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"Christ
Knows Everything"
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: John 21:1-19
“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
SISTERS AND BROTHERS this morning is the third Sunday of Easter; The
Gospel According to John has just shared with us his third
presentation of Jesus in his resurrected state.
Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day.
Three times Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, and three times
Peter told Jesus that he did love him.
And three times Christ told Peter to care for his sheep. Three is an important number this morning isn’t it?
When I was in seminary, being taught how to preach, we were taught to
make three main points in every sermon.
We were also taught that every sermon should seem to take 20
minutes regardless of how long it really took.
I think many of us did mistake 20 minutes for 30 minutes.
Some times two is more important that three.
I am going to talk about three ways to apply the truth that Christ knows
everything in our lives: (1) in our understanding of his resurrection,
(2) his interaction with Peter, and (3) our share in Christ’s
ministry.
Christ knows everything in us, about us, in our lives. He knows where he is in our lives; he knows how and what he
is praying for in our lives; and he knows where we need him in our lives
and when we need to realize he is with us.
Last Sunday, I mentioned that the early church defined the apostles of
Christ as those disciples who saw him in his resurrection.
When Mary Magdalene first saw him she did not know that it was
he. Luke, in chapter
24 tells the story of two followers of Christ walking to Emmaus, on the
evening of the Easter Sunday, and how Christ showed up to them, and
talked with them about the Hebrew Bible’s witness to the Messiah’s
death and resurrection. It
wasn’t until he broke bread with them that their eyes were opened.
This morning’s passage is the third story where Jesus is
present, but not known until God’s Spirit reveals him.
Jesus knows everything; we do not.
There are times in our lives where we are interacting with
Christ, and at the time we are not aware of it.
Later we will be; but there are times where we do not even know
that we are personally having communication and even communion with our
Lord and Savior.
Can you look back into your life and remember a time when you were
loved, taken care of, fed in some way, spiritually, or literally, and at
the time you did not think of this act of love as having anything to do
with the church or some kind of Christian function.
I sat at my desk, and for the first time in many years, I remembered a
bike wreck I had when I was in elementary school.
I was going down a hill, my bike fell over and I was knocked out
and lying on the road unconscious.
When I did wake up, it was because some man stopped his truck,
picked me up, and carried me home, because he knew who I was and where I
lived. Many people reach
out and help other people. And
we are very thankful. But,
here is what we now know. “It
is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
God is love. It was
not just that man who picked me up and rescued me; it was the
resurrected Christ in him who reached out and took care of me.
You look back into your life and find a time when you were loved,
that you may not have thought about for quite some time; that was Christ
in his resurrected life and love.
Christ knows that Peter loves him, but he does ask him three times: “Do
you love me?” In The
First Letter of Peter, where Peter is writing to Christians who are
suffering at this time in their life, he writes, “In this you
rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various
trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than
gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result
in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Peter’s point is not that God is testing us sometimes during
our suffering so that God will see or know that we have faith.
God knows everything. God
knows that we have been gifted with the faith of Jesus Christ.
Jesus did not ask Peter if he loved him, three times, so that
Jesus could find this out. As Peter said, “Lord you know everything;” Jesus
let Peter even get to the point where he hurt, so that Peter would know
in his heart that he does love Jesus.
If and when we are tested by God, it is not so God can find out what we
believe, hope, and love; it is for God to show this to us.
Many commentaries believe that Jesus asked Peter if he loved him three
times, because Peter denied knowing Jesus three times after Christ was
taken into custody. On the
last night Christ spent with his disciples he had told them that they
would all become deserters of him.
And Peter said, “Though all become deserters because of you.
I will never desert you.”
Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the
cock crows, you will deny me three times.”
Christ knows everything. And
it is kind of easy for us to be somewhat judgmental of Peter. I remember hearing one of my pastors telling us, “I cannot
live like Paul, but I can live like Peter.”
He was implying that St. Paul was very spiritual and faithfully
righteous, but that St. Peter was just a real person, like each and
every one of us, who time after time falls into various kinds of doubt
and sin.
Well, just because Jesus tells Peter, and us, that he knows Peter will
deny him three times. Jesus
is not being judgmental. He
is just showing us that he knows what is going to happen.
Peter may very well have denied knowing Jesus because in his mind
he was trying to think of a way to rescue Jesus and he didn’t want to
be caught before he came up with some desire he had.
We do not know. And
we are not to make a heart discernment judgment about Peter.
Jesus does know. And
that is between Christ and Peter. Christ
knew what he needed to ask Peter, and he knew how many times he needed
to ask him, even if it means some pain, before Peter came to know
himself about his love for Christ.
Jesus does end up telling Peter three times, that based on his love, he
Peter, is to feed and care for the sheep of Jesus Christ.
Why is this number three so important?
You know why.
Think about this beautiful story again.
These disciples go out fishing because of Peter’s idea. They fish all night long, but do not catch any fish.
They see a man standing on the beach and do not know who he is.
He tells them to throw their net to the right; they catch a 153
fish—not 154—and then John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, believed
this man was Christ Jesus.
After this moving questioning with Peter, Jesus tells him to go out and
feed his fish. What was
Jesus doing when the disciples were coming back to the land?
Jesus has built a charcoal fire and was cooking fish and bread.
Jesus was feeding sheep too?
Jesus had told Peter to go out and be involved in the same
ministry that Jesus Christ is involved in.
This story is not just about Jesus Christ and his disciples—all
his disciples—you and me, and all of us.
This story is not just about two parties, Jesus and his sheep.
This story, showing Jesus obeying God the Father, is showing us
three parties, Jesus Christ, his disciples—and God the Father.
And that three is pointing us to the most important THREE in
all reality. The Trinity:
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—One God.
Jesus Christ knows everything and everyone.
He knows you. He
knows me. He knows God the
Father. He knows us all in
the Holy Spirit. And when
he calls us, as the church, as his disciples, to love him by reaching
out and caring for his sheep, he knows that as we love and are loved
that we will experience the very love that he has with God the Father.
Jesus Christ loves God the Father.
God the Father loves Jesus Christ.
This love is empowered by the Holy Spirit.
And this love is in us. The
love that Peter had for Jesus was the love of God.
And maybe even his suffering a death similar to Christ’s was
what he needed to grow in his experience of God’s love.
Christ knows everything. He
knows what we need to know his and God the Father’s love for us.
Let us pray…
Amen
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