Characteristics of a Committed Christian
John 21:15-25
Chapter 21 of John, this morning, and this morning is a farewell. I'm not leaving but John is. I'm like the poor, you always have me with you. But this is our last study in John's gospel, Lord willing. And so we come to chapter 21 verses 15 to 25. It's very difficult to say farewell to John. We will not say farewell, it is indelibly in our hearts and shall be crossed reference for years to come. But as we come to chapter 21, particularly verses 15 to 25, rather than just read through the historical narrative, I want to do what I know the Spirit of God wants me to do, and that is to apply the principles of the historical narrative to the action of your own lives. And I want to talk to you on the characteristics of a committed Christian.
Now as Christians, we frequently talk about commitment. And, you know, having been in a church repeatedly, as most of you have, you have heard many preachers say you ought to be more dedicated, more committed, consecrated, re-consecrated, rededicated, whatever. And it's a valid thing because what they're talking about is the idea that now that you're a believer and you've received Jesus Christ, you need to really commit your total life into His total control for the expression of His will and power through you. It amounts to the elimination of yourself in order that Christ might live totally through you as He designs. And preachers and teachers urge people constantly, week in and week out, day in and day out, to be committed to Jesus Christ, not just born again, not just saved, but obedient, yielded, Spirit-filled, walking in the will of God kind of Christians. And it's valid, as I say. It's important.
I'll never forget, however, an incident that illustrated to me that much of the appeal is contentless and that though people are told to be committed, they really don't know what it's all about many times. I was in a camp and I was sitting in the back while a speaker was speaking and having completed the message which was full of inspiration and nothing else, and a lot of emotion and everybody was getting worked up and certain kids were crying and there wasn't really any content, no Word of God, but lots of stories that made you cry and things. At the end, he said...the speaker said, "Now we want commitment. Now everybody who wants to commit their life to Jesus Christ come up here and take a pinecone and throw it in the fire." You know, you've been through that thing in a camp, which is okay, testimony time. And so, kids came by and said, "I want to dedicate my life to the Lord," and zap, they threw their pinecone in the fire. One kid came up, I'll never forget it. And the speaker had made a heavy emphasis on dedicating your time to God. And so he said, "I want to give my time to God," he ripped off his watch and threw it in the fire.
Now, you know, I appreciate his spirit and I appreciate what he was doing, but that's not what you do when you want to commit your time to God. That's poor stewardship. You have to go out and buy another watch. And, you see, here is...this is kind of a graphic illustration to me, and what goes on very, very much and that is great emotional appeals to people to be real disciples and following Jesus without ever any instruction about what it's about. Or how to follow Jesus Christ in the area of commitment. And I don't want to be guilty of emotionalizing commitment without any content, so when I talk about commitment, I'll talk to you out of the twenty-first chapter of John verses 15 to 25 because in there you have the principles of commitment. And I'll let the Spirit of God stir up your emotions. I'll work on them a little bit. But I'll let the Spirit of God be responsible for that in response to what you learn from the Word of God. So, this morning as we look at these verses, particularly I want you to see the four characteristics of commitment that are in these verses and they are factual.
Now before we look at these four, I must review since this will be our parting time with John, and give you again a little repeated insight into what's going on in chapter 21. John has been writing now 20 chapters. And at the end of chapter 20 he really closed the main body of his message. When he wrapped it up in chapter 20 with verse 31, he said that the reason I've written all of this is that you might believe that Jesus, that is the human Jesus, is in fact the Christ which is a New Testament word for the anointed which is the Old Testament word Messiah, Jesus is Messiah, He is the Son of God and that believing you might have life through His name. All 20 chapters written to show that Jesus, a human being in human flesh, is Messiah, is God and that you believing in His name may come alive to eternal and abundant life. That's the purpose of John's gospel and in its total purpose it kind of wraps up in chapter 20 verse 31 so that chapter 21 then becomes an appendix, in a literary sense, not in a medical sense. In a medical sense, an appendix is worthless. In a literary sense, it is very important because it ties together loose ends and John and the Holy Spirit don't leave loose ends. And so what is not really fully dealt with in the 20 chapters is kind of summarized in terms of answering questions in chapter 21. So John pulls together the loose ends, those things that he has not fully explained. And he puts them in chapter 21. He hung around just long enough to do that.
And this is not an uncommon situation. I think about my own self. Many times on Sunday mornings, for a long time, having completed my message, I always remain up here and without exception, many times, I don't think there's a service that goes by, people will come up afterwards...the reason I stay here and not at the door is because I want to be available to the people who need an appendix to my message. In other words, the people who have questions that have arisen out of the message that they did not understand are the ones that come and speak with me, rather than just everyone. So I feel that I must be available to kind of sum up what I've said and defend the parts that maybe weren't too clear or left unsaid. And that's exactly what John is doing so I have a biblical base for doing it. In 21, he's pulling together the loose ends.
Now, quick review. There are five questions that were kind of left a little bit vague at the end of chapter 20 that John answers in 21. We can divide 21 into five little sections, each of which answers a question left unanswered in the gospel.
The first question that was kind of hanging there for a while was, "Now that Jesus has risen, now that He is in His glorified body, now that He's going to ascend to the Father and the fact that He told Mary not to hang on to Him cause He had to leave and there was no more going to be that kind of relationship physically, does that mean that Jesus no longer will provide for the needs of His own in an intimate way? Is Jesus saying, in fact, that now this relationship is severed and you're on your own totally. The answer to that is in verses 1 to 14, and what's the answer? No. The answer is, "I will provide for you even after My resurrection," and He proves it by providing for them not only so many fish they could hardly get them in, but He also made breakfast for them, didn't He? And what He was saying in a living parable was, "Gentlemen, it is not over, I will continue to provide for you beyond what you really need even." And so the answer to question number one.
Question number two that was left at the end of chapter 20 was this, "What ever happened to Peter?" If all we have is John's gospel, Peter just kind of washes out at the end. First he denies Jesus Christ, then he flees at the cross. The next thing you know, Jesus has risen from the grave and John believed, but Peter just stood around wondering what was going on. And if Peter is to be the great leader of the apostolic group, if he's to be the great dynamo on the day of Pentecost, if he's to be God's man to move in the beginning of the church, it's kind of a hopeless situation if all we have is the end of chapter 20 because Peter just kind of fades into oblivion. And so the question that's left in your mind is, "What about Peter?" So verses 15 to 17 answer that and that's Jesus restoring Peter to the place of leadership among the Apostles. Very important that He do that.
The third question that's unanswered at the end of chapter 20 is this, "What about the future of all the disciples?" Now that Jesus is leaving, who takes care of us? Who is going to determine our life and our death? Is our destiny in somebody's hands? The answer to that is in verses 18 and 19a where Jesus the destiny is in My hands, don't you worry about that, I'll guide your life and I'll guide your death. That answers that question.
The fourth question that came up and it came up really because of this incident here at the Sea of Galilee was the question about whether the Apostle John would ever die or not because Jesus had made the statement, as we'll see a little later, to Peter. He said, "What do you care if John lives till the Second Coming, it's none of your business?" And so they picked up the thought that maybe John was never going to die but was going to be around till the Second Coming. So the Holy Spirit wants to correct that error and that takes place in verses 19b to 23 and in that section He corrects that problem.
That leaves one other question. The other question was raised in chapter 20 verse 30 and it was this, "How come we didn't record everything Jesus did?" And John gives the answer in verses 24 and 25 by saying, "If we did that, the books of the world couldn't hold it."
So, in chapter 21 then we have those five key questions answered and the book becomes a total unit, it summarizes itself in chapter 1...21, leaves nothing out and it's complete. But let me add this, and I hope you've learned this by now, as we approach chapter 21, we're not going to just look at it from the standpoint of those answered questions. You'll be able to see those answers as they weave through. But Scripture is a many faceted diamond, believe me, I know you do, we could spend a year on chapter 21. There are many, many things that we could dwell on in this chapter, all of Scripture can be looked at at various different angles. Somebody said to me this morning, "You know, Such-and-such a person taught on Ephesians on the first chapter, the same chapter that you taught on only he brought out things that you didn't bring out." That's exactly right. That's exactly the way it is with the Word of God. If everybody that taught the same passage said the same thing, we'd only need one teacher. The Word of God is like a diamond, it explodes in a spectrum of color and you can go at it from all angles. And I may take a certain approach and I may highlight certain things, that doesn't mean there's nothing else there by any means. That only means that I'm limited by my mental capacities and by your endurance.
And so, as we look at chapter 21 verses 15 to 25, we're going to pick out an area of emphasis and that area is the characteristics of committed Christians. And we're going to see them here. Now remember that in verses 1 to 14 we saw kind of a basic pattern for the Christian life because we saw Jesus in a living illustration show the difference between self-effort and spiritual effort, didn't we? Last week we saw that the disciples tried to do it on their own and they met with failure and they lost the intimacy of Jesus' fellowship. Jesus moved in, they did it His way, they were obedient, they had success and they experienced fellowship. There are only two ways to live the Christian life, that's all, two ways. Number one, you live it all by yourself in disobedience, you end up a failure and you lose the intimacy of the presence of Jesus. The other way is to live it in His power, obedient to Him, you have great success and you enjoy the fullness of His presence. That spiritual truth is illustrated in verses 1 to 14, in Jesus' provision of the fish.
So, we've seen the basic to the Christian life is living it in the Lord's power, not your own. Now we're going to move a step further into the Christian life and see the four characteristics of a really committed Christian. Here they come.
Number one, his work is compelled by love. A real committed Christian operates on the basis of his love for the Lord. Two, his way is controlled by God. He has learned how to give his life totally to God and trust Him for it. His will is content with following. He's happy to do what Jesus leads him to do. Fourth, his words are concerning Jesus. His work is compelled by love. His way is controlled by God. His will is content with following. And his words are concerned with Jesus. I pray, God, that these words of Jesus may dwell in you richly because they are great profound truths.
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