult to stop.

dHe was frightened by the thought that a tiny servant girl could have recognized him and he denied his Lord.

Not once but three times.

Ø      A look at Christ that melted his heart.

It was merely a look at Christ that melted his heart and in many ways made him every bit as much a traitor as Judas who deliberately sold him out.

It was most likely because he was with Judas that he found entrance to the court of Caiaphas.

He as well would have been seen to be a traitor – another of the gang who was in on the whole plan as far as they might have seen it.

The Process Of Restoration For Peter.

Ø      He asked him for a re-affirmation of his choice.

Where do you really want to be and what do you really want to me doing.

Is this what you want your life to be all about?

Ø      A restatement of his commission.

Feed my lambs.

Ø      He gave him a reminder of the cost for him personally.

What he ran away from in the garden would return to visit him again.

! Peter’s Response

 

Ø      Someone to share his misery.

Looking for someone else to blame.

There are 20 people speeding on the road and you are the chosen one??

Why does that happen and does it really make a difference?

Peter was hurt because he had asked him three times.

He had denied Christ three times and now for each denial he was being called to re-visit what he had done and to give a new answer.

The process of repentance is a painful one.

I remember being forced by my parents to make restitution for bad things that I had done as a child.

One in particular, I had called a young girl some names.

I was just a part of a group of cruel kids.