"Do You Love Jesus?"
(How do you know you do?)
John 21:15-19
---1 John 3:11, 16, 18; 4:7-12, 16-21; 5:1-3
Introduction:
Annie and I have been married now for 4 years. It’s funny how you can anticipate each other. You know there are those times when you know what the other one is thinking before they say it. There are these times when Annie will walk into the room and say, "How much do you love me?" She does not want me to profess my undying love for her. She does not want flowers. She does not want me to tell her how blue her eyes are. She wants me to go to the store because we’re out of eggs.
How do you know someone loves you? How does someone know you love them?
Now most of us in here, if not all of us, would say that we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior. But what if you were there at that fire with Jesus in the morning hours, and what if He looked right at you and asked you, “Do you love me?” How would you answer Him? How would you know that you love Him?
You see, Jesus said that the most important command in Scripture is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind (Mk 12:29-31) – in other words all that you are made of is all that you should love God with. Now people talk about putting their whole heart and soul into things – like their careers, their passions, some project and so on. But, Scripture only commands us to love like that when it comes to our love for God. He is our first love that Jesus commands us to never forsake in Revelation 2:4.
Do I love Jesus?
Before you answer that let’s remind ourselves that it is not our standard but His that we measure our love by. Jesus defines what loving Him looks like. First John 4:16 says, “God is love.” That means that He sets the standard because He is the standard.
Love for Christ is not our ideas of sentimental, mushy, romantic love. It’s not sharing pictures of Jesus on FB, having a cool bumper sticker or edgy “Christian” T-shirt. It’s not the fluffy music that we hear more of today where loving Jesus looks too much like loving your girlfriend. Or just as bad, loving Jesus looks too much like loving one of your bro's that you slap on the back and "hang" with.
Loving Jesus moves us to act, to sacrifice, to take on pain, to be clear minded and thinking, not blind. Real love for Jesus is seen in sacrifice and submission. It is seen in the goodness it brings to those who are not good.
It's seen clearest when you have to pray for strength to give it because to love the way Jesus says to love does not come naturally. It is supernatural. It goes against your natural feelings to love only those attractive admirable things of this world. Supernatural love goes out to those unattractive and unadmirable. The love of Jesus is consistent towards those who at times act unadmirable and unattractively.
That takes strength and we simply don't have it. We have to have Jesus in order to love like Him. This means we get our wants out of the way so Jesus can have His way with us.
Do we love Jesus? Four Evidences of having real love for Jesus.
Evidence #1: True Love for Jesus Eliminates Competition (v 15)
True Love for Jesus Eliminates. What does it eliminate? It eliminates any other love that competes with our love for Jesus. In verse 15 Jesus said, “Simon son of John do you truly love me more than these?”
What was "these" that Jesus was referring to? It could have been two things. First it could have been a reference to the fish, the boat and the nets. Jesus could have pointed to all of it as a symbol of Peter's old life. Essentially Jesus could have been asking, "Do you love me more than the things of your old life that you used to love?" Peter are you still turning back and going to the things of your old life? Jesus said in Luke 9, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God".
On the other hand, when Jesus said do you love me more than these, He could have been referring to the other disciples. Do you love me more than the other disciples love me? You see, the night that Peter denied Christ he had declared earlier that same night that he would never fall away from Jesus. In Math. 26:33 Peter emphasized his loyalty by saying that even if the others fell away he would not. He compared himself to the others. Now Jesus was bringing Peter back to that vow.
This is a good reminder for us that we should never allow love for any other person to come between us and Christ. Love for Jesus should be higher than every other love we have. Listen, if we love a child more than Him, He says our lower love for Him is not worthy of Him. If we love a parent more than Him we’re not worthy of Him. I didn’t make this up. Jesus said it in Matthew 10:37, “Anyone who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
Illustration: Dale Byers is a man who preached here back in December. He came to faith in Jesus Christ when he was about 22 years old. The thing is that he was a Freemason. His whole family was into Freemasonry. Growing up he couldn’t wait to turn 21 to become a freemason. He turned 21, became a freemason and joined the Lodge, and, not long after he became a Christian.
Well when he wanted to become a member of a local church the pastor explained to him that he could not be part of the freemasons if he was going to join the church.
This is what Dale told me, “I wanted to be a freemason my whole life and I finally just became one. But I knew that what I had with Jesus Christ I wasn’t going to give up for anything.”
The next thing he did was write a letter of dismissal where he resigned his membership from the Freemason Lodge and quit being a Mason.
Now in a Lodge the highest ranking person is the Worshipful Master. And that is who Dale had to give his letter of dismissal to. In the Lodge that he was a part of, it was his own father who was the Worshipful master. His father wouldn’t speak to him for years.
Dale was faced with a very tough situation: He could not love the Freemasons and Jesus. His love for Jesus caused him to eliminate a competing love in his life.
When we came to faith in Jesus Christ, we started a new life of love. We began loving someone new that we never loved before. The Christian life is one where we go forward in life loving Jesus Christ and leave behind the things we used to love. What did you love in your former life? Do you still put them ahead of your love for Jesus? Sports? Recreation? Career? Achievement? Popularity and image and looks? Pleasure? My old life and the loves of my old life are put to death. Supreme love is for Jesus. The rest is sacrificed for Him ("more than these", v.15). Don't love the world (1 John 2:15). Don't love family (Mth. 10:37). Don't love money (Mth. 6:24). Don't love to be loved by men (John 12:43). Don't love religion.We don’t look back. We don’t long for what we used to long for. Now that we have been loved by the Lord Jesus we have a new love that is for Him.
The point of this point is that Love can be measured by sacrifice. What you love most is what you sacrifice the most for. What you sacrifice is the thing you love less. What you love the most is what you don’t sacrifice. Now if we think about how we spend our time, our money, our affections, how would we answer the question Jesus asks, “Do you truly love Me more than these?”
True love for Jesus eliminates anything that would compete with our love for Him.
Evidence #2: True Love for Jesus Extends to Others
True love for Jesus extends to others. He says in verses 15 – 17, "feed and take care of my sheep". Notice two things here. First, if I love Jesus, I love those whom He loves. Jesus is the Good Shepherd (John 10:11), the Great Shepherd (Heb. 13:20-21), and the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4).
Right after Jesus gets Peter to affirm his love for Him, He immediately commissions Peter to care for the Church. In other words, be a shepherd to my sheep Peter just like I am a shepherd to you. His expression of love for Jesus is going to be an expression of love for those whom Jesus loves. That’s because Jesus recreates His love that He has for us in His own heart so that that love is in our hearts so that we have the same affection towards those whom He loves – the Church. Paul said in Philippians 1:8, “God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” It’s a special love for believers especially. Galatians 6:10 says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”
Our first love, and our first priority to show love is to those whom we fellowship with here at EFC. This love doesn’t exclude love for other believers or other people, but, our love for each other in here should exceed the love we show others.
The second thing to notice about this is that when your love extends to others it extends the Word of God to others. Jesus tells Peter, if you love me, then feed and take care of my sheep. Peter understands exactly what Jesus is saying. As a shepherd over the flock of Christ, Peter’s job was to feed the Word of God to the flock.
That’s exactly what we see Peter doing in Acts as he ministered to the early church. Acts 2:42 says the people were devoted to the apostle’s teachings…which means the apostles were devoted to teaching the word of God.
In chapter 6 Peter led the 12 Apostles to have the church appoint deacons to manage the food pantry so that Peter and the rest of them would not be distracted from teaching the word of God.
Later Peter said in 1 Peter 2:2, “Crave pure spiritual milk”, a reference to the Word of God. Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:21-2a, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word…”
***The Word of God is the diet that is prescribed by the Chief Shepherd. Teaching the Word of God is the primary task of the pastor. Without the Word the sheep will be weak, vulnerable, useless, confused, spiritually malnourished,
This kind of love is the loving care for those people who are part of His flock. Love is the motivation to care for their spiritual well-being and is expressed in all sorts of ways. But those ways are always based on the Word of God. Sometimes it is meeting physical needs (1 John 3:17-18). Sometimes it is encouragement (Titus 1:9). Sometimes it is forgiveness (Col. 3:13). Sometimes it is speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15) where we have to go to each other and lovingly admonish or even rebuke a brother or sister in Christ (Math. 18). This is all done for each other’s betterment, not their berating. No matter what, however, it is all done from the Word of God.
Leading spiritually is done from love for Christ. I must pastor because I love Christ first in my life. That’s how I can love you the best. I must love Christ first and foremost to lead my wife and children.
***This is important: Dad’s you are the first pastor of your homes. Not me. Not the youth pastor. Don’t buck that to anyone else because it is the Lord who has given it to you. Don’t ever let anyone take from you what is rightfully yours. I’m not responsible for how you raise your kids - you are. You are the first pastor to your wife and kids. See yourselves as pastors of your homes, make your highest love for Christ alone, and you will be the best pastor possible to your flock at home.
So real love for Jesus extends to others. We love others based on the Word of God.
Evidence #3: True Love for Jesus comes from Experiencing His love for us:
Thirdly, True love for Jesus comes from Experiencing His love for us. Peter denied Jesus 3 times. Jesus is now restoring him by asking Peter 3 times if he loves Him. Peter was experiencing the love of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus died for sins to take sins away. He has the authority to take away sins. He forgives sins because of His love. Jesus is showing Peter His love for him and when Peter saw this love it made this moment one of the turning points in Peter’s life. Never again would he deny Christ. John says in another one of his letters, "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).
To really love Jesus we have to really receive His love. Jesus restores us completely, not partially. His forgiveness is full, covering all our sins. And when you have experienced His love by receiving it and seeing it for all that it is, then and only then will you love Him for all that He is.
Evidence #4: True Love for Jesus Endures (v18-19)
Love for Jesus will cause us to Endure. Verses 18-19 say, “……….”
Peter didn’t endure the night Jesus was arrested. But Peter would endure from that point on. He would be faithful to Jesus for the next 3 decades of his life. In verses 15-17 Jesus spoke to Peter about how he was going to live the rest of his life ministering to the flock as a shepherd. Now Jesus speaks about how Peter was going to die as a martyr. His death was going to bring glory to God according to verse 19. Both Peter’s life of ministry and his martyrdom were going to be for the glory of God. As an old man Peter would be crucified as a martyr. But the thing is, even in the face of such a horrible death, history tells us that Peter saw himself unworthy to die like Jesus so he requested that the Romans crucify him upside down.
Love for Jesus means we will be prepared to suffer anything for Him, even death. What are you facing that the Lord wants you to endure? What are you facing that by going through in faith the Lord will be glorified? Peter lived another 3 decades after this conversation. All that time Peter lived with the knowledge that he was going to be martyred by crucifixion someday.
Do you ever think about your own death? Do you ever wonder how it is going to come? I can’t guarantee how long you’re going to live but I can guarantee you’re going to die someday.
Illustration of Timothy and Maura from Extreme Devotion, pg2.
(How do you know you do?)
John 21:15-19
---1 John 3:11, 16, 18; 4:7-12, 16-21; 5:1-3
Introduction:
Annie and I have been married now for 4 years. It’s funny how you can anticipate each other. You know there are those times when you know what the other one is thinking before they say it. There are these times when Annie will walk into the room and say, "How much do you love me?" She does not want me to profess my undying love for her. She does not want flowers. She does not want me to tell her how blue her eyes are. She wants me to go to the store because we’re out of eggs.
How do you know someone loves you? How does someone know you love them?
Now most of us in here, if not all of us, would say that we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior. But what if you were there at that fire with Jesus in the morning hours, and what if He looked right at you and asked you, “Do you love me?” How would you answer Him? How would you know that you love Him?
You see, Jesus said that the most important command in Scripture is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind (Mk 12:29-31) – in other words all that you are made of is all that you should love God with. Now people talk about putting their whole heart and soul into things – like their careers, their passions, some project and so on. But, Scripture only commands us to love like that when it comes to our love for God. He is our first love that Jesus commands us to never forsake in Revelation 2:4.
Do I love Jesus?
Before you answer that let’s remind ourselves that it is not our standard but His that we measure our love by. Jesus defines what loving Him looks like. First John 4:16 says, “God is love.” That means that He sets the standard because He is the standard.
Love for Christ is not our ideas of sentimental, mushy, romantic love. It’s not sharing pictures of Jesus on FB, having a cool bumper sticker or edgy “Christian” T-shirt. It’s not the fluffy music that we hear more of today where loving Jesus looks too much like loving your girlfriend. Or just as bad, loving Jesus looks too much like loving one of your bro's that you slap on the back and "hang" with.
Loving Jesus moves us to act, to sacrifice, to take on pain, to be clear minded and thinking, not blind. Real love for Jesus is seen in sacrifice and submission. It is seen in the goodness it brings to those who are not good.
It's seen clearest when you have to pray for strength to give it because to love the way Jesus says to love does not come naturally. It is supernatural. It goes against your natural feelings to love only those attractive admirable things of this world. Supernatural love goes out to those unattractive and unadmirable. The love of Jesus is consistent towards those who at times act unadmirable and unattractively.
That takes strength and we simply don't have it. We have to have Jesus in order to love like Him. This means we get our wants out of the way so Jesus can have His way with us.
Do we love Jesus? Four Evidences of having real love for Jesus.
Evidence #1: True Love for Jesus Eliminates Competition (v 15)
True Love for Jesus Eliminates. What does it eliminate? It eliminates any other love that competes with our love for Jesus. In verse 15 Jesus said, “Simon son of John do you truly love me more than these?”
What was "these" that Jesus was referring to? It could have been two things. First it could have been a reference to the fish, the boat and the nets. Jesus could have pointed to all of it as a symbol of Peter's old life. Essentially Jesus could have been asking, "Do you love me more than the things of your old life that you used to love?" Peter are you still turning back and going to the things of your old life? Jesus said in Luke 9, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God".
On the other hand, when Jesus said do you love me more than these, He could have been referring to the other disciples. Do you love me more than the other disciples love me? You see, the night that Peter denied Christ he had declared earlier that same night that he would never fall away from Jesus. In Math. 26:33 Peter emphasized his loyalty by saying that even if the others fell away he would not. He compared himself to the others. Now Jesus was bringing Peter back to that vow.
This is a good reminder for us that we should never allow love for any other person to come between us and Christ. Love for Jesus should be higher than every other love we have. Listen, if we love a child more than Him, He says our lower love for Him is not worthy of Him. If we love a parent more than Him we’re not worthy of Him. I didn’t make this up. Jesus said it in Matthew 10:37, “Anyone who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
Illustration: Dale Byers is a man who preached here back in December. He came to faith in Jesus Christ when he was about 22 years old. The thing is that he was a Freemason. His whole family was into Freemasonry. Growing up he couldn’t wait to turn 21 to become a freemason. He turned 21, became a freemason and joined the Lodge, and, not long after he became a Christian.
Well when he wanted to become a member of a local church the pastor explained to him that he could not be part of the freemasons if he was going to join the church.
This is what Dale told me, “I wanted to be a freemason my whole life and I finally just became one. But I knew that what I had with Jesus Christ I wasn’t going to give up for anything.”
The next thing he did was write a letter of dismissal where he resigned his membership from the Freemason Lodge and quit being a Mason.
Now in a Lodge the highest ranking person is the Worshipful Master. And that is who Dale had to give his letter of dismissal to. In the Lodge that he was a part of, it was his own father who was the Worshipful master. His father wouldn’t speak to him for years.
Dale was faced with a very tough situation: He could not love the Freemasons and Jesus. His love for Jesus caused him to eliminate a competing love in his life.
When we came to faith in Jesus Christ, we started a new life of love. We began loving someone new that we never loved before. The Christian life is one where we go forward in life loving Jesus Christ and leave behind the things we used to love. What did you love in your former life? Do you still put them ahead of your love for Jesus? Sports? Recreation? Career? Achievement? Popularity and image and looks? Pleasure? My old life and the loves of my old life are put to death. Supreme love is for Jesus. The rest is sacrificed for Him ("more than these", v.15). Don't love the world (1 John 2:15). Don't love family (Mth. 10:37). Don't love money (Mth. 6:24). Don't love to be loved by men (John 12:43). Don't love religion.We don’t look back. We don’t long for what we used to long for. Now that we have been loved by the Lord Jesus we have a new love that is for Him.
The point of this point is that Love can be measured by sacrifice. What you love most is what you sacrifice the most for. What you sacrifice is the thing you love less. What you love the most is what you don’t sacrifice. Now if we think about how we spend our time, our money, our affections, how would we answer the question Jesus asks, “Do you truly love Me more than these?”
True love for Jesus eliminates anything that would compete with our love for Him.
Evidence #2: True Love for Jesus Extends to Others
True love for Jesus extends to others. He says in verses 15 – 17, "feed and take care of my sheep". Notice two things here. First, if I love Jesus, I love those whom He loves. Jesus is the Good Shepherd (John 10:11), the Great Shepherd (Heb. 13:20-21), and the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4).
Right after Jesus gets Peter to affirm his love for Him, He immediately commissions Peter to care for the Church. In other words, be a shepherd to my sheep Peter just like I am a shepherd to you. His expression of love for Jesus is going to be an expression of love for those whom Jesus loves. That’s because Jesus recreates His love that He has for us in His own heart so that that love is in our hearts so that we have the same affection towards those whom He loves – the Church. Paul said in Philippians 1:8, “God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” It’s a special love for believers especially. Galatians 6:10 says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”
Our first love, and our first priority to show love is to those whom we fellowship with here at EFC. This love doesn’t exclude love for other believers or other people, but, our love for each other in here should exceed the love we show others.
The second thing to notice about this is that when your love extends to others it extends the Word of God to others. Jesus tells Peter, if you love me, then feed and take care of my sheep. Peter understands exactly what Jesus is saying. As a shepherd over the flock of Christ, Peter’s job was to feed the Word of God to the flock.
That’s exactly what we see Peter doing in Acts as he ministered to the early church. Acts 2:42 says the people were devoted to the apostle’s teachings…which means the apostles were devoted to teaching the word of God.
In chapter 6 Peter led the 12 Apostles to have the church appoint deacons to manage the food pantry so that Peter and the rest of them would not be distracted from teaching the word of God.
Later Peter said in 1 Peter 2:2, “Crave pure spiritual milk”, a reference to the Word of God. Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:21-2a, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word…”
***The Word of God is the diet that is prescribed by the Chief Shepherd. Teaching the Word of God is the primary task of the pastor. Without the Word the sheep will be weak, vulnerable, useless, confused, spiritually malnourished,
This kind of love is the loving care for those people who are part of His flock. Love is the motivation to care for their spiritual well-being and is expressed in all sorts of ways. But those ways are always based on the Word of God. Sometimes it is meeting physical needs (1 John 3:17-18). Sometimes it is encouragement (Titus 1:9). Sometimes it is forgiveness (Col. 3:13). Sometimes it is speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15) where we have to go to each other and lovingly admonish or even rebuke a brother or sister in Christ (Math. 18). This is all done for each other’s betterment, not their berating. No matter what, however, it is all done from the Word of God.
Leading spiritually is done from love for Christ. I must pastor because I love Christ first in my life. That’s how I can love you the best. I must love Christ first and foremost to lead my wife and children.
***This is important: Dad’s you are the first pastor of your homes. Not me. Not the youth pastor. Don’t buck that to anyone else because it is the Lord who has given it to you. Don’t ever let anyone take from you what is rightfully yours. I’m not responsible for how you raise your kids - you are. You are the first pastor to your wife and kids. See yourselves as pastors of your homes, make your highest love for Christ alone, and you will be the best pastor possible to your flock at home.
So real love for Jesus extends to others. We love others based on the Word of God.
Evidence #3: True Love for Jesus comes from Experiencing His love for us:
Thirdly, True love for Jesus comes from Experiencing His love for us. Peter denied Jesus 3 times. Jesus is now restoring him by asking Peter 3 times if he loves Him. Peter was experiencing the love of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus died for sins to take sins away. He has the authority to take away sins. He forgives sins because of His love. Jesus is showing Peter His love for him and when Peter saw this love it made this moment one of the turning points in Peter’s life. Never again would he deny Christ. John says in another one of his letters, "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).
To really love Jesus we have to really receive His love. Jesus restores us completely, not partially. His forgiveness is full, covering all our sins. And when you have experienced His love by receiving it and seeing it for all that it is, then and only then will you love Him for all that He is.
Evidence #4: True Love for Jesus Endures (v18-19)
Love for Jesus will cause us to Endure. Verses 18-19 say, “……….”
Peter didn’t endure the night Jesus was arrested. But Peter would endure from that point on. He would be faithful to Jesus for the next 3 decades of his life. In verses 15-17 Jesus spoke to Peter about how he was going to live the rest of his life ministering to the flock as a shepherd. Now Jesus speaks about how Peter was going to die as a martyr. His death was going to bring glory to God according to verse 19. Both Peter’s life of ministry and his martyrdom were going to be for the glory of God. As an old man Peter would be crucified as a martyr. But the thing is, even in the face of such a horrible death, history tells us that Peter saw himself unworthy to die like Jesus so he requested that the Romans crucify him upside down.
Love for Jesus means we will be prepared to suffer anything for Him, even death. What are you facing that the Lord wants you to endure? What are you facing that by going through in faith the Lord will be glorified? Peter lived another 3 decades after this conversation. All that time Peter lived with the knowledge that he was going to be martyred by crucifixion someday.
Do you ever think about your own death? Do you ever wonder how it is going to come? I can’t guarantee how long you’re going to live but I can guarantee you’re going to die someday.
Illustration of Timothy and Maura from Extreme Devotion, pg2.
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