I gotta say how, how precious there for Kobe to gimme a second chance. Isn’t that something? He just demonstrated the entire message. I could just say amen and we could go have Mother’s Day lunch. Ah, yeah, I know. I figured I’d get a few her rums on that. Yes, I know. Hang in there. I’ll make it. I’ll, I do my best to make it worthwhile. Just pray that God shows up here in the sermon. We’re looking at today in the Bible, a disciple, a follower, Jesus, who really needed a second chance and don’t we all? We’re here, uh, in baseball season and baseball is such an interesting sport, isn’t it? Is kind of, has all these stories in it where um, each player has a remarkable narrative. I want to take you back to something I learned about a guy named Jim Morris in 1970. He played for his rookie year and early in the season, he comes out to bat, um, and its base is loaded. Come on. Every baseball kid grows up wanting that opportunity, and he’s up there and the first pitch comes and he swings and misses so badly his helmet falls off. Picks it back up, puts it on, kind of dusts himself off. He’s ready for the second pitch. It comes in and he’s gonna crack this thing and he swings and misses again so badly. He falls down to one knee. Now this is a nationally televised game. Well, now it’s the next pitch. Do or die. And the pitcher winds up, throws it in, called strike three, blows it. Left three stranded runners. No grand Slam. I. I mean, the next day, the Pittsburgh Pirate, the Pittsburgh papers labeled him the strikeout King. How’s that for a rookie really blowing it. Well now roll the, the schedule had just a couple weeks and the pirates are playing the same team in the same park, and it’s with the, against the same picture. And here the skipper puts Jim Morris on the line of card. And wouldn’t you know it when it’s Morris’ next time up at bat Against that same pitcher, bases are loaded. Once again, what’s gonna happen when Morris is up there? He knows what happened before first pitch, crack over the fence. Grand Slam. How’s that first story of second chances and redemption? And, and the reporters, they kind of mobbed the manager after and said, how did you ever dare. To risk putting that player back up in that position again, and to which the coach just kinda smiled and Riley replied, well, everybody deserves a second chance, especially someone who knows the taste of failure. And truth be told, haven’t you known the taste of failure? I know I have. We’ve swung and missed that marriage vows or parenting promises. We’re talking about this on Mother’s Day discipleship, commitments with and missed, and some of us maybe walked in even today wondering if God didn’t put us back on the lineup card. You felt benched. It’s that kind of an ache that brings us to where we are in our Bible text today. It’s in John chapter 21, beginning at verse 15. This is a text where the risen Jesus meets with one of his devastated disciples who’d whiffed and struck out so badly publicly. Simon Peter, Simon Peter of Galilee. This is the disciple who denied Jesus three times. In that high priest courtyard the night that Jesus was betrayed. I think it’s maybe the most public kind of strikeout in all of the New Testament, and yet now in our text here a few weeks later, around a charcoal fire in a quiet shoreline, the risen Jesus shows us what a divine second chance looks like.

Now let me just talk about the, the context for our text here today. It’s Easter season. Jesus has appeared a couple of times to his disciples. He’s shown his scars. He’s even breathed a prayer of blessing upon them. And then he says, meet me up in Galilee. So Peter and six of the other disciples, they’re back up north home in Galilee and they’re, they haven’t seen Jesus yet, so. What’s going on? They’re doing what they did before Jesus first said to them, follow me. They’re back out fishing on the lake. They’ve hauled out the boats, the nets. And perhaps for Peter, especially, hoping that muscle memory can drown out heartache. ’cause he hasn’t talked to Jesus yet. He’s seen him. But how would you feel? Because you see shame’s mantra, then it’s the same as as it is for us. Now, just go back to what you’re good at before you blew it. So they’re out in the water, but the lake and the fish, they don’t cooperate. John tells us that they caught nothing and isn’t that how self-repair typically goes? We double down on old strength only to discover our own nets. Coming up empty. Our best efforts to recycle failure, we can outrun it. So for Peter and the others, just before dawn breaks or just as it is, there’s this lone figure on the shore calling out children, have you any fish? And it kinda almost sounds cruel at first until we learn who’s talking. And so the disciples hear Jesus, they throw the net back in once, and this time there’s a. 153 fish in the nets that are sagging and tearing. John w writes, FIF 153 wriggling reminders that grace never shows up empty handed. And I can imagine John and whispering, it’s the Lord John records that. And Peter, he does something actually very surprising, stunning, really, because. I’m sure inside he felt like withdrawing because even back in that courtyard, Jesus caught his gaze when Jesus denied him. He hasn’t talked to him since. But rather than hold back, Jesus jumps overboard, maybe cannonballs into the water, and the the splashing that goes on to shores, he’s going, it’s just the soundtrack of this heart that’s still aching, and yet it’s magnetically drawn to mercy. Seen in Jesus Christ. And this is a, a crucial seismic moment for Simon Peter because what happens next in our text around this crackling charcoal fire, it’s a conversation that restores a broken disciple and recommissions him to feed Christ sheep. Jesus meets Peter exactly where shame had left him. And Jesus meets with him not to condemn him but to call him. So we’re actually gonna watch this and hear this on screen. There’s a movie called The Life of Jesus. It takes the gospel of John verbatim from the Good News Translation, which is used for a lot of by the International Bible Society for Bible Translation.

So we’re gonna see and hear. John chapter 21 verses 15 to 19 acted out and read. These are the words of scripture. Let’s lean in and receive God’s word together after they had eaten. Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these others do? Yes, Lord. You know that I love you. Take care of my lamb. A second time, Jesus said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Yes, Lord. You know that I love you. Take care of my sheep. A third time Jesus said. Simon son of John, do you love me? Peter became sad because Jesus asked him a third time, do you love me? And so he said to him, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. Take care of my, I am telling you the truth. When you were young. You used to get ready and go anywhere you wanted to, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you up and take you where you don’t. When you go in saying this, Jesus was indicating the way in which Peter would die and bring glory to God. Then Jesus said to him, follow. Follow me. This is the word of our Lord. Thanks be to God.

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, you had a very important encounter with Simon Peter back then. It changed his life and there were words he needed to to hear and to hear from you. So now come Holy Spirit, that we might hear from you as well. Speak into our hearts and our lives. I ask in Jesus’ name, amen. Well, dear friends, grace to you and peace from God, our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I wanna begin this message by saying that Jesus sees us with a gaze that names our hearts names. There’s something important about a name. How about you? Do you have like, I have three names and I can still remember like my dad yelling out Todd Gregory Matheson and it usually sounded like that and it wasn’t typically a good thing, but always kind of just dropped me and had me just stop in my tracks where I was at because in this, this name it located me. Todd Gregory Mathison. It kind of cut through the noise of what was going on and just landed on me. And in that instant, I was both kind of exposed but strangely anchored. ’cause in this was identity as well. And I think that’s that the feel kind of here in John 21 when Jesus calls Peter by name. It’s after breakfast on the beach. Jesus is with his disciples and he turns toward this disciple who had so badly face planted just weeks earlier in the high priest courtyard, and he says, Simon, son of John. Now notice there’s no Peter the Rock, the name Jesus had given to Simon earlier, just the fisherman’s birth name and reference to his father. A name. ’cause you see, when God calls us by name, grace begins by locating us honestly, right where for us, our sandals still may have the dust of failure still hanging on them. And then comes the question from Jesus to Simon. Not about failure, but actually affection. Simon son of John, do you love me more than these? There’s a nuance in the Greek words used that gets translated love into English. Jesus starts by saying, do you agapao? Do you love me with a self-giving kind of a covenant? Love Peter replies with a little lower tiered human love philo, affectionate, brotherly love, and twice Jesus uses that really divine covenantal love word, and twice Peter can only muster brotherly love. The third time Jesus descends and uses the word for love that Peter did. The point, the point I believe is that grace always bends low. That it might lift us up. And here’s why this matters. The, the Apostle Paul, he later captures this, this miracle in one line that Diane just read for us earlier. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. And gathered around that charcoal fire, Jesus. He’s already looking at a trembling Simon. But now Simon sees through resurrection tinted lenses and where Simon might still see failure. Jesus now tells him he sees a future shepherd Now friend, listen for you and for me. When Jesus locks eyes with you. When he sees you, he does so not to rehearse some film reel of your worst moments. Rather, he sees the person he died for, the person he rose again for. And it’s to give you new life, to make you into a new creation. And for you, your mess may feel like it’s still front page news. But to Jesus, it’s yesterday’s news that’s already folded up in his finished work. In other words, in Christ, yes, you are fully known, fully named, and fully loved. So what does this have to do with your life today?

I think everything, because the next time that shame tries to whisper your given name, remember the one who calls you by your true name. The risen Jesus names you not to rub salt in some old wounds, but rather to to create you into a new creation that you might be a new creation. Living being. That means that in Christ, you’re free to answer him. Honestly, when he calls, just bring him your real heart. You don’t need to try to bring him some polished up fake resume, and you can let his gaze land on you and receive it. And then let his love not your performance, define the narrative of your life and then walk as the new you, the new creation he has made and is making step into each day that already in Christ you are part of his fresh creation story. Because when Jesus asks you, do you love me? He’s not fishing for some impressive pledge. Rather, he’s offering you a seat around the fire, a warm breakfast full of grace, and a future that smells not of regret, but of redemption. It’s a gaze that names your heart and then sets you free to live fully loved. Jesus sees us with a gaze that names our hearts. Second, there’s a divine love that restores around a charcoal fire. I don’t know about you, but I, I love the smell of a campfire. It takes me back in my memory. I love the smell of a grill. Have you ever been there and you lift a lid off the grill and that? Aroma hits you. It takes me back. I can be like eight years old again with my dad at the grill, flipping burgers, and I’m running barefoot on the grass and there’s fireflies floating around, hanging with the family. Smells can carry memories, can’t they? And they can transport us there fast. To time’s gone by John in his gospel records, two different charcoal fires. The first is a couple weeks before our text. It’s back in that high priest’s courtyard in John 18, where Peter cold and afraid tries to warm his hands around that fire while his lips grow colder with three times. He says, I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. And the second charcoal fire, it’s glowing on the lake shore of Galilee in our text and breakfast sizzles. And then Jesus invites that same Simon Peter, who perhaps for that moment is still crushed at the sound of Jesus’ voice. But now Jesus called Simon to join him. Same smell, same glow, different outcome, because I think Jesus, the risen Christ is intentionally recreating the scene of Peter’s former collapse. Not to shame him, but to rewrite that memory now in God’s grace. So Jesus gives him three questions. Simon, son of John, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me and Jesus? It’s no lecture on loyalty. No Monday morning film room reviewing failure, rather just three gentle questions that mirror three gut wrenching denials. But it’s because love not scolding. That’s the engine of discipleship. And when Peter answers yes, Lord, you know, Jesus immediately commissions him saying, feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep. Feed my sheep. The point, forgiveness and calling. They’re inseparable with every, I forgive you from Jesus. It’s followed by, I need you. I’m sending you. In Christ Grace clears the record, books and divine love. Then hands you the next assignment. In Christ, the same Savior who sees us in our shame, speaks directly to our hearts and restores us for service. Christ, you can feel I’m so valuable to God that he would forgive my worst moment and trust me with his mission.

It’s amazing. In Christ. You are invited to sit around that charcoal fire. Now today as a metaphor, but in prayer, actuality, perhaps this day, this week, every day. And let the Holy Spirit bring to mind. Whatever might still smell like failure. And then hear Jesus call you by name and ask, do you love me? And then listen for his word of forgiveness. And then for the particular sheep that he’s giving you to feed a neighbor a, a hurting child, a lost friend. Diane read his forest in two Corinthians earlier. All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So, so what’s the connection between the story about Simon Peter and your life? Well, it’s when you and I leave the beach like Peter did, probably he was still smelling of smoke. Well, now we carry that aroma of grace and we carry it with us into boardrooms and classrooms, living rooms and hospital rooms. Because I would imagine somewhere in your story there’s a courtyard, words you wish you could unsay, a choice you’d rewrite or redo if you could. And Jesus sees, he knows, but he doesn’t leave. You stuck there. He lights a new fire. He looks you in the eyes and he says, let’s have breakfast together. I still want you. And if the risen Christ and turn Peter’s worst night into a launching pad where he’s fulfilling Christ’s calling, then your shame. It’s not the. The end period at the end of a sentence in your life. It’s just a comma in God’s next paragraph, actually, just a brief footnote in the story of your walk of faith that God is writing. Now, as you follow Jesus, there’s a divine love that restores, but I also want you to realize, third, that Jesus gives a cross shaped call, a cross shaped call. If you ever noticed how the scent of a campfire kinda kind of permeates into your clothing, into your hair doesn’t really let go, others can smell it. Well, Peter carried that aroma also and get this. After the risen, Lord Jesus meets Simon Peter’s failure with forgiveness. Jesus then gives him a calling. To carry that aroma. But it’s a sobering, it comes with a sobering promise. Did you catch this? When you are old, someone else will lead you where you do not want to go. Dunno if you’ve noticed that scripture before. ’cause you see, just as for Jesus Christ himself. So also for Simon Peter and for us today as Jesus followers. There’s a cross shaped call, a cross shaped call. In other words, grace is never content to just leave us hanging out on the shoreline. It is intended to propel us in the mission, but it’s a costly obedience and that same warmth of the fire that healed Peter, it also branded him for mission and ultimately for martyrdom. The apostle Paul frames this beach side moment and he wraps it in diplomatic language. He says, we are therefore Christ’s ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. You see, ambassadors don’t craft their own agendas or words, rather they bear someone else’s authority and message. Peter walked away smelling like smoke. And others got the wht and it was a, a scent that could remind him. It was an embodied reminder that second chances with God are real. And then Peter carries that aroma through the streets and into homes, eventually prison cells. And ultimately church history tells us to cross of his own.

Now, what could happen if a church. It smelled like grace. Well, addicts, prodigals, skeptics, divorcees, religious burners, burnouts, they could catch a whiff and they could wonder to themselves, could mercy reach me? Also, to which Jesus gives a resounding yes, and in Christ shame stories can flip into hope, testimonies. At kitchen tables and households across the East Valley, you know, this past week, one of our council members told me a story and they really nailed this whole point, asked why Victory Lutheran is moving ahead with victory forward dreaming, planning, giving, stretching. It’s our desire to extend God’s kingdom here in the East Valley. They’re asked, well, why are we doing this? To which they just kind of simply shrugged and smiled and said, well. Because Jesus gave us a mission to be and make disciples. No flow charts, no budget lines, no strategies, just the words of our commander in chief, the same words of Jesus from his original commission to Simon Peter, come follow me. Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for people. And at once they left their nets. And followed him. Now, remember those nets, they paid bills they fed families, and yet Peter and Andrew are willing to drop everything to join a savior on his mission, whose payment plan simply read. Trust me. Now remaining in the boat, it would’ve been far easier for them, far safer, but for them and for us. God’s love calls and propels us into unfamiliar waters. ’cause you see, God’s grace doesn’t just rescue us, it recruits us and reconciled people, become reconciling people. In other words, you become Christ’s living invitation. You might be the only Bible someone ever reads. God’s appeal is made through you. And so if you remain tethered to the shoreline of comfort, how will others hear that call? So as you wrap this up, how might we respond in faith to God’s call today? Well, first, rejoice God is a God of second chances, absolutely abounding in grace and mercy to you and to others. Rejoice and receive it. Second, pray. Pray the prayer. God use me. Offer Jesus your boat, whatever that might be. Your schedule your voice, invest courageously when called upon. Give where it stings. Serve where it stretches, and then share your reconciliation story. Someone needs to hear how Christ bridged that gap for you. And if the thought of building or expanding or giving feels risky, and it does, it can well picture those first disciples waiting ashore, callous hands. Now open. Hearts pounding. Futures uncertain. Yet they were willing to trade in their nets and in kind they received nations. They left security and received eternal significance. As fishers of people every life reeled in, by the grace of God, they will now stand beside them when the, when the King of Kings calls the roll up yonder. So hear the call of Jesus to you this day. Come follow me and I will send you out. Join me in prayer. Lord Jesus, thank you for stepping into our failures and covering them with your grace. Draw us ever nearer to you in faith. Fill us with the Holy Spirit so that we may love you deeply and gladly serve the people you place in front of us. And may your mercy remain honest and may you use our lives to guide others home to you. Jesus, I ask in your precious name. Amen.