April 19, 2026 | "Do You Love Me More Than These?"

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

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Chapter 21, beginning in verse 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.

Jesus came and took bread and gave it to them, and so with a fish.

This was now the third time that Jesus had revealed himself to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

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 had 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.

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Almighty God and Father, we live in a day that we're just beseeching you to awaken your church, to bring us out of our slumber, that our eyes might behold the wonder and the glories of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

And the great wind of the Holy Spirit will come upon us.

And we pray that very gift today, Holy Spirit, come, we pray.

Bring out your word that we might understand.

Oh, be honored, Lord Jesus, here in our midst.

For we ask these things in your most precious and holy name.

Amen.

Good morning.

As we turn in a Bible to look at this passage from John 21, I have come this morning to bring to you the most important question that will ever be asked of you in this life and also in the life to come.

And we stand on that day before the Lord and hold accountability for our lives.

It is the single most important question that I want our search team and our vestry to ask all candidates to be pastor of this church.

I want it for every staff member, I want it for every ministry leader, I want it for every Christian, I want it for you.

The Lord Jesus asks a piercing question.

And it's the one thing I'd like to look at today with you.

In John chapter 21, verse 15, he says these words Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

John 21:15

More than these.

Do you love me more than these?

That's the question he's asking you today.

Do you love him more than all things?

Do you love Jesus more than all things?

Now, I say this by saying that words are difficult because words that belong to us in the kingdom of this world are not necessarily understood in the kingdom of God.

Words are funny and fickle that way, are they not?

Let me give an example to you.

We live in a world where the word marriage is known to everybody, is it not?

In 2022, four years ago, it was prized that the marriage industry in this country was over$70 million.

Sorry, did I say million?

It's a$70 billion industry.

2.5 million people were married on an average basis every year.

And when the secular world uses that word, it strips it of its meaning.

It redefines it.

The world redefines the word.

Do you understand that?

So that we can actually hold marriages where the author of marriage is not mentioned.

Marriage, when you understand it from the from what God has given to us in his word, what the scripture means, the Lord has given us, he's the author of marriage.

He's it was his idea.

And the thing about it is in marriage, he does what only he can do.

It's called, for me, it's called the miraculum, the the wonder of it all.

He by his might takes the two and makes them one.

That's the wonder of matrimony.

Right there.

And our Lord Jesus repeats it in Matthew 19 and Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

What God has joined together, let no one separate.

There it is.

Now we've got definition.

But the world steals it right out of us, puts it into a different context, into a secular context.

Now marriage means whatever it means by whoever's using the word.

Do you get it?

It's a twist.

The word belongs to us.

And yet it's been taken from us and redefined.

I'm going to suggest to you today that when we come to this text, the same thing is happening.

The word love belongs to the world culture.

It also belongs first to the kingdom of God.

And it sounds like a word that you'll understand.

When Jesus asks, Do you love me more than these?

We think we understand.

I'm going to suggest we might not.

The word love in the kingdom of God is different than the way we use it.

Really different.

When William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale were bringing the Bible into English, when they got to the word love in Hebrew to translate it, they didn't know what to do because the word is too big to be translated.

The word in Hebrew is Hesed, Hesed, that's the word in Hebrew.

And when they got to it, they didn't have a translation, because the word is, it's it's too big for it.

It's like when you're in the kitchen, you're making something, but you need more ingredients to really define that something.

So when you have the word, well, Miles Coverdale and William Tyndale couldn't use the word love.

So they invented a word.

You'll find it in your some of your Bibles.

They invented the word loving kindness, never been heard before until in 1534.

Some of your Bibles call it steadfast love.

It's loving kindness, it's it's but it's got mercy in it.

It's got compassion in it, it's got faithfulness in it, it's got patience in it, it's got forbearance in it, it's got truth in it, it's got gentleness in it, it's got humility in it, it's a big word.

Michael Card in his books, uh, I can't remember, the 2017, 2018, wrote a book called Incomprehensible.

Um I think it, I think it's called incomprehensible.

It's big anyway.

Because he wanted to show how the this word is like a, it's like a word that just needs other words to define it.

So consequently, when the Lord introduced himself to Moses in Exodus chapter 34, when Moses said, Show me thy glory, and the Lord passed by as he put Moses in the cleft of the rock, the Lord shouted out his name.

Exodus 34 · chapter mention

He said, The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness to a thousand generations, and forgiving sins, iniquities, and transgressions.

His name is Hesed, and that's who he is, and that's what he does.

And that's why when you start reading Old Testament, you begin to see the different ways, the different methods upon which you begin to see how that chesed comes to life.

For example, he's father in all the imagery of a father and a father's love.

He's husband and a husband's love to shepherd, protecting, providing, guiding.

The Lord is my shepherd.

But sometimes when I look at the word Hesed and I look at the very character and nature of this love that he is, the one image that's so strong for me in the scripture is to look into the eyes of a lamb.

Right from the beginning, when we fell into sin and death, the only way to approach the Lord was to come with a lamb, an offering.

Cain, Abel, Genesis 4, Cain in rebellion did not.

Abel came by faith.

It says in Hebrews 11, he came by faith.

And the the thing that is at the very basis of the scriptures is that the wages of sin is death.

That's the story.

And because we've sinned, we deserve death.

Punishment in this life and in the life to come, eternal death, second death, because of what we've done.

And right from Genesis 4 on, it's like that lamb just steps in and says, You owe a debt.

I'll pay it for you.

That is Hasid love.

You see it at the Passover when the day of judgment comes upon Egypt, and the lamb says, You owe a debt in your sin.

It's okay.

I'll pay it for you.

And the blood of the lamb goes upon the doorpost, and the enemy, the destruction, the judgment cannot touch you.

When you're under the blood of the lamb, you're protected.

That's love.

That's Hasid.

You'll find in Exodus 29, morning and night, and night and morning, the Israelites offered a lamb every day, morning and night, morning and night, to make sure that all the sins of the people are covered.

It's okay.

You owe a debt.

I'll pay it for you.

That's the kind of love we're talking about.

That kind of love.

By the time you get to Isaiah 53, we suddenly realize that one day Messiah will come, and what will his name be?

Guess.

I've lost you.

Guess what his name will be?

Lamb.

When Messiah comes, his name is going to be Lamb.

He was pierced for our transgressions, Isaiah says, Isaiah 53.

He was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought us peace, the punishment was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray.

Each of us has turned to his own way.

The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

That lamb, it's okay.

You owe a debt, a sin debt, a punishment.

Going to, going to, in this life, the result be physical death, and the life to come, spiritual death.

There we will be and see the goats and the sheep separated.

No, no.

The lamb comes in.

The lamb says, it's okay, you owe a debt.

I know you owe it.

I know you do.

But I've got this.

By my wounds you shall be healed.

And so the lamb has the great transfer, our sins laid upon the lamb.

It's called substitution.

He's going to do it for us.

And that's how the scriptures go.

He's going to bear our sin.

He's going to die our death.

He's going to do it for us because that's what love does.

Love is sacrificial.

And anybody in Old Testament times would have known.

This is why the Great Commandment, guess what the Great Commandment is in Old Testament?

You'll never guess.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

And love your neighbor as yourself.

Because everywhere you're going to find that when you meet the Lord, you're going to meet love.

You're going to meet Hesed love, sacrificial love, absolutely.

And if you don't understand it so far, let me just tell you: all you need to do is see Hesed born in a manger in Bethlehem.

God the Son, Hesed himself has come among us.

Do you want to know what Hesed is?

Watch his life.

Listen to him.

We could go, if I we can spend the afternoon here, we could do this.

We could run through the Gospels and I can show it to you.

We can begin to look how Hesed is everywhere.

Look at him when that man is walking down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he's beaten up and he's and he's violated, and he's these marauders, these robbers strip him of everything and leave him as half dead on the side of the road.

Come meet Hesed.

He sees, he knows, he loves, and he goes because that's what love does.

Hear his words.

Mark 10, 45.

Even the Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

That says it.

Listen to the sound of his voice.

I am the good shepherd.

And the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, because that's what love does.

That's it.

Watch him strip himself of his clothes.

Watch him get down to wash the feet of his disciples because he loved them to the end.

And watch him wash Judas's feet just like the others.

Because that's what love does.

This is why in Romans 5.8, we're going to see the story just erupt.

God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

He didn't die for those who love him.

He died for us who are weak and ungodly and enemies and sinners.

He still came.

He demonstrates us.

This is why, from all the years of 2,000 years, this is why the church rises up and says, I can only have one message with you.

It's Jesus Christ and Him crucified, because that's what love is.

It's the power to save us.

The huge gifting of the Lord to show mercy to us.

That on that cross, that Lamb of God did what nobody else could do.

He took our sins, he bore our sins, he died our death so that we might have life and have mercy from Him.

What I want to tell you right now is the reason we don't get it is because we don't get it.

What do I mean by that?

I mean this is the story of the human heart.

This is it.

Our hearts were made and designed for Hesed.

We were made in the image of God.

We were made in his image.

He who is Hesed made us in his image.

This heart was meant to have it, and it's not complete without it.

Then sin came into the world and death through sin.

And when it happened, that Hesed left us.

And what happens when it left us?

When we separated from that love, when sin divided us from that love, what happened to the human heart?

It had a void inside of it.

A void.

And love Hesed became lust.

Lust to get.

Lust to get what we don't have.

And so we get love.

We do anything possible to get love.

This is why, in our great intellectual world that we live in, and we boast in our intellect, do we not?

We're in the midst of a culture that's gone sex crazy.

Why?

Because they're looking for love.

Thinking that's it, that's what's going to satisfy.

And so the little child grows up knowing and learning very soon that the way to get it is to actually do the best to try to get it.

If I love you, will I get love back?

And so I begin to learn that to love you is to get love from you.

And that's the way life begins to work.

And it's just a very self-centered world.

It's just about me.

It's about God loving me.

It's about you loving me.

It's about me.

Because the world isn't right without Hesed love in our heart.

And so we're just wanting to be seen.

We're wanting to be known.

We're wanting to be heard.

We're wanting to be loved.

Will somebody see me?

Will somebody love me?

And so we'll do anything to get it.

Anything.

Just to feel like we're somebody again.

Can you see the depravity of the human heart?

It's lusting for something it doesn't have.

And sin just makes us as self-centered people.

And so love is conditional.

Love is always conditional.

I'm going to love you, I'm going to love you, I'm going to love you, but you stop loving me, I'm done with you.

Love is conditional.

Because if you hurt me, it's over.

If you disappoint me, it's over.

And I'll just go somewhere else.

And we distance from each other.

And we distance from the Lord.

T and I were talking about it just this morning, how so often people just they don't want to do, they don't even want to talk to the Lord because something happened in their life, a catastrophe, a death.

Something happened that didn't meet their expectation, and they're blaming him.

The reason that they're blaming him is because they don't know him.

They don't know him.

But we have to blame somebody because my heart hurts.

I can't have it, and I don't have it.

And so that's how we do relationships.

Just think about how many relationships in your life that are broken, and you do nothing about it.

And you point your finger, yes, but they're weird, they're ungodly.

They're look what they've done to me.

They're not worth even a phone call, they're not even worth a card.

Why?

Because we love on our terms.

That's why.

So when Jesus says, Do you love me more than these?

I want to suggest to you that the human heart says, you're asking the wrong question.

The real question is, do you love me?

Because remember, the world spins around.

Me.

Lord, you love me.

That's the real question.

But the testing of the question he's asking here is, do you love me?

Is he wants to know if something's happened in your heart, if you've got a taste of Hesed inside of you.

Peter, do you have a taste of Hesed inside of you?

See, this is why I'm going to suggest to you that when it comes to this great subject of love and of wanting and of needing, it actually faces us with our sin.

That our self-centeredness is always trying to get from people what we need to get from people so that we feel good.

And this is why I say to you, we are in need of a savior.

That's what we're needing.

And that's why the do you agree with that?

Do you realize this is listen to the way the prophet said it.

Listen to the how he said it.

That in the midst of the Old Testament, the Lord makes a promise.

Listen to the nature of the promise.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

I will give you a new heart, a new spirit I will put within you.

I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my spirit upon you.

He's stating it all.

Cleanse us, Lord, wash us, Lord, and give us a new heart filled with the love that you have for us.

There it is.

That's what we need in the Savior.

And this is why come that resurrection night, the Lamb of God who paid for it all, who did it all for us, who finished his work on Calvary's hill.

And said the words, it is finished.

And on the third day he appeared again.

He rose bodily, glorified.

His father raised him from the dead.

And that night on Eastern night, guess what happens?

He gathers his disciples together and he breathes upon them the Holy Spirit and says, Receive the Holy Spirit.

And that is the power of new birth, right there.

The power of knowing that your sins are washed and cleansed.

The power of the Spirit of God coming inside of you.

You suddenly feel that power inside, that new life inside.

Some of you have conversion stories, maybe that it happened gradually, absolutely, some suddenly, but I'm telling you, there comes a day where you know, you know that you know that something has changed inside of you, that you've been saved by the risen Savior, that He's breathed new life upon you, and that you've tasted that hested love.

You can feel it inside of you, just like the prodigal son coming back and getting the dad's embrace.

You feel the embrace.

Getting that clothes, that robe put around you, and you feel that welcome back into the family.

Something has happened to you, and you know that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He's come to save you.

That's what a Christian knows.

He knows the power, she knows the power of new birth in them.

And that's why I make my appeal.

Oh, you've got it on the back of your bulletin.

It's not the best translation, but I'm gonna give you the translation that's but you're gonna see it here in the back of Romans chapter 5, verse 5, in the back of your bulletin.

Romans 5:5

The hope does not disappoint us.

This is a passage out of Romans 5 where it's been stating that we've been justified by faith through Jesus Christ and what he's done for us.

And it says in verse 5 that hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

The word cured can be uh difficult.

It means to be poured out.

God's love.

Listen to the listen to the story of what it means to be born again in Christ.

His love, the Father's love through the Son, has been poured out into the hearts by the Holy Spirit who's been given to us.

That's the power of new birth.

A new love begins to come upon you.

A love that's not containable.

A love that begins to know exactly, exactly how to live, because this love isn't about me.

This love is about him.

This love is about others, because this love, hested love, is sacrificial love.

This love gives.

It's not getting and hoardering, it's giving.

It's like everything spins around.

When you become a Christian, a new love comes in you.

You learn to forgive those who've hurt you because this love's inside of you.

It begins to go out of you.

Freely you've received, Jesus said, freely give.

And that's what this love does.

That's why we begin to learn to worship the Lord and praise him and adore him.

And when he says, Do you love me more than these?

Oh, when you know what he's done for you.

When you've been looked into the eyes by the Lamb of God, and he has said to you, You owed a debt.

It's okay.

I paid it for you.

And then he pours this love into our heart so that we learn to love as he loves.

We show mercy to others as he shows mercy to others.

We forgive others as he's forgiven us.

We serve others as he serves us.

We are sacrificial in our love because he's sacrificial in our love.

But you've got to have that new birth.

That's why Jesus said so clearly, you must be born again to see the kingdom of God.

You must be born again by water and the spirit.

Must, in order to enter the kingdom of God.

And that's why I stay so long in this pulpit.

You want me out five minutes ago.

It's quite all right.

But I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you this.

Don't, don't go on with life without this love.

If you're holding resentment in your heart, bitterness, unforgiveness, oh my friends, run to Jesus, absolutely, and ask for the power of God, the Spirit, to come upon you and cry out, that Hesed love, that love that gives all, that love that sacrificed on Calvary, let it be us, let it be me.

And that is what I want in our new pastor of this church.

And that's what we've had in the old pastor of this church.

T and Libby have demonstrated what it means to love Jesus first and to love you first.

That's why the path of the scripture is so beautiful.

Do you love me more than these?

Tend my sheep.

Do you love me more than these?

Shepherd my flock.

Do you have it?

Then go give it.

Because if you got it, you'll give it.

If you don't got it, you don't give it.

Because basically, you don't get it.

Christianity is not a bunch of morals to follow.

It's not to be done in the flesh.

It's a movement of the Spirit of God to cause us to be born again with a new power, a new love.

And that's why at St.

Paul's there's nothing greater than we love one another as Christ has loved us.

And it's not possible unless his love touches our heart, and then all things become new.

And then we take that love to a dying world.

So I want to invite you in a posture of prayer.

Oh Lord.

Help us for receive us love.

We can give it away.

We cannot love to see you love all we can do if we are not worthy.

We love you, Lord, because you first loved us.

We praise you.

We pray in a powerful life-giving.

Loving kind of name of Jesus, the name above all names.

Name of Jesus, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess.