‘’If Jesus can use Peter, he can use you, ’’, John 21:1-19, May 4th 2025.
Also Acts 9:1-20 and 2 Timothy 2:15.
Father, may the words of my lips and the thoughts of all our hearts, conform to your will and to your word. Amen.
If you’d like to follow along, we’re going to do what you just heard again. Yeah, we’re gonna go through John chapter 21 verses one to 19.
And I’m starting off and I’m ending with if God, if Jesus can use Peter, her, he can use you and me.
I had a discussion with Revd Daniel last week and he said, well, you know, in a good sermon you got three points. And then we talked about it. He said may maybe just one. Yeah, maybe just one. We have, I have one point here. Yeah. If God can use Peter, he can use you and he can use me.
And we’re just gonna walk through this, this bit of scripture.
So for, for your red church NIV Bibles here, it’s on page 767.
Afterwards. Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the sea of Tiberius, this is the Sea of Galilee, and it happened this way.
Simon Peter Thomas called Didymus, who was not going to miss out again (see John 20 where he is absent when Jesus appeared the first time). Alright, so he’s like, I’m, I’m there. I’m with you guys. I’m not gonna miss seeing Jesus again. Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two other disciples were together.
And here’s where this slick NIV translation, uh, misses some of the, some of the variation of the King James. And the King James, Peter says, ‘’I’m going a-fishing’’ like he’s Huckleberry Finn, or something like this. I’m going ‘’a-fishing’’. But anyway,
Peter says, I’m going fishing.
And the rest of them say, we’ll go with you.
So they went out, got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Now, if you are preparing for a sermon, you might go out and you might find some preachers and you say, what, what did other preachers say about, about this thing? And they, and they say the nastiest things about Peter. They say he was a procrastinator and he shouldn’t have been out fishing, shouldn’t have been out fishing for fish, he should have been fishing for men. You know, like Jesus told him, you know, back in Luke Five, you can’t miss the parallels between this and, and Luke, Luke five, where he also cast the cast the net and then said, oh, I a sinful man.
But if you look, if you, if you get stuck into your Bible. As we will as, and that’s where we’re going to end with 2 Timothy 2:15, if you get stuck into your Bible, if you’re doing those things that show you approved unto God, you might find out that in Matthew chapter 26 and 28 of Matthew, but two places in Matthew, they are told, Jesus tells them to go to Galilee. And he doesn’t just tell the apostles, he tells the women as well.
So Peter’s not like going off and doesn’t know what to do, and he’s procrastinating, and he’s, you know, he, he doesn’t really, no, that’s, that’s, that’s leading the other apostles astray. I’m gonna go a-fishing. Everybody says, oh, well, we’ll go to, we won’t go out and save souls or anything like that. That’s not it at all.
He’s out there fishing for all the apostles and probably a pretty big group, you know, with the women there as well. So, you know, maybe a group, you know, like this, the first four rows here. And you need to feed these people. So they go out ‘’a-fishing’’ early in the morning.
Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
Why not? Well, it could have been the, you know it, maybe it wasn’t that light out. You know, they’re probably out a little more than a hundred meters, so the length of a football field, but maybe a little more than that.
And they didn’t recognize him and he called out to them.
It says here, friends.
The word is more, the word is meaning more ‘’children’’. It’s, it’s more, Hey boys, you know, it’s a more familiar kind of close word than just friends. And so what I, what I, what I would kind of feel like he was saying here is, Hey boys, you got any fish? It’s kind of a kind, you got any fish boys and they come back with. ‘’No, no’’.
This is a very teenage answer. Uh, I brought my kids up. I say you have to give more than a one word answer. ‘’No, Papa.’’ Ah, okay. Alright!
But I mean, you know, so they’re miffed. Yeah, they’re miffed. Probably not at Jesus, but they’re miffed. They’ve been out there all night fishing all night. They’re probably hungry. Probably a little grumpy. They say no,
He said – this random fellow on the shore- Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.
And one of the lovely things about the Bible is what it doesn’t say. And you could sort of imagine the conversation in the boat between these seven guys.
Throw it on the other side. What? Throw it on the other side. We’ve been throwing it on both sides all night. Yeah. Throw it on the other side. Oh, just do it. Just, just, you know, the guy says just, just try it. Oh my gosh. Okay. So he throws it. On the other side,
throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.
When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.
This is a miracle. Again, hearkening back to Luke chapter 5.
then the disciple whom the Lord loved, said to Peter, it is the Lord. As soon as Simon Peter heard it. Heard him say it is the Lord. He wrapped his outer garment around him for he had taken it off.
In the King James, itt says he was naked. He was, and he had sort of his undergarments on, but you know, the Lord is right over there and you don’t want to go up to the Lord. You’re undergarments. So he kind of puts this poncho kind of thing around him. Jumps in the water. Typical Peter. Typical Peter jumps in the water spontaneously, swims to shore, and the rest are kind of watching him and they’re like, okay, well we’ll just drag these, these fish in behind you.
The others disciples followed in the boat towing the net full of fish for, they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals. And there were fish on it and some bread.
And one of the things here, there’s a miracle here, but one of the things that’s in a little bit contrast with what David had read in Acts 9.
This is Saul. Saul, why are you persecuting me? This voice from heaven, this blinding light, this, this God figure.
And this – in John 21 – is so normal. It’s so human. He’s asking. He’s asking these guys, come on in. Let’s have breakfast together. I made you some breakfast. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s just sort of homey and, and, and it shows this sort of humanity. There’s a little contrast there. The godliness of Jesus in Acts nine and hear this just very normal. You know, guys, boys come on in and have some, have some breakfast.
Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish you have just caught. Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore.
Uh, this is the same net that would, that these six guys in the boat were pulling in. You. You gotta imagine Peter was pretty, pretty strong and it was full of large fish 153. That’s gotta be one of the most talked about numbers in all of Christendom. Yeah. What is the 153 mean?
And you’re talking about like, about a kilo fish?I mean, these aren’t goldfish and these aren’t, you know, look, you can’t imagine what I caught. It’s not one of those fish, it’s, it’s a fish. You’d kind of be proud of catching if you went out with your kids or your grandkids and you caught a one kilo fish. It’s about 153 of those. This is 153 kilos.
Peter’s just grabbing this net and dragging 153 kilos out of the water or out of the boat.
I, I do have to tell you there are all kinds of things – I’m looking at Mark here – there are all kinds of sort of Gaussian distributions and Bayesian equations, and 153 is 17 times three times three, and that’s a, that’s a, a triangle and so is 6, 6, 6. And if you look in 2 Chronicles and you look at how many. Uh, Gentiles or foreigners were counted in the land. It was, you don’t get any points or guessing 153,600.
It’s kind of close, but we just don’t really know. I think it’s gonna be one of those things that, you know, the Lord’s gonna have to return and then we’re gonna go back and look in our Bible and say, oh, that’s what it meant, you know?
Now I see, you know, what was going on there. 153. It is also something, I was in the fish business for years. It’s also a, again, this very human level of what’s going on here. The 153, when I first read, I thought, yes, of course ‘’I’ve been in the fish business’’. What’s the first thing you do as a fisherman when you come in? You count your fish. He needs to know. And if he’s feeding a group of people like this, well you, you probably need a hundred fish or so. You know, to, to feed them.
So again, very human, very, very approachable, very understandable.
He says, come and have breakfast. None of the disciples dared. Ask him, who are you?
And you know, this has been a problem since his resurrection on the road to Emmaus.
He’s walking along with two guys and like, haven’t you heard what’s going on?
And they, and they were, yeah, they talking back and forth and they, and all of a sudden when he was gone, they thought, oh. That was the Lord. That was, that was him.
He was talking to us the whole time I saw my wife’s cousin at Schiphol Airport. This is kind of one of those things where you, you don’t expect to see someone there, and so in a way you don’t recognize them. I was at Schiphol Airport and I look in this guy and he was from me, from me to Linda. You know, I’m looking at him like this. That’s, that’s, that’s our cousin right there. And he looked at me and maybe he thought similar, but we just, in a way we didn’t recognize it. It was only when he stood up and went away, I thought, yes. That’s Kai. Yeah, that’s, that’s my cousin. I felt a little bad for not running over and saying hi to him, but sometimes when a person is in the last place, you expect them to be, they’re almost unrecognizable.
The context is almost unrecognizable, and maybe that’s what was happening to them here.
However, it says they knew it was the Lord. This is the Greek word here, knowing in your gut, I, I’ve, I’ve had experiences with you before, and now I see you again, and, and, and that feeling of, I, I know you, they knew it was the Lord.
There wasn’t really a question about it. Jesus came and took some bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish.
He’s, he’s the good host. There’s kind of a, a, a, a shadow of the millennium here where we, we will come in, you know, and, and, and. And, and we will eat. We will dine.
This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to his disciples.
It’s the fifth time that he’s appeared after he was raised from the dead.
So far so good. They’ve gone out fishing. They gotta provide for a pretty large group. They’re where they’re supposed to be. They’re supposed to be in Galilee. They’re not goofing off. And they’re eating.
I just just feel how awkward this is. When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter,
Now it doesn’t say here that Jesus put his arm around Simon Peter and said, Hey, let’s go over here and have a chat. It just says, when they were finished eating,
Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?
Have you ever had an awkward family dinner? This might be awkward.
Okay. Now I, I don’t think he was saying, do you love me more than these other apostles? You know, these, these guys might love me, but do you love me more? I think he’s more referring to, you know, the fishing and going back, you know, are you gonna go back to fishing? Is, is that what you love more than me? The, the world, and getting those kind of things done rather than. Me. I don’t think he’s like putting him on the spot that hard, but he does use a word here. The, the word behind agape, you know, agape love and it’s agape.
And it’s this great forgiving, uh, spiritual love.
And he says, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
And the word for love is different here. It’s philo. It’s more what, where we get the word for brotherly love. Now through John, both of these words are used for love.
They’re almost interchange, interchangeable, but when you put them next to each other, then you start to see the contrast. And I think maybe we have a humbled Peter here. Peter’s a little bit humbled.
He’s been through the, that’s why the title of my sermon today. He’s been through a lot. He’s been through so much. You know, he’s, you know, he’s, he’s being given the power to, to loosen, bind.
And then Jesus says, I gotta go off and die. And he says, no. And he’s get me behind me, Satan. Oh gosh, I don’t know how to do, I don’t really know how to do this yet. You know, and, and then, you know, he, he cuts off the ear of the, of, of the, uh, of the guard. And, and Jesus says, that’s, that’s not the idea. And he kinda loses all of his courage and he scurries behind Jesus as he’s going to go see Caiaphas and he wants to see what’s going on.
And he denies him three times. I have a sermon on my, uh, on my YouTube channel where I think he probably denies him six times, but three times before the cock crows and then the crock crows again, and he does it three more times. Take a look at it.
He’s really denied.
And when he was denying he was, he was like, you know, like this, I do not know this man.
He was really, he wasn’t saying, oh, no, no, I don’t, I don’t know who that is. That’s what he did in the first ones, but not in the later ones. He was cursing in the later ones.
And then he ran off and then he, and then, and then he didn’t remember. That Jesus says, I’ve gotta be crucified. He didn’t remember that Jesus said, I’m gonna raise from the dead, he didn’t remember all this stuff.
And when the women came and told him, he was like, huh?
And he ran down. He was like, huh. He kinda scratching his head, I wonder what’s going on. He didn’t.
What is wrong with this guy?
So this is kind of how I feel like it went. Peter, do you truly love me? Truly love me. Grand agape love. And he says, I love you, bro. Feed my lambs.
Jesus says again, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me?
Agape, huge love. And he answered. It’s in front of everyone, right. Ah, I love you bro. Take care of my sheep. The third time he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And Peter was, unsurprisingly Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him a third time. But this third time Jesus meets him where he is and he uses phileo and he says,
do you love me, bro?
He said, I love you, bro.
Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth. That when you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted.
Wait a minute, there. This is, this is, okay. So I love you and, and, and Peter’s being reinstated, you know, he’s, he’s, he’s being, he’s gotten a, a kind of forgiveness, he’s gone through a sort of cathartic thing here.
And, and, and he needed to. He needed to. And now, this last part, this 18 verses 18 and 19, Jesus is gonna tell him how he’s gonna die.
Would you want to know that? A couple years ago I was at a Compassion Netherlands organisation, , the sponsored children stuff, and they were doing a fundraiser. I sat next to a chap, young guy, well, young for me, he was 40. Uh, a young guy, you know, it fit, clearly fit. And uh, I talked to him and he said he had a, a, a, a muscle wasting disease. Oh, that’s really terrible. You kids and wife and everything. Yeah. He said, but you know, in, in a way it kind of. It helps me because I am not gonna die of a heart attack. I’m not gonna die of a stroke. I’m not gonna die of cancer. I’m not gonna die of a hundred other things that you might die of. I know exactly what I’m gonna die of.
And it kind of gave him a path to tell you, yeah, this is, this is what’s gonna happen. It was gonna, this predictability. And maybe for Peter, it was a, some way a relief that he was gonna now be told how he was gonna die.
‘And by the way, you do love me and you will follow me, and it’s gonna cost you’, what’s it gonna cost you?
When you were younger, you, uh, you went where you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. Final verse. Jesus said to that, Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.
And then he said to him, follow me.
Some people say that this is, that he would be crucified. And then some people say he was crucified upside down, whatever it was. It was a martyr’s death. Yeah. That he would have, he would have a death. Because he was following Christ, and maybe in a way that’s, that’s just what he needed. That’s just, you know, Peter, this impulsive guy who, you know, just wants to go for it. Maybe that’s exactly what he needed.
And so, to close here, I would like to say that, uh, if Jesus, if God can use Peter, he can use you and he can use me even if you’ve got a prayer life that you’ve let kind of slip. If you’re not engaging with your Bible enough, maybe you don’t come to church as often as you like, and there’s always an excuse, there’s always something going on and you feel like you’ve gone out and cut another guard’s ear off, or you haven’t believed the what Jesus says in the in the Bible, or you’ve done something wrong. This is completely redeemable.
And how would you do it? Well, I would go to 2: Timothy, 2: 15 last slide, guys. 2 Timothy 2:15
15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (NIV)
Or as in the NKJV
15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
This is not your salvation. You are saved by grace. Yeah. You are saved by your faith and God and Jesus’s works. But if you want to get out there and you want to get stuck in, yeah, just like Peter was trying to do, he fell down and he got back up and he got stuck in. If you want to do this and have that beauty in your life. Have that purpose and that meaning in your life.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God.
How do you do it? A worker. A worker. So this is, this isn’t go to seminary and you know, get a doctorate and this is, grab a shovel and get into the rich soil of scripture.
A worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly, dividing the word of faith, knowing that, as the NIV says, ‘’correctly handling the word of truth’’, knowing how to use this book right here, this will give you the tools that you need.
Let’s close in a prayer
Day by day, Father, we seek, three things
to know your word, your living and your written word more deeply,
to trust you more completely
and to walk in faith more fully.
May we grow in faith and knowledge. May we experience the peace that passes understanding. And may we show ourselves approved workmen for Christ
and it is in his name that we pray. Amen.
