You, Lord, this shall never happen to you. Then he says, though they will all fall away, because of you, I will never fall away. Even after Jesus tells him, no, this very night, you will deny me three times. Peter says, even if I must die, I will not deny you. This is not the picture we have of Peter this morning. Since those prideful statements issued by Peter, he has fallen asleep when Jesus told him to watch and pray. He's denied Jesus not once, but three times is Jesus predicted. And he's not listened to Jesus' instructions to wait on the mountain for him. The picture we have of Peter is broken. Peter is broken. He feels like a failure, and he feels useless. If you have ever been broken, if you have ever failed God, this message is for you this morning. If you sit there this morning and haven't been broken, the message is for you, because you probably need humble. What we'll look at this morning is how Christ restores Peter. How Christ loves Peter. And finally, the effect of that restoration and that love has on Peter's life. First, we're going to look at the restoration of Peter. There's a parable that we're all familiar with in Matthew. It's called the parable of the lost sheep. Let me just read it to you without turning there. What do you think? This is Jesus asking, what do you think? If a man had a hundred sheep and one of them went astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountain and go in search of that one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray. When we look at this in Sunday school, there was someone that came up to me after and said, you know how encouraging that passage was? Because I feel so far from God, I feel astray. I feel distant. And I needed to hear that God rejoices over my restoration. The God rejoices in bringing me back to Him. Why is that? Why does Jesus rejoice when someone who has denied him, when someone who has went astray, is brought back to fellowship? Because that person knows that they don't deserve God's love. That person knows that they don't deserve God's mercy. And they are humbled. And they know how to care for other people. This is what Jesus is doing this morning. He's equipping Peter to feed his sheep, to love his sheep. He is going astray in Jesus' seeks after him. Notice here that Jesus doesn't come to Peter to condemn him. Jesus comes to restore him. Jesus doesn't come to fill Peter with guilt. He comes to humble him. I trust the key this morning is we can learn two important things this morning about restoration. First, encourage by the way that Jesus seeks and restores him. He doesn't give up on us when we fail him. Praise God for that. And second, we have a clear example here of how to go about restoring each other. So often when someone fails, when someone falls, we avoid them instead of seeking them. And sadly, if we do seek them, we seek them with condemning eyes. We're so often in the habit of condemning those who wander. We withhold forgiveness. We judge. We point the finger at them. How dare us? Here is Jesus who has every right to give up on Peter. He does not owe Peter forgiveness. Peter can't earn it, but Jesus freely gives it to him. My question is we look at this restoration. Why do we make people earn our forgiveness? It shouldn't work like that. Here in our passage, they've just finished breakfast. Jesus turns his attention to Peter. We can assume from other places in Scripture that this isn't the first time that Jesus has met with Peter after the resurrection. We can assume that Jesus has already approached Peter and made things right one-on-one. And just like in Matthew 18, when we learn about how to restore someone, it says, if he listens to you, you've gained a brother and no one ever needs to hear about it. That's why we don't hear about it. You see how beautiful, if someone sins against us, we don't tell everybody else about it. We go straight to them and restore. Nobody else even has to know about it. But here in our story, not only did he need restored personally, he also needed restored publicly because his sin was public. His denials were known. So Jesus has this conversation in front of the other disciples. This morning, I want to look at that conversation and share with you two very important Greek words this morning for love that will shed light on this conversation. Unfortunately, the word love is thrown around so much today that it's lost its meaning. We love everything nowadays. And if we're not careful, we'll end up loving Christ just the way we love everything else. And we'll be committed to Christ just like we're committed to everything else. According to, if we have time, according to if we feel like it. Let me share with you these two words for love. Agape and Filetto, Filio. One of them, Agape, is a love of the will. And the other is a love of emotions. It's important for us to get this this morning. Stay with me and it will make sense or promise. If not, then come see me afterwards. Agape is a commitment to love. It's indicating a direction of the will, finding one's joy in something or someone. It's a divine love. It's a love of the will. Having a steady intent of will, loving towards someone. So there's this steady commitment. There's this love. There's this great commitment in love. That's Agape. The other love, Filio, is about emotions. It's according to feelings and warm affections, whether I feel like it or not. You see with Agape, with that commitment, there are times that will have to demonstrate this love, even when the feelings aren't there. I didn't ask my wife this, but I know there are times that she doesn't feel like loving me. But her commitment that Agape love causes her to, wills her to show love. I wonder how many of you here this morning are because you feel like it, because you want to. Or is it simply that Agape love that I know I need to be here because God is going to speak to me? How many of you will wake up in the morning with that feeling, with that desire to open up the scriptures? Do you see if we just go by feelings? We'll never open up the scriptures. No, it's that Holy Spirit love, that divine love, that commitment to Christ that says, I know I need to open up the scriptures. I know I need to hear from him. There's a way that helped me to understand the difference of these two loves. Maybe this will help you. Agape is 100% all and I'm committed. Leo is about a 60%. Giver take when I feel like it. According to how I feel. It's strange to me that there's actually some commentators that look at these two different words that Jesus uses in this conversation and say that it's not a big deal. But those of you that know me well, know I on every word. Every word is important. Every single word is important. And let me ask you this. Those of you that are single and one day will be getting ready to be married, would you rather your soon to be spouse be 100% committed or at about the 60 point, 60% level? Do you see it makes a difference? You see, I could say I lay oh, Swedish fish. I like them sometimes because I'm done if I ate a whole pack of them, I don't want anymore. But I can't say I lay oh my wife or my God. It's not good enough. It makes a difference. Once we understand that, this conversation makes sense. Watch this. The first question that Jesus asks Peter, do you love me more than they do? Do you agape? Do you 100% love me more than the other disciples? Remember this is Peter who boasted about hey, they may deny you, but I'm not going to. And now Jesus is saying is it true, Peter? Do you still, after you have fallen, do you still love me more than they do? Can you proclaim that? This is where it gets interesting. You know I love you, not agape. You know I filet oh, you. You know I 60% love you. See the difference? Are you committed to me 100%? I'm giving you about 60, Jesus. Jesus tells him to feed his sheep and then he asks the second time. And he drops the comparison this time. And he says, Peter, do you love me? Do you adopt me? 100% are you committed to me? Peter says, again, yes, I love you. 60%. That's all I can offer. That's all I can give. And again, Jesus says, this is shepherd my sheep, feed my sheep, take care of my sheep. Notice Jesus' response here to Peter. Peter says, I've got about 60% God. And Jesus doesn't say, oh never mind, that's not good enough. He doesn't give up on Peter. He doesn't say, I'm done with you. Listen to this, Peter is right where Jesus wants him. Do you get that? He wants us broken. He wants us to admit we can't love him the way that we're supposed to. A passage from Isaiah that I put in the bulletin for you. He desires he wants a broken and contrite spirit. He wants us to admit we can't do it. He wants us to admit our weaknesses. Listen, if you can admit that you aren't the husband, if you aren't the wife that you're supposed to be, if you can confess that you haven't raised your children perfectly, the way that you're supposed to, God says good. I can use that. I can use broken. I can use someone that comes to me and says, I have failed, I need your help. You're exactly where I want you to be broken. Look at what Jesus does. He says, I've got about 60% you know that and he says good. Then I trust you to lead my sheep. Do you get that? You're saying you can't do it? I trust you because you know you can't do it and you will come to me for wisdom. You will come to me to know how to do it. I love how he says my sheep. I think this is so important. They're not ours. They're his. If they were our sheep, we could do with them whatever we wanted. We could raise them however we wanted, but they're not ours. They're his. And he's given us his instructions. He's shown us how. I know this is touchy, but I know people mean well when they ask the question. And maybe you've done this before, but people have asked, what church do you go to? How do you answer that question? How do you usually hear that question ask? Well, I go to selling so's church. He's so good. Whoa. It's not selling so's church, is it? It doesn't say feed your sheep, shepherd your. No. Mine. It's the Lord's church. Did you see why I can get away with saying that this morning? Because we don't have a so and so here. It's the Lord's church. Did you get that? That's what he's focusing in on. Here's the flip side. If we come boasting about how good we are. I can't use that. Think of the rich young ruler. You need to keep it. Oh yeah. I've kept all the commandments. What else you want me to do? Jesus. Can't use that. Did you see in our marriages? When we say, I've done it all right. She's the problem. I can't use that. When we say, we've done everything we can with our kids. I don't know what's happened. You can't. You see when we blame it on our bosses. When we blame it on those in authority. I can't. I can't use that. When we stop and humble ourselves and confess. Listen to this. I haven't loved the Lord the way that I'm supposed to. And it's affected the way I love my spouse. It's affected the way I've trained my kids. It's affected my job in the workplace. When we can admit that. God says, I could use that. Now I can mold that. And I can shape that. I could use that. Jesus asks in the third question. And it causes Peter to be grieved this time. And it's because Jesus gets down on his level. Jesus changes his words for love. The third time he asks, and this is where the word is important. Peter, do you love me? No longer a God day. Now for that. Do you at least have 60 percent? Are you given everything that you can? Basically saying, are you even my friend? You can see why this grieved Peter so. What Jesus is doing is highlighting the fact that we don't love him like we should. What he's doing is highlighting really. It's not about our love. Focus is on his love. The really neat thing here about John. You know, John's writing this gospel. Do you know how he describes himself? Every time he speaks of himself. He says the disciple whom Jesus loved. He never refers to himself as the one who loves Jesus. Because he can't boast about his love. But he can boast about God loves me. And that's how he always refers to himself. You see, we can't boast in our love. If Jesus were to ask us this morning, do you have got paid? Do you love me 100 percent? We can't say yes I do. We can't boast in our love. We can only boast in his love. Please understand what I'm saying. If you know me, you know I love Jesus. I love him because he first loved me. But my love is weak. It has holes in it. It's imperfect. It is conditional at times. I can't boast in my love. His love is a God thing. His love is 100 percent. His love is unconditional. It is steadfast. It is perfect. It is forgiving. Do you see when we pick out worship songs? And again, I'm not trying to step on toes. I'm not trying to start any controversy. I'm not trying anything. But it's hard to sing a song that says, I will do this. I will do that because I know that I won't. But when we sing songs like, great is his faithfulness. Great is his faithfulness. Amazing, his great. Do you see how to focus? We don't love in the way that we should. He loves us perfectly. We can boast in that. So what difference does this conversation make on Peter? Initially, sadly, we see no difference at all. It's amazing right after Jesus has grieved Peter. Right after he has restored Peter, he takes his eyes off Christ. Jesus says, follow me. He's supposed to be following him, but then he sees John, and he says, hey, what about him? You just told me how I'm going to die. What about him? You see, Jesus says, follow. You're responsible. How many of you as your children have said this to you before? Well, that's not fair. That's kind of what Peter's doing. Well, that's not fair. If I'm going to have to die that way, what about him? And Jesus says, look, take care of yourself. I'll be responsible for him, but you take care of yourself. Eventually, Peter does get it. And I want to look at this. Don't turn there, but use this. Use this in your time around the lunch table, the dinner table. First Peter 5. Listen, Peter. This is what he was equipped to share with us. This is what he taught us. Clothe yourselves. All of you. Every single one of us. With humility. Clothe yourself with humility towards one another. Have a correct understanding of who you are in light of who God is. Need to recognize our sin. Have a deep understanding that we are not worthy to be called his children. Recognize that we can only give about 60 percent what Peter is calling us to do. This is so important is to look for good and others in the evil in ourselves. You see, if you're in the habit of looking at the evil in yourself and looking for the good of others, you will walk humbly. You will clothe yourself with humility. There's no other way to live. But do we do that? So often are we thinking the best of ourselves and looking for evil in each other. See what Peter is doing here? He's saying, I know I'm not better than anyone this time. I'm not boasting in my love for God anymore. The promise here is God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Do you see what happens here? He's saying, when you stand on a mountain of pride and you think you're better than you are, his grace is going to fall on you and roll right off of you. It is not going to have any effect on you. But he's saying, if you humble yourself and you lay yourself down prostate behind before him, saying, I can't do it. He will pour that grace upon you and you will soak it up like a sponge. And people will see that and you will treat people with humility. See what God says here. I love this. We're almost done. Listen to this. Humble yourselves. Therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that the proper time he may exalt you. Do you see what's going on here? The pressures, the hard times in life, God's hand pushes us down, pushes us down, and pushes us down and it pushes us down to a place where we say, I can't do it. I need you, Lord. He pours his grace upon us and his hand lifts us up and equips us so that we can love our spouses. So we can love one another. And guess what? We know that we didn't do it. We know because we were down there. When his hand was pushing us down, when we felt like we couldn't go on anymore, we knew that it was only by his grace that he lifted us up and gave us strength to love one another, to care for one another. Listen to me, there are times when that hand of God pushes us down, pushes us down, and we don't cry out to him. We don't clothe ourselves with humility. We don't humble ourselves. And when he takes his hand off and we pop right back up, we don't know how to love one another. We're not equipped with humility. And we walk around thinking that we're at because we got there. You see how different it looks if we humble ourselves before him. Here's the question this morning that I want to label for you. Are you humble enough to confess that you can't do it? Are you humble enough to say, God, I don't love you the way that I should, and I need you. I need you to transform me, I need you to transform my marriage, I need you to transform my children, my grandchildren, and we need you to transform me in the workplace, I need you. Not until we're able to admit that we can't do it, that we don't love him the way that we should, will we ever be equipped to love his sheep? Will we ever be equipped to go and make disciples? Not until then, let me pray for us. Father God, thank you for your unconditional love. Thank you that you love us perfectly. Father help us as we struggle. Help us as we desire to love you. We desire to please you. May you help us with that. May you transform us. May you help us as Peter learn to clothe himself with humility. May we put that on. May it tie it around us. We love you and we praise you. We ask this in Jesus' name.