June 21, 2026 | Following Cloud by Day and Fire by Night

The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to John.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

And chapter 21, beginning in verse 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.

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, Tin 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 a 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.

Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and want wherever you wanted.

But when you were old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.

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

And after saying this, he said to him, Follow me.

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Pray with me, please.

We pray, come, Holy Spirit.

Lord, speak to us again today in a powerful way that we might hear you in a fresh way.

Lord, that our hearts might respond and we might grow more and more into your likeness.

For us, in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Invite you to please be seated.

Well, as we've already taught, today is a special day in our country.

It's a day that's marked out to really comes from the fifth commandment and the Big Ten.

Honor your father and your mothers.

We've already, you know, we always we're very polite.

We honor our mothers first, and then we honor our fathers.

And and today's one of those days.

And I do know that probably there are some people here that maybe didn't have a good experience with their father.

And I just want to say, as Clay said earlier, um, we serve a good, good father.

We serve a father that loves us more than we will ever, ever know.

For God so loved us that he gave his son.

Um so I just hold that up to you.

Uh I know that sometimes we want to equate our earthly father to our heavenly father, and there's a disconnect sometimes, but let me say again, he loves you.

He loves you.

You know, um I can't help but think of my dad.

Uh dad died.

He was young.

Excuse me.

He was 61 years old when when he died, and I was 30 years old.

And as I was doing the math, I just realized that um I've been a dad longer than my dad was.

I've been a dad longer to my three children, longer than dad was to me.

And for that, I'm I'm grateful to have that blessing.

And one thing I did learn from my father, and I think I've said this before, one thing I learned from my father was the value of family.

He loved family.

He loved to get together with my brother and me and and and his bride.

He just loved it.

He we celebrated family as much as we could.

And another thing I learned from him was the fact that he was a hugger.

You know, hugging is really a sacramental act, isn't it?

It is a non-physical way to communicate a physical through a physical channel, a non-physical reality of loving someone, that we express that love with a hug.

It's a sacramental act, and and I know we live in a culture today where you know you have to be careful about who you hug, but I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna finish hugging all of y'all, okay?

So if you don't like that, tell me don't hug you, okay?

Uh so it's Father's Day, and so happy Father's Day to all of you that are out there.

Um, and I pray that you will love and uh honor your children as my dad did with me.

Uh I I want to get into the uh readings today, and before I do that, I want to kind of set the context that any time that we open up scripture, anytime we open up the word of God, uh we've got to understand the worldview that it's being written in.

We've got to understand the perspective that the word of God that we're reading, what worldview is it presenting to us?

And we don't get too far in scripture.

It's really the first verse that we understand in Genesis chapter 1, verse 1.

Genesis 1:1

We understand that there is a non-physical world all around us.

There is a spiritual world all around us, even though we might not see it, even though we might not hear it.

It's there.

It's kind of like a blind person saying, I don't believe in colors because I can't see the colors.

Or a deaf person saying, I don't believe in music because I can't hear music.

We are surrounded by a non-physical world.

And it's important for us to understand that.

We read that in the very first verse of the Bible.

In the beginning, God created.

He created the heavens and the earth.

And you read Genesis 1 and you read Genesis 2, you get this narrative, the creation story, how God takes from the non-physical world and he makes the physical.

So there's something going on beyond our five senses, beyond what we can see and hear and taste and smell and touch.

Something going on, even if we believe it or not.

And we have to understand that as we open up scripture.

Because you see, we can't make any, any sense of the incarnation if we don't understand this.

That God came from the non-physical world and became physical with the birth of Jesus.

We can't understand the resurrection without understanding this.

That Jesus, he lived, he died for three days, he rose again, only to be ascended next to his Father.

We can't even understand the person of the Holy Spirit if we don't understand that there's a non-physical, spiritual world all around us.

And this is kind of the context of the reading today that we heard out of Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10.

Ephesians 2:1–10

Let me remind you, Paul is writing again to the church in Ephesus.

He's writing to the Ecclesia, he's writing to the called-out people of God, he's writing to the people that have that have been born again in Christ Jesus.

And listen to what he says in verse 10.

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

There it is.

I mean, this verse is pointing to something beyond the physical world, and this verse is pointing to the reality that there is a spiritual dimension all around us.

I mean, we we read this, and Paul, in saying this, is describing us not as just merely biological organisms, or that we're just here as products of chance.

I was reminded a couple weeks ago about a book that Dean Overman wrote.

He wrote it in 1997.

The name of the book is A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization.

And he's writing exactly about what Paul is speaking into.

He gathered himself, he gathered around himself mathematicians and scientists and physicists.

And the charge was: what is the probability that we just dropped out of the sky?

As sophisticated as we are, what is the probability that whatever's out there given eons of time will produce us?

And and this team, this team of bright people, and and and they came up with the probability of us just dropping out of the out of the sky of just self-organization, just coming here by accident.

And you probably have heard this, it's like a it's like a hurricane blowing through a junkyard and producing a 747.

It just ain't gonna happen.

In fact, they went a little bit further.

They said the probability of just having an amoeba float down a stream, an amoeba that knows how to divide itself, the probability of that simple organism of floating down the stream, is like shooting a random bullet.

Letting it travel two billion light years and hitting a one-inch square target.

In other words, they're saying the probability of doing that, shooting a bullet, hitting a target two billion light years away, is greater than the amoeba floating down the river.

What am I saying?

That we are God's workmanship.

This is what Paul's pointing to.

That we have purpose, we have value, we have significance, and we have destiny.

We are God's workmanship.

And I love this word in the Greek.

It's it's poema.

It's where we get the English word poem, which means that we are his masterpiece.

We are intentionally molded and shaped and fashioned by the creator God, God the Father.

So that we're just not merely material, we're just not merely what we can see and feel, touch, taste, and and hear.

But we bear the very imprint of him who created us.

We are his workmanship.

And Paul says, and we are created in Christ Jesus.

Again, if you were paying attention, Paul states in in the beginning of chapter two, he he states the condition that we're all in, that we we are all dead in our trespasses, dead in our sins.

I I was chuckling the other day.

I I love that all-state commercial about that guy, Mayhem.

Y'all know who I'm talking about?

And I hadn't seen this latest one, but he says, I'm a I'm a limb on an elm tree.

And and standing, it's there.

And and and he says, uh, and I look, I look like I got it together on the outside, but on the inside, I'm rotten to the core and crack.

And and that's who we are.

We might look, we might look like we got it together on the outside, but on the inside, we're rotten to the core.

We're dead in our trespasses.

But Paul says we're made alive in Christ Jesus.

Again, this, as you've been listening week after week, we've been holding up the urgency, the the importance of being born again in Christ Jesus.

This is why Jesus says that flesh gives birth to flesh.

The material gives birth to the material, but but spirit, spirit gives birth to spirit.

And only he can do that.

And he does that because we're dead.

We look like we're alive, but we're we're dead.

And we're gonna crash.

We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand.

Again, Paul's pointing to the spiritual, to the non-physical world.

He's pointing to activity outside the limits of time and space.

And these works, God's already prepared them.

This is what we read in scripture: that before you would knit in your mother's womb, I knew you.

That's truth.

I know the plans I have for you.

That's truth.

He already has prepared the works for which we must walk in, so that the Christian life, the life of being a follower of Jesus, isn't just reacting to the physical circumstances of life.

But it's walking in the divine purpose established by God in the spiritual realm.

That's important.

I mean, there's a non-physical world.

We can't see it, we can't hear it, we can't feel it.

But Paul speaks a little bit later in Ephesians about these unseen realities, that there are spiritual blessings, that there are heavenly places, that there's the person of the Holy Spirit.

And he speaks of spiritual warfare against the rulers and authorities and powers of this dark world.

So that the visible world is not all that exist.

But yet it's influenced, it's influenced, it's influenced by the realities that we cannot see.

The physical life that we see is an outworking of a deeper spiritual reality established by God.

And this is what we see in the gospel today.

I love this.

Y'all know I love I love the Gospel of John.

I mean, it points straight to Jesus.

But you read at the end of John's Gospel, John in chapter 21, you read that Jesus is reinstated Peter.

And he gives him a charge.

You see, the good works that God prepares for us are often revealed as we follow Jesus, his call day by day by day.

You know the story.

The day of resurrection has already come and gone.

Jesus meets with his disciples in that upper room and he breathes on them the Holy Spirit.

And he says, now I want you to wait until you receive the gift that my Father has for you.

Wait in Jerusalem.

And for that time period between the resurrection and Pentecost, the guys were waiting.

And in this particular case, they're out fishing.

And Jesus in his resurrected state appears on the beach, if you will, and he's got a charcoal fire burning, same charcoal fire of the night that he was handed over to suffering and death.

And as the guys are in the boat, Jesus yells out there, hey, caught any fish?

Been fishing all night and haven't caught a thing.

Who is this guy?

Hey, why don't you throw your net on the other side?

So they throw the net on the other side and they catch a lot of fish, a lot of large fish.

And it's John who looks to the coast, to the shore.

He says, It's the Lord.

And Peter, in this zeal for Jesus, jumps in the water.

He leaves all the guys with all the hollow fish and he gets there.

And there he finds Jesus at the charcoal fire.

And all the other disciples come that were in the boat.

And it's in that context that Jesus has this conversation with Peter.

Y'all know, y'all know on the night when he was handing over to suffering and death, Peter, Peter, who said, I will die with you.

Peter, Peter, rather than denying self, he denied Jesus.

And rather than following Jesus, he followed his own agenda.

And three times he he denied even knowing Jesus.

And it's in this context that Jesus says to him, Peter, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?

What a great question.

St.

Paul's, do you truly love me more than these?

Do you truly love me more than your pleasures?

Do you love me more than your work?

Do you love me more than your spouse?

Do you love me?

Whatever these represent to you.

Do you truly love me more than these?

Oh, yes, Lord.

You know that I love you.

Feed my lambs.

Again, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me?

Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

Take care of my sheep.

Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Lord, you know all things.

You know that I love you.

Feed my sheep.

What a powerful moment.

Jesus, Jesus reinstates Peter.

You see, our mission comes from the relationship.

It always does.

If we've wandered and strayed, the mission comes from being restored, being renewed with Jesus.

Or do we have, do we have, do we have relationships in our lives that are that are strained?

Paul writes that we are given the ministry of reconciliation.

We see it played out right here with Jesus.

He restores through reconciliation.

He restores through the humility of Peter.

Peter, who's three times, Lord, I love you.

But yet he's restored.

He's restored for the work that God had prepared beforehand for Peter.

You see, God prepares the path.

But Jesus calls Peter to walk that path.

And the works that he's given to do aren't just tasks to do, but they're the acts of obedience discovered while we follow Jesus.

And for Peter, these good works that were prepared in the spiritual realm included shepherding the church.

Included preaching the gospel.

Included caring for one another.

Love one another as I've loved you.

And for Peter, even his death brought glory to God.

You see, this is the call.

This is what the Israelites learned when they were wandering in the desert 40 years, but they were in the presence of God, the cloud by day, the fire by night.

God never left their presence.

And when they were in his presence, they were protected.

They were given guidance.

They were cared for.

This one.

Let me illustrate what that looks like.

This is God's presence right here.

This is his presence.

And he leaves and guides us.

And he protects us.

And he cares for us.

While we're under his covering, this is his promise.

This is his love.

This is his call.

Stay.

Come to me.

Are you burdened?

Come to me.

You got to be attached to me.

And I will provide for you.

But you know what?

In God's love, and the Israelites learned this as they followed the cloud by day and the fire by night, as they decided to wander away from the presence of God in their own lives.

Oh, it's not that the presence went away.

God is always there.

But they chose to walk away.

And what does that look like?

Exposed to the storm.

You see, the umbrella doesn't eliminate the storm, it protects us from the storm.

But when you walk away from it, you're exposed to the storm.

You experience the consequences.

When you leave the place of obedience and trust.

So how do we come back into the presence of God?

We turn and we return to Him.

We call that repentance.

And his presence is always there.

And He says, Stay with me.

Follow me.

And this is what He said to Peter.

Peter, feed my sheep, care for my sheep, feed my sheep.

Now follow me, Peter.

And Peter does this in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Where is God's presence now?

He's right here in the temple of the heart.

And he never leaves us or forsakes us.

But he does allow us, if we want to walk away, to walk away.

St.

Paul's Church.

Your search team has been following the cloud by day and the fire by night.

And they're coming to the end of their task.

They're coming to the end of what they were called to do, what God knew about in the heavenlies.

And they're getting ready to pass that baton to the vestry.

And the vestry now will do their due diligence with the three candidates.

And the vestry will make the call for the next rector of St.

Paul's Church.

And I promise you, they're following the cloud by day and the fire by night in the power of the Holy Spirit.

They're called, you know, the great thing about the search team is that they were selected.

And the great thing about the vestry is that they were selected.

Not a vote.

They were selected for just a time as this.

So pray.

Pray for your vestry now.

Pray that they will have eyes to see the anointed one.

That they will have eyes to see.

In the spiritual realms, they'll have eyes to see the one that God has placed his hand upon.

And they will be unified.

He's the one.

And when they tell the church team, the church team will say, We agree.

Unity in spirit.

This has been planned in the heavenlies.

And we get to see it played out in the physical.

One more week.

But I gotta tell you, Libyan, I trust the Lord.

And the testimony I've heard is just life-giving.

As your search team and as now your vestry, to seek him, to follow him, to purpose his will.

So I'm gonna look at you one more time.

We love you.

And I'll probably say that again.

And I will hug you after this service.

Father God, we thank you.

Lord, we thank you that we're not here just by the roll of the dice, Lord.

But even calling St.

Paul's Church to ecclesia, Lord, 15 years ago, you've known about this.

That people would come to know you, Lord.

And then they would make you known.

So Lord, we we do pray for our vestry now.

Bless them, Lord.

I pray that they have eyes to see what you're doing.

And give them the Lord the boldness to move in in your power.

Thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness.

Thank you, Lord, that you love us.

We pray in the powerful name of Jesus.

Amen.