We began from a dream of beloved relationship in a sinless paradise. But then our security met with unexpected interruption when our eyes opened to a scene east of Eden.
There we discovered dependence on prayer and seeking the Lord’s direction.
What if there is no escape from this misdirected chaotic place, even from a prison of isolation not of our making?
Our own prayer as one after God’s own heart longingly pleas:
Turn to me and be gracious to me, For I am lonely and afflicted.
Psalm 25:16
Prayer, and then.. ?
Jesus illustrates how prayer’s persistent knocking will guarantee relationship with our loving Heavenly Father.
I illustrated what it must have been like for our beloved friend David who awake to the knock of a friend.
Luke does not tell us anything from Jesus’ parable about the man who journeyed many miles to meet his friend late in the day. But you know him.
Most know Luke’s second scroll from which today I will take our illustration of a pilgrim with frequent traveler credentials.
Acts of Good News
He had an encounter with with the Risen Christ Jesus, then journeyed the rest of his mortal life from place to place teaching the Gospel to beloved friends in distant lands.
Saul of Tarsus – Breaking through Social Boundaries
How can we be in relationship with our beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord when we will not break the virtual bonds of artificial relations?
Saul of Tarsus was a socially connected leader of traditional religion and traditional values imprisoned by his zeal for righteousness of others; that is, until the Lord Jesus called him along a road to Damascus as an Apostle.
Paul preached the Gospel from prisons to public squares.
Saul (Hebrew name) or Paul (Greek name) encountered more social distancing by way of imprisonment and avoidance of former friends determined to kill him than any of us ever will. The instances are too numerous to mention here.
[They] instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. – 13:50
.. the crowds .. stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. –14:19
[leading businessmen of the town] .. seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the authorities… But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.. – 16:19b,25
||| — A.D. 2021 — | | | – Now what?
Prayer to the Father.
the Lord Jesus taught us that
Read God’s Word and open your heart to the Holy Spirit.
Reach out to fellow believers in faith, as so often the Apostle did by letter from prison.
and finally,
when you are released from your prison,
like Paul:
GO to those brothers and sisters,
who with you are members of Christ’s body the Church, beloved friends on a journey who love you and embrace the Good News.
Paul calls himself ‘a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.’ + Romans 1:1
He confesses that he is ‘called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.’ 1 Corinthians 1:1
Are you willing to be a slave of Christ rather than a leader of the worldly?
Like Saul of Tarsus can you admit that your own zealous works are nothing without confirmation of the will of God?
The Apostle writes a second time to the Church at Corinth:
Now I, Paul, myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am meek when face to face with you, but bold toward you when absent!
None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.
John 21:12 CSB
3 Questions & more..
As you read previously in Witnesses to Jesus Risen! – Simon Peter this third encounter of the Disciples with the risen Jesus includes John and five others fishing with Peter, but John draws our attention to Jesus’ questions to Simon Peter.
If you have not briefly examined the Lord’s exchange with Simon in Greek or love defined where they converse, you will find if helpful to click on the link above to the previous part of this post about Simon Peter.
Our focus is on just three verses.
John 21:
15 So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?”
He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.”
He said to him, “Tend My lambs.”
16 He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”
He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.”
He said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.”
17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”
John now adds his personal understanding of his fellow Disciple, Simon Peter:
Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.”
Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep.
Questions & Answers of Love
Last time we noted from the Greek a mismatch between Jesus’ questions and Simon Peter’s answers.
Furthermore, in the Lord’s first question to Simon He asks him about the others, who Peter ignores in his self-focused reply.
And I pointed out a possible motive for Jesus switching up His third question of love to Simon Peter.
3 Commands – Leading in Love
With all of this as background (to this 2-part post about Simon Peter), now we can view Jesus’ three commands to His Disciple He named, The Rock.
Let’s look at the Lord’s three commands to Simon Peter [SimōnPetros].
Tend My lambs.
Shepherd My sheep.
Tend My sheep.
All three commands of Jesus to Simon are similar. In Jesus’ first question the Lord’s reference to the others suggests to Peter a metaphor. His lambs (the others) require a comparative tenderness, even more so than simply watching vulnerable sheep. (Do not be the hired hand who flees the danger of the one that devours them.)
βόσκω– to feed, portraying the duty of a Christian teacher to promote in every way the spiritual welfare of the members of the church
ποιμαίνω – to feed, to tend a flock, keep sheep; but also to rule or govern
ποιμαίνω – again, the same verb for Shepherd, from the Noun ποιμήν for a herdsman, esp. a shepherd
And in Jesus’ parable, he to whose care and control others have committed themselves, and whose precepts they follow.
This applies metaphorically to any presiding officer, overseers (i.e. bishops, elders), kings and princes, and of course to Christ as head of the church.
“I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.
John 10:14-15 NASB – The Lord Jesus, Son of Man Sacrificed for our sins.
John’s understanding of Peter
Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?”
John tells us that ‘Peter was grieved,’ but as I mentioned before John has a great understanding of Peter’s heart.
For when John writes his Gospel sometime after A.D. 85, Simon Peter has already ‘taken up his cross’ and literally followed their Lord, Shepherd and Master to be crucified on a cross.
John grieves for Peter. He misses his own dear friend as he does his own brother James who also had been martyred for their Master, Christ Jesus.
Matthew confirms their reaction
The Apostle Matthew had used the same description of what all the Disciples felt when Jesus revealed that one of them would betray Him. “Surely not I, Lord?”
John explains Peter’s own grief of rejection for his failures of the flesh, breaking through an apparent hardness of The Rock who cannot answer his Lord directly about his commitment to love.
You will weep & lament.. and you will grieve
“Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy.
be sorrowful (6x), grieve (6x), make sorry (6x), be sorry (3x), sorrow (3x), cause grief (1x), be in heaviness (1x)
to affect with sadness, cause grief, to throw into sorrow
to grieve, offend
to make one uneasy, cause him a scruple
There’s a relationship between grief and love,
And there is no grief where a soul has not love.
Have YOU ever experienced grief in a loving relationship with another?
Simon Peter had.
John’s heart for their friend Peter (even after Peter’s death) desires to share the Disciple’s grief over his failings of their friend and Lord, Christ Jesus.
Jesus & Peter
NOTE: All these things had taken place in just three years, many events within the weeks just prior to Jesus’ Crucifixion, and now His Resurrection appearances to Peter, John and the Disciples.
Peter follows Jesus
All the Gospel writers except John testify how Simon Peter and others came to follow the Lord. (Many had previously been disciples of John the Baptist who baptized Jesus.)
MATTHEW 4 & MARK 1 also witness this important event
Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret.. And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s.. When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.” .. they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break.. their partners in the other boat .. came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink.
Does this sound at all familiar?
It was from when Jesus first called His Disciples, which must have been a most memorable moment to both Peter and John.
And listen to Simon Peter’s response to Jesus choosing him as His Disciple:
But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
Luke 5:8 NASB
For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.”
These three become Jesus’ inner circle and closest earthly friends.This is the Simon Peter for whom both Jesus and the Apostle John show compassion. “Tend my lambs…” and Simon’s surviving friend witnesses to the Church Peter’s heart for Christ Jesus.
When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.
Peter’s Confession of Christ
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon [Son of Jonah] Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”
And even though the Disciples had met the risen Lord Jesus in Jerusalem behind locked doors, here He fed them once more at dawn on a Galilee beach near Capernaum.
The Disciple Jesus loved testifies the Good News to the Church. It was here that Christ restored The Rock upon which their Living Stones have been built.
Simon, Son of Jonah, was also crucified when he took up our Shepherd’s Cross. The Disciples and Peter live in Christ Jesus!
In Him Christ has restored sinners like Simon — sinners like me, the one Jesus loved would say — and because like Peter you follow Him, sinners like you.
John does give us GOOD NEWS about death, yet most urgently the Gospel of Jesus Christ who died to give sinners like us eternal LIFE.
P.S. – John’s post script
The Apostle closes his Gospel with a brief explanation to Christians who know him and have heard ‘church rumors’ that are untrue. (Have you ever heard something untrue from a fellow saint of your church?)
We will hear John’s clarification of truth next time and briefly mention the importance of truth in our witness for the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus does NOT instruct followers to ‘love the world’ (as God so loved-the world…), but HIS first NEW commandment is to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
Jesus asks the Apostles who have been together for three years as a church, iterate followers in community with and taught by the Lord Jesus, to love one another.
We know from story after story how competitive His Disciples are, but now that Jesus will return to the Father His command is that they MUST love each other.
Church
Previously we examined the possibility of who Jesus commanded in:
We may also point ahead to more obvious application of his warning to the church of these last days.
Have you ever really met the ‘christians’ who come to your church?
It’s really difficult in this impersonal 21st century #social environment!
Our relationship to others of the Church pales by comparison to the close personal relationships of the Apostles to each other or even that of the saints of the first century church. Yet have we, the church’ possibly missed a relational community commanded by the Lord Jesus?
Let’s first look to a definition of church and scriptural application.
from ek, “out of,” and klesis, “a calling” (kaleo, “to call”), was used among the Greeks of a body of citizens “gathered” to discuss the affairs of State, Act 19:39. In the Sept. it is used to designate the “gathering” of Israel, summoned for any definite purpose, or a “gathering” regarded as representative of the whole nation. In Act 7:38 it is used of Israel; in 19:32, 41, of a riotous mob. It has two applications to companies of Christians, (a) to the whole company of the redeemed throughout the present era, the company of which Christ said, “I will build My Church,” Mat 16:18, and which is further described as “the Church which is His Body,” Eph 1:22; 5:23,
(b) in the singular number (e.g., Mat 18:17, RV marg., “congregation”), to a company consisting of professed believers, e.g., Act 20:28; 1Cr 1:2; Gal 1:13; 1Th 1:1; 2Th 1:1; 1Ti 3:5, and in the plural, with reference to churches in a district.
Since “It has two applications to companies of Christians, it’s worth restating from this definition of church:
(a) to the whole company of the redeemed throughout the present era, the company of which Christ said, “I will build My Church,”Mat 16:18, and which is further described as “the Church which is His Body,”Eph 1:22; 5:23,
(b) in the singular number (e.g., Mat 18:17, RV marg., “congregation“), to a company consisting of professed believers, e.g., Act 20:28; 1Cr 1:2; Gal 1:13; 1Th 1:1; 2Th 1:1; 1Ti 3:5
Church briefly defined then is:
ALL of the CHURCH, every true follower of Jesus, Master and Teacher of the Church.
EACH true believer joined to the CHURCH personally, relationally, locally and beyond all measure of both distance and time.
This is the Church which the Lord Jesus commands by saying, “Love one another, as I have loved you.”
We are called to Him, therefore we are called into relationship with Jesus AND His church.
And we are called out – to take His love, visible to seekers of the Lord in His Body the Church, the Personal Love of Jesus in the Holy Spirit by which He builds us into His eternal love.
A New Commandment
John’s Gospel builds the case of Jesus’ Authority, questioned by the Jews to whom He was sent.
Before addressing Jesus’ New Commandment given to the Disciples just after the last supper, take a brief look at His explanation about His obedience to God the Father.
A Chain of Command from the Father
John 10 & 12:
“I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me…
… they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.
… the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again…
I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
excerpt John 10 NASB
And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me.
John 12:44-45 NASB
49 “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.
50 “I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”
John’s Gospel has already set the scene for Jesus’ New Commandment. Let the church hear what our Master and Teacher Christ Jesus says to the church.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34 CSB
Beloved believer, does everyone know that Christ Jesus is your Teacher and friend? Does the world see your Lord and Savior by your love for one another of His Church?
Are you truly, my fellow saint, a disciple of Jesus?
Do you and Christ’s Church love one another?(And remember, they know us by our love of one another or deny Christ by our lack of love for each other).
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.
6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me…
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
John 14:15 NASB
The Spirit of Obedience
Witness by the Holy Spirit of the LORD
Recall that John’s Good News of Jesus Christ, the Apostle’s Gospel of witness begins before time:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
The Apostle John was first a young disciple of John the Baptist, known to many as a Prophet of God. John witnesses:
32 John testified saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’
34 I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
John also opens his Gospel testifying to the Authority of Jesus through the same Holy Spirit of the Lord God.
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
34 For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.
35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Do you hear the Spirit of Truth?
“… but he who does not obey the Son will not see life!…
Do you, beloved disciple of the risen Lord Jesus recall this?
Do we, HIS CHURCH, have ears to hear Christ’s commandment to the Church – “Love one another, as I have loved you:” is this not for us?
Verily, verily, you may know is a Hebrew tool of emphasis by saying something twice, here meaning truly, truly. The youngest of Jesus’ Jewish Apostles now emphasizes the strong personal relationship of our Lord’s NEW COMMANDMENT a third time.
Here was John recalling this most important time preceding Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Do you recall the intimicy of this setting in the upper room?
John 13:
So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?
“You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am…
“Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.
John 13:16 NASB
There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved… He, leaning back thus on Jesus’ bosom, said to Him, “Lord, who is it?”
This is the Apostle John, youngest of the Lord’s young Disciples, laying at Jesus’ breast as they all reclined at table. Consider what John means to have recalled Jesus’ emphasis on a New Commandment to love one another.
THE KING OF THE JEWS is about to become the SACRIFICE for sin on a Cross in Jerusalem!
Prophesy of Isaiah
Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, O scoffers, Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem…
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.
And Jesus said of the church:
… upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
Jesus, of Simon Son of John, who the Lord then called ‘Peter’ or ‘the rock’ – Matthew 16:18b
In the intimacy of an upper room meal with the Lord Jesus, who had washed the Disciples feet, it was Simon Peter who motioned to John to ask Jesus who His betrayer would be. Judas departs then the Lord COMMANDS three times that they must LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
This is My Command
12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you.
13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command you…
Are you, beloved, a friend of the Lord Jesus? And do you, fellow disciple, love one another – His Church?
“This is what I command you: Love one another. “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you.
Comman and encouragement of the Lord Jesus – John 15:17-18 CW
‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John (numerous times)
