Fixed vs Growth: Effort, Denial and Forgiveness

In the last chapter of the Gospel of John, chapter 21, we find the resurrected Jesus and the disciple Peter walking on the beach after a breakfast of miraculously caught fish.  The night of Christ’s crucifixion, Peter had denied his Lord three times after being explicitly warned that he would do so.  After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples several times.  At the opening of chapter 21, Peter declares to the rest of the disciples that he was going fishing. It seems he was going back to the life he knew best.  We can imagine Peter’s thoughts: he’d publicly failed at this disciple thing, Jesus was alive and had interacted with him but this huge failure, this denial, was still there between them and he needed the comfort of a familiar activity, something he knew he was good at.  Maybe he was even thinking about simply returning to his life as a fisherman, feeling that his failure was too great.  

 Peter and several other disciples fail to catch any fish that night.  Imagine Peter’s heart:  failure as a disciple and failure as a fisherman.  Jesus appears on the beach and—unrecognized by them--tells  them to put down their nets on the other side of the boat.  They immediately catch an overflowing net-full of fish.  Peter, recognizing Jesus, leaps from the boat to join Him on the beach. Jesus tells them to bring their fish to His fire for a breakfast of fish and bread.  After breakfast, Jesus asks Peter three times “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”  Three times, Peter answers yes.  Three times, Jesus tells Peter to feed His sheep.  After the third inquiry, the Bible tells us that Peter was hurt. Again, we can imagine what is going through Peter’s mind:  are the three questions intentionally meant to remind him of the three failures, the three denials?   Is this a test, yet another opportunity for failure?  Peter’s third response is lengthier, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”  Jesus ends by prophesying about the deaths of Peter and John, as John (“the disciple whom Jesus loved” and author of this gospel) was following them on the beach, and Jesus tells Peter to follow Him.

Peter, likely wracked with guilt and overwhelmed by self-doubt, is told three times to “feed my lambs….take care of my sheep….feed my sheep.”  This interaction seems to convey the three-fold forgiveness offered by the Savior for Peter’s three-fold denial.  It also seems to imply an acknowledgement by Jesus that Peter would almost certainly struggle with feelings of guilt and doubt for the rest of his earthly life.  And what should Peter do when his heart condemns him?  Feed the sheep.  After the nights when the memory of that cock crow haunts Peter’s dreams, what is he to do?  Feed the lambs, care for the sheep.  It is John—trailing behind on the beach, apparently eavesdropping on this conversation between his Savior and his friend—who writes in 1 John 3: 18– 20 “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence whenever our hearts condemn us.  For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.”  Peter’s final answer to Jesus was nearly that exact phrase:  “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”  His own answers may have been overshadowed with his own feelings of doubt, and so Peter called on the loving omniscience of his Savior. Christ is greater than our hearts.  He knows everything, He knows that we love Him.  When our hearts are troubled, when our hearts condemn us as Peter’s heart condemned him, we doubt ourselves and our faith, this is how we set our hearts at rest:  we feed His sheep. 

Our efforts are not about earning approval or salvation.  It is not about proving anything to God; it is about turning away from feelings of guilt and self-doubt and living out the love of Christ in our lives with tangible actions of love toward others.  Do you feel like a failure as a parent, that you are not loving your children the way God desires, that you have failed too often to be worthy of the title Christian parent?  Forget those failures and that self-condemnation:  feed His sheep.  Do what a good, Godly parent would do; return again to the daily care, patience, feeding, bathing, teaching and correction that is part of feeding His sheep.  Do you feel like a failure as an employee or as an employer, that you have not behaved with the integrity, hard work and joyful service worthy of a Christ follower?  Forget the feelings of failure:  feed His lambs. Choose to return to work tomorrow with renewed dedication to be a workman worthy of the calling of Christ, dedicated to give Him glory in all things.  Do you feel like a failure as a spouse, that your actions and thoughts have been selfish and unkind, that you have not loved and cherished the way that a Christian spouse should?  Feed His sheep.  Forget those feelings, and choose to behave with a love that is patient, kind, not proud or easily angered, but is full of perseverance.   

Choose to feed His sheep.  Do not let your heart condemn you.  Trust that God knows everything, and has forgiven every sin for Christ’s sake. Do not be paralyzed by failure, but choose to feed His lambs. 

1)      Read 1 John 3: 16 through 24.  According to verses 16 through 18, what is our model for love?  What should that look like in our lives?

2)      We are to love “with actions and in truth.”  What are those actions, what is that truth?

3)      Meditate on verses 18 through 20.  Where do you feel like a failure?  Where does your heart condemn you?  What does “feeding His sheep” look like in your life?

4)      Verses 21 through 24 discuss faith, obedience and prayer.  How does corporate worship, personal Bible study and prayer, and participation in the sacraments also set our hearts at rest?

5)      A fixed mindset wallows in failure and allows self-doubt to paralyze future actions.  Peter’s return to fishing implies a fixed mindset—he went back to the old and familiar after a major setback.  A growth mindset views failure as part of learning and growing, and focuses on doing better in the future.  How does Jesus’ three-fold call to Peter to feed His sheep, and the call to love in actions and in truth found in 1 John, inspire a growth mindset in you, one that is free from paralyzing guilt?