You Can Always Come Home: John 21:1-19-3/27/16

I hope the joy of Easter is in your hearts and in your smiles. It is time to celebrate! Lent is over, the dark night of the crucifixion has passed. Death has been defeated and OUR SAVIOR LIVES!!!

If He lives then we too who put our trust in Him also will live. Here in this story today we see that resurrection joy when Jesus forgives and restores one of the disciples and best friends, Peter.

Peter and the other disciples saw Jesus after He had been raised from the dead. Yet Peter wanted to go back to something familiar, back to business as usual. Maybe there was a time in your life where you felt like Peter, when you knew Jesus but walked away for awhile and wanted to go back to business as usual. Maybe you were thinking God could not possibly love you after what you have done.

Dear friends, if you think that then Jesus has some wonderful news to share with you today. He loves you, and you can always come home. So let us go back to Peter and see what kind of business he is trying to do.

He tries to go fishing and he catches….nothing. Then, this man tells the disciples to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, and when they listened, they pulled in a huge catch! Then they recognize the stranger on the shore…It is Jesus! They wanted to go back to business as usual, but God had a greater purpose in store for them. You may want to return too, but God has a greater purpose in store for you as well!

This story is a living parable: the disciples were told that if they followed Jesus, they would be fishers of men. Then in this story, they listened to Jesus even when they don’t know it is Him, and they catch fish.

Jesus is showing them what He is showing us: Follow His instructions and we too can catch people with the Gospel. If we trust and obey, then just as God drew the fish into these nets, He will use us to draw people to come to Jesus!

Once they recognize it is Jesus who is there, Peter gets excited and jumps off the boat and into the water, and swims to Jesus. Jesus has actually made them breakfast.

And this is where we wonder as Peter walks toward Jesus on the shore, “What is he going to say to Peter? What would He say to us?” Maybe we have wondered what Jesus would say to us if we came back to Him, would He be mad, scornful, angry.

Maybe Peter remembered Judas and what happened to him, and in a way Peter’s choice is a choice we all must make.

Will we be like Judas and think God could never forgive us and just give up? Or will be listen to the words of Jesus in Mark 16:4-7. Go get my disciples and Peter! Jesus is saying, I know Peter is feeling horrible right now, but go get my friend, I am not done with Him yet!

Jesus did not give up on Peter. And He will never give up on you either. He is not done with you or me. We still have a purpose.

You can always come back to Jesus and find forgiveness and a home, for Romans 8 says, “Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”.

So what happens to Peter in this one final encounter with Jesus? Well the moment has come, but Jesus is not there to finger-point, and there is no anger, no judging. Instead Jesus asks Peter a question, and it is the most important question of Peter’s life.

See, Jesus wasn’t going to leave Peter go back to the life he once knew, because it is too important of a question. He won’t let us go either because it is too important of a question…”Do you love me?”

Jesus wants us to say yes so He can say “then follow Me, follow Me and find life”. Even after all the highs and lows of Peter, and just when he thinks, “how can god love me, after all the mess I have made?” Jesus answers…”follow me”.

“Peter, I have forgiven you, follow me!” Jesus gives us that same offer. The offer to forgive our sins and then invites us to follow Him.

Today is a day to celebrate joyfully. Because Jesus lives, we are free from sin, free to live, freed from the chains that once bound us. We are forgiven, restored, put back together, and healed. Now he says to all of us, “Follow Me” No matter who you are, what you’ve done, how far gone you feel, you can always come home. Jesus is offering forgiveness and says to you and I…
Follow Me.

And to top it off, Matthew West’s wonderful song, “Grace Wins”