Listen to the unabridged sermon here: Eyes Forward
Don’t look back in shame, don’t look sideways in comparison — look forward into eternity as we follow Christ
We have made it. We are here at the end of John chapter twenty-one — our nineteenth week in the Gospel of John. We’re going to put the final touches on this Gospel.
And the nice thing about a last sermon is that we just get to touch on some really simple, easy things brought to the fore here in these last few verses of John. We’re just going to deal with shame, comparison, and eternity. No big deal. Just small little things.
Here’s how I think John puts the capstone on his Gospel: don’t look back in shame, don’t look sideways in comparison. But look forward — eyes forward — into eternity as we follow Christ.
“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.’
“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.’
“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 else 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 had said, ‘Lord, who is going to betray you?’) When Peter saw him, he asked, ‘Lord, what about him?’
“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 believers 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.” (John 21:15–25)
Don’t look back in shame
We begin on the beach. They’ve just finished breakfast — bread and fish around a charcoal fire.
That detail is worth pausing on. Charcoal fire. Those are the only two times in the Gospels that phrase is used — and the other time is the night Peter denied Jesus, in the courtyard outside the high priest’s house.
Here’s something I learned preparing this week: our olfactory sense — how’s that for a word you can trot out at parties? — is one of the most powerful triggers for memory. Smells go deep. If I’m out shopping and a woman walks past wearing the same perfume my Mimi wore, it’s like bam — she’s right there with me. The church I grew up in in Pontiac still smells like my Mimi when I walk into that sanctuary.
So when John tells us they’re sitting around a charcoal fire, that smell probably brought it all back for Peter — that night, that denial — just as Jesus looks at him and says, “Do you love me?”
Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus asks him three times: Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? It is a reinstatement.
Now, some pastors will do a whole thing in the Greek here — agape versus phileo — making big hay out of which word Jesus uses and which word Peter uses. There’s probably not much hay to be made there, to be honest. This is just what John does. He rotates words all the way through his Gospel. It’s like having an English teacher read your essay and say, “You’ve used this word six times. Let me introduce you to the thesaurus.” Good writing. He does the same thing with lambs and sheep. We don’t want to get overly caught up in it.
What we want to pay attention to is how Jesus deals with Peter’s shame.
Because Peter had to have been carrying shame. To look at Jesus and say, “I don’t even know him” — three times. The shame of that had to be soul-crushing. And we carry shame for lesser things: I didn’t read my Bible like I wanted to this week. I watched something with language in it that people would judge me for. We carry shame for all kinds of things, big and small, and our lives get weighed down by it.
And what does Jesus say to this guilt-ridden, shame-ridden man? “Peter, you lousy loser, get out of my presence”? No. He asks one question: Do you love me?
Jesus always starts with love.
The way to deal with the shame we carry is by embracing the love of Jesus — realizing he isn’t looking at us thinking, “Oh my gosh, you miserable sinner.” He’s looking at us and asking one simple question: Do you love me?
And Peter says yes. Three times, matching the three denials.
Then Jesus gives an equally simple and direct command: Feed my sheep. If you love me, care for everybody else. That’s it. That goes right back to the upper room: “They will know us by our love one for another.”
Put aside the shame that weighs you down, the shame that makes you feel unworthy — there is no past shame that leaves you unworthy to serve Jesus. If you love him, then feed his sheep. Care one for another. It is that simple.
That is what grace looks like. Grace is rooted in the love of Christ.
How do you know if you love Jesus? You’re seeking to take care of others, to love other people well. Because when you start trying to love other people, your life gets filled up with better stories. But when we get hyper-fixated on ourselves, that’s when the shame spiral starts — and a shame spiral pulls us away from Jesus.
So: don’t look back in shame. Jesus didn’t ask Peter for an apology or a pledge of self-reliance. He addressed his love and gave him the command. Shame tells you your past disqualifies you. Jesus says, “I love you — come further up and further in with me.”
Don’t look sideways in comparison
As they’re walking — you can almost picture it, Jesus with his arm around Peter, talking intimately — Peter turns around and sees John kind of following along behind them, like a little brother trying to hear what’s going on. And Peter says, “What about him?”
Now, remember what just happened. Jesus had said to Peter, essentially: when you were young you went where you wanted, but when you’re old they’ll lead you where you don’t want to go — indicating, John tells us, the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Tradition says Peter was crucified in Rome. So Peter hears about his own death and immediately looks around: “What about John? What’s his deal going to be?”
Jesus answers — and our English doesn’t catch the intensity of the Greek: “You. You follow me.”
He is looking the comparison trap dead in the face. Don’t look to your left and don’t look to your right. Don’t compare yourself to anybody else. Your calling is going to look different than somebody else’s calling. You follow me.
This is a tough one for me. As a pastor, it is so easy to look around and go, “Man, I feel like I’m more talented than so-and-so, my sermons are better than so-and-so — and they’ve got this huge church.” We have a saying for it: keeping up with the Joneses. The new car, the fancy TV, the upgrade. Everything is always about the upgrade.
I’ve spent a lot of time with people in their twenties because of my kids, and it’s amazing how many of them share the same fear: “I feel like I’m behind.” Somebody’s engaged, somebody’s married with kids, somebody’s got this career — and I’m just over here doing this thing. And we live in a world of curated Instagram feeds and curated Facebook feeds. Everybody’s life is absolutely perfect. Their outfits are just right, their family pictures are ideal, nobody’s crying, their vacation was the best vacation ever — it didn’t even get cloudy. It’s all fake. We all know it’s fake. And still we go, “Dang, I wish I had their life.”
Sure wish I could just sit around and watch Premier League soccer on Sunday mornings instead of going to work. Sure wish I could travel the world instead of sitting here stuck in Flint.
We all fall into the comparison trap — looking left and right.
Here’s the thing: when we’re trapped in the comparison spiral, we start going, “Well, I’m not as good as them” — and we’re right back in the shame spiral. Shame and comparison feed each other. Jesus undercuts both of the two biggest problems with actually following him: don’t look back in shame, don’t look left and right in comparison. Set your eyes on Christ and Christ alone, and follow him into your own particular mission and calling.
Eyes forward into eternity
And then these last couple of verses: “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.”
What John is doing here is lifting our eyes. He takes us from these very present, right-here-right-now things — shame, comparison — and points us to the vastness of Christ. The cosmic Christ. The enthroned Christ. The Word, the Logos, who was before all things and by whom all things were created. We go right back to John chapter 1.
If we tried to write down everything he has done, the creation itself, the cosmos itself, could not hold all the books. There is no end to this story. You’re just at the beginning.
It’s like standing at the Grand Canyon and looking out over the edge going, “Wow.” That’s the picture John wants in your mind as you set your eyes to follow Jesus. You’re following him into infinity and eternity, into this grand story so beyond anything you could ever imagine that all the books it would take to tell it would not fit in the cosmos. It is just further up and further in.
And here’s the beautiful thing: two thousand years after John wrote this, the story is still being written. Each of us has been invited into the story, to follow Jesus wherever he leads us, to do the things he prepared beforehand for us to do — that’s Ephesians 2:10.
If we don’t get sidetracked by looking back in shame or left to right in comparison, we get to experience this great adventure of following an infinite Christ.
Faith my eyes
We began this series nineteen weeks ago talking about believing is seeing — that when we believe, we begin to see spiritual realities. And believing is life — Jesus came that we might have life, and have it to the full.
Caedmon’s Call sings a song called “Faith My Eyes,” and I think that’s the picture for where we want our eyes to be. Because believing changes the way we view the world. When we believe, when we set our eyes on Christ, when we follow him — we stop looking back in shame, we stop looking left to right in comparison, and we just stare down the endless adventure of eternity, and follow him to the very ends of it.
And that calls us right back to believing is seeing — and believing is life.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for John. We thank you for his invitation to move past shame — to no longer look back, to no longer look left and right in comparison, but to simply set our eyes on Christ and follow him into the never-ending adventure of his loving grace. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.