The Counselor will Teach

This morning I’d like to ask you to sit back and remember. Do you remember a time when you were trying to accomplish something and didn’t know how to do it? Maybe you were very young and trying to learn how to swing a bat for Little League and an older boy or your dad or uncle helped you. Maybe you wanted to bake some bread and didn’t understand what “Kneading the dough” meant – an aunt or friend explained it to you. Maybe you had to add some oil to your car and wondered if 5W40 oil could be used if it said to use 10W30 oil – your grandfather or a friend from school told you.

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All the way through our lives, we have learned from others. Some people taught us this and some taught us that. Some people taught us just one thing that was of limited value, like how to dial an old-style dial telephone – of limited value today. Others taught us something more broadly useful like how to read or helped us with our multiplication tables. Some brave fool sat down beside us and taught us to drive! But for many of us, we’ve had a few, very few people through our lives to whom we could turn for almost any question and say, “How do I do this?” We call these people “mentors”, and they have an unusual impact upon our lives. Who was your mentor? Was it a teacher, an older friend, an uncle or aunt, a grandmother or grandfather, your dad or your mom? Was it a friend at work or a neighbor?

We came to rely upon our mentor. Those regular conversations taught us a lot about the “how to’s” of life – how to bake cakes, how to grill steaks, how to paint a wall, how to repair a car, how to grow a garden, how to be successful at your job, how to get connected to email. Our mentor was always there. You may have a mentor today and enjoy that sort of relationship, a real person, not a YouTube video, not a book, not a help screen, not a Google’d article. A real person. Someone who would pick up the phone or be ready to talk when you have a question.

Some of you may be like me. You’ve lived long enough that you’ve become the mentor – your mentor has retired, or moved to Florida, or moved to Heaven. And now you mentor other people, mostly younger than yourself. You pass on that information that is so simple, but difficult to learn the first time, like making sure meringue has peaks, like tightening lug nuts until they squeak, like approaching a new dog with your fingers pointed down and slightly curled while letting the dog sniff the back of your hand, or like never drawing to an inside straight in poker. You are now the mentor – and you are mostly on your own – and sometimes you miss having that mentor, don’t you? Like all of us, you still have questions about living life, right?

Turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor!” “I still need a mentor!” 

Revelation 21:10, 22:1-22:5; Acts 16:9-15; John 14:23-29 Audio Gospel

As the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry rolled around, He recognized that He had been teaching His disciples a lot. There were the twelve core disciples, but there were also the 120 or so people that formed His group of regular followers, both men and women. What would happen to all these men and women when He returned to Heaven? There was a plan that had been waiting since the Beginning, a plan for continued teaching that would help the people through all those days when questions would come up that Jesus hadn’t spoken about – or the disciples had been distracted when Jesus HAD spoken about those things.

You see, if Jesus had stayed on earth, there would have been a problem. All the disciples would have stayed with Jesus, listening to Him, day after day as they grew older and older. Nobody would have been intentionally spreading the word about God. How do we know this?

Jesus once tried sending out 70 disciples to spread the word to the small villages of Judah that The Kingdom of God was coming. Those disciples went out – and then, a couple days later, they came right back to Jesus. For being near Jesus was more comfortable than answering difficult questions in those villages with people who were often a bit antagonistic, upset, angry or “had issues”. Jesus’ mere physical presence was impeding the ministry.

So the night of His last Passover meal, the Seder meal that became known as The Last Supper, Jesus spoke at length to His disciples, probably the Twelve and a handful more.

He told them in John 14:25: “I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit—the Father will send Him in My name—will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.”

In our world today in 21st Century America, many people speak of God. Our young people are very spiritual. There is great discussion of God – millions of people who never attend church, who never open a Bible speak of God and are very quick to share their opinions of God, debating what type of God would be acceptable to them. Many of these people are Christian – but many are not, for they never speak of Christ, of Jesus. The proper term for a person who believes in the existence of a god is a “theist”. A theist is a person who believes in a god. An “a-theist” is a person who does not believe in a god. And in today’s America, about 1 person in 10 is an a-theist, while about 9 out of 10 are theists, people who believe in a god.

One of those nine theists is either Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu, religions with views of God which often radically different from the Christian God, who is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

But only 8 of those theists even claim to be Christian. But if we take a bit more stringent definition, we can find that only about 4 of those theists actually have any understanding of Jesus Christ as God. The other 4 theists who claim to be Christians have their own views of God which more or less ignore Jesus Christ, so let’s just talk about those Christians who understand Jesus Christ to be truly the Son of God, part of God in a complicated way. Let me be clear – a Christian talks about Christ and worships Christ as well as God the Father. A wannabe Christian, person is only thinks they are Christian almost never talks about Christ – they are focused solely on God. If you have a friend or relative or neighbor like this, speak with them about how Jesus’ death and resurrection make Him worthy of worship. Help them move from theist to Christian by teaching them about Jesus.

So about 40 percent of Americans actually worship Jesus Christ as God. About 10 to 15% of Americans are true Christians who are unable or unwilling to come to church regularly because of health, work, or being hurt by their most recent encounters with the church. That leaves us with what the surveys say is between 25 and 30 percent of Americans attending church each week, which is also about what we see here in this county.

By the way, children who attend church at least weekly have average GPA’s of 3.0. Kids who attend at least monthly have GPA’s of 2.9. Kids who attend church less than monthly have GPA’s of 2.7. And those who never attend church have GPA’s of 2.6. Church attendance helps our children.



In the church-going Christian community, we talk a lot more about Jesus than the wannabe Christians do. Almost every week, we have Gospel readings and sermons that talk about the deeds and teachings and sayings of Jesus Christ. The Christian community talks a lot about Jesus, who is God the Son, and we talk a lot about God the Father, the Creator of the Universe.

But we church-going Christians also have a blind spot. We don’t speak much about God the Holy Spirit. In most of our churches, we leave the Holy Spirit on the front doorstep, mentioning the Spirit occasionally, but often getting mixed up about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has almost become a dividing line between churches and denominations. But that is largely because of our general ignorance about the Spirit.

At the one extreme, we have the churches which forbid the action of the Holy Spirit. We once attended a church that maintained that the Holy Spirit had stopped acting when the Book of Acts closed, that the original Apostles had to be present for the Holy Spirit to act – and only the original Apostles were qualified. Needless to say, that church – and others like it that we have seen over the years – are cold, rational, intellectual….and feel dead.

At the other end are the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches that believe that you are only saved if you speak in tongues or are slain by the Spirit. These churches can be frightening to the average person who attends a service because of the chaotic worship and the irrational, highly emotional events that are going on.

In our modern United Methodist churches, we seem to often equate the presence of the Holy Spirit with a lack of planning until the service begins, a lack of order, a sermon delivered with shouting, arms swinging, men running on the tops of pews and other theatrics, a sermon that makes us weep or shout with joy. We measure the presence of the Holy Spirit by the buckets of tears - sad or joyful - that we weep. 

Yet the highly planned, well written sermons of Jonathan Edwards, delivered by him in almost a monotone, boring reading, completely without any shouting, had people weeping and crying and coming to the altar in Connecticut in colonial days – in fact, it was these revivals of Edwards that first drew John Wesley’s attention to the possibilities of an English revival, the revival that came to be known as the Methodist Revival. For, you see, both Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley wrote out their sermons carefully under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, praying deeply before and during their writing, so the words became so powerful no extra theatrics were needed. You see, the Holy Spirit can act - and does act - in the quiet of a pastor's study as well as in the sanctuary on Sunday morning.

So let’s try to understand today a bit more about the Holy Spirit as discussed in the Bible and how the Holy Spirit comes into the church.

Biblically speaking – and generally speaking, when the pastor baptizes you, you receive the Holy Spirit. The water is applied by sprinkling, pouring, or dunking you in the creek, the pastor lays hands upon you, and prays a prayer which asks the Holy Spirit to come into you. We Methodist believe that all baptized believers receive the Holy Spirit at this point.

However, there are some biblical cases where the Spirit came upon people before their baptism, such as the case we mentioned last week when Peter visited the Roman Cornelius’ household – see Acts Chapter 10. Peter had just begun to speak about Jesus when the Holy Spirit came upon the household, when all the members of the household began to praise Jesus and celebrate Him. Peter used this as evidence that God wanted even Gentile pagan Romans baptized, so he baptized the entire household at that time.

As we look through the Bible, the Holy Spirit is usually discussed in one of two ways. “The Holy Spirit came upon so-and-so,” and then so-and-so did something miraculous, or “So-and-so was filled with the Holy Spirit”.

What do we mean? In the first case, we can go back to I Samuel 10 for a good example, where the Holy Spirit came upon Saul, the man whom Samuel had just anointed with oil to be the first king of Israel. Saul, who a day earlier had been minding his own business, looking for his donkey, begins to prophesy with a group of prophets.

Now we often look at prophesying as meaning “predicting the future”, and it can mean that, but the root meaning is broader. It simply means “speaking on behalf of God”. In this context, apparently Saul was taken control of by God’s Holy Spirit, and he began to speak on behalf of God in a group of prophets.

A similar thing happened to the greater group of apostles and disciples on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came upon them and they all began praising God in various languages. Furthermore, those languages were not languages they necessarily understood, but they were languages which were understood by the people who heard them. It was as if Debbie began to praise God in Japanese, just as a person from Japan entered our hall here, while Carl spoke a message in Russian to the guy from Moscow. Something similar, without the mention of the different languages, apparently happened when Peter began preaching at Cornelius’ house. People began praising God – people who had no good former knowledge of God or Christ.

In the other context, certain people are talked about as “full of the Holy Spirit”, as in Acts 6, where Stephen is described as “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit”. In this context the daily actions – the conversation and the signs and wonders that Stephen shows are both evidence of and the result of the Holy Spirit which fills Stephen. So how might the Holy Spirit work in other ways?

First of all, it is the consensus of most Christian theologians that the Bible, and in particular, the New Testament was written by men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Even the word “inspired” refers to the air which is breathed into the person, and, as we have discussed before, in the original Greek and Hebrew languages, the same word is translated as “spirit”, as “wind”, and as “breath”. So inspired literally means “in spirited” – you can even see it in the spelling of the word. So we have this precedent that we know certain documents can be inspired by the Holy Spirit, guided in their creation by the gentle urging of the Holy Spirit.

Why is this important?

It is important because it tells us the Holy Spirit is not just the cause of immediate, spontaneous actions such as a spontaneous prayer or an unscripted sermon, but the Holy Spirit can plan things centuries in advance. How many times has Holy Scripture which was inspired by the Holy Spirit tugged at your emotions and transformed you?

So theologians maintain that the Holy Spirit can work through Scripture, but also in the writing of prayers which are said decades or even centuries later, in the very recommendation of the appropriate order of scriptures to choose, such as the order of scriptures in the Lectionary from which many pastors, including myself, often choose the readings, and in a sermon written days or even weeks ahead of time.

I’ve spoken to several of you at different times and told you after some question or discussion, “I want to make sure you understand that I’ve already written my sermon for this weekend, it will deal directly with your problem or your question.” And this is true. I might have a sermon written on Tuesday and then on Sunday it looks like I had a secret camera recording your life on Friday or Saturday because the sermon is so directly attuned to what is going on in your life. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. And not just with sermon’s I’ve delivered, but I’ve been on the receiving end of this, most notably with a pastor I know who actually wrote his sermons months in advance because he liked to work in batches. In a couple memorable weeks just before I accepted Christ, it was as if Pastor Doug MacIntosh had a bug in our bedroom as we were getting ready for church Sunday morning. 

I remember speaking to Saundra: "You need to go to church today. It's like our family is painting a mural, each one painting a portion of it, and you're the master painter. When you miss church, things go wrong in the painting of our family mural."

We drove to church. In the middle of his sermon, Pastor Doug said, "Consider a large mural. There is a master painter who is guiding the painting while many other painters paint small portions of it."

And I’ve seen it with Sunday school lessons I’ve taught and Saundra taught back before we were pastors – we would independently choose what to teach our classes and then after Sunday school, in the main service Pastor Steve would preach on the exact same subject.

The defining mark of the Holy Spirit is not when a sermon is changed at the last minute. The defining mark of the Holy Spirit is when truth is taught and the Spirit sets up a situation where, if you are willing, you can be transformed by that Truth. Remember what Jesus said:

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit—the Father will send Him in My name—will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

Sometimes, the most important part of worship preparation, I have found, is in the selection of a hymn from four hundred years ago or from 1930 or that first appeared last year, the selection of a prayer that was written decades ago or from scratch, the choice to read from the Psalm instead of from Romans, or yes, the one-line throw-away that the Spirit gives me as I read this sermon in front of you, a single line that I don’t use at the other church – or maybe I do.

Last week, the Spirit had me to plan ahead of time the worship service with the sermon – and the part where we told our neighbor we loved them and why. The Spirit guided the selection of the after sermon song, a song written in the 1970’s that many of you told me you loved, a song which the Spirit had led me to select a few weeks ago so you would remember it, a song the Spirit had led me to practice ahead of time and add the drumbeat to because I knew Calvary’s piano player Candace would be out of town, something the Spirit had planned a couple of years ago when Candace had joined the choir that took her to Toronto that week she missed. Yes, the Spirit plans far ahead - in this case, at least two years. And during the delivery at Calvary, the Spirit told me to tell you to go to a second friend and tell them that you loved them also. That was NOT in the original plan, but it turned out to have unleashed the Spirit among you.

And so I’d like you to understand that the Spirit both plans and works spontaneously. Don’t limit your understanding of the Spirit to purely an emotional impact that a sermon has on you. For the Lord is not just emotion, but is also rationality. The Spirit is not just spontaneous, but also plans centuries in advance. The Spirit is not just speaking in tongues, but is also a still, small voice in your head who would guide you in your actions, in your speech, in your daily life if you will listen, just as the Spirit guides pastors to put some thoughts down on paper and not other thoughts, to add or subtract a few words when those written sermons are delivered, to speak with emotion or to speak dryly and clearly from time to time.

Perhaps the biggest misunderstanding of the Spirit is where the Spirit comes from in a body. For, you see, Paul tells us in Ephesians Chapter 4 that there is one Spirit – and if this is so, then this means that the Holy Spirit resides in you just as much as the Spirit resides in me or Saundra or any other preacher. You each bring the Spirit into church, just as much as the preacher does. For there is only one difference between all of us – how much do we listen to the Holy Spirit and act upon the Spirit’s suggestions?

For if we allow it, if we listen to the Spirit, if we act upon the Spirit, then Jesus’ words become true: “the Counselor, the Holy Spirit…will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.”

And the Holy Spirit, my friend, is the greatest Counselor, the greatest mentor, the greatest adviser the world has known or ever will know. And THIS is why the early Christians we see in the Book of Acts were so excited. This is why the early church grew so fast. This is the key reason why a group of people who had lost their visible supernatural leader were able to quickly spread from Jerusalem west to Greece, to Italy, and even to Spain and Britain, to spread south to Ethiopia, to spread north to the shores of the Black Sea, and even spread East to India within the lifetime of the disciples. The Holy Spirit is why within two hundred years this tiny sect of Judaism had become a new religion which was the most powerful religion in the entire Roman Empire.

And since those days, the Holy Spirit has led this religion to become the largest religion on the planet, where the Spirit today is leading the growth in India, in Africa, in South America, even in China, persecuted as those Chinese Christians are, and yes, even today in America it is the churches that recognize the Holy Spirit is a gift given to ALL Christians that are growing whereas those churches to whom the Holy Spirit has become a frightening concept are shrinking and dying.

Let’s all stand and hold hands in a big circle. (If you are reading this, simply pray by yourself.)

Let us pray.

Holy Spirit,
We ask you to come upon this congregation in a great and mighty way.
I ask you to come upon me in such a way I cannot deny you.
I ask you to fill me….to mold me…to guide me…to speak to me.
I ask you to turn up the volume so I can hear you.
I ask you to guide me to the sound of your voice.
And I ask you to speak to me in the silence of this place now…[Pause]
I ask you to now give me a message to proclaim to others…[Pause]
And now I ask you to give me the courage in a moment to speak that message.
This I pray…in the name of our Lord Jesus….Amen.

And so I ask you today to turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor”! “You have the Holy Spirit!” And turn back to your neighbor with all seriousness and say, “Neighbor”! “The Spirit has told me this...” And speak out that message!

Preparing for the Holy Spirit

Our readings this week talk about three aspects of the Christian life. I’ll begin with the reading from Revelation, for it is the aspect of the Christian life that leads most people to Christ in the first place – eternal life with God and Christ. The Apostle John is generally recognized as the author, writing after he experienced an extended vision of the far future when Jesus would return to earth. This chapter is after the great wars and the wrath of God has been poured out on the earth, after the great Resurrection that is promised to all believers.

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Revelation 21:1-6; 

John wrote:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea no longer existed. I also saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

Then I heard a loud voice from the throne:

Look! God’s dwelling is with humanity, and He will live with them.
They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer,
because the previous things have passed away.

Then the One seated on the throne said, “Look! I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water as a gift to the thirsty from the spring of life.

It is a beautiful vision of our future. It is a beautiful vision of what lies ahead for me and for you. It is a wonderful view of what will happen one day – and turns upside down the way many people live their lives.

Did you notice that we don’t go to Heaven? No, instead, God comes down from Heaven to be with us. “God’s dwelling is with humanity and He will live with them”. “God Himself with be with them”.

Many people, even Christians, often work very very hard to be good enough for Heaven. We mess up from time to time, with a harsh word here, a mean and nasty act there. We harm ourselves and others, and then try to justify it by saying that “at least we aren’t as bad as so-and-so”, as if God has a quota of people who can get into Heaven: 

“Heaven’s doors are open, but only the best million people get in.” 

“Sorry, sir, you are currently ranked 1,000,002, so you’ll have to work a bit harder. Maybe you can make your neighbor stumble a bit?" 

So turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, would you curse a little bit today so I can get ahead of you in the line for Heaven?” HUH!?

No, God has a clear, definite cut off point for to be with Him that doesn’t depend upon how good or bad other people are. He has drawn a very bright line. We have exactly two ways to be saved. Either we can be perfect – never, ever in our whole life sinning – which is impossible, for we goofed up when we were children – or we can say to God, “Jesus is your Son and worthy of being followed. I will choose to follow Jesus because I am not worthy, I am not good enough, only Jesus is good enough. Will you accept me as your subject, your servant, your slave?”
And so John shows us that one day, God will come down to us, to dwell with us because we are not good enough for Heaven, but if we choose to follow Jesus, we are good enough for God to be with us. And that is how our eternal life is secured – by trusting in the power and love of Jesus for us.

Therefore we probably should spend substantial time and effort trying to learn what it means to follow Jesus, attending church regularly, getting involved in a Sunday school class and a midweek study and discussion, reading our Bible daily before bed or when we awaken or at lunch. That’s why our Sunday evening service has a question and answer period, our Tuesday and Wednesday Bible studies are really discussion times.

We need to practice two-way prayer, speaking to God and listening for the response of the Holy Spirit. Good times to pray are in the shower and when driving to and from work. Those are when I pray.

The people I really pity are those people who make excuses for behavior they and the people around them know are wrong. They are the people who take pride in how bad they are...how rude they are or how much they gossip or how angry they can get. “This is just the way I am”, they say. “I’ll never change.” That sort of comment and belief is making a rude gesture at God and the Holy Spirit. For we all can change with God’s help. We just have to want to change and ask for help.

Learning to follow Jesus means that this year I should be a better follower of Christ than I was last year. He’s still working on me. This year I am a bit more regular in my church attendance, I am a bit more involved in church activities, I give a bit more money, I take my Bible reading and prayer more seriously, I get more involved in my church group. Each year, I get more and more Christ-like. Yes, I often have to ask Jesus for help, but that’s okay. Jesus wants to help me, just as He wants to help you. Are you a bit more holy than you were last year? What will you work on this year so next year you will be a bit more like Jesus?

The first aspect of the Christian life is that we are not good enough for Heaven, but we are good enough for God, and God will help us become better every year if we ask God for help. That first step is focused upon ourselves.

 John 13:31-35 Audio Gospel Reading

The second aspect of the Christian life comes from the Gospel of John, in the 13th chapter. John tells us of Jesus’ talk at the Last Supper. Jesus says:

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
So if following Jesus is the key to eternal life, showing love to other people is the way people know that you are following Jesus. If you love each other, people will know you are indeed followers of Christ.

We have many people who have studied Jesus, but do not follow Jesus. There are many people who have been baptized but do not follow Jesus. We all know of these people, for they are the hateful people we have encountered in our churches, the people who follow a particular interpretation of the Law of Moses, the people who are most concerned with being better than their neighbors and keep their eyes and their comments on their neighbor’s behavior rather than upon their own behavior. For love is rarely shown when we point out the flaws in our friend’s behavior. 

I’ve found that those few times I have felt compelled as a pastor to point out these flaws to a member of one of my congregation I have found that it is extraordinarily difficult to say this in a way that helps the person rather than hurts the person, simply because none of us like to have our flaws pointed out by another. We didn’t enjoy it when we were children, we didn’t enjoy it as teens, and we still don’t enjoy it as adults.

Yet, we know that we have flaws. And so, it is important for our own growth that we develop a relationship with someone to whom we give permission to point out our flaws because we know they love us. And we must love our friends and neighbors and relatives despite the fact that they are very clumsy when they try to point out our flaws to us, for, you see, it is often a mark of love when someone tries to point out our flaws. Not always...but often, especially when that person is close to us.

So how do we love another? For learning to love others is the second major step of the Christian life.

According to the excellent book, The Five Love Languages, there are five ways: Words, deeds of service, touch, gifts, and quality time. Five ways to love others. Let's see how that works:

We tell people when they are doing good things. We tell people we love them. We tell them they are important to us. We tell them their children bring us joy. We use words that life them up.

We do good deeds of service for others. We clean their sink, we repair their cars, we trim their hedges, we take out the garbage, we pressure wash their homes.

We give people hugs after asking permission. We give the frail person an arm to walk on, we help them from their car. We shake their hands. We gently touch their shoulders when they are praying with tears. We let them cry on our shoulders.

We give gifts to people we love. A box of chocolate, some flowers. We bring them a gift card for Lowe’s or Home Depot when their home needs paint, a bag of groceries when they are struggling with money, diapers when they have a new baby, a pie for their celebration or a meal when they are sick. We give them a Bible when they need one or a devotional book if they have one.

And we share quality time with the people we love. We sit and listen to their boring stories and we tell them our uplifting, funny stories. (Have you ever noticed that their stories are boring and ours are always interesting? That might have something to do with our point of view, eh?)

We work together on the car and paint together on the fence. We invite them over for grilled hot dogs or steaks, and tell them all they can bring is a salad or deviled eggs. We meet them for lunch or breakfast and we use the time to talk about the love of Christ, for one day we want to be able to spend years with them in New Jerusalem, and teaching them about Christ’s love today is the best way we can assure us both of that future meeting.

And this leads us to our third aspect of the Christian life. If at first we are concentrating upon getting ourselves better, then we begin to work more and more at loving others, the third aspect of the Christian life is found in Peter’s story which is first told in Acts 10 and then Peter repeats the story here in Acts 11 to a group of believers. 

Acts 11:1-18

Simon Peter had been raised as a good, Law-following Jew. This particular day, up in the sun on the roof of a house, Peter had a vision, a vision of a sheet or tarpaulin being let down with all sorts of animals on it – sheep, cattle, pigs, lizards, birds. A voice told Peter to kill and eat, but Peter protested that He had never eaten anything unclean like pigs or lizards and never would. But the voice told Peter that what God has made clean he must not call common.

About this time some Romans came and asked Peter to follow him to the next town. When Romans came and asked you to follow them, you did that because they carried weapons and ordinary people did not. Of course, ordinarily, Jews would not associate with Romans, for they considered them to be dirty, evil, nasty men and women. 

When the group arrived in the next town, it turned out that Cornelius, the Roman centurion, or captain, wanted to hear about Jesus. Peter began to speak and suddenly everyone was hit by the Holy Spirit and started praising God. Peter put two and two together and realized that God had declared the Gentile, pagan Romans clean now, and so Peter baptized these men and women. He also said: “Now I really understand that God doesn’t show favoritism, but in every nation the person who fears Him and does righteousness is acceptable to Him.”

And this is the third aspect of the Christian life. We are to talk about God and Christ not just to members of our family, not just to our friends, not just to our neighbors, but to every person. We are to learn to treat all people equally.

If the first step of the Christian life is getting ourselves right with God, and the second step is learning to show love to others, the third step is when we no longer show favoritism, but learn to share the good news of Christ with all people, loving all people, teaching all people.

How far along are you?

Are you a beginner, trying to develop the self-discipline that puts you on the way of holiness, following Jesus, doing more than just studying Jesus but learning to follow Jesus?

Or are you beginning to look around you and show love to others, your friends, your relatives, your neighbors? Are you practicing the five languages of love?

Or are you more advanced, beginning to accept all people, to look at each person as someone who needs God’s love, even those people you don’t particularly like? Are you learning that God's will always is more important than our preferences?

In each case, we are best helped in our progress if we learn to study our Bible more carefully and listen more carefully to the Holy Spirit.

When Peter encountered the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household, Peter saw the Holy Spirit come upon the household. And he remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

My friends, most of us have been baptized with water. If you have not been baptized with water, please let me know this week and we will arrange a baptism time over the next few weeks.

But has the Holy Spirit come upon you?

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be talking more about the Holy Spirit and how the Spirit operates in and through believers. Do not doubt – the Book of Acts is clear that the Holy Spirit was what stirred the massive expansion of the church in the days of the Apostles, from a small band of about 120 followers of Christ when He returned to Heaven, to many thousands over the next couple of years.

We are poised on the edge of a massive outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But first, we must learn to love one another much deeper than before. So I am asking you to stand at this time and turn to your neighbor. Say, “Neighbor!” “I love you!” and then tell them why you love them so much. And then, tell your next neighbor why you love them. And continue this.

Feed My Sheep

You know, Easter is a busy time for pastors. I had twelve continuous days of events, including three services on Palm Sunday, three services on Easter Sunday, two nights preaching revival at Andy’s churches, four Bible studies, a Seder dinner, a Good Friday service – and two egg hunts and a clothing giveaway. And so, I took a day off last week and slept in. 

Audio Sermon Podcast

The events of the first Easter week were also stressful for the disciples. So after the Resurrection, after Jesus appeared to the disciples and then the next week appeared again to the disciples, this time with Thomas, a group of the disciples, led by Peter, decided to go fishing on the Sea of Galilee – the Sea of Tiberius as it was also called. 

Revelation 5:11-14; Psalm 30; John 21:1-19 Audio Gospel

The group that went fishing that day were Peter, James and John, Thomas, Nathaniel and a couple others – likely Peter’s brother Andrew and we’re not sure of the other. Seven altogether. Seven, the biblical number of completion.

They went out that night on the lake, throwing their nets into the waters. It was the custom at the time to fish at night, because it was cooler, they could sell their catch to people at the dock in the early morning, and the fish were probably attracted to their lights. And besides, the disciples needed to think and process everything they’d been through.

It had been about a couple of years since they had gone fishing, for Jesus liked to travel and in most of Israel, there weren’t suitable waters for net fishing. They had walked up and down the land, as far as Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the south and north to Sidon in modern day Lebanon. They had walked up Mt Hermon in the northeast, and down to near the Dead Sea in the south, and made the 3000 foot climb to Jerusalem.

They had met with crowds of thousands of people, fed them at least twice, debated with Pharisees about the Law of Moses, Sadducees who loved the Temple almost as much as God, and met with Roman soldiers and Greeks who were seeking wisdom. Their leader had been arrested, and they had run for safety after boasting about sticking with Him always – and they had seen Him die – and they had seen Him alive again. And so they were exhausted and needed time to think and process and rest in the quiet of the cool lake air at night. And possibly because of this, they caught nothing that night.

The day dawned hot and muggy. Several of the disciples stripped down to nothing, there being no problem with this at that time and place, a hundred yards from shore.

In the gray of the morning, they saw a man walking on the shore as the new day brightened and the fog lifted. The man yelled to them, “Men, you don’t have any fish, do you?” “No,” they answered, for it had been a disappointing night.

“Cast the net on the right side of the boat,” He told them, “and you’ll find some.” So they did, and they were unable to haul it in because of the large number of fish.
The disciple John remembered that day three years before when Jesus asked to borrow Simon Peter’s boat as a floating platform form which to preach to the people. Afterwards, Jesus suggested Peter move the boat out into the deeper water and let down the nets. Peter pointed out that they’d worked hard all night and hadn’t caught anything, but because the teacher had said to do it, he let down the nets. And they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break, requiring help from another boat. It was at that time that Peter, James, and John all chose to follow Jesus.

Remembering this event from three years ago, looking at the situation around, John, the disciple, the one Jesus loved, said this morning to Peter, “It is the Lord!”

When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tied his robe around him and dove into the sea, swimming like crazy for the shore. But since they were not far from land (about 100 yards away), the other disciples just came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish. When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread.

“Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,” Jesus told them. So Simon Peter got up and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish—153 of them. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn.

Many people have speculated on the reason that John was so specific about the number of fish they caught that day. Someone thought it represented the number of nations. If so, it had to be at a specific time, for the number of nations keeps changing. Others have developed convoluted mathematical ideas, such as 153 being the sum of the first 17 integers which represents the 7 gifts of the Spirit plus the Ten commandments. Others have pointed out that in the Greek, like Roman numerals, the letters have numerical values, and found several words or phrases that add up to 153. But the most convincing argument for me is that in II Chronicles 2:17, Solomon conducted a census of foreigners and found that there were a hundred and fifty three thousand foreigners in the land of Israel, which may indicate that these new fishers of men could expect a harvest of the foreigners.

“Come and have breakfast,” Jesus told them. None of the disciples dared ask Him, “Who are You?” because they knew it was the Lord.

Once again, we see that Jesus doesn’t look exactly the same as He did before. There is something that is different about Him, but they are sure that this man on the seashore is Jesus.

Jesus came, took the bread, and gave it to them. He did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after He was raised from the dead.

When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” Jesus was pointing to the fish, and he used the Greek word agape, one of the four words in Greek that we translate as love. Agape means a self-sacrificing love, a love which is always embracing God’s preferences. The root of the word agape is "prefer".

“Yes, Lord,” he said to Him, “You know that I love You.” But here Peter’s love is the Greek word philo, which means “affectionate friendship” or “brotherly love”. In essence, Peter says, "You know that I love You as a brother."

“Feed My lambs,” He told him.

A second time He asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said to Him, “You know that I love You.”

“Shepherd My sheep,” He told him. Essentially the same exchange – Jesus asks Peter to agape Him and Peter says he philos Jesus. "Will you self-sacrifice?" "I love you as a brother."

He asked him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” This time, Jesus backs off a bit. He asks Peter if he philos him – does he have brotherly love for Him?

Peter was grieved that He asked him the third time, “Do you love Me?” Peter is upset because he knows that the three questions correspond to the three times Peter denied knowing Jesus on the night He was betrayed. Three denials; three questions.

He said, “Lord, You know everything! You know that I love You.” Peter responds with his assurance of brotherly love.

“Feed My sheep,” Jesus said. And just like that, Peter knows that he is back in the good graces of the Lord, that the Lord trusts him, Peter, with leadership of Jesus’ continuing mission. And it is the same with us when we mess up. Jesus is ready to welcome us back into the mission.

Jesus continues, though, with a prophecy about Peter’s old age:

“I assure you: When you were young, you would tie your belt and walk wherever you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you where you don’t want to go.” He said this to signify by what kind of death he would glorify God. After saying this, He told him, “Follow Me!”

“Follow Me.“ Hmm.

There is much more in this exchange than meets the eye. This is not just the story of Jesus and Peter; It is the story of all believers. For we must look to Peter as an example of how each of us encounter Jesus and ultimately the demands that Jesus puts on us.

First, Jesus gets our attention and we recognize Jesus as holy and perhaps even as God, as Peter recognized Jesus was holy with the first large catch of fish. Before Peter met Jesus, there was nothing more important in Peter’s life than his daily fish catch, for this determined his income. He worked hard – yet Jesus had led Peter to his largest catch of fish ever, and that got Peter’s attention, so he began to the follow Jesus.

All along throughout the three year ministry of Jesus, Peter is the outspoken one, the one who is ready to have the extreme, radical faith before the others. Are you like Peter? 

It is Peter who first says that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. It is Peter who is ready to put Jesus as high as Moses and Elijah on top of the mountain of Transfiguration. At the last supper, it is Peter who boasts that he will never deny Jesus – and it is Peter who does indeed deny Him when the soldiers come for Jesus that night to keep Peter from being identified as a follower of Jesus. It is Peter who weeps bitterly over his own actions. And it is Peter who races to the tomb and puts his head first in the tomb to see that the body is missing. And now, it is Peter who Jesus forgives, and, not only forgives Peter, gives Peter an important duty in the kingdom, to do what Jesus wants, to feed the young Christian lambs, to take care of the flock of Christians, to feed the adult sheep.

Perhaps you are like Peter – daring to see the Son of God where others merely see a great teacher? Are you ready to lift Jesus’ name up with the greats of history? Are you the one who boasts that you will never deny Jesus – yet you fail to mention His name to your family, friends, and neighbors when given the chance? Do you have regrets over the times you don’t speak of Jesus when you could have?

Are you always ready to find the next miracle, to look for the next miracle of Jesus? And are you the one who understands the love of Christ when Christ forgives you of the things you’ve done that you are not proud of? Are you the one to whom Jesus is even now speaking, saying that there are baby Christians out there who need you to feed them with mentoring, by leading them through the Bible, by teaching them how to read Scripture, by praying with them in addition to praying for them?

Try this. Write down 12 names of people you don’t think are regular, believing Christians, or who need to be shepherded along to grow their young faith. Pray for and about these 12 people daily. Make a point to speak to them monthly, or better yet, speak to them once a week. Praise God to them and tell them a bit more of what you’ve already learned about Jesus. Treat them as though you were the leader of their Sunday School class, even though most of them may never have entered a church. And see what happens.

Feed His lambs. Shepherd His sheep. Feed His sheep. And Follow Jesus.

Church tradition tells us that Peter quickly became the spiritual leader of the Jesus movement. After a couple of decades in Jerusalem, he may have traveled to Babylon and back. Later, he traveled to Rome. When Peter was an old man, living in Rome, tradition tells us that Nero chose to blame the Christians for the great fire in Rome, and so Peter became one of those Nero had killed. Tradition tells us that Peter, humble, asked to be crucified upside down because he was not worthy to have the same death as Christ. And this is what happened.

Now it’s your turn. Jesus is calling you. Feed His lambs. Shepherd His sheep. Feed His sheep. And Follow Jesus.