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Image: “Christ's Charge to Peter” 1515 by Raphael
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Sunday, August 8, 2021
The Book Of John
Series: LOVED BY JESUS
Message: The Redeemer
Scripture: John 21:1-25 ESV
Pastor Philip Miller
Scripture Reading Ephesians 2:3-7 ESV
Ephesians 2 ESV and Audio
By Grace Through Faith
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
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Message: The Redeemer
Message: The Redeemer
Sunday, August 8, 2021
The Book Of John
Series: LOVED BY JESUS
Message: The Redeemer
Scripture: John 21:1-25 ESV
Pastor Philip Miller
Scripture: John 21:1-25 ESV
John 21 ESV and Audio
SERMON NOTES
Sunday, August 8, 2021
The Book Of John
Series: LOVED BY JESUS
Message: The Redeemer
Scripture: John 21:1-25 ESV
Pastor Philip Miller
The Redeemer: How do you find redemption?
How do you find redemption when you've blown it so badly? Are there second chances?
Peter was devastated by his thrice denial of Jesus. Even after Jesus was raised from the dead, and Peter had met him twice in the flesh, Peter was still thinking, “What must He think of me!?”
For those of us who know what it is to fail the ones we love, we can understand how desperately Peter wanted to open up to Jesus; and yet he couldn’t just bring it up. Jesus, in His mercy and kindness, brings it up for Peter.
For those of us who have failed and let down those we love, this passage from John 21 is for us. We’ll discover three things:
1) The Danger of Relapse: Jesus never gives up on failures like us. Peter may have given up on himself, but Jesus never gave up on Peter. There is always more mercy in Christ than sin in us.
2) The Grace of Repentance: Repentance is the tough grace that sets us free. It’s a tough grace that presses our hearts to repentance. We instinctively resist opening at every turn, but repentance is the only way to be free, it’s the only way to heal. Peter had denied Jesus three times, and so three times Jesus asks penetrating questions. Jesus presses deeper, exposing the deadliness of Peter’s self-confidence, and helping him confess out loud how very inadequate he really was. As Peter admits to the inadequacy of his own love for Christ, he is set free from a life of egotistical self-reliance. Peter, who used to think he had to prove himself to be somebody, discovers that the only thing that really matters in the end, is to be loved by Jesus.
3) The Beauty of Redemption: Brokenness is a prerequisite for usefulness. When Peter felt strongest, he was least useful. But when Peter felt weakest, he was greatly useful. Our greatest ministry is often rooted in our deepest wounds. God takes our misery and turns it into our ministry…because He is the Great Redeemer. Jesus takes each one of us as we are—underserving, inadequate, broken, and sinful—and in His mercy He redeems us, transforms us, and empowers us to be useful for His eternal glory and our everlasting joy. In the grace of God, we need not hid from our brokenness, for it is a prerequisite for our usefulness to God.
Takeaway: In the love of Jesus there is abundant hope for our stories.
No matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’ve become, no matter what’s been done to you, Jesus never gives up on failures like us. There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.
Philip Miller Senior Pastor
PASTOR TO PEOPLE
Today we come to the end of our series in the Gospel of John.
I don’t know about you, but the Lord has used this past year of slow reflection on His Word to open my eyes and heart to the depths of Jesus’ love for us. All thirty-eight sermons centered on basically the same core truth: our deepest and truest identity is found in being loved by Jesus. We aren’t so much what we do. We aren’t who others say we are. We aren’t even chiefly who we imagine ourselves to be. In the end, we are who we are, because Jesus loves us.
It is in Jesus that we are children of God. Because that identity has been achieved perfectly by Jesus and conferred upon us by grace through faith in Him, it is a durable identity. It can never be lost or taken away. It can never be improved upon or outstripped. We are fully, finally, and forever loved by our Heavenly Father for Jesus’ sake. To be in Christ, is to be beloved forever.
May we never forget who we are in Christ. In Him, we are loved, more than we know!
Pastor Philip
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