"After Easter" - John 21

So the question this morning is, what's after Easter?

When I was born, I was born in San Antonio, Texas. I was there for about three

days because I was adopted.

And so my parents adopted me.

Me and my older sister were adopted. My youngest sister wasn't.

They had her about eight months after they got me, which of course, right?

And we used to always joke with my younger sister when we got in fights that,

you know, we were chosen and she was just a mistake. You know,

super, super loving, caring family.

But it's weird when people ask me about it because since I was adopted really

the day I was born, I don't have some crazy story.

I don't have, I mean, I remember being at Dallas Baptist when I was doing my

undergrad and a minor was psychology. I was going to do like a counseling thing.

And we had this class where, you know, you're going to talk about families and

how to counsel families and what all these things mean.

And truth be told, I'm in the back row and I'm watching the Masters golf tournament

because it's the Masters.

OK, and I have those priorities here.

And so they ask a question like who in here is adopted.

And, you know, like I'm trying to be involved in class so she doesn't realize

that I'm watching the Masters. and I raise my hand and this other girl raises

her hand and they ask her, you know, well, tell us a story.

And she gives this amazing story of being adopted when she was like seven and

her parents saving her from this situation and everyone's crying.

And then she's like, okay, well, you know, now that we've had that story,

why don't you tell us your story? And it's like...

I don't know, man, like I was a baby and then I got adopted and my parents are cool.

You know, like we have jet skis, so it's worked out pretty well.

And so my my adoption story isn't this crazy story, but yet it changed everything

about my life the day I was adopted into that family.

I have no idea who my parents were. I have no idea what my life would have been like.

But being adopted by the family that I was adopted into changed everything about who I am as a person.

I lived in Tyler and not in San Antonio.

I went to White House and not a school down there. The friends that I met,

the hobbies that I had, what jobs my parents had, what kind of things we did,

the fact that we were in church every Sunday and every Wednesday and every Tuesday and every Thursday,

much to my chagrin sometimes, we were there.

Everything about my life changed because that happened. But when I was eight

or 12 or 16 and my parents did something I didn't like or my life wasn't going

the way I thought it would go,

I don't remember ever stopping and saying, you know, my life could have been

so much worse if I wasn't adopted.

My life could have been so much worse, you know. I really shouldn't be mad at

my parents for taking my Xbox away because they really did a great thing for me.

No, I was just mad at my parents. I didn't care that they adopted me 16 years ago.

If somebody would have brought it up, I'd have been like, well,

maybe they shouldn't have because now my Xbox is gone. And, you know,

you just, you get angry and you get upset.

And I think for a lot of people, that's kind of how Easter works.

You know, we celebrate Easter. We have this incredible moment where we remember

who Jesus is and what he did and what he accomplished for us.

And everybody comes out of that super motivated. And then Monday hits or Tuesday

or Wednesday, whatever day it is where you, that things just kind of fly off

the handle and nothing goes as planned. and we forget.

We forget so quickly what Christ accomplished for us in his death,

burial, and resurrection.

We forget that we've been adopted into God's family, and that because of God

adopting us into his family, it changes every single thing about our lives.

Nothing is the same anymore. Nothing will ever be the same.

Your eternal destiny has been changed because God loved you and foreknew who

you would be and placed his grace and mercy on you and brought you into his family.

But when Tuesday comes and nothing goes your way and nothing's going right,

you get a bad report of the doctor or the kids are driving you nuts,

or you have a big bill that you got to take care of all of a sudden, it's hard to remember,

man, my life is incredibly.

Gracious.

My life has been incredibly blessed because I've been adopted into this family.

So that's what I want to look at. I just want us to think about what our lives

are supposed to look like now that Christ has accomplished for us what we could

not accomplish for ourselves.

And so let me give you four quick things today. We're going to make it,

like I said, in John 21, something a little different. We're going to move really quick through this.

Four things, our confidence, our comfort, our concern, and our commitment.

So when you get to John 21, it's the end of John's gospel.

And we've just come out of all these incredible chapters of Jesus at the last supper.

And then Jesus, of course, getting betrayed, crucified, buried, risen again.

And then I kind of out of nowhere at the end of John, we've get Jesus and his

disciples going fishing.

It's kind of like, man, we've covered some really heavy stuff the last five

or six chapters. And now we're going to talk about fishing.

Like that seems like a weird way for John to end his gospel.

But I love the way that that ends, because that's exactly what I want to look

at this morning. It's like, man, you're climbing and climbing and climbing.

You're thinking, what an incredible chapter after chapter of Jesus telling them

what he's going to do and having the trial for entry, getting betrayed,

getting crucified, rising from the grave, seeing his disciples walking through

doors. It's like this incredible thing.

And it's like John gets to the end and he's like, but now the disciples are fishing.

They're going back to where they started. Right. They're just men.

They're men that need to eat. And so what do they do? They do what so many of

them did before they ever met Jesus. They go fishing.

Again, they had this incredible mountaintop experience, meeting the risen Christ,

realizing that their Savior truly did what he said he was going to do. An incredible moment.

They experienced Easter firsthand, and then what do they have to do? They got to eat.

So at the beginning of John 1, we see that after Jesus revealed himself again

to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, he revealed himself in this way.

Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together.

And Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. And they said to him, we will go with you.

They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Does this story sound familiar? If you remember the calling of these disciples,

this is pretty much exactly how it's all started.

And just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did

not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to them, children, do you have any fish? And they answered him, no.

He said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.

So they cast it. Now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish.

The disciple whom Jesus loved, that's John, therefore said to Peter,

it is the Lord, right? It's like, oh, we've seen this before.

We remember not catching fish, this guy showing up, and then all of a sudden

we can't even haul in the fish that we're able to catch.

It says, when Simon Peter heard it was the Lord, he put out his outer garment,

for he was stripped for work and threw himself into the sea.

The other disciples came into the boat, dragging the full net of fish,

for they were not far from the land, about a hundred yards off.

So number one, after Easter, our confidence will not be in our own strength,

but in the sovereignty of Christ.

The story paints a portrait. The disciples, again, were not hobby fishermen.

They were not weekend warriors.

They made their living being fishermen. And so they have every expectation when

they go fishing that they're going to catch fish and they should, right?

Whatever you're a professional at, whatever you're really good at,

you would expect to excel at that.

So they hop into the boat to catch some fish, but they have no luck.

Not even a single fish all night long.

Can you imagine the frustration, right? They've been fishing all night.

Now, again, if you're an amateur and you're just going out there to have some

fun, catch a few fish, that's one thing.

But when it's your job, when it's what you're supposed to be the very best at,

when it's what you're supposed to excel at more than anyone else,

and you don't catch a single fish, I would imagine they were incredibly frustrating.

And they don't catch anything. They come back, they're probably tired,

probably a little cranky.

Just like every good sportsman, they're making every excuse as to why they didn't catch a fish, right?

Thomas wouldn't shut his mouth, right? Peter wouldn't keep the boat where it

wanted to be. They didn't go to the honey hole, whatever it is, right?

And yet Jesus shows up and he tells them what to do. And it's a great story

and a great picture, honestly, of following Jesus.

Jesus told the disciples in John 15, chapter five, or sorry,

chapter 15, verse five, that they can do nothing apart from him.

They can do nothing apart from him. And that's an incredible statement because

you and I get up every day and we feel like we do a lot of things without really

consulting Christ and without really thinking about what he's asking us to do.

If somebody told me to go to Walmart and pick up some Lay's potato chips,

I would think, no problem. Anyone can do that.

And what Jesus wants them to see is even the thing that you are best at,

even the thing that you excel at more than anything else in this life,

the thing that you believe that no matter what happens, you'll be able to pull

that off is meaningless if Christ does not allow it.

If Christ does not give you that, if he does not allow you that, it's meaningless.

Love this quote by John Hughes. He says, serving Christ in our own strength,

trying to do it our own way is like going after Moby Dick with a pickle fork,

right? There's just nothing you can do.

You can become an expert on your own.

You can find a lot of instant gratification. You can succeed in your own strength

and no one can stop you from earning a gold medal in self-promotion.

But know that for the followers of Christ, they can do nothing that he has not provided for them.

And the truth is he will provide exactly what we need, exactly when we need

it. That's who Christ is.

That's our comfort, right?

Now, of course, when they go out to catch fish that night, they have no idea

that they're not going to catch any.

And they certainly have no idea that Jesus is setting them up for this illustration.

In the same way, you will experience seasons of frustration of times where you

feel like you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing,

working really hard at what God has called you to, doing everything you can

to raise your kids the best way, to work at your job the best way,

to live your life the best way, and you will still have everything go wrong at some point.

Again, the kids won't listen. The job won't care.

Your health will not be what you want it to be. Your bank account will not look

like what you want it to look like.

You'll have people betray you and friends leave.

I think what's good to be reminded of is that's okay. That's okay.

That's exactly what the disciples experienced 10 times over.

Even when they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing,

that didn't mean that anything was guaranteed to go their way.

Only that Christ would be with them. And again, provide for them exactly what

they needed when they needed it.

And Jesus uses this to teach his disciples a vital lesson.

Following him meant their confidence could not be in their own strength, but only in his.

This is like when James tells us, we should not say on this day and that day, we will do this and that.

But instead, if the Lord wills, we will go there and we will do this.

The only difference in the Christian is that they recognize that that's true.

It's true for every single human being, whether they're in poverty or whether they sit on a throne.

That they will only do what God allows them to do. That's true of everyone.

The Christian simply recognizes that God is in control and that their lives are in his hands.

Number two, our comfort will not be in our own morality, but in the mercy of Christ.

Maybe no disciple took greater comfort in his morality and what he was capable of than Peter.

You certainly get the picture from reading the gospels that he never lacked confidence, right?

There was little doubt in his mind that he could do whatever he wanted to do.

And it seems like he was a very smart guy, very capable, right?

Whether it was him getting out of the boat first and walking on water or at

the very end of Jesus's earthly life, him cutting off some guy's ear, right?

Peter was a gung-ho guy, but it didn't really seem to register to Peter that

he was a sinner, that he needed Jesus.

No matter what Jesus taught him, no matter what Jesus did in the midst of him,

he kept having a pride issue so much so that like last week,

when we looked at him sitting at the table with Jesus, and what does he say?

Jesus, I will never deny you.

Jesus looking at himself goes, I would never do that.

He's almost offended that Jesus would say, you're going to deny me.

He looks at the Lord as almost to say, do you know who you're talking to? I'm Peter.

Lord, I would never do that. I would never say that. I would never push that button.

The same way, I think a lot of us who especially have grown up in church and

we live our lives generally the way we're supposed to, often look at the Lord

when he tells us, you are a sinner in need of grace and mercy every single day.

It's like we get to a point in our religious lives where we go,

I mean, yeah, but not as much as I used to.

If you knew what I used to be like, Lord, you remember what I used to talk like,

how I used to live, what I used to look at on the internet, the way I used to treat people.

I needed a lot of grace and mercy back there, but I just don't need as much

anymore. So God, I'm glad that you did what you did, right?

I'm happy for Easter, but I just don't need as much now.

I think that's a lot of what Peter's issue is.

Peter says that he would lay his life down for Jesus and he can't even admit

that he knows him three times.

And this is a beautiful thing that Christ is going to do here when he meets with Peter.

Let me read, jump down to verse 15 in John chapter one.

It says, 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.

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.

He said to him a 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 and you know that I love you.

Jesus said to him, feed my sheep.

So there's a lot of crossover here.

The first thing that's maybe a little harder to pick up is this is all taking

place around a charcoal fire.

There's only two places that a charcoal fire is mentioned in the whole book of John.

The first is Peter's first denial back in chapter 18, that he's huddled around

a charcoal fire and people ask him, you're Peter, right? You're one of Jesus' disciples.

And it's where he denies Jesus the first time. And roughly 40-ish days later,

he sits around another charcoal fire.

And you can imagine that when you make the biggest mistake of your life,

you tend to remember every single detail of that mistake.

And I don't think it's lost on Peter that he sits around a fire here with the one that he'd betrayed.

Number two, it's a little more obvious.

Jesus asked him three times as he's done before. Jesus asked him if he loves

him the same amount of times that he knew Peter would deny him.

This is not lost on Peter, just as it wouldn't be lost on you or me.

I can't imagine the shame that Peter feels being around Jesus,

knowing that he did what he did.

He probably feels incredibly unworthy to be sitting there with Jesus.

Incredibly unworthy to be around him.

He probably feels as though, why in the world would Jesus want to be around

me when I did exactly what he said I would do.

And so what does Jesus do with that? Well, Jesus knows that's exactly where he needs to be.

Anytime you come into the presence of Christ, if there's any part of you that

thinks you deserve to be there, know that if you're one of God's children,

he will break that in you one way or another.

That if there's any part of us that thinks that because of something we've done,

something we've accomplished, we deserve to be in God's presence,

he will break you of that. This is what he does for Peter.

He knows that Peter is broken, but he also knows that Peter needed to be restored.

And so he asked him three times if he loves him, the same amount of times that he denied him.

It's interesting. Peter doesn't do penance. He isn't rebaptized.

He doesn't walk an aisle. He doesn't even say a prayer. Peter does nothing.

He does nothing to atone for his incredible failure because Jesus alone can

atone for Peter's failure.

Peter did nothing but receive grace and mercy.

This is our comfort as Christians, that when we fail,

when we do as Peter did and we deny Christ and we fail to live up to the standard

that he's given us, fail to recognize the love and grace and mercy we've been

shown by Him adopting us into His family.

Know that this is how Christ interacts with us.

And your path back to a relationship with Jesus is not marked with morality

or good deeds or good works or giving money away or saying nice things.

Your path back to Jesus is simply a path marked grace.

A path that you can't walk down, but Jesus humbly walks towards you every single day.

As the psalmist says, his mercies are new every single morning.

Richard Sibbes, an old Puritan preacher, says it this way, there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.

Now, again, the only way you get to that place is like Peter,

if you're broken over your sin, and Peter was.

But once you are broken over your sin, you will see clearly how much God loves you in Christ.

There is certainly more mercy in Christ than any sin you could ever commit. That's our comfort.

Our concern. Our concern will not be for our own priorities,

but for the people of Christ.

We know from John chapter 10 that Jesus' sheep are those who will believe in him.

John 10 · chapter mention

And what does Jesus say over and over to Peter?

He doesn't restore Peter so that Peter can just feel good about himself,

so that Peter can drive around in his car and listen to Christian music and

know how much God loves him.

He doesn't restore Peter so that Peter can have a good self-esteem and that

everything can go well for him.

Over and over again, it's clear that he restores Peter so that Peter will love

his sheep, so that Peter will love his people.

In a culture that is obsessed with self-love and self-care and all of those

things, which I'm not necessarily against, it's funny that never in scripture

are we told to love ourselves. Never.

We are never told to love ourselves.

But on more than one occasion, we're told to love people just like we love ourselves.

I think what Scripture is helping us to see here is it is assumed that we love ourselves.

It is assumed that we love ourselves, that we want people to serve us,

that we want people to do what we want them to do to make our lives easier,

to make things a little more simple for us.

You have people like Bill Gates and other very rich guys.

You watch interviews with them about them giving tens of millions of dollars away to people.

In the beginning, it always starts with them saying, well, you know, I just wanted to help.

I just really wanted to be about helping other people.

And it always ends up turning into,

well, you know, I just want to be remembered as someone who was kind.

I just want to be remembered as someone who gave some money away.

I just want to be remembered like that.

Always divulges into themselves. Now, again, God uses people however he wants.

And I have no doubt that God uses Bill Gates to do his bidding,

to send money where he wants him to send it.

But there is an assumption in the Bible that we love ourselves.

And you may say, well, what about people that have depression?

What about people that struggle with things like that?

And I would say we recognize that when there's something that exists like that,

that there is a problem, that there's an issue, right?

That's not to make light of those things in the least. Like I said,

there was a reason I wanted to be a counselor in college.

I think that that's a major issue amongst all of us, but there is an assumption

made that we love ourselves.

And it takes a work of God in our lives to remind us that the reason that we

exist is to love God and love his people,

that our lives are to be given away in doing so, and that you will be miserable until you do that.

Peter was a miserable man when he was all about himself, when all he could think

about was what he wanted.

Remember, it was only, again, 40 days before this conversation that there was

an argument around the table about who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom.

Who's going to be Jesus's right-hand guy.

And now 40 days later, broken by his sin, Jesus confronts Peter with,

the reason that you have been saved, love my sheep, serve my sheep, feed my sheep.

It's important to note that these sheep are Jesus's sheep. They're not Peter's.

They do not belong to Peter.

Peter does not get to feed them what he wants to feed them or to serve them

the exact way that he would want to serve them, to love them the way that he would want to love them.

Jesus says clearly, these are my sheep. You love them the way I tell you to

love them. You feed them the way that I want you to feed them.

You treat them the way that I want you to treat them.

Jesus is the head of the church. He's the one we follow.

His instructions guide us. And the faithfulness of a shepherd,

of a servant is measured in only one way.

How faithful is the shepherd to the word and the will of God?

That's what you'll be judged by. You will not be judged how people respond to

that, how people treat you, how the world treats you.

You will simply be judged, how well do you love people the way that God has asked you to love them?

There's an understanding that the sheep should be growing. If you're being fed

by the word of God, you should see the effects of that diet.

A baby eats and becomes an adult, an adult eats and gets stronger.

Look at your own life. As a sheep, are you growing?

Ministry that flows from a need to compensate or a need to make people feel

guilty will always be destructive.

In other words, you won't be feeding sheep, you'll be trying to control them.

If you've ever tried to disciple someone and you've gotten incredibly frustrated

at them, you've experienced this.

You've experienced the moment of, they don't listen to me. They don't take my advice.

They don't care anything about what I say. What's the point?

The point is, that's who you are.

Do you listen to everything God tells you to listen to? Do you do everything God asks you to do?

Do you go where God asks you to go and say what God asks you to say?

Of course you don't. Of course you don't.

So as we disciple others and serve others and serve our church,

I would just ask you two questions.

Number one, are you being fed? And number two, are you feeding anyone else?

Last thing, our commitment will not be to our own comfort, but to the cross of Christ.

Verse 18, Jesus telling Peter after Peter tells him, he loves him three times.

Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself.

What an interesting thing to say. When you were young, you used to dress yourself.

It's like, okay, where are you going with this? 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.

This Jesus said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.

After saying this, he said to him, follow me.

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved. Again, that's John.

He said, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and

said, Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?

When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man?

Jesus said to him, if it is my will that he remain until I come,

what is that to you? You follow me.

Suffering in your life. Jesus guarantees that.

Now, of course, in Peter's case, if tradition holds true, we know he was martyred

for the faith, mainly because of what Jesus says here.

Jesus says to Peter, when you were young and strong and full of life,

and you thought you were in control of everything, you went where you wanted

to go, you put on whatever clothes you wanted, you said whatever you wanted to say.

He says, when you're older, none of that will be true.

People are going to dress you. People are going to take you where you don't want to go.

And eventually, if tradition is true, Peter gets hung upside down, right?

Which Jesus makes clear, right? You will stretch out your arms.

He tells Peter exactly what's going to happen.

And what does Peter do? He does what all of us do. Well, what about these guys?

Okay. If that's what I'm going to do, I need to bring somebody with me.

Somebody needs to go down with the ship here. Okay. I'm not doing this alone.

So he looks at John and he's like, well, what about this guy?

Okay. I'm going to do that. So how bad is his thing going to be?

It's almost as if Peter's saying like, okay, am I the worst one?

Am I getting the shortest end of this stick? Is John going to have the same issue?

Again, like so many of us, when things aren't going our way,

it's after Easter, some of the new is worn off. We're not as motivated.

Life gets hard. We start looking around and going, okay, God,

when are some of these other people that aren't as good as me going to experience some of my hardships?

What are these other people that don't seem to be committed to Christ,

that don't seem to be as committed to the Lord, that don't seem to be as committed

to doing what God asked them to do? When are they going to get their comeuppance?

Why am I the one that has to experience this? Why am I the one that has to go

through this? And it's so easy to think that way.

Jesus give Peter his comfort? Well, he certainly doesn't give him what he wants.

He doesn't give him any indication that John is going to experience the same

amount of suffering that Peter will.

He doesn't even give him a, hey man, it's going to be okay. You know,

just let me give you a hug, man. I know it's going to be hard. You're going to make it.

What he gives Peter is, do you trust me?

Do you trust me? I'm in control, right? Peter, you're not in control of your own life. I am.

John's not in control of his own life. I am.

Wherever you go, whatever you do, my hand is on that. I'll be with you.

That doesn't make it easy.

Charles Spurgeon said that the sovereignty of God is the pillow on which we lay our head.

For so many people, the sovereignty of God is a thing to be debated, a thing to be discussed.

Well, I don't know. I think I could do whatever I want. I think I could go wherever

I want. I think I can say whatever I want.

And it's like Jesus telling Peter, why would you want that?

Why would you want to think that you were the supreme being in your own life,

that you make all the calls, that you call all the shots?

The only reason you would want that is if you were Peter at the Last Supper,

and not Peter around the campfire with Jesus.

Peter at the Last Supper, full of religious pride, spiritual pride,

looks the Lord in the face and basically says, you're lying.

I would never do the kinds of sins that you're saying I would do.

That's what religious pride looks like. Looking at Christ and saying,

who are you to tell me where I can go and what I can't do and the kind of response

I'm going to have and the places that I'm going to be able to impact and the

things that I'm going to be able to say and do. Thank you.

Humbles you by whatever means he deems necessary, you look like Peter around

the campfire, humbly taking Jesus's words.

All right, you're right. I'm going to go wherever you say to go.

I'm going to do whatever you say to do.

And again, it becomes the pillow upon which Peter lays his head.

There's, of course, a couple of myths with suffering.

I wrote down a few for a mature believer, suffering is easy.

Suffering is not easy for the most mature person.

I've been in hospital rooms with people who've been saved for 60 years.

It doesn't make losing someone or being in that situation a whole lot easier.

There's still a lot of pain and a lot of suffering that goes on no matter how

long you've walked with the Lord.

The popular one, right? The amount that we suffer is based on our behavior.

This is why, again, Peter looks and says, well, what about John.

Maybe the biggest myth is, again, God isn't in control of our suffering.

The logic goes like this. Suffering is the result of sin. God doesn't sin.

Therefore, suffering is outside of God's control.

Of course, that's not how the scriptures lay this out. Listen to what Peter says.

We'll close here in his own words. This is 1 Peter 4, 12-13.

Dear friends, don't be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you,

to test you as if something unusual were happening to you.

Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also

rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed.

He goes on to say in verse 19, so then let those who suffer according to God's

will, entrust themselves to a faithful creator while doing what is good.

Peter did entrust his soul to a faithful creator.

Until he was broken. He didn't until he realized his own sin and own need for grace and mercy.

Ultimately, when you think of your life after Easter, maybe the best thing you

can do for yourself is to be reminded you need God's grace just as much today

as you did the day he saved you.

You'll need it just as much today as you will for rest of eternity.

It's the only thing that will keep you in his arms forever.

In the same way that when my parents adopted me, they probably had no idea what

kind of craziness they would get into.

The day they adopted me, they had no clue that one day me and my friends would

run off the roof and jump into the pool, putting them at risk for millions of

dollars of lawsuits, I'm sure.

They had no idea that me and my friends would shoot flaming arrows into the pool.

They had no idea that I would cost them money in different ways,

that I would have 80-something stitches from the neck up,

that I would tell them I was going to one college, that they would go down to

that college, help me and my sister find a place to stay, buy us furniture, get us all checked in.

And then a week later, I would go, you know, actually, I think I'm going to

go to a different college. They had no clue.

And the only thing that kept me in their good graces, the only thing that kept

me being who I was as their son was the fact that they chose me. I didn't choose them.

As a baby in the hospital in San Antonio, they didn't line up five or six sets

of parents in front of me and go, all right, buddy, which one you want?

Take your pick, right? They didn't fill out a questionnaire for me to read and

say, all right, who's got the biggest TV, right? How big is my room? Do I get my own bathroom?

Like what kind of land are we talking about here? What kind of inheritance am I looking for here?

No, my parents just came and got me and they chose to love me no matter what happened to me.

Now, of course, the difference between that analogy and your relationship with

the father is that God knew exactly how much you would cost him.

You would cost him the death of his son.

He knew exactly what kind of sins you would commit. He knows exactly the kind

of sins you're still going to commit.

What would happen when he adopted you into his family before the foundation of the world.

And the reason that you are in his family is not because you've done something,

but because he has chosen to love you.

He has chosen to show you mercy and grace.

And the best thing you can do after Easter is to remind yourself of that every

single day, to remind yourself of that.

As you fight it hard to live the life that God's called you to live,

as you hopefully attempt to feed his sheep and disciple people and train people up.

And that gets frustrating when they don't listen to you and things aren't going

your way, they ignore you.

Would you just do what I failed to do as a child so many times and be reminded.

Man, if my parents hadn't adopted me, my life would be so different.

If God hadn't adopted you into his family, you would still be hell bound,

dead in your trespasses and sins,

following the prince of the power of the air, Paul says in Ephesians.

Not in need of a life raft. Not in need of someone to save you from drowning.

At the bottom of the ocean, heart stopped, no air in your lungs,

dead in your trespasses and sins.

But God was rich in mercy and saved you.

That's how you live after Easter, is you never forget what God has done for you. Let's pray.

Father, as always, thank you for your word.

Thank you for passages like this that seem so simple.

God, it's just a fishing story.

Story of you restoring those that you love. And I pray that if we have some

religious pride, like Peter did, as he said at the Lord's Supper,

that you would break that in us.

Necessary, you would help us to see that it is only your grace that invites us to your table.

It's only your love in our life and your adoption of us to your family that

allows us to sit around and talk to you and know you and read your word.

God, if we are those who have been broken, if we are those that clearly see

that grace and mercy has been given to us,

would you help us to feed others around us, to love your sheep well,

to serve your sheep well, to give our lives away,

helping to build and be part of building your kingdom, that we would invest

our time in eternal things,

not things that after we die will fade off into memory and never matter again,

but into the souls of the men and women that you've placed around us.

They would become more like you.

Lastly, Lord, as we suffer, on whatever end that looks like,

however much that looks like, God, that we wouldn't look around and try to compare

our suffering to others, but that

we would rest our head on your sovereign pillow, that you will be with us,

that you will guide us and comfort us, that you will give us what we need when we need it,

the strength that we need, the words to say, the comfort, the peace,

the joy that only you provide.

In your name I pray. Amen. I thank you guys.