Follow Me

I invite you to turn again to the Gospel of John first of all to chapter 1 and to verse 35 and then to chapter 21 and to verse 20 John chapter 1:35 the next day again John was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said Behold the Lamb of God the two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them what are you seeking and they said to him Rabbi which means teacher where are you staying he said to them come and you will see so they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day for it was about the 10th hour one of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew Simon Peter's brother he first found his own brother Simon and said to him we found the Messiah which means Christ he brought him to Jesus Jesus looked at him and said you are Simon the son of John you shall be called sephus which means Peter and then in chapter 21 and in verse 20 the same Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had 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 so the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die but if it is my will that he remain until I come what is that to you this is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things and who has written these things and we know that his testimony is true now there are also many other things that Jesus did where every one of them to be written I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written this is the word of the Lord thanks be to God well let's just pause and pray together once again Our Father in Heaven who made us that we might serve you and follow you we need to acknowledge with sorrow and Contrition of heart that we do tolerate The Faults and failures of our lives and even in this day that is now pass too long father we have tried your patience too often we have betrayed your sacred trust the trust that you've given us to keep and yet you are still willing that we should come to you come to you in liness of heart as we seek now to do beseeching you to drown out our transgressions in the sea of your own infinite love our failure to be true even to to our own accepted standards our self-deception in face of Temptation our choosing of the worse when we know the better Lord forgive us our failure to apply to ourselves the standards of conduct we demand of others our blindness to the suffering of others and our slowness to be taught of our own our complacency towards wrongs that do not not touch our own case and our over sensitiveness to those that do our slowness to see the good in our brothers and sisters and to see the evil in myself our Hardness of Heart toward our neighbor faults and our Readiness to make allowance for our own our unwillingness to believe that youve called us just to small work and one of our brothers and sisters to a greater work create in us clean Hearts oh God renew a right Spirit within us cast us not away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from us restore to us the joy of our salvation and give to us the strength of a willing Spirit through Christ Our Lord amen amen well before we share in a song and then in communion together we come back to where we were this morning where we left off we essentially begin where we ended and we pick it up at the 20th verse here with Peter turning and seeing the disciple Peter has been recommissioned by the Lord Jesus and um Jesus has informed him very clearly about what awaits him at the end of his Earthly Journey his martyrdom awaits him it will come in due course but in the meantime the direction for Peter is absolutely clear and I want just to walk through this passage noticing it as it comes noticing first of all what Peter heard what did he hear what was it that he heard said to him if you look back up to verse 19 it was a straightforward statement follow me and as we noted this morning uh this is of course how it all began in Peter's life and in the life of his fellow disciples a call to follow Jesus and the promise that Jesus would make of those who became his followers Fishers of Men and you have that wonderful picture there that we read in the first chapter it's as though he says to Peter so you are Simon son of John you will be called sephus and if you know noticed as I'm sure you probably did in the examination of Peter this morning that took place Jesus does not refer to him as Peter but he refers to him as Simon Simon essentially means shaky in Jesus Peter was to become rocklike and yet in his denials he was anything but rocklike and I Think Jesus very pointedly is making that statement to him as he addressed addesses him Simon son of John he had explained to Jesus back in Chapter 13 that he was going away he explain to Peter he was going away he told him that uh he couldn't come with him Peter challenged him on that why can I not come and Jesus said where I'm going you cannot follow me now but you will follow me afterward of course little did Peter know just what was going to be involved in following Jesus afterward and the path that he was to walk between that statement then and where we find him now was not a straight path uh he was by personality created by God he was an adventuresome Soul he talked a lot he was a leader he was an initiator and all of those things under God and yet he had the capacity to be unbelievably audacious to Mark himself out as distinct from the company of those who were his Brethren and there can be little doubt that that Temptation succumb to on his part LED in large measure to his collapse but that collapse as we said this morning was not the end with God failure needd never be final and he gives him the opportunity for reaffirmation and in humility of heart he explains to Jesus I really do love you and you know me Jesus and you know that I love you and then of course with that having been said this little scenario on unfolds and what he's now hearing is the echo from the shoreline the call to follow him he hears this now through different ears we might say he hears this through ears that have been quickened and renewed by an understanding now of where he had been and how gracious Jesus had been understanding that all of the teaching of Jesus was now unfolding in a way that he' never fully grasped understanding that uh all that Jesus was saying about not being able to come had to do with the death of Jesus and also in the awareness of the resurrection of Jesus and I think this is really a huge Turning Point a pre Pentecost in the life of Peter that he now is able to say that he wants to do what Jesus wants him to do but he's not going to try and fish for people in his own strength um there's a wonderful hymn it's a baptismal hymn for many it begins oh Jesus I have promised to serve thee to the end and in the second or third verse it reads oh let me see your Footprints and in them plant my own my hope to follow duly is in your strength alone and so at this point uh Peter is beginning to grasp what Paul would later write to the Galatians the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God Who Loved Me me and gave himself for me that's what he's Hearing in verse 20 we discover what it is that he saw Peter turned and saw the disciple turned and saw the disciple that is identified here I I found it quite interesting I hope you do too that um that John plays this important role in the life of Peter so many times uh we know from back in Chapter 13 that when they were reclining at the table John because of his intimacy with Jesus was closest to Jesus and when Jesus had said that someone was going to betray him Peter actually says to John hey can you find out who it is and so Peter was then on the receiving end of the response that came from the lips of Jesus but actually uh via VIA John himself the same thing happened this morning as you will perhaps have noticed uh The Stranger on the shore is then identified by John Peter finds out who this stranger is because John has a spirit of discernment a spirit of discernment that I think was not necessarily granted to Peter they are very different characters John is a writer Peter is a preacher uh John is a thinker Peter is an initiator they're different people put together by God's design in order to serve God in the the way in which he has made them and it is this individual this John fellow that Peter turned and saw you notice it says and he turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and he said Lord is it who is it that is going to betray you uh the fact is that he sees him he sees him and I I I think he sees him and he and he sees him you know how when you see somebody and then you see somebody and I I imagine that he looks at him and he and he sees him I thought that it said in my text that he that he saw him twice does it say that yes it does say it twice I was looking for it and I couldn't see it I interrupted myself notice verse 20 Peter turned and saw the disciple then verse 21 when Peter saw him we already knew that he saw him why do you tell us a second time that he saw him because I'm suggesting to you that he saw him he looked at him he looked at him a familiar figure a companion a friend a fellow disciple and when he looked at him it stirred something in him because notice what he said that's verse 21 what he heard follow me what he saw the disciple what he heard what he said I beg your pardon when Peter saw him he said to Jesus Lord what about this man it's fascinating he calls him this man as well isn't it why didn't he just say what about John what about this man why is he asking is he asking out of a sense of empathy is he asking because he is the beneficiary of so much that John has done for him and so now that Jesus has explained to him what's going to happen to him in the end he's concerned about what will happen to John that would be an empathetic response wouldn't it a concern for his well-being if it's not empathy is it simply curiosity is it just an understandable reaction he looks at him and he finds himself saying you know you've told me that I am going to die and I'm going to die in a particular way is what you've told me about me also what's going to happen to this man that would be curiosity or is it perhaps a hint of jealousy after all how long can you hang about with people and the fell that you're with a lot of the time is known as the disciple whom Jesus loved well what about me does he love me well he seems to have a certain Intimacy in fact it goes the whole way through the letter doesn't it it could be jealousy after all Peter could say he this fellow Johnny seems to have an inside track he gets closest to Jesus he's the one who identified that it was Jesus on the shore he was in the courtyard too how did he get in the courtyard and get out and I got in the courtyard and got myself in a Royal mess answer you have a big mouth Peter John doesn't at least in part right jealousy am I being singled out Peter you already singled yourself out by denying Jesus three times but there it is I don't know make your own choice when Peter saw him he said to Jesus Lord what about this man now here's jesus' response in verse 22 I I take it that it isn't empathy because I think this is something of a rebuke it sounds that way doesn't it Jesus said to him if it is my will that he remain until I come what is that to you you who follow me it does sound like that doesn't it I think Jesus would have known if he was being empathetic if he was trying to outdo him by showing him honor if it's my will that he remains until I come basically he's saying listen Peter stay in your lane mind your own business just follow me he might have added you know which part of this clear directive are you failing to understand you've got to understand it it must be the application that is a challenge to you if you would pay attention to yourself if you would fulfill the assignment that I'm giving to you then you won't have any time for curiosity and you certainly won't have any reason for jealousy now this is long ago and far away and these are two fellows out of a larger band we know that they are essentially what we might refer to in contemporary terms as partners in the gospel they're gospel Partners they're different from each other all of them were different from each other and it was very important for me to think about the fact that we are prone I am prone I can be honest if you would like I'm prone to neglect what is my calling to neglect that and to interfere in the calling that's been given to somebody else but what about her what about him I mean what's going on over there in that situation and this is not something that's unique to the gospels because when Paul writes for example to the Thessalonians he says to them you have been taught by God to love one another we urge you to do this more and more listen and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own Affairs busy bodies in any context in an office in a church create absolute havoc and part of the answer to that and every school teacher knows it they have to say constantly to the class Brenda just you concentrate on your own material don't you worry about her don't you worry about him you take care of this it's a very simple and obvious thing but Jesus is essentially saying listen Peter John is not your concern he's not your concern you see the intimacies of a person's relationship with Jesus are essentially that intimacies there are intimacies there are intricacies that are part and parcel of a person's awareness of God and walk with God and following of God we're it's a shared experience in that the call is the same to us but the experience of it is different and we have different people who are Partners In The Gospel Bruce M helped me when in writing on this he actually said we need to remember that we in serving the cause of Jesus serve alongside those whose callings and Gifts may be will be different from our own even their instincts and their convictions in certain matters may not coincide with our own fact fact sinle Ferguson was here I esteem him in the Lord he has a strange view of baptism as far as I'm concerned he doesn't think that for a minute because he's convinced that I have a distinct view of baptism there two very different ways of going at things we're Partners in the gospel unless of course you're going to make a view of baptism the distinguishing feature of your relationships with other people no we do differ from them and we thank God for them and we thank God that often we are inspired and encouraged by them I remember years ago I was with Jake Lucas in London and we were having coffee and I asked him about a particular person who was um very influential and well known through throughout the um the community of uh faith and I had a question for him and in the course of the conversation I remember he said to me in his distinctive tones you know brother he is a problem but he is our brother in Christ he's a problem but he is our brother in Christ I think there's a lesson here for us at this point in the church uh the the I just came back from Europe to see how the importation of Divisions in America are funneled into the European context the people that can't get on with one another in the North American continent go into uh Europe and offer to them the same kind of isolated commitment that knows very little of gospel Partnerships across the divisions of various secondary matters it is really quite disturbing uh you remember the the somewhat humorous anecdote about the man who was converted uh healed by Jesus he was blind Jesus put M on his eyes and healed him uh sometime later on he met another man who had been uh healed from his blindness and the man said to him and so I take it that he put mud on your eyes oh no said the man no there was no mud in my case and that then gave rise to two new denom Min ations the mudit and the non mudit they they were unable to rejoice in the fact of what Jesus had done in their lives it had to be done in my way in a certain way and there is a lesson here beyond what we're seeing and you'll notice that Jesus statement here in 22 is then clarified uh by John in verse 23 so the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die and John says but Jesus didn't say he wasn't going to die but just if it is my will that he remain and so John is explaining this was hypothetical but that's the way the rumor start isn't it so they saying spread abroad among the brothers it was wrong and somebody had to make it clear that it was wrong the danger of traditions that begin to take hold that are not actually with Biblical Foundations at all a bishop R commenting along those lines uh says you know the moment a Christian departs from God's word written and allows tradition and authority to take the place alongside scripture he plunges into a jungle of uncertainty and such an individual will be happy if he does not make shipwreck of his faith altogether only the Bible solar scriptura verse 24 John is now signing off he's coming to the end of the letter and once again he introduces himself in the third person this is the disciple this is the disciple who's bearing witness about these things I've told the truth I've tried to do so with great clarity there are also many other things but we know that this testimony is true who is the we maybe the elders in the church in Ephesus maybe it's kind of the um the Royal we almost U which is there at the beginning uh we have seen and we know that's how the letter Begins the gospel begins now he says and we know that this testimony is true and we are going to see the things that we have had described to us because you will notice that little phrase that I passed over if it is my will that he remain until until I come until I come uh Jesus had made it clear to them that he was going to leave but he was going to come back he told them that a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and they will arise he told them um very tenderly at the beginning of 14 don't let your hearts be troubled you believe in God and so on I'm going but I will come back for you that there is a crowning day that is coming Paul as he comes to the end of his second letter is addressing it he says there is then I'm being poured out now like a drink offering the time for my departure has come and there is RA laid up for me a crown but not only for me he says but for also who long for his appearing and what a wonderful privilege it is to anticipate that one more insight from Bruce Mill that just was such a gem that I have to pass it on to you and it's the reason why I read those opening verses in chapter 1 this never occurred to me uh but it's so good that I want to pass it on to you um mil says as this Le this ends we follow Jesus we follow Jesus until either before or after our Earthly death he will turn around and look at us and we'll see him face to face and we'll ask him where he's staying isn't that fabulous I mean that is so good I just wish I'd thought of that Rabbi where are you staying come and see and they went to see where he was staying and Milan says there will come a day when he'll turn around and we'll say to him teacher where do you stay and he'll say you come come and join me and on that occasion he will actually be inviting us to come and to see to take us to the place that will be in fulfillment of his own prayer in John 17 father I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world now John says there's actually so much more there's no book that can tell it all the gospel points Us in the right direction I suppose that the world itself couldn't contain the books that could be written all the things that Jesus did all the things that Jesus said without even thinking about the pre-incarnate reality of Christ within the framework of the Trinity you just think about that for a moment make your head spin we're going to be able to spend the whole of Eternity thinking these things out and we will never ever exhaust our discovery of the unsearchable riches of Christ but for now eyes forward stay in your lane don't get distracted this is basic stuff Jesus says follow me follow me father thank you thank you for for the clarity of the Bible any lack of clarity is mine thank you for the straightforwardness and kindness of Jesus thank you for the way we see in the lives of these men their Humanity the fact that you chose these very different individuals Thomas the doubter Nathaniel the sons of thunder um Phillip with all of his followup questions and we look around on one another and we realize what a what a wonderful Panorama we have of your Amazing Grace and how good that we can acknowledge that we belong entirely to you and that it is as we follow close to you that we live in proximity with one another and how good that we can end our day breaking bread together and receiving from your hand that which you've provided for us just as you did on the shoreline on that morning so prepare our hearts for the moments that lie ahead and we pray in jesus' name amen

Channel: Parkside Church

Views: 3,231

Keywords: Church, Parkside, Bible, Teaching, Alistair Begg, God, Jesus, Sermon

Id: TmQOPEDnqeM

Length: 29min 41sec (1781 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2024