12272020 Do You Love Me Al Robertson

good morning church so glad you guys are here today welcome to uh our live stream audience as well it's always exciting merry christmas again and happy new year we had kind of a three-day celebration of christmas and so uh that's always a great time to be able to do we had a great christmas eve service here as well now i got to tell you i received two signs today that the holiday eating season is nearing a close just to let you know those of you that have probably been overdoing a little bit like me the first one was when i came by super eight donuts this morning on my way in and there was a snake line the drive-through that went all the way to gene cox and then you could not fit another car in the parking lot for people inside the donut shop so i figured i don't know this for sure but everybody's getting that last donut in right new year's coming i mean that sweet delicious donut maybe kalachi and the reason i tell you that and it was a sign to me was because i was a little bit perturbed because i couldn't get in and get my last kalachi you know they were inconveniencing me so that was my first sign the second was during all hell king jesus which i love uh and i popped a button here on the top let me get a close-up there i popped it it's just hanging by a thread there and so when you can't sing out your praises without popping a button it may be time to go on a diet so uh just at a personal level i wanted to share that with you and speaking of holiday eating we want to pray for mike kellet today mike is under the weather he was due up and i've been pressed into service but i'm excited about this text we have today and i want to have malia fortenberry come up and share a scripture with us now malia is 15 years old she goes to ocs of course she's the daughter of rick and shelby and i got to ask you malia my one question because you're you have a lot of talents and abilities but the thing i marvel most is that shelby is your mom and yet you're so normal i mean how does that happen church right do you have an answer for that uh not really okay good all right well let's just share the scripture then john 21 25 says jesus did many other things as well if every one of them were written down i suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written thank you malia how about a little round of applause for melia oh here malaya you're supposed to take that with them sorry i don't need that rolling around i didn't welcome the fellowship center welcome to you guys as well we're glad you're here today um last week we had sort of a full circle story in the first 14 verses of john 21 and if you want to turn there or get your phones there we're going to be finishing up that chapter today but it was it was kind of centered on peter and there were six other disciples they were there as well and we talked about really returning to our first love going back and for the disciples it was that moment when they were able to go back and remember the first time jesus said follow me and because now a lot has happened right over this three year period of time and they're about to be unleashed on this unstoppable adventure that we're excited to start telling you about next week but when you look at peter you saw there was a sort of an apprehension that was there with him because you know he's still trying to get his sea legs for how he goes forward he had the terrible three-time denial of jesus in a public way and so you feel like from reading these scriptures that he's still sort of reeling from that one thing i didn't have a chance to mention last week and since i'm up this week i get to mention is apparently there had been some time when jesus had appeared to simon peter individually during all these appearances and it was actually before he appeared to the other disciples luke 24 34 says that when these two guys that were on the road to emmaus that we talked about when they came back and reported that to the other disciples they said in verse 34 the lord has risen and appeared to simon so it seemed like there was some other time paul says the sec same thing in first corinthians 15 5 when he said that after he was resurrected jesus appeared to peter and then to the twelve so there seemed to be some moment of reconciliation privately between jesus and peter before we get to this moment here in john 21 and you know what i believe is is that this is now a way what's going to happen today in our text is sort of a public way to express a private confession and i think that was very important for peter to be able to do with these other disciples and to everybody because remember when we get to acts chapter one and two he's gonna be the man he's gonna be out front and so he's got to be able to deal with this stuff that's going on in his life and it really brings to to my mind an old saying that that i believe is still true today the more public the sin the more public the confession and when things are out there and the community knows and the church knows and people know and and there's something in your life that has rocked someone's world i think it's important for people to know that you've got that right with the lord our church has always been a church of transparency and the only reason it happens in a community is that people can feel free to say i've messed up for so many years myself other leaders in this church have been right down front right down front in the fellowship center and said look we want you to come and we want you to share i can remember many many years ago and i mentioned this before mac and mary were right over there and it really helped open this doorway of open transparency and communication that when you blow it in life you can come to your forever family and say i need your help i need your support and i need to confess to everyone that i messed up and i think that's the moment that we're seeing here with peter so let's uh let's get our setting uh set up to remind us and then we'll go into this text we got seven disciples they're fishing all night and they're not catching anything which seems to be a common theme i don't know if these guys were super successful commercial fishermen but at least on a couple occasions we know they weren't having any luck so jesus shows up he's disguised again and he basically directs them on where to put the nets they do and immediately they catch a 153 large fish and they tow it into the bank without breaking the net which is in and of itself a pretty miraculous thing peter instead of taking off some clothes and jumping in he puts on his clothes and jumps in he shook up and starts swimming to jesus now remember he's he's man he's all over the place at this moment they come in jesus has a fire built there's some fish already cooking they take some of the other fish and clean them and add that to it and they just sit down and have fellowship eating a meal together i think it's a beautiful picture of what's about to happen with the first century church with these first group of people post-resurrection said you know what this is community and it's also a perfect place for confession because that's what community does it supports one another and i love that it happened in this beautiful setting it's a place of trust and honesty and forgiveness that's what happens in community that's what the church is supposed to be about it's not a group of people coming together saying we got it all together when we get together no it's a group of people that says we know we're a mess but you know what we're a mess together and we're a mess together because jesus christ has forgiven us and we follow him and we trust him all right let's get into the text so the first thing that's going to happen is what i call the big question jesus is going to ask a really big question do you love me that's going to get us to this point of forgiveness and it's going to give us this point of confession now my friend stan williams stan i hope you're watching i miss you brother i miss your dry wit and your observations i know you've been watching online but stan taught me at ulm and one of the questions that he or one of the statements that he taught us when we were at college was he said don't ask the question if you can't stand the answer and there's a lot of truth to that because you asked somebody do you love me i mean you're pretty much putting yourself out there right i mean you're hoping the answer back is yes that's a big question it's like the first time when you know boyfriend girlfriend and they're getting in that close relationship and maybe they're getting close to maybe this is the one and the first one that says i love you i mean you're really putting it out there for the other one right because what if you don't get a response oh may i rush that right that's this situation jesus asked a big question but then the first time he did this is verse 15 16-17 the first time he says it he says do you love me more than these now that's always been interesting that text to me because who or what are these we've got a little bit of a language barrier here's one thing because we've got because this is what we call a hanging pronoun right the pronoun is out there but we don't know who he's referring to or what so we got this hanging pronoun and we got aramaic to greek to english so that's kind of hard because of language but also we're not there so he's obviously referring to something that's there but what is it now i've always assumed in my teaching that this was referring to the other disciples do you love me more than these which could have a couple implications one is do you love me more than these love me in other words they didn't deny me three times but you did do you now love me more than these or it could be do you love me more than these in other words are you willing to make me the lord of your life not your brothers not your fellow fishermen not the ones who have gone through this together but me could be that implication that's what i've always thought about this text until recently we were doing a podcast about this text and jace made the point that he had a guy that we both know who's a wonderful godly christian man who's also a really talented fisherman i mean he makes lures he guides people he's very very good and he asked james jesus was telling the story on the podcast he asked jason he said do you what do you think about this passage and jace told him what i just said but then jace added to it and this is something i had never thought about before he said but you know it could be that he was talking about he pointed at the fish i mean fishermen are impressed by 153 large fish right and you got the nets you got the boat you got the lifestyle everything that peter had done up until this moment do you love me more than these and so he just gave him the possibility and then what what this man said back to jace really amazed me you see he heard this text in a sermon and him being a fisherman when the preacher was talking about it he thought what i'd always thought but immediately he was convicted in his heart that these was the lifestyle so convicted that he started looking at his own life and said you know what i'm spending a lot more time on the water or in the water than i am with my lord with my family i need to take a step back he was convicted so for three years he parked his boat in the driveway and said you know what i'm going to spend these next three years taking an intro look at who i am do i love christ more than these and that was powerful because i've never really thought about that before but since someone was convicted by that by the way this is why you continue to study the scriptures and listen to other people you can always be convicted in new ways by the scripture i'm 55 years old i've been teaching and preaching the word of god for over 30 years and you still will learn things that make you go hmm and thought about it that way which is why we keep studying right we don't stop so the idea whether it's any of those three and they could all be right is that jesus has to be lord right he has to be number one no matter what so it really goes at the concept of idolatry anything that we put above christ is not good amen i mean that's right you go back to the old testament the first two commandments are what have no other gods before me i am the lord your god and you have no idols that would then put something else above me first two commandments he gave to the jews you go to the new testament over 53 times idols or idolatry as mentioned now you imagine paul's got all these problems he's got all these first century christians they're greeks they got the roman influence they got the greek influence they got all these gods everywhere everybody's trying to put something above christ and paul consistently says you can't do that and then we fast forward 2 000 years right jesus said it best in matthew 6 you can't serve two masters you will love one and hate the other you think about that that works both ways right because if you love christ above all others you're gonna hate anything that tries to put itself above jesus that's the way we should be right but if you love anything else above christ eventually you're going to have to walk away from christ it's not going to work out or you're going to wind up in some kind of world of hurt that's what happens when we put something above jesus christ when lisa and i share our testimony part of that testimony when lisa shares which is so honest and so pure i mean we've been doing this a few years now but every time we're standing in front of a group of people and sharing our hearts and our story i still marvel at the purity of our message of what god did in our lives lisa talks about having idolized me since we were kids in middle school all the way back there was an idolized i was i was seen as a knight in shining armor to her and she had this fantasy about that it continued on when we were dating in high school she had me on this high pedestal even though my life at that point was a mess i mean i was a raging prodigal even though i was a double secret agent right here but she still idolized me she idolized me when i broke her heart took off true prodigal she still thought he'll come back even though that now her life is a mess she idolized me when i swooped back in and said man i found the lord and then later we got married and she had me on that pedestal unfortunately ultimately it all crashed down right here in front of many of you the problem was when you put anything you think well what man wouldn't want to be idolized and worshiped by a woman by his wife man that would be the ultimate right nope what jesus said was true eventually there'll be major trouble and there was for us it all came crashing down and the reason why is because idolatry will not work whatever it is you put above jesus will ultimately be your dismantling and it was for us do you know the reason why one reason why is because i'm not worthy of worship or being idolized and neither are you none of us are we are sinners saved by the grace of god we don't deserve worship or praise we don't deserve glory only christ does any good things that happens in our lives happens because he's working through us and we're allowing it to happen that's what we're called to it's never about your glory if anything is above the lord jesus christ in your life you are headed for failure good news is you can come back because when lisa replaced me with jesus as the lord of her life things got better for her quickly and you know what it didn't take long for things to get better for me and for us and by the grace of god 21 years later we're able to share that message and help other people because that's what god did in us all of us have some story of grace and redemption maybe something that we had that we had made our idol and we said you know we're walking away no more we want to be changed i see that story being lived out every day here over and over and over again i asked you this morning here's the question for you the big question do you love anything more than jesus you fill in that blank if it's there you need to start a road of repentance today don't keep that there you'll fail now one more thing i want to mention about this passage before we move on to the answers and i don't get too deep into the weeds here but there is some language difference the greeks have four different words for love you know we only have one but obviously they're different right i love lisa deeply i love kolaches but there's a difference there right you know i mean i can do without the kolaches i can't do without her so we have one word that we express love in different ways the greeks had four there are two that are present in this text phileo which is a brotherly love philadelphia the city of brotherly love that's the idea and agape which is a sacrificial christian love that we see unique in christianity that word agape so if i were reading it in greek jesus said do you file me peter more than these peter's answer yes i file you brotherly love second question do you agape me jesus says peter says yes i file you he didn't say agape third question do you agape me jesus yes i mean peter yes i fully now some scholars have made a point that you know that peter never really got what jesus was trying to instill into him in the moment he couldn't express out of brotherly love into the sacrificial love may be true i don't know i wasn't there john has used these words back and forth all throughout the book of john so it may just be that's the word he used but i at least want you to know about that there is a difference we want to express agape love in everything we do because that means we're all in there are people in communities that do great things because they're willing to help people and i appreciate that but that's different than agape christian love which says i will lay down my life for you both in the living or the dying because jesus says that's how we know one another right so that's how we want to express love well let me move on to the three big answers because we got a question times three right do you love me peter's answer was the same the first two times of 15 and 16. yes lord you know that i love you yes lord you know that i love you those first two questions what's interesting is the third ques third time he answered is john tells us peter was hurt because he had asked him the third time and then he said this he adds one more little caveat yes lord you know all things and you know that i love you in other words you're the lord you know you know my heart you know that i love you but he's hurt why because he's embarrassed it's obvious to me that the reason jesus asked him three times is because peter denied him how many times three times so it's like ask ask ask you denied me three times now you're gonna tell me three times i feel like that's what's happening but it's interesting that peter is hurt by that instead of just one more time saying yes lord i love you but why because that's what we do when we've fallen short we feel that shame right and and we've got that inside us and we're not sure how to get rid of it and we feel like we need to do something to get that out lisa tells about that moment i mentioned from 21 years ago she came here on that sunday morning right after all the stuff broke in our marriage and she was sitting back there somewhere i wasn't here and she came forward she calls it the 80-foot walk of shame because she was about to share with her community her family the only people in her life that she could trust enough to share something so terrible of where her life was she wrote it out on a letter she handed it to one of our elders and said read this now all these years later as i look back on this moment at the time i was pretty much impassive and disinterested because i didn't trust her but looking back i realized this was a person who said you know what i am ready to commit fully to jesus being my lord and i don't care who knows where i've been i'm convinced that lisa and i would not be married today if she had not made that walk to finally say this is who i am see that's what it takes and we don't want to do that we'll say well you know i just i talk this over the lord and then he just keeps asking do you love me do you love me do you love me and we're heard and we're like would you know i love you but there's something you're holding back until you lay it out you can't get to healing it happened in my life as well things change when we're honest about who we are and i think that's the power of the answer here i love mac i meant to macko and one of his sayings that i still remember he would always say jesus loves us right where we are but way too much to leave us there see it's about making the move right out of where we are into where the lord wants us to be it's the prodigal son in luke 15. he's in the pig pen he comes to his senses he looks in where lynn says how why do i want to keep living this life and then it said he gets up and starts home my friend kyle alderman it says it's an aha moment it's an awareness of who i am it's a humility that i have to prostrate myself before jesus and then it's action i got to do something i cannot stay here and be right with god i got to make a move and look we can do that at any point in our lives here's the way paul would put it in ephesians chapter three i pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the lord's holy people to grasp how wide how long how high and how deep is the love of christ i love that passage that's the dimensions of christ's love i can't get too far away i can't go too low i can't be too high that jesus love cannot reach me that's the power of his dimensional love and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of god and i want people to say you're full of it i know i'm full of the holy spirit and it is overflowing because that's what jesus does in us when we recognize his love now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine that's everything according to his power that his work within us to us be glory no to him be glory forever and ever throughout all generations and the church says amen man lord you know all things and you know that i love you that's big answers well that leads us to the last thing i want to share with you and that's that these lin lead to action right that's what we said earlier i mean the question was asked the question was answered and now there are actions to be taken jesus says feed my sheep every time peter says i love you feed my sheep feed my sheep feed my sheep now i know directly he was talking about peter was going to be an elder one day jesus is the chief shepherd so he's talking about his shepherding ability so that directly went to him but i think this principle applies to all of us we should always be willing to pay forward what god has done in us we should always be willing to help other people by saying look i know what you're going through let me tell you what god did in my life the victories of god are meant to be shared do not be stingy with them let other people know what god has done in your life that's what following him means and that's how you feed sheep he also said this in verse 18 very truly i tell you when you were younger you dressed yourself and you went where you want it 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 john tells us jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which peter would glorify god then he said to him follow me so i want you to think about this you remember we talked about it in luke 5 last week when jesus first had this miraculous catch and peter looked at this thing and said go away from me lord i'm a sinful man and jesus said follow me and i'll make you fishers of men well that sounds pretty good right i mean yeah i can fish for fish but i could fish for men yeah i'm in but what happens now when jesus says you're going to die for the cause now come and follow me you're going to be a martyr that's what he's telling me peter's got a big decision it's one thing to follow jesus when things are good but when you're facing persecution and death are you a follower then are you all in that's what he's asking him look at verse 20. peter turned and saw that the disciple whom john loved was following them this was the one who would lean back against jesus at the supper and said lord what is going who is going to betray you john's talking about himself of course when peter saw him he said lord what about him jesus said if i want him to remain alive until i return what is that to you you must follow me so now he said it twice and he said in the context of quit looking at other people don't we have a bad habit of that as followers as believers i wish i had his gift i wish i had her talent well why are they not having to say why am i going through this terrible suffering what about them and we look and we look at each other we look at each other where are we not looking to christ jesus says don't worry about everybody else you follow me twice he said it and then the last action so our first one i was just to follow him this last action john actually says about himself and i say finish well look what he says in verse 23 and this is the close of the book because of this what he said the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die because maybe he said if if i want to keep him alive till i come back well they assumed they meant the final comeback right but jesus did not say that he would not die he only said if i wanted to remain alive until i returned what is that to you because see john still had some work to do there was going to be another appearance by christ this is the disciple who testifies to make to these things and who wrote them down talking about himself we know that his testimony is true jesus did many other things as well if every one of them were written down i suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written i wonder when john got to be an old man he was old when he was on the isle of patmos he had suffered greatly for the kingdom just because he was still alive he had read the book of martyrs and see what all he went through terrible terrible things i wonder if he looked back to this moment and remembered when he put the finishing touches on such a beautiful case for jesus christ i know he wrote this in that great revelation when jesus came back and appeared to him he said they triumphed over him the evil one the verse revelation 12 11 by the blood of the lamb by the word of the test of their testimony and they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death every one of those disciples went to their death praising god and that is our greatest witness that jesus is who he said he was you remember how these guys were throughout his ministry they didn't know what he was talking about they were scared they were hiding in a room they certainly became different men when they truly saw who jesus was this year started with a sermon trent preached called eyes that see i still remember it great sermon about the apostle paul you knew first he was saw and then the scales came off his eye and then whoa and we're going to talk about that that seemed like more than a year ago to me this past year mike and i have tried to make and others have tried to make the case for christ in the book of john i hope we did it it was a fantastic journey for us next week next year we're going to start talking about the unstoppable adventure because these scared rabbits are going to turn into roaring lines for jesus christ and here's my hope here's what mike and i both are hoping that in this process of us talking about that if we got any scared rabbits that are looking in on live stream or in the fellowship center right here in this main room we want you to be a roaring lion going forward we have great things to accomplish in christ in 2021. we've got a culture that is still reeling and falling apart and the old answers of where they found they're not going to be there anymore we got new things to share and that's jesus christ and we're going to see it through a roaring church so my question for you today is this is there anything that you love more than jesus christ because the day is the day to put him back on the throne are you willing to confess and make him your lords what peter did you know that i love you you know that you know all things will you follow jesus christ today if you have any questions about that we want to give you an opportunity or maybe some sin in your life that you've never confessed just what i shared with you today in my own life in lisa's life today's the day to unleash the burden and start your adventure if you have a need why don't you come while we stand and why we sing

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Length: 33min 39sec (2019 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 28 2020