John 21:1–14

0:00 Let me invite you to take a Bible and turn over to John chapter 21. That's where we're going to be this morning. You would have noticed when I prayed this morning in the pastoral prayer that I talked about what a blessing it is, what a privilege, and what a mercy it is that we even have this Bible in front of us to study this morning. And it's true. That's the reason that every Sunday we gather together here and we open up this book, which is really a collection of 66 different books, and we spend a good amount of time studying it together. In fact, we probably spend as much time studying this book, if not more, than we do singing and praying and doing all the other things.

0:35 Which is because we understand that God gives life through this book right here. He gives life through his word. That's how he's determined to do it. So when we gather together, not only are we praying that people will come to spiritual life for the first time by believing in Jesus through his preached word. but we also believe and hope and pray that God will be giving our own souls life through his word as we study it and learn from it and apply it to our lives. So that's what I try to do up here, week in and week out, you know, most of the Sundays in a year.

1:06 I stand up here, read a passage of scripture to you, explain it, try to pull out all the little problems and mysteries and things that catch our minds and make us curious, talk about all those things, and then I try to apply it to life and say, hey, you know, Christian or maybe even human, here's how God's word applies to your life. And so that's what we're going to do today as we continue this study of the gospel of John. We're going to be starting today, chapter 21. So we're coming really to the very end of the book now. I think, in fact, we've only got two more sermons after this one until we finish this book entirely.

1:40 We're beginning to look this morning, like I said, at the very last chapter, chapter 21, which the best way to think about chapter 21 is really that it forms a kind of epilogue to the main action of the book. The reason we say that is because in the text that we've studied over the last couple of weeks, so the end of chapter 20, it's really obvious that at the end of chapter 20, you've got the main climax of the story. You have Thomas with this kind of high-water mark confession. You, oh Jesus, are my Lord and my God.

2:14 After he said he would never believe in Jesus, Jesus appears and then he gives that sort of amazing Christological confession. You are my Lord and my God. And then chapter 20 ends, as you might expect the book to end, with this statement of purpose. These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that by believing in him, you may have life in his name. So at the end of chapter 20, you know, if you had to kind of turn a page, if there were white space that you had to turn a page, you would think that John was over because everything has kind of come to its climax.

2:45 It's kind of come to its conclusion. It just seems like it's over. So chapter 21, when it starts, is definitely a little unexpected. It's sort of like a post-credit scene in a Marvel movie, right? You sit there, you think it's over, and then all of a sudden, bam, here's another little scene that you get to watch. Now, the fact that 21 is unexpected, the fact that you think it's over at 20, then 21 continues on, that has caused some heartburn among some Christians. And we're going to talk about why that is in a minute.

3:16 We're going to try to sort that out a little bit. But for now, I want to just take a look at what we're about to study for these last three weeks in the book of John. So open your Bible to John chapter 21. It's on page 907. If you're using one of these red Bibles that you can find in the pew racks in front of you, maybe under your seat if you're sitting in one of the chairs instead of a pew. 907, you'll see a big number 21 there. That's chapter 21. And then inside that, you've got the little verse numbers. So if I say, you know, look at verse 3, you'll be able to look inside 21, find verse 3, and then you'll see what I'm trying to call out there.

3:54 At any rate, you look down through 21, and you can see that it's really a long recounting of one single morning on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, or the Sea of Tiberias, as John calls it. It was just called two different things, and John calls it the Sea of Tiberias. Everybody else kind of calls it the Sea of Galilee. But it's made up of several different parts, but all those parts kind of string together logically. So if your Bible is broken up into paragraph form like mine is, you can see this logical connection of all these paragraphs.

4:26 So look at the first line of every one of the paragraphs. Verse 1, after this, Jesus revealed himself again. Verse 4, just as day was breaking. You see, so it's the same story. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood. The next paragraph, verse 9, when they got out on the land. So we're in the same story. Verse 15, even after the break in a new, you know, it looks like a new story is starting. It's actually not. Verse 15, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, we're still in the same morning. And then that other break there at verse 20, Peter turned and saw the disciple.

4:57 So if all it said was, you know, Peter saw the disciple, you might think, okay, this could be a different time. This could be a different setting. But the fact that he turns and sees him behind him says, no, we're in the same set of action here. This is one big story that runs all the way through chapter 21. It's made up of three main parts. You've got the story that we're going to look at today, this huge haul of fish that goes from chapter 1 all the way down through, well, verse 1, all the way down through verse 14. Then you've got Jesus' conversation with Peter in that paragraph from 15 to 19.

5:32 And then another little conversation that Peter and Jesus have about John in verses 20 to 23. That's the last big section, and of course, 24, 25, you have this kind of wrap-up. And all of it happens very early in the morning on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. All right, now before we go any further on this, we've got to acknowledge that a good number of Christian scholars throughout history have thought that maybe chapter 21 doesn't actually belong to the Gospel of John, and therefore that it doesn't actually belong in the Bible that it was added later to the book, sometime after John wrote it, kind of like, for example, the ending of Mark or the first part of John 8. What you're going to notice, though, if you look at chapter 21, is that unlike John 8 and unlike the longer ending of Mark, there's nothing in your Bible that sort of brackets it off and notes for you that this probably isn't actually a part of the book. You know, Christians are very serious about what actually belongs in the Bible

6:36 and what doesn't. And if there's good evidence that say the first part of John 8 or the end of Mark doesn't actually belong in the Bible, we might put it in there because there might be a little bit of doubt, but we'll say, ah, all the evidence, if you stack it up, says that this doesn't belong. You're not going to see that in your Bible about John 21. And that's because the evidence just doesn't stack up. All the evidence, when you stack it up, winds up saying John 21 actually is part of the Bible. It's exactly where it belongs. But what's the case that it doesn't belong?

7:09 Well, essentially, the case that it doesn't belong in the Bible really rests on that whole, you know, slightly confusing thing that I mentioned earlier, that chapter 20 just ends on such a climactic note. If you think about it, that would have been the perfect ending to the book, right? Well, I mean, maybe. Maybe that would have been a fine ending to the book. You know, if it just ended at the end of 20, That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name, the end. I think most Christians throughout history wouldn't have skipped a beat if that were the end of John's book.

7:40 You know, it would have just, you'd have just kind of, you know, taken it that way and moved on with life. But on the other hand, I do think that chapter 21 does not, in fact, just seem tacked on. It doesn't seem like just an extra story that's thrown in that has no particular connection to the rest of the book. It's actually doing a couple of things that once you see them, once you see what this story is doing, you're like, yeah, that turns out to have been really important.

8:12 I'm actually really glad that chapter 21 is here because if it weren't here, that would have left a pretty big hole in the story. So, for example, one of those things is that since chapter 18, The relationship between Jesus and his kind of lead disciple, Peter, has been in severe tension. You notice that? It was in chapter 18 that Peter denied three times that he even knew Jesus.

8:43 Jesus looks at him. We don't know with what kind of facial expression. The rooster crows, and that's all you get. I mean, Peter gets to see the risen Jesus. He sees the resurrected Jesus, but they never have a one-on-one conversation as far as we know, as far as it's revealed to us. And so this tension between Jesus and Peter, what's going on between them? Is Peter ever going to be forgiven? Is he ever going to be reconciled to Jesus for what he did to him? What's going to happen with that whole relationship is just left unresolved. And if you didn't have chapter 21, you're just left going, I don't know.

9:19 I mean, the other three Gospels don't tell us anything about this reconciliation of Peter to Jesus. Doesn't tell us about Jesus reinstating him. There's nothing like that in any of the other Gospels. So if you didn't have chapter 21, you just don't know. But here you get the closing of that circle. Another thing. Here's another thing that's kind of missing from John if chapter 21 is not there. It turns out that every other one of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, ends with a clear commissioning of his disciples to go into the nations of the world and make disciples but if you don't have chapter 21 you don't have that in John you have this kind of generic thing that goes on general thing that goes on in chapter 20 where where he says as the father has sent me so I am sending you but there's no detail in that he doesn't he doesn't say therefore I'm sending you to the nations to make disciples of them and baptize them in the name of he doesn't say that it's just as the father sent me I'm sending you it's been cryptic we talked

10:20 about it, but he doesn't tell them, like, what are you sending them for? And if you don't have chapter 21, you just don't know. Now, some of you are already looking down at chapter 21. You read it earlier this week, and you're going, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't remember anything about a commissioning of disciples to the nations. And some of you are looking down even now, trying to find, okay, where is that commissioning? And you're right to do that. In fact, that's one of the big problems. That's like the big problem that we've got to deal with in this section, but we're going to get there. I'm going to try to prove it to you that that's what it's about, but hold tight, and you'll just have to trust me for a few more minutes until I can make the case.

11:00 But in at least those two ways, Peter and the commissioning of disciples specifically to take the gospel to the nation, it turns out chapter 21 makes some pretty important contributions to the story. And in fact, there's really, I mean, other than just the fact that people have said, well, it doesn't make any contribution to the story, there's really no other reason. There's no other evidence. There's nothing textual. There's nothing about vocabulary and style differences. There's no manuscript evidence. There's none of that. There's no good evidence to think that this chapter is not part of the original. So I'm concluding, like the vast majority of Christians have throughout history, that John wrote this thing, and it belongs here exactly where it is in the Bible. So let's look at it. Throughout chapter 20, what's been going on, just to catch you up very briefly, is that the resurrected Jesus has been appearing at various times and places to various ones of his disciples.

11:50 Various groups of them will be gathered together in certain places. Jesus appears to them. Certain things are said. Certain things happen. And now, here in chapter 21, he's going to do that appearance one more time, and that's where we pick up the story. So look with me at chapter 21, verse 1. After this, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the sea of Tiberias. And he revealed himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas, called the twin, Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples were together.

12:24 Simon Peter said to them, I am going fishing. They said to him, we will go with you. So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, children, do you have any fish? And they answered him, no. He said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. So they cast it. And now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, it is the Lord.

12:59 When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment for he was stripped for work and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off. When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread. Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish that you have just caught. So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast.

13:31 Now, none of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. I don't know about you, but as I read that story, I really do get a kind of mysterious vibe to it. I think there are a lot of things that John is doing in the telling of that story that make it a little bit mysterious, that make it a little bit cryptic.

14:05 And I think that's deliberate on his part. I mean, just think about the setting of the thing. You had sand, you had the sea, you had the gray light of the very early morning. Nobody else is around, so it's very quiet, and all you can hear is the lapping of the waves on the shore of the sea. You got the crackling charcoal fire on the seashore. It's just a very kind of quiet, calm, mysterious thing going on. And then you've got the fish. You've got the miracle catch of the fish that the disciples, ultimately Peter, has to drag ashore.

14:38 And then this very, I think, puzzling mention that there were precisely 153 of the fish. The whole scene, to me anyway, with all the little hints and all the little head nods to this and head nods to that, the quietness of it. It just gives this strangely calm and mysterious feel to the whole thing. But I also think that what is going on here is that Jesus, in a kind of mysterious, enigmatic, symbolic way that would have made a whole lot more sense to the disciples than it makes to us at first glance, what he's doing is that he's doing what's been missing from this gospel so far.

15:20 He's giving them the commission to go to the nations with the gospel, and he's promising that he's going to be there with them and strengthening for the task until the end of the age. I mean, really what you've got here is a symbolic equivalent, like worked out in actions, worked out in symbols. You've got the symbolic equivalent of what Jesus is going to say a few days later straight up and what Matthew records. Go and make disciples of all nations, and behold, I am with you even to the end of the age. That straightforward statement, go make disciples, and I'm with you until the end, is being said, the exact same thing is being said here, but in mysterious, enigmatic symbols.

16:03 So the main idea of this text is this, I think. You as a Christian have a commission from Jesus to do evangelism. You as a Christian, if you call yourself a believer, if you call yourself a Christian, you have a commission and even a command from Jesus to do evangelism. And Jesus is with you every step of the way. You have a commission or a command of Jesus to do evangelism. But praise God, Jesus is with you in that every step of the way.

16:38 All right, now in terms of the structure of this story, it's really hard to identify one. This story just flows from one event to the next. Just one thing happens right on the heels of the other. And I think it's really not possible in any kind of coherent way to break it into pieces. because if you can break it at one point, you can break it after the next verse, you can break it after the next verse. You could do that kind of artificially, right? But there's no place at which the story sort of halts and the camera angle changes or something like that. In fact, it's so much that kind of a story. It's just one act. It's so much that kind of a story that I intended actually to break it and only preach 1 through 8 today and do 9 through 14 next week, but I just don't think it works. I think it's kind of an arbitrary break there at verse 9, other than the fact that they've arrived on the shore, but the action doesn't change. And so what I've decided to do is just preach the whole thing today, all 14 verses of this. So because we're doing that, I want to do things, because it's got such an unbreakable structure, I think, I want to do things a little bit differently today. And instead of trying like we normally do to break the story

17:38 into acts or movements or sections and put our focus on one thing at a time, instead of doing that, I want to notice two themes that I think weave together to make the meaning of this story. And those two themes are really the two halves of that main idea. So here they are, two points to the sermon. We're going to just be looking at those themes throughout the entire 14 verses. Number one, Jesus commissions his disciples, by which I mean to take the gospel to the nations. Jesus commissions his disciples. Number two, Jesus cares for his disciples. So if you want to, those two points. Jesus commissions his disciples. Jesus cares for his disciples. If you want slightly more creative point titles, it would be number one, go and make disciples. Number two, behold, I am with you all the way to the end. That's what the two points are. So let's jump into it. Point number one, this is where Jesus commissions his disciples in this book. So let's start, as we start to unfold this text, as we especially start to talk about this commissioning idea, let's start just by

18:41 acknowledging the gigantic elephant in the room here. If you look back through our text this morning, this story of the huge haul of fish, if you just look back through all 14 verses of it, you are not going to see one single word about evangelism, or missions, or the nations. There's no command from Jesus that they should go anywhere. There's no commissioning. There's no nothing.

19:15 So why do I keep saying this text is about evangelism? That is an excellent question. And I'm going to tell you why in just a few minutes. Before that, let's just go through because there are a lot of details in this story that just bear unpacking a little bit. Just little strange things here and there that we need to notice. Let's just make sure we've got the basic events of the story down. So by this time, by the time chapter 21 opens, we're several days after the resurrection. The disciples have seen Jesus now, at least some of them have, at least two times. On this particular occasion, it turns out that seven of them, a couple of them are named there.

19:48 Peter's there. Thomas, who was once unbelieving Thomas, but is now believing Thomas, he's there, right? You've got the sons of Zebedee. You've got Nathaniel, who was one of the very first people to witness to Jesus back in chapter 1. And then you've got these other two disciples, which is unclear why John doesn't name them, but he doesn't. There were two other guys with us also. So it almost kind of doesn't matter who the seven are. John doesn't make a big deal about who the seven are. He just names some of the main characters that you're going to be familiar with and sort of leaves it at that. But at any rate, seven of them were together on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias.

20:22 Well, why are they there? Why are they in Galilee? Why are they there on the shore of the sea? Well, John doesn't tell us why they're in Galilee. I mean, back in chapter 20, they're all still in Jerusalem. Well, now by the time they get to chapter 21, they've moved to Galilee, which is way up north. Jesus spent a lot of time teaching there. He may have even kind of resided there in between mission trips. But they're way up north, away from Jerusalem in Galilee. John doesn't tell us why, but Matthew does. And it's because Jesus had just flat out commanded them to go there.

20:55 He told Mary Magdalene, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and wait for me until I appear to them there. So that's what they're doing. They've gone to Galilee, and now they're just waiting for Jesus to come to them. In fact, it's right here in Galilee where Jesus, a few days after this event, is going to give them the straight-up Great Commission. Go and make disciples of all nations, and I'm with you always to the end of the age. And then he's going to ascend into heaven right here from this ground in Galilee. But for now, they're just waiting. And really unsurprisingly, Peter gets impatient with the whole thing.

21:31 And he says, I'm going fishing. Now, some people have wondered, should Peter and the other disciples be blamed somehow for going fishing? I mean, aren't they supposed to be waiting on Jesus? Aren't they supposed to be, you know, about the work of, you know, the resurrected Christ? Is this an example of them giving up on Jesus or at least thinking about giving up on Jesus and going back to their old professions? Well, I don't think so.

22:01 They're doing what Jesus told them to do. They're in Galilee. They're waiting. I mean, probably Peter is like picking up little rocks and throwing them into the seashore, right? And he's just like, I'm bored. I'm going fishing. I'm still waiting on Jesus, but I'm going to do it while I'm fishing. And so that's what they do. Anyway, what happens is they go out into the boat. You can see that in chapter 21, verse 3. They go out into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Now that's interesting. That's interesting, isn't it? If you've been here long, you know the dimension of a night or a day can often in John, I think almost always, it is spiritually significant.

22:40 So what does it mean that they're fishing at night? What it means is that they don't yet completely understand what the resurrection of Jesus means. They're still in some spiritual darkness about what that means, right? So you remember when Judas goes out to betray Jesus. How does John end that story? And it was night, right? It was night, not just outside, but in Judas' soul. And when the rooster crows at Peter, what does that signal? The crowing of a rooster always signals the break of day.

23:11 So what that's signaling is that there's hope for Peter in a way that there wasn't hope for Judas. Well, here, John uses that night imagery again. They went out, got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. It was empty. It was futile because their souls were still in the night. But then look at 4. Just as day was breaking, Jesus. So something's about to change. Spiritual night is about to give way to spiritual daytime. They don't know that it's Jesus standing there on the shore.

23:45 And then Jesus asks them this question. Children, do you have any fish? It's interesting that that question is not exactly translated right. It's not children, do you have any fish? That's not what it is. It's children, you don't have any fish, do you? That's what it is. And we'll talk about the significance of that later. Then they give him this kind of pathetic, you know, pouty no. And then he says, okay, well, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some. Why the right side? Nobody knows. Maybe that's because the fish were on the right side and Jesus knew that. And so he threw it on the right.

24:15 Or maybe it's because he drew them to the right once they threw the net in. Maybe if he had said, cast it on the back of the boat or the left, all the fish in the Sea of Galilee would have gone, whoosh, to that net wherever it was thrown. Who knows? Jesus just says, throw it on the right, and there are fish. So they aren't able to haul it in because of all the fish. And once that happens, John, that's verse 7, this disciple whom Jesus loved, we've identified him as John himself. So that disciple says to Peter, very characteristically, he's like a step ahead of Peter.

24:46 You remember he outruns him to the tomb. He always seems a little sharper than Peter in kind of understanding things, except for a few exceptions to that. But here he's a step ahead of Peter in his understanding of what's happening. He says to Peter, it's the Lord. And then in very characteristic fashion, when Peter hears that it's the Lord, what does he do? He jumps off the boat into the ocean. He's a man of action. He doesn't always know what he's doing when he acts, but he's acting. So he jumps off into the sea. It's a little weird that he put on his outer garment for he was stripped for work, threw himself into the sea.

25:18 Normally you don't put on clothes in order to jump into the water. But he does. Lots of guesses as to why that little phrase is there. Two best guesses, and you can just take your pick. It does not matter which one you choose. It may be that he was literally naked. That's the word that's used, gymnos, like a gymnasium. Because in the ancient Roman world, when you exercise, you would exercise totally naked. And so when he was working, he may have been completely gymnos. He may have been completely naked and he may have thought, I'm going to see the Lord. I might want to have something on.

25:48 And so he puts on an outer cloak, jumps in the water, swims in. That's one explanation. Another explanation is that gymnos doesn't always mean utterly and completely naked. It can mean that you just have on a little bit of clothes, right? And so what this word he put on his outer garment, it actually means that he tucked in, he tucked up his outer garment. So it may be that Peter was only mostly gymnasts, and he had on this light outer garment that would have been looser fitting than the inner tunic, right?

26:22 That's all he had on to work, and when he realized he was going to have to swim, he sort of girds up his loins, right? He pulls it up and ties it in a knot and tucks it in, and off he goes into the water. It absolutely does not matter which of those you choose. Anyway, notice there in verse 8 what happens. So you get all excited to see what's going to happen with Peter after he jumps into the sea, and then he doesn't show up again. This is verse 8. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land but about 100 yards off.

26:57 And when they got out on the land, they saw charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread. Like, you don't see anything about what happens to Peter in the water or dragging his, you know, sorry, dripping wet self up onto the land. You don't get anything of any conversation that happened between him and Jesus. Why not? Why not? Well, because John is not an all-knowing writer of fiction. He doesn't know what went on in everybody's head or in every conversation. He's writing down his experience, and so obviously the camera stays with him on the boat.

27:27 So all you get is this, it almost to me reads as irritated that Peter jumped out of the boat. The other disciples came in the boat dragging the nets. Not Peter, he jumped in the water. And then you just pick up the story when they get to the land. When they got out on the land, they saw charcoal. That was John's experience. And so that's what he wrote. Notice that charcoal fire there. 2 in verse 9. That's interesting. When's the last time we saw a charcoal fire?

28:00 When Peter denied Jesus three times. So you've got to wonder if one of the things that happened when Peter dragged his sorry wet self up onto the shore is if he saw the charcoal fire and Jesus and went, uh-oh. What's that for? And then the rest of the story, Jesus says, bring some of the fish. He's already got some fish that he's cooking. There he says, bring some of the fish that you've caught. Peter goes to the boat. He's an incredibly strong guy, apparently. He hauls the net ashore. 153, very specifically, 153 fish.

28:32 The net was not torn, even though it was so many. That's noted. And then Jesus says, come eat. You get a little bit of stuff in there in verse 12 about how they did. They didn't want to ask him, who are you? They knew it was the Lord, but they were scared in some way to interact with him. And then Jesus takes the bread and gives it to them. Gives them some fish and they eat and that's it. So that's the outline of the story. But why is it here? How is it functioning in this book as a whole?

29:04 What's it doing? I mean, it can't just be one more resurrection appearance story that John wanted to include. It just can't be that. Because the most climactic resurrection appearance story is the one with Thomas, right? Put your fingers in my hands. He says, my Lord and my God. That's the climactic resurrection appearance story. And just tacking another one on where they don't really do a whole lot except catch some fish and then cook them and eat them is not going to convince anybody of Jesus' resurrection that's not already convinced.

29:39 So it would just be a literary misfire if that's all John were doing. We're just putting another thing in there. So it's got to be doing something else. Why is this story in there? Well, obviously it's the setup, right, for the conversation between Jesus and Peter that's about to take place. That's setting up for that. They're about to have this conversation where Peter's reinstated and reconciled to Jesus. But many of you will remember already that it's also this story of the fish is also a callback to another event in Peter's life, a wholly different event altogether, and that was the very first time that Jesus called him to be one of his disciples.

30:21 Remember that story? And that callback, the fact that this story of the fish calls back to that first story is why a whole lot of Christians throughout history have said, hmm, I wonder if this big catch of fish is supposed to symbolize evangelism. That's why we do it. Let me read you that story. I'm going to go to, if you want to follow along, it's fine. Otherwise, you can just read. We're not going to be like looking at it in any detail. I want to read you the story of when Peter was called to be a disciple.

30:56 It's Luke chapter 5, and I'm just going to read verses 1 through 10. I'm just going to read the, or 11. I'm going to read the whole story. Luke chapter 5, page 860 in the Pew Bible if you're there. Keep your thumb in John because we're going to go right back there. Okay, sounds like most of you have got it. So here we go, 5-1. On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret.

31:28 And he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, that's Peter, by the way. He asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Peter answered, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing, but it's your word I will let down the nets. And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink.

32:01 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken. And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, now here it is, here's the key to the whole thing. Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid. From now on you will be catching men. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. So there, at the beginning of Peter's discipleship to Jesus, he uses the catch of fish as a symbol for evangelism.

32:36 From now on, I'm going to make you a fisher of men. You're not going to be catching fish anymore. You're going to be pulling men, and women obviously, men, into the kingdom of God. And so Christians have looked at this story now, flip back to John 21. We've looked at this story and said, hmm, I wonder if Jesus might be drawing the same symbol that he drew so explicitly at the beginning of Peter's life. Now, some of you might be saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. But John doesn't tell that story.

33:08 Like, he never sets that story up earlier in the book. And man, if John had told Luke 5 early on in the book and then you had chapter 21, man, that's a solid connection right there in John. And you're right. For this kind of interpretation, everyone would prefer that John had set it up in the beginning of his book. But what's one of the things that we've said about John? One of the things we've said about John is that he expects his readers to already be familiar with Matthew, Mark, and Luke. He's not a fiction writer so that every symbolic payoff has to be set up in his own made-up story.

33:47 No, he's dealing with historical facts that his readers would already be familiar with. And so here, as he does other places in his book, he'll do a callback to one of those stories that he doesn't even mention. And yet he's expecting you to know about that historical event. I think that's what's going on here. There's another place, too, just to kind of, I mean, if that's kind of one thread, you know, that helps to tie this gulliver down here. You've got another place too where Jesus uses this image of fish and fishing to symbolize Christian mission.

34:19 It's in Matthew chapter 13. Here's what it says. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. And so it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing teeth. So at least two times in the Gospels, once in kind of acted out parable and once in his own parabolic teaching, fishing for Jesus very much had a symbolic connection to the gathering in of the elect from the nations.

34:53 He saw in fishing a symbol of the gathering in of the nations. Okay, so that's another thread that sort of ties this down. This thing seems to be more and more looking like it's about evangelism. But there's another clue that that's what's happening too. And it's in that very strange statement in verse 11 that there were precisely 153 fish. All right, here we go. Why does John note that? I mean, it would have been one thing if John had said something like, and we caught about 150 fish or something like that.

35:27 We wouldn't have given it a second thought. We would just think, well, he's just telling us that it was 150 fish because, well, that's a big haul of fish. And they counted and they're proud of it and they're telling the world. right? But it's the specificity of the number. 153 shall be the number of the counting. Thou shalt count to 153, not to 154. Come on now. Get that joke. It's the specificity that's led Christians for centuries to try to figure out what that means.

36:00 And my goodness, have they come up with some ideas for what 153 means. There are some doozies out there in the church. Fathers and modern people, folks have just thrown Hail Marys at this 153 to try to complete a pass. So for example, some people have noticed that 153 is, if you factor it out, recall your ninth grade math class, if you factor 153, you get 17 times 3 times 3.

36:33 Okay, so what? Well, to begin with, you've got two trinities there, right? 3 and 3. Well, what about the 17? It's a bit of a problem, but you can break 17 into 7 and 10. And lo and behold, 10 is the number of completion. So now you've got 10, the number of completion, a trinity, and a trinity because you've got a 7 left over. Well, lo and behold, you can break 7 into 3 and 4. So not only do you get the number of the new creation, four, but you get the third trinity.

37:05 It's a trinity of trinities. And not only that, but you can take your four and your last three and you can multiply those together and you get a 12, which is the number of the apostles. You see? No, I don't either. Like that just, it just literally makes no sense whatsoever. And you can do that with numbers from now until kingdom come. That's not what's going on. It's too complicated. There are too many steps. And besides, this text has absolutely nothing to do with the Trinity or the number of the disciples or the New Heavens.

37:41 It's just not about that. It's got no roots in those kinds of topics. Where does it have roots? At least a little bit so far. Well, what we've already seen is that as a fishing story, this text does have at least some tenuous roots in the idea or the topic of the Great Commission, the gathering in of the elect from the nations, just by virtue of it being a fishing story, as we've seen. So is there any sense in which 153 has a connection to that?

38:15 Well, sort of. What I'm going to do here is give you the best thing, the best guess that I think we've managed to come up with so far in the last 2,000 years. And I'm going to tell you up front that my judgment of the plausibility of this is an extremely firm, maybe? I kind of like it, but it seems a bit of a stretch. But here we go. All right, back in the ancient world, Greeks, Romans, Jews, everybody did a certain practice that they called gematria, which meant that they took the letters of their alphabet and they assigned numbers to them.

38:53 So A was 1, B was 2, C was 3, you know, all the way down. And once you got past 9, you started going 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and then on and on and on. So they gave numbers, values, and what you can do with this, as you can see, is play with it. So you can take the letters of a certain name, like Greg, and you can put the value of those letters together and you can say, ah, the number of Greg is whatever it happened to be. And the ancient people would do this with all kinds of things.

39:24 Like one of the things that the scribes would actually do is do this kind of gematria on all the proper names of the Old Testament. And some of those numbers became very, very famous. And you see it kind of pop up here and there in the New Testament. So, for example, at the end of Matthew chapter 1, you remember Matthew doing all those 14s? The 14 generations, 14 generations, 14 generations. That's Gematria. Because the number 14 had gotten very famous as being the lucky number of David. And so what Matthew's trying to do there is he's screaming in a symbolic way, but that everyone would have understood Jesus is the king, the king, the king.

40:01 He's David, David, David. That's what he's saying, right? Same kind of thing is probably happening with the 666 in the book of Revelation, though whatever that referred to has been pretty much lost to us. We just don't know exactly what that refers to. But here's the thing. It turns out that 153 was one of those numbers that kind of became famous because of a particular scene in the prophet Ezekiel. So Ezekiel's having this vision, and he sees this temple.

40:33 You know, it's not real, it's a vision, right? And so he's seeing it, and then an angel comes, and out of the temple there's this little trickle of water that's coming out of the wall, right? And so he notices that it's a trickle of water. The angel takes a few paces out from the temple, and he sticks a measuring rod in it. It's like that deep, right? And he takes a few paces more and sticks his rod up in it, and it's like three cubits deep or whatever Ezekiel says. So as the water trickles out of the temple, it's getting broader and deeper and wider as it goes forth. And it's the miraculous, life-giving power of the gospel.

41:05 That's what's going on there. That's the symbolism. But I want to read you a couple of verses that show up kind of at the end of that story. As the water goes, as it gets bigger, deeper, broader, here's what Ezekiel says. Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live. And there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh. So everything will live where the river goes. Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From En-Gedi to En-Egliam, it will be a place for the spreading of nets.

41:39 Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the great sea. Okay, so you've got another image of fishing there. And again, you look at the details. It's got to do with the ingathering of the nations of the earth. The fish of the sea are being brought in. But as the scribes and the Pharisees gematri-ed all the names in Ezekiel, it turned out that that place that I mentioned, Enagliam, came out to 153.

42:13 Okay, so that's not that noteworthy, though. Really, it's not. Except that the other place that's mentioned there, En-Gedi, where it says that the waters will flow from En Gedi to Iniglium, the other one got 17, which caught everybody's interest because it turns out that 17 is what they call the triangular number of 153. Now, what do I mean by a triangular number? Well, it means that if you add up all the numbers to 17, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4 plus 5, 17, you get 153.

42:49 They called it triangular because if you use dots, it's like one dot, two dots, three dots, four dots, and it turns into a triangle eventually, right? So that's why it's called a triangular number. You add up all those dots, you get 153. So people thought, wow, that's interesting. In a glim gets 153, and Gedi gets 17, and 17 and 153 are related to each other in this very common and interesting way. And so the verse kind of became famous for that. Well, the more they thought about it, the more they went through it, they realized, oh, it's really interesting if you take the one, if you take the 10 and the 7 that make up the 17, and you break those apart into a 10 and a 7, right?

43:26 And then instead of adding them together to get 17, you multiply them to get 70. It turns out that 70 is the number of nations in the Gentile world as it's listed out in Genesis. So they looked at all those thin little spider webs, right? They saw the 70 nations, the 7 times 10 nations. They saw the 1-7 connected to the 153. They saw the meaning of the passage in the bringing in of the Gentiles. And it just got famous that 153 was a number that referred to the bringing in of the Gentiles.

44:03 Now that's all very cloudy. It's all very tenuous, I know. But all those little spider webs of connection around the same theme of the nations got famous. It made 153 stick in their heads as standing for the gathering into the nations at the last day. My judgment on that, I don't know. It might be just that John was really proud of catching 153 fish, and so he told us. But that's the most interesting and least stretchy thing that I think we've come up with in the last 2,000 years.

44:40 Anyway, you put it all together, put all this symbolism together, all these little spider web threads. You've got fishers of men. You've got the net of the kingdom. You've got 153. You've got the fact that this is the natural place in the gospel for the Great Commission. And I think it's at least a fine guess, though certainly not completely locked down. And I think it's a fine guess that in this great hall of fish that they pull in, you've got a symbolic commissioning of the disciples to preach the gospel to the nations and gather in the elect. Now, that's super fascinating.

45:14 It's fun to try to figure out what does it mean for us. Well, I don't think it's that hard. It's really simple. If you're a Christian, you are to be doing the work of evangelism. It's part of why you're here on this earth. In fact, to do the work of evangelism, to tell other people about Jesus and be part of the ingathering of the elect from the nations of the earth is essential to the life of a Christian. It's essential that you be doing that work. So, are you doing that work? And in what way? You know, there's some people that the Bible says have the gift of evangelism, meaning they're really good at it and God tends to bless their efforts.

45:55 But not having the gift of evangelism is no excuse for not doing the commission of evangelism. The gift may not belong to all of us, but the commission does. So friend, if that's been a part of your Christian life that's just been kind of on hold, or you haven't thought about it in a lot of years, my encouragement to you here is to listen to Jesus. And if it's not clear enough to you here in John 21, that's fine. That's fine. I mean, if you want to object that you don't think it's that way, it's a strong enough objection, you can take it to your grave. you do not have to think John 21 is about evangelism.

46:28 You do, however, have to think Matthew 28 is about evangelism. And Acts 1 is about evangelism. And many, many other passages are about evangelism. So you can weasel out of this one. You can't weasel out of all those. You are under commission from the Lord to tell people about Jesus. So my challenge to you is that sometime over the month of November, do that. Find a person that you haven't spoken to about Jesus yet and speak to them about Jesus. It could be a perfect stranger. It could be just somebody that you're sitting next to on a plane, and you can start out introducing yourself by saying, hey, my name's Greg, and I'm a Christian.

47:03 That might get a conversation started. On the other hand, maybe you've been doing friendship evangelism for eight and a half years with somebody, and you haven't told them about Jesus yet. Well, friend, it's time. I mean, the whole purpose of friendship evangelism is to let people get to know you so that they see Jesus in you. And if they don't even know you're a Christian, How in the world do they know you? If you're holding back the most important thing about yourself, how in the world are you calling that friendship evangelism? Break that fourth wall. Tell them about Jesus sometime this November.

47:41 Here's the second point. Jesus not only commissions his disciples, he cares for his disciples. He not only commissions his disciples, he cares for them. So if one major theme of this text is Jesus is, and I use that if in a big way, if one major theme of this text is Jesus is commissioning of his disciples to preach the gospel, gathering the elect, then another one of those themes that's not near as difficult to see is parallel to Jesus' statement in Matthew that, behold, I am with you even until the end of the age.

48:13 In other words, it's the theme of Jesus caring for and providing for his disciples as they go about this hard work. I think there are several times that you see this in the story, and none of them are puzzles. So first of all, I just want you to notice that, again, at the very beginning of the story, it's Jesus who comes to the disciples at a moment of their need. It's Jesus that comes to his disciples at a moment of their need. So the first time he came to them after his resurrection was when they were locked in the house with their hearts all seized up with fear, right?

48:45 The doors were locked, and they thought the Jews were going to come and kill them, just like they had killed Jesus, and Jesus appears there, and the fear starts to break. It was a moment of need. Second time was when Thomas was in danger of being destroyed by just rank unbelief. I will not believe until I see this impossible thing. And Jesus shows up and says, here's the impossible thing. Rescues him from destruction. And now he comes to them at a moment of failure and frustration and disappointment. All night long, they had caught nothing.

49:17 which sounds just like the Jesus we get to know in the Gospels. It is just not surprising at all that he shows up to his disciples at a moment of their need. And Christians have often through history had that experience. We've written songs about it, that it's in the darkest moments of life when Jesus seems most present, When his comfort is the deepest, when the glory of the gospel shines the brightest, when grace is at its most wonderful.

49:52 It is a specific grace of God that he does this. And it's a proof of his specific care for us as believers that in the darkest moments of life, that's when we feel him the most. Jesus came to them in a moment of need. Second thing I want you to see is look at what he does in verse 5. In verse 5, how does he address them? He asks them a question. I told you what the question is. It's not, children, do you have any fish? It's, children, you don't have any fish, do you?

50:23 If you think about it, this is an approach that God uses over and over and over again throughout the Bible. He asks questions that force us to face ourselves. That force us to look in the face our own failure and sin and ultimately our need for him. Adam, where are you? Who told you that you're naked? David, why did you despise the word of the Lord and sin in this manner against his word? Blind man, what do you want me to do for you?

50:57 Mary Magdalene, why are you crying? Who is it that you seek? I mean, that's what that question is doing with the disciples. He's making them face their failure. He's making them face their frustration. You don't have any fish, do you? No. I mean, it's kind of pathetic when they say that no, but it's exactly where they needed to be in order to recognize him for who he is. Look, friend, maybe one of the most important things that you need to do this morning is not think about, you know, what 153 means, but maybe one of the most important things that you can do this morning, especially if you've been trying to live your life apart from Jesus, is just honestly ask yourself the same question that Jesus asked those guys.

51:43 You haven't really caught any fish, have you? In all the years of your life, for all that you've done, for all the success that you've had in business, in education, in friendships, in raising a good family, or whatever, when it comes to the eternal things, when it comes to the things that really matter, you haven't really caught any fish, have you? You haven't really done anything. You haven't really grasped anything that's going to last after these short years of your life are over.

52:16 Friend, it doesn't have to be that way. All the things in this life that you're grasping up, that you're pulling in, none of it matters. None of it matters if all you're going to do in a few years is drop off into the grave. But if you're going to go be with Jesus, if your sins are going to be forgiven through his life, lived in your place, through his death, died as your substitute, if you're going to go be with him, then guess what happens? All of those things that you're pulling together, all of those things, they don't have the shadow of the grave on them anymore.

52:51 They take on the whole new hue of the light of the new heavens and new earth. They take on a whole new meaning. It's not that all those things are just inherently worthless. I mean, read the book of Ecclesiastes. There's very little in this world except sin that's inherently worthless. It all has worth. But Jesus and the promise of eternal life is what locks it all down. It's what gives it all significance rather than just being swallowed up by the grave.

53:23 I mean, along those lines, look in verse 6 at how Jesus responds to the disciples' realization. that they don't have any fish. He says, you don't have any fish, do you? And they answer him, no. And he said to them, look what he doesn't say. He doesn't say, well, that's okay because fish don't matter anyway. Your work doesn't matter anyway. Getting some fish in the net, it just doesn't matter. In fact, what you need to be doing are more of these super spiritual things and you need to stop worrying about earthly things like fish anyway.

53:57 No, he doesn't say that. He gets involved with the earthly things that they're involved with. Cast in your nets because this is going to be fun. You see what he's doing there? He doesn't despise their fishing. He ennobles it. He empowers it. Christian, it's the same thing with the things in your life. Your job, your education, your family, your hobbies, even your recreation and your leisure. Jesus doesn't despise those things. You don't have to feel guilty for doing them rather than reading your Bible.

54:28 He puts us on this earth in part to engage and enjoy those things. And when we engage and enjoy those things as part of our following of Jesus, that's when they take on a whole new significance. Because we start to do them not for their own sake and not even for our sake, but for his sake. And he gets involved. And it's fun. Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. Look also at 12. Look what Jesus says there. Verse 12, Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast.

55:03 Come and have breakfast. I think what's so wonderful about that little phrase from Jesus is that there's nothing wonderful about it at all. It's just so plain. I mean, you can just see him. He's probably, you know, sort of popping a squat next to the charcoal, and he's cooking some fish. And he just says, come have breakfast when they get in. I mean, it's awesome to see that Jesus cares about such plain, normal concerns of his people. I mean, I think a lot of times we think of Jesus when we read it.

55:34 The movie that plays in our head of Jesus is of guru Jesus, staring off into space, eyes glassy. People talk to him, and he just says random spiritual things. That's not Jesus. Jesus cooks fish. He squats down next to a charcoal fire, and he cooks a piece of fish, and he says, And these guys get in and they're dripping wet and they're exhausted. They've been working all night. He says, come have breakfast. It's just good to know that Jesus cares about that kind of stuff. He knows we need eternity, yes.

56:06 He knows we need justification and sanctification and glorification. He knows we need our sins forgiven. He knows we need our bodies resurrected. He knows we need our great enemy's head crushed into the ground. But he also knows we need breakfast. brothers and sisters never never forget that jesus the very jesus who sits and reigns from the throne of the universe right now knows what you need before you even ask him look at the birds of the air they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet Your heavenly Father feeds them.

56:47 Are you not of much more value than day? Come have breakfast. Last thing I want you to see. I want you to see this really strange, but I think completely relatable phrase at the end of verse 12. He says, come have breakfast. Now none of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? Because they knew it was the Lord. Now, I think if you look at that sentence with just cold, hard logic, it doesn't quite make sense.

57:23 I mean, if they knew who Jesus was, why is the question, who are you, even in their minds in the first place? And if they knew who he was, and the question is in their minds for some reason, why does John put it, and this would have been his own heart's experience, right? Why does he put it as they didn't dare to ask him? Why doesn't he say they didn't need to ask him, who are you, because they knew who he was? Why is it they didn't dare to? I think if you read it through the cold, hard logic lens, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

57:57 But if you read it, if you just read it through the lens of what life is really like, you get it immediately. You get it immediately. They know who he is. They've seen him three times now. But this whole resurrection thing is so weird to them. It's so unexpected. And Jesus can now walk through walls. What's that about? That they really, really just want to look him in the face and say, is it really you? But they don't.

58:29 Because they already know the answer. So they didn't dare ask the question. Look at this too. So apparently, when Jesus says they're coming to eat breakfast, they're confusion there at the end of 12. And they're just bewilderment at this, what is going on with this? All of that is so great that apparently nobody comes to eat breakfast. Nobody comes to eat breakfast. They just kind of, it seems like, they just kind of keep their distance.

59:03 Maybe that's when they counted the fish. Nobody comes. But look what happens in 13. It's beautiful. They didn't come. So Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them. And so with the fish. You see that? Jesus came to them. Maybe he stood up from the fire. I don't know if his knees creaked through. He had to grunt a little bit when he stood up.

59:34 But maybe he said, all right, all right. If you're not going to come to me, I'll bring it to you. Have some breakfast, have some fish. He came to them where they were, in their fear, in their confusion, in their bewilderment. Friends, that's the kind of Jesus that we serve. One who comes to us wherever we are. So where are you this morning? Are you keeping your distance? Just counting your fish? Friend, wherever you are, listen to me.

1:00:07 Listen to me. If you will look up, if you will just look up from whatever you are doing as you keep your distance from Jesus, you will see him standing there offering you all the blessings of eternity. Come to him. Find his friendship and find salvation. And for you who are Christians, the last thing I'm going to say, for you who are Christians, if it's just kind of warm and wonderful to think about Jesus caring for you and offering you breakfast.

1:00:38 If it's wonderful to think about Jesus coming to you and giving you blessings, if that just feels wonderful, then I want you to hear this because I think what will happen is that you'll sit there for a moment and Jesus will come to you and he will care for you and then he will whisper into your ear, now go and make disciples. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are who you are. We thank you that you're the Lord of creation who can call fish into a net.

1:01:11 We thank you that you are the one who gave his life for us and who even now loves and cares for us, even in the tiny little details of our lives. God, we ask that you would help us remember these things and help us to put them into practice as we go out from this place today. We ask that in Jesus' name, amen.