Feed My Sheep 1985

I'd like to begin by reading the first three verses of John 21. John 21, verses 1 through 3. After this, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. And he revealed himself in this way.

Simon Peter, Thomas Paul the Twin, Nathaniel of Canaan and Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. They say to him, we will go with you.

They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Most of us have at least tasted the joy of radical commitment to the Kingdom of God. We've at least tasted the pleasure, and that's what it is, pleasure, of making a clean break and saying from now on it's the Kingdom.

Most of us have also known the joy of seeing the power of God move into our lives and burn through our lives and come out again and touch and bless and heal other people. This joy is so great, so wonderful, that you'd think that having tasted such things, we'd just want to keep on going like that forever. That's how it should be.

And yet, as time passes, the novelty wears off. And things start, for some of us, to get boring. And for some of us, they become hard.

The Israelites, for instance, when they came out of the Red Sea, were singing and dancing for joy that they were out of Egypt. But after they had begun to penetrate the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, deeper and deeper into that wilderness, they were no longer singing and dancing as if they were out of Egypt. They were looking back on Egypt with nostalgia.

They forgot all about the whips, the slavery, the pain, the oppression. All they could remember was those onions, leeks, garlic, fish, what wonderful stew we used to have back there in Egypt at the end of a day's work. And here we have Peter.

There were only two other men in the world who saw the Kingdom of God as brightly and clearly as this man did. Peter had seen miracle after miracle flowing from the hands of Jesus. Peter had been up on that mountain.

He saw Jesus' face shine like the sun and His raiment become white as light. He saw Jesus hang on the cross and die. And he also saw Jesus alive from the dead.

You would think that would have settled it for Peter and sealed him into the Kingdom forever. But after a couple of times of seeing Jesus alive from the dead, Peter up one night and says, I'm going fishing. I'm going back to my old lifestyle.

And there's something in us which says the same thing. Which says, this Kingdom business is too intense. I need a break.

Why can't I get off the train and vegetate spiritually for a while like other people do? And so we try. We go back to our old lifestyle. For Peter, it was fishing.

The fun of it for Peter was to get out there in that boat and see how many fish you could catch and in the morning count them. Look at all we got today. For some of us, it was making money.

Seeing how much we could make in a week or a month or a year. For some of us, it was creature comforts. See how nice we can make our nest.

Or cars, boats. Sports. Antiques.

Collecting records. Pieces of art. Or whatever.

Every one of us has something. At least one thing, maybe two or three. And so we go back to our fishing, whatever it is.

And Jesus doesn't say to us, hey, where are you going? I thought you committed yourself to me. No, no. He lets us go.

Let's us do our thing. For Peter, it only took one night. Some of us aren't quite that smart.

It takes us years. But we end up at the same place Peter did. We end up with an empty net.

Reading on in John 21. They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach.

Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, children, have you any fish? They answered him, no. He said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat.

You'll find some. So they cast it. And now they were not able to haul it in for the quantity of fish.

That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, it is the Lord. Now this didn't begin to happen to Peter until Peter began to wonder what he was doing in this ship. How am I going to come back to this? What am I doing here? And it's equally the same for us.

It doesn't really happen until we start questioning. When we begin to ask ourselves, why am I doing this? Why am I flirting with my old lifestyle? Why have I come back to this? Why is this so empty for me now? It is at that point that there is this stranger on the shore who says, how's it going? You catching anything? No, it's going lousy. He says, cast the net on the right side of the ship.

You'll get something. Now it comes up loaded with fish. All the fish you could ever want.

But is this what we really want? Do we want to live with this pile of fish the rest of our lives? Now we have come to the place where we have to decide again, perhaps for the last time, where our hearts, our hearts really are. Jesus said to them, come have breakfast. Now none of the disciples dared ask, who are you? They knew it was the Lord.

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them. And so were the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed 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 fish? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. Second time he said to him, 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 the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the 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. Lord, it's not these fish I love, it's you. Now Peter had to say that with his mouth.

And so Jesus says, okay, if it's me that you love, prove it. Feed my lambs. Let me try it again, Peter.

Simon, son of John, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Tend my sheep. One more time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Do you love me? Lord, you know everything.

You know that I love you. Feed my sheep. Now the reason Peter went back to his old lifestyle, to his fishing, was because Peter wasn't doing anything about his love for Jesus.

When we don't do anything about our love for Jesus, it stagnates and withers and dies. We have to do something with it. We have to exercise it.

We have to express it. We have to move with it. Otherwise we will keep going back to our fishing boat and again and again and again until finally our vision is gone.

And there's really only one thing that we can do with our love for Jesus. One thing. And that's feed his sheep.

Do you love me? Feed my sheep. Now these sheep he's telling us to feed are not our burden. They're our life.

These sheep are our opportunity to express our love to Jesus. They are the ultimate way of saying thank you to him for his death and resurrection and the outpouring of his spirit upon us. These sheep, feeding these sheep, is our one reason for being in this world anymore.

So who are these sheep? And where do you find them? My sheep, he calls them. My sheep. I've ordained that they should be mine.

I've laid down my life for them. I've claimed them as mine. But they won't know that they're my sheep until you go to them and feed them with living bread which will open their eyes and open their minds so that they will know.

We're talking first of all about people who are already in our lives. Friends, relatives, enemies, people we work with. People in our lives to whom we have never even given a crust of the living bread.

Now we don't have to take a predestination scope and stick it on their chest and find out if they're one of the elect before we waste our breath on them. We don't know that, praise God, we don't. All we have to do is feed them.

Just feed them. If they receive it, well and good. If they don't receive it, that's up to them.

But we feed them. We come to them, usually one to one, but not always, usually one to one and we say, there is something, sit down, there's something I'd like to share with you out of my heart. Been wanting to share this for a long time.

I haven't had the nerve. But do you know that God really loves you? Do you know that Jesus is alive from the dead? And he wants to just flood your life with blessing. You don't have the nerve to say this to these people.

Do you know that there's a door out of the mess you're in? Do you realize that the kingdom of God is already here? We speak a clear, direct, personal word to these people. What a wonderful thing. Sometimes we pick up our ballpoint pen and write them a letter.

We put it down on paper. If you know, they read that thing 50 times. Or we pick up the phone and we call them long distance.

We reach out and touch them in the name of Jesus instead of in the name of AT&T. You love me. Feed my sheep.

But there are other sheep who are not in our circle of friends. We can't forget them either. We begin with the ones we know, but we don't stop there.

There are sheep whom we are to feed, who are not in our circle of friends. They are out wandering around the streets of the city of this world. They're roaming the highways and hedges, and they're dissatisfied, and they're discontented, and they're troubled, and they're angry, and they're afraid, and they're guilty.

And they don't know what they're looking for, but they're looking for the kingdom. And really, they don't even know it, but they're waiting for us to bring the kingdom to them. And they are easy to spot, because they're lost.

And you don't have to talk with them. You only have to talk with them five minutes, and they will tell you themselves in some way, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what it's all about.

There's something missing in my life. They'll tell you. When they say this to us, we lift our eyes to heaven and say, Thank you, Jesus, for showing me one more of your sheep.

And now we feed them. But in order to find and feed these sheep out there, we have to go out to where they are. Go into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, the rejects.

Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled. Go out, go out, go out, go out, go out. You'll find them.

They're not only easy to find, they're easy to feed. Easy, much easier than most of our friends and relatives, because they're obviously and clearly hungry, thirsty, eager, receptive, honest, open, forthright. And all we have to do is feed them.

Speak to them in the name of Jesus. Touch them with healing in the name of Jesus. Give them encouragement in the name of Jesus.

Bring them to the very banquet table of God. And they'll come. One of the signs, one of the signs that a congregation of believers is beginning to go back to its old fishing boat is that that congregation is beginning to become too respectable, uniform, comfortable, clubby.

Let's be very honest with ourselves. That is a very real danger for us. Real danger.

In fact, to be honest with you, I believe that that's starting to happen to us now. And we've got to nip it in the bud. Now, we needed this paint job.

The paint was flaking off. It was crummy in here. Why should it be crummy in here? And we needed this new carpet.

We had holes in the old one. We had to do something. But this new paint job and this new carpet will make sense and be pleasing to God only if they are used to provide a red carpet welcome to the lost sheep that we're going to bring into the banquet table of God.

See, the red carpet welcome is not for us. This isn't a country club. This is the gateway to the kingdom of God.

This is the place where we roll out the red carpet for the lost sheep, even if their feet are dirty, even if whiskey bottles fall out of their pockets. And praise God, that happened the first time we used this place. The other Wednesday night.

Wonderful, it was God speaking to us. We better listen. Even if they're up to their eyeballs in sin, Jesus says to us, to this congregation, these are my sheep.

My blood was shed to cleanse them, and my spirit is given to make them whole. You go out and find them. Feed them.

Bring them. Tend them. Welcome them.

Work with them until they are strong in me. And so, the reason I want to do this, I want to make sure everybody hears this. And so, the word of the Lord to the body of Christ worldwide.

Arise, shine, for your light has come. Translate down to where we are in this place at this time, to these words of Jesus, which he is now speaking to this flock, and to every believer in this place. And there's not one of us that that word passes by.

Let's take some silence.