So, you know, you have to count the small wins in your life.
But you know, it's a strange thing to be a pastor or to be a
preacher who sort of makes their living by talking and giving
talks. And if you meet someone five
years from now who sat here at Origin and asked them, hey,
could you remember the sermon that was given on April 19th,
2026? And they're like, why are you
asking me that? You know, because it's a small
win if you remember. And the the strange thing is, is
that I spend and many pastors spend their time preparing
deeply and giving a talk that no one remembers.
We get in the car, we drive down the road and I asked my kids,
hey, what do you think of the talk?
What was it about? Can't remember.
You know, it's gone whoosh in a few days.
I can't even remember. It's just gone.
But but here's the thing. Sermons and coming to service
isn't just about this winning location for your mind.
It's actually meant to provide a sustaining diet for your life
with Christ. And so you don't even remember
the meal that you ate on April 19th five years ago, it was
20/21, it was COVID. What'd you eat?
You don't remember. And so a sermon is, is like a
meal. It, it's one of these things
that's meant to provide sustenance for the next little
run in your life. And every once in a while
there's something that reaches a bit deeper.
There's a a little truth bomb that gets placed deep in your
heart. And later in your life, it goes
off and you're like, I don't know where that came from, but
the Holy Spirit just reminded me of this, this thing, the
Scripture and my life. And it's a win if somewhere in
your years here at origin, a truth was settled in your heart
and mind, and the Holy Spirit makes it go off like a bomb.
Later in life, a few weeks ago, you might remember that I asked
you to remember your darkest failures, your regrets, where
you experienced a sense of great grief and loss.
We, we, we tend to romance the failures that come in our lives
a little bit. Brené Brown has helped us with
that. She's remind us, reminded us of
Theodore Roosevelt's famous quote about the man in the
arena. Roosevelt was giving a talk
about citizenship in the Republic, and he said it's not
the critic who counts. It's not the man who points at
the man who stumbles, how the strong man fell.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives
valiantly, who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while
daring greatly. I feel better about all my
failures, don't you? Not if it was Math One O 1 this
past. Week, I heard.
It was a tough exam. Not if we're like Peter, who has
to face the one whom he considered the best person in
his life, and yet he failed him. You see last week's passage.
The breakfast in Galilee is one of my favorite passages in the
Scripture because, one, I've grown up loving breakfast, and
two, I think Jesus is just amazing to have cooked breakfast
and reminded them all of the moment that he called them this
group of fishermen, how they had spent the night trying to catch
fish. And Jesus is on the beach and
says, throw your net on the other side.
And Peter says, hey, you know, you're the Carpenter, we're the
fishermen. But because you say so, I'll do
it. And he threw the net over and
they gathered up this huge amount of fish.
And in that moment, Peter was reminded of all of his failures.
And he throws himself down on the deck of that boat and says,
go away from me. Go away from me, Lord, I'm not
worthy of you. And Jesus says, don't worry
Peter, from now on you will catch people.
And so here in the breakfast in Galilee, Jesus is reminding them
with that miracle and that miraculous catch a fish of their
beginnings with him and the calling that they had had with
him. But Peter would have been
remembering his failures where just just the week before Jesus
had been crucified. And Peter wasn't there because
in the early morning hours he denied Christ three times.
He denied that he knew Jesus, he denied that this was his rabbi,
and he ran away. I wonder what it was like for
Peter when he came back and he saw the coals of that fire
burning there and thought about the last time he and Jesus had
been in proxemics of coals of fire.
At some point in that breakfast, Jesus addresses Peter.
They'd finished eating. It says if you have the
scripture you can find it in John chapter 21.
There we go. When they had finished eating,
Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love
me more than these? Yes, Lord, he said, You know
that I love you. Jesus said, Feed my lambs again,
Jesus said, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
He answered, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
And Jesus said, take care of my sheep.
The third time he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love
me? Peter was hurt because Jesus
asked him the third time, do you love me?
He said, Lord, you know all things, you know that I love
you. And Jesus said, feed my sheep
very truly. I tell you, when you were
younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted, but when
you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone will
dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.
Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter
would glorify God. Then he said to him, Follow me.
Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was
following them. This was the one who had leaned
back against Jesus at the supper.
And it said, Lord, who is going to betray you?
When Peter saw him, he asked, Lord, what about him?
And Jesus answered, If I want him to remain alive until I
return, what is that to you? You must follow me.
Because of this, the rumor spread among the disciples that
this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he
would not die. He only said, if I want him to
remain alive until I return, what is that to you?
This is the disciple who testifies to these things and
who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is
true. Jesus did many other things as
well. If every one of them were
written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not
have room for the books that would be written.
Peter and his story of failure and regret and shame actually
has a bit of back story and history.
Peter was the guy who was often daring greatly and he was often
falling on his face. Peter was often out front when
Jesus was walking across the water and Jesus says don't be
afraid, it's me. The the rest of the disciples
thought it was a ghost, but Peter says if it's you, Lord,
call me out. And Peter started to walk on the
water with Jesus, but then when he saw the storm and the waves,
he started to sink. Jesus had asked a question, What
do? Who do people say I am?
And Peter was out front again with the answer, Doesn't matter
what the people say, it's what we say.
When Jesus asked, who do you say I am?
And he says you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus says, hey, that's good, Peter.
But you didn't come up with that.
My Father in heaven revealed it to you.
And I tell you that you are Peter.
And on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell
will not prevail against it. It was just a few days later
then when when Peter heard Jesus saying, and you know, I'm going
to go to Jerusalem and I'm going to suffer there.
And Peter was like, never, no, that cannot happen.
By no means. He's daring greatly again.
And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan, you don't have in mind
the things of God, but the things of men.
So Peter was often out front, daring greatly, but his courage
was untried. And the night before Jesus was
betrayed, or the night of his betrayal, Jesus gathered with
his disciples, had washed their feet, and then said, where I'm
going, you can't go. And Peter says, where are you
going? I why can't I go with you?
I will lay down my life for you. Such courage in Peter.
He was daring greatly, but it was truly untried and it was not
the right time. And so Jesus says, listen Peter,
I tell you truly, truly, I tell you that by the time morning
comes, by the time the rooster crows, you will have betrayed me
3 times. Can you imagine your best friend
and you're walking down main Mall and there you meet someone
who's from another club, another Christian ministry, another
group that you really hope to belong to.
And and they, they say, hey, do you, do you know that person?
They're pointing to your best friend and you're like them.
No, I don't know them. They stink.
They're the worst. Peter did this three times.
Three times Jesus was just down in the courtyard being tried,
being beaten. And the last person who comes
says Peter, didn't, didn't I see you in the garden?
Weren't you the guy who cut the servant's ear off?
Peter says no, never. And he cursed and says I don't
know him. And then the rooster crows and
Peter goes out and weeps bitterly.
The other gospel writers say, what is this?
A fisherman weeping for his rabbi?
Such fear and conflict and shame and regret would have filled
Peter's life. How many of you would have
turned immediately and said, I'm just kidding, you know, you're
my great friend, You know, that's so hard.
That's so hard. You failed.
You failed your friend. You failed yourself.
And Peter had really experienced an incredible rupture in his
life about who he is and what he's about.
That's the only way I can imagine it, that this failure
was a terrible rupture of who Peter is, and Jesus is after the
internal emotional habits of Peter.
So when Jesus asked, hey, Peter, do you love me more than these?
It's possible that we might think, oh, Jesus is talking
about the fish. Do you love me more than fish?
Makes sense, No. Do you love me more than this
kind of work? Fishing work?
That hasn't really been the topic.
Instead, it's been the fellowship of the disciples
eating breakfast. And Jesus asks a very
provocative question. Do you love me more than anybody
else here? It's a trick question.
Who loves you more? It's a trick question, but the
trick in it is that Jesus is after Peter's internal workings,
that Peter himself was actually caught up in The Who loves you
more, who can serve you more? Who can be the strongest leader,
who can be the one who really shows up for Jesus?
And he'd failed at that. And Peter doesn't fall for it.
Peter has had enough of a rupture in his emotional
workings that he says, Lord, you know that I love you.
And Peter is getting off and out of the comparison trap.
This is Jesus's invitation to Peter.
Get out of the comparison trap. Because I tell you, when you
experience a great failure, you're going to be looking
around at those who seem to be doing well.
He's going to be looking around at well, John seems to have
stayed at the cross. John the beloved disciple, John
the one who was the closest friend.
John stayed at the cross, but I did not.
He would have been playing that game of comparison.
And Jesus is inviting him from his regret, from his shame, from
his failure to quit comparing himself to others.
Listen, friends, grades. Grades are just a small snapshot
of comparison on that day. They do not define your life.
Now, comparison actually is a little bit helpful, but it can
become a deadly spiritual virus. Before we get to it, let me just
say comparison is helpful, especially when it is about
excellence and admiration. Dear friends, Paul writes.
Brothers and sisters think on that, which is admirable.
So if you think on a person who is admirable and you're not
playing the comparison game, you actually go, wow, that Bethany,
she is fantastic at the piano and I so admire the way the Lord
works in her life. Wow, Noah, he plays the guitar
so well and leads us in worship, and we can go down the whole
worship team and say this is admirable in their excellence
and well, I want to be like Bethany.
How many of you said that? I want to be like Catherine.
I want to be like Noah. Hey there.
Wow, look at that, Noah. It's good, but when you see
excellence and and you're not in the comparison game, it's not
the condemnation of comparison, it's actually the admiration
that says, oh, there's excellence there and I'd love to
have some of that in my life. Where can I develop the unique
abilities that I have that can be built and fanned into flame?
That's good comparison. It works, it's great, but
comparison can be a deathly spiritual virus, and I believe
for Peter it was that envy, rivalry and rage was just at the
cusp of Peter's heart and life. James.
Says where you have envy and selfish ambition, then you will
find every evil practice. When our admiration flips into
envy, then we're in trouble. When the envy is that, oh,
everyone else is succeeding, they got the scholarship, they
got the call to the NFL or the NBA and I never got it and it
crushes us or I I'm so mad. They got the the best grade in
the class. They probably cheated.
And and so immediately you start this story in your own life that
condemns them and you it can create a great deal of
insecurity. Jesus told stories of comparison
that he didn't recommend of a Pharisee and a tax collector who
had gone to pray at the temple. And even in their prayers, the
Pharisee was saying, oh God, I thank you that I'm not like
other people. Don't you see it, Lord?
I'm not like the robbers and the adulterers and those who steal.
I'm not like that tax collector right there.
Can't you see the difference, God?
And so his pride puffed himself up.
His insecurity puffs himself up. Insecurity of comparison creates
overcompensation and we can track very quickly to legalism.
Comparison can crush the heart of a child if the parent is
always saying, well, why can't you be like your cousin Albert?
Why can't you be like your sister Sue?
Why can't you be like? And that is a crushing viral
spiritual disease. It creates immense insecurities
in US and it causes us to misplace our values.
Right. In the 10 commandments it says
of comparison, you shall not covet anything of your
neighbors, not your neighbour's wife, nor your neighbour's
servants, nor your neighbour's animals or anything else that
your neighbor has. You will not covet it.
Envy for it, which ultimately leads you to take it because you
say I deserve that, I'm owed that, I'm entitled to that.
And so we take it from them. Give credit where credit is due.
If someone else on your team does something well, let them
know it. Don't take credit for it.
Celebrate it. Don't steal another's glory.
In fact, the way comparison works is it makes us tone deaf
to grace. If you find yourself in the
emotional traps of comparison after a failure, after things
didn't go well, after regret, it makes it difficult to hear grace
in your life. Jesus has been exhibiting great
grace to Peter. They're having a conversation.
It's gone really well. And then he notices that John,
the beloved disciple, is sort of tagging along them on their
walk. And Peter says, but what about
him? Peter?
Peter's tone deaf to grace. He only sees John, who succeeded
in staying with Jesus to the end.
And he's like, well, what about him?
And Jesus basically says, Peter, let me plan your life with you.
Let me plan his life with him. When we're really struggling in
this rupture of comparison, we will be tone deaf to grace for a
while. We're We won't be willing to
accept what God has done for us. We won't be willing to accept
the great love of God. We will struggle with the
embrace and reception of God when we failed, especially if
our identity was really based in winning all the time, if our
identity was based in being the best all the time.
Some of you lived that rupture when you went from high school
to UBC, and you're like, my God, I'm surrounded by so many smart
people and it's so hard. But every rupture like that is
an opportunity for God to reshape your heart.
That's what Jesus is really after.
He's really after reshaping Peter's affections and the
center of his life. Jesus says, Simon, son of John,
do you love me? And he answered, yes, Lord, you
know that I love you. Then take care of my sheep.
Take care of my sheep. Do you love me?
He asked him 3 * 3 times. Peter denied him.
It really hurt. Jesus says you must follow me.
Do you know it's a It's a really difficult question to ask to
answer. Do you love me?
Especially when God asks it because our relationship with
God is so asymmetrical. God loves us so much and my love
seems so small. My faith seems even smaller at
times. God's faith in me seems so
large. My faith in myself seems so
small at times. God's ability to provide is so
large, but mine seems so small at times.
And so the asymmetrical relationship with God seems
really challenging. If God himself says, do you love
me? But every command of God is
weighed in the balance of love God and love people.
So welcome to our challenge of being Christian.
And every time we find that we did not do that well, we confess
it to the Lord and we must hear with Peter, Jesus is reset.
Do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you.
Is that in your own heart? Yes, Lord, I love you.
You know all things, you know that I love you.
And Jesus says, follow me. You must follow me.
You must become a student of the Rabbi Jesus.
You must become one who's been embraced and brought into his
salvation family just by relinquishing the rights of your
life to him. And that's how it starts for all
of us. Jesus is unfolding his
assignment through this conversation.
He said a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
And Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, do you
love me? And he said, Lord, you know all
things. You know that I love you.
And then Jesus says, feed my sheep, Feed my sheep.
What does a fisherman have to do with sheep?
This is all a metaphor. Take care of my people.
In the history of Israel, there was an occasion where God said,
I'm going to judge Israel by raising up a foolish shepherd.
You can say to your neighbor a foolish shepherd, What in the
world is a foolish shepherd? A foolish shepherd?
He goes on to say, as one who fails to do 4 things, a foolish
shepherd fails to care for the lost.
You know, sheep get lost, Sheep run off.
Sheep was like meh, grass. And they just go for it and they
don't think about where they're where it's taking them.
And you can lift a sheep out of a ditch and they will say grass
and they'll fall back in one more time and they'll do the
same thing over. The foolish shepherd fails to
care for the lost. The foolish shepherd, it says in
Zechariah, not only fails to care for the lost, they fail to
seek the young. Sometimes when a young lamb is
born, she becomes separated from the mother, or the mother fails
to attach to the child she had just born.
And so the shepherd must come along and use various strategies
to find that young lamb. So valuable, right?
To find that young lamb and then actually work to help create
attachment with that mother. The foolish shepherd fails to
find the young, fails to value the new young believer.
The third thing a fool of shepherd does is they fail to
heal the injured. So that sheep that fell in the
ditch shattered its arm, its leg, it was broken.
But the Good Shepherd comes and takes them up and resets.
That bone heals. And then finally.
The foolish shepherd fails to feed the healthy.
Just says. Well, hopefully the.
Healthy will just take care of themselves.
Fails to think about. Where do the healthy need to be
moved next together? And so Jesus has a great
tradition of shepherding and leading the flock of Israel to
draw from. And he has a great tradition of
the expectation of the Good Shepherd.
And so he's saying to Peter, listen, I want you all.
I want you to be all about taking care of this flock of
people that I'm creating, this new Israel that I'm creating.
I want you to be a part of taking care of it.
Now do you know what Jesus is doing here?
He's re elevating Peter to the very prophetic role that he had
called him to remember what had happened when Peter said you're
the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus says. You're Peter.
He's actually saying you're like a rock.
And on this confession, I'm going to build my.
My church. I'm going to build my flock of
people so he's. Reinstating.
Peter here to the very role to which he had called him.
When we fail. We lose sight of what we've been
called to and. Jesus wants to restore.
It. Dear Church, when the church.
Fails. Jesus wants to restore our
affections to him, and he wants to restore the vision to which
we have been called, the ministry of taking care of
people. It is our.
Together, ministry as the church to take.
Care of people. To care for the lost, to seek
the young, to heal the injured and feed the healthy.
When Jesus called Peter. Off that boat, this is what he
was calling into. And he's seeking to enfold.
Him again into his great mission and ministry.
Jesus's or Peter? 'S comparison game would never
work. He's going.
To be comparing himself. To Paul, in fact, he he later
says of Paul, you know his writings are difficult to
understand. You know Peter got.
Into trouble later when he was wanting to compare himself to
other people and he was afraid of being rejected because he had
been hanging out with Gentiles, the people who were outside the
flock. Jesus says I've got people who
are outside the flock, I want to call them in.
And later Peter was right at the front of that.
But then when he was worried about what others would think,
he he shrank back. But he had to be called forward
again, I find. A lot of hope.
In that for us and for myself. You see, Jesus is.
Very interested in your spiritual formation.
You are all being spiritually formed you by something.
You all have emotional internal habits, some that are helpful
and some that are not. Some that will help.
You to a certain point in your life and then they don't work
anymore for. Example.
When I fell down, my parents would say, oh, just get up and
shake it off, right? That became an internal setting
for me. If you fall down, if you fail,
you get up and you shake it off you.
Can tell your neighbors. Shake it off.
And that worked for a long time until it didn't work anymore.
I. Had a sense of.
Failure and regret and shame in my life that I could not seem to
shake off. And I'm like, I'm going to.
Have to learn something different, and I only recognized
that after I'd sort of banged myself against the wall a few
times. This is not working.
I can't shake this in my internal world.
It's going to require something different.
So Jesus will take both your. Wins and your losses to help you
grow and be formed in him. Jesus will.
Will will try to draw you out from the condemnation of
comparison. When you find that you're
totally always in the gap about your life and about others, and
you're like, this keeps happening to me, then maybe
Jesus is trying to free you from it.
Jesus will. Always seek to take your
vocation, not your vacation. He might take your vacation.
Jesus will seek to take your vocation and show you our common
call together to care for people.
If your vocation is. Teaching or in business.
If your vocation is in gardening or the forest.
If your vocation is in public policy or in the hospital.
If your if your vocation is in accounting or in pharmacy.
If your vocation isn't building things excellently and well, if
your vocation is in restoration, Jesus will still always seek to
enfold you and your vocation into His great work of loving
people. That's what he's after.
Is that? You would experience the.
Love of God and that you would join him in loving others.
To do that, you're going to have to take a long walk with Jesus.
I I love this passage. Let's just look at this picture
here. John's a genius.
At least Jesus and God are geniuses too.
Do you? Know Genesis.
Begins by saying in. The beginning God.
Created heavens and earth. In John chapter one it says in
the beginning was the word the word.
Was with God. He was with God from the very
beginning. And so.
The book of John is meant to help us see God's creating power
at work once again. And should it surprise you that
here at the end of the Gospel, we have come back to the garden?
What did Mary say when she saw Jesus in the garden?
She was like, oh, if if you're the garden Gardner, you must
tell me where they took him. She mistook Jesus as if he was
the gardener. And so I love this artist from
1500s and and they've looked Jesus is even sucking on a
little piece of straw. He's got a a spade in his hand.
He's got nail scars in his hand. The gardener.
John. Shows us that we're we're back
in the garden and what happens in the garden before the fall
what happened in the garden eve and Adam walked with God in the
garden and. Then what do we end with?
In this passage in John, we end with Jesus taking Peter on a
walk. Peter.
The son of Adam. He's taking.
Him on a walk and he's restoring to.
Him. His identity, his personhood,
his. Love relationship with.
God, his sense of vision, He's restoring it.
You and I need to take a long walk with Jesus.
It's strange what happens. On a long walk in Theo of
Golden, there's a great passage where a person has had a
terrible loss, and it says of them that they were drawn to
walking even. In his darkest.
Hour. He was drawn, if unconsciously,
to space and color. And so he walked and walked and
walked every day as if life depended on it.
He walked alone, tirelessly and desperately.
His walking was driven by fear and hope.
Fear of the thoughts that would catch him if he sat still, and
hope that he might somehow walk himself into a stupor or
oblivion, or better, into the place where he would find the
one he lost. The temptation, or to drug
himself into sleep was never strong enough to overcome his
remembrance of what that power had already taken from him.
Eventually the dark spell broke. After weeks of walking, the
beauty that had surrounded him, the beauty to which grief had
temporarily numbed him, became consciously present again.
Go walk with Jesus in the garden of his creation.
All the earth is. The Lord's.
When you feel grief. Shame, regret, take a walk with
Jesus, let him ask you questions.
Some of the questions that he asked Peter, do you love me?
You might ask you might ask God, do you love me?
But. You might also find.
God himself asking here, do you love me?
And then know. That with Jesus you can rise to
the occasion. With Jesus you can.
Rise up to every occasion into which He has called you.
And he's resetting your. Heart and your life and all your
relationships. This is the the.
Delight we take in coming to this table that Jesus the Risen
1. Came and invites us.
To the table that was only accessible through Friday.
Through Saturday. And then came Sunday.
And. So God can take.
Every rupture, every great failure and he can reset in your
life. A new creation.
So even as we take this bread, in just a moment, I'm going to
ask the worship team to come. When we take this bread, we
remind ourselves Jesus laid down his life for me.
Even when I failed, Jesus poured out His life for me so that I
might be forgiven for every failure in my life.
And then he resets. Us and calls us into something
great and glorious. Let's stand together.