John 21:4-6 “Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, ‘Friends, haven’t you any fish?’ ‘No,’ they answered. He said, ‘Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.’ When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ As soon as Peter heard him say, ‘It is the Lord,’ he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.”

We might be tempted to jump right to the good part, the near record catch of fish. But let’s not forget the struggle that preceded it. I like fishing. I don’t like staying up all night working. I could tolerate it better when I was in my thirties, like these guys probably were, but even then it made me tired and cranky.

I really don’t like it when my hard work produces nothing. I spend hours trying to repair the car myself, but I can’t quite get it to work and have to take it to the mechanic anyway. I spray the weeds. I mow the weeds. I get down on my knees and pull the weeds. And then I look at my lawn and it seems like I have more than ever before. I take the gospel to the same door four, five, six, or seven times. Then the person finally attends church and tells me the next time I go back, “No thank you. Your church isn’t for me.”

All of this contributes to a sense that God isn’t here, he isn’t with me, working with his blessing. I don’t like the struggle. Sometimes it even makes me a little snippy with God, like he isn’t doing his job. Remember Martha’s words to Jesus when he came to comfort her after her brother Lazarus died? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Remember the disciples’ complaint when Jesus was sleeping through the storm on this same sea, maybe in this same boat? “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” What does it say about our faith in him when we accuse him of falling down on the job?

Let me ask, without the struggle, how could he come to our rescue and make his presence known? We might be tempted to say that we would see him in how smoothly our life was running. Please. You know as well as I do that when things are going well, we often think of him and recognize him the least. Then we forget about him. If not for the struggle we might not seek him at all.

But then he brings blessing to our life’s struggle, and we see our living Lord. “Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’” I don’t know how long Jesus will let your struggle go on, maybe a night, maybe a lifetime. I don’t know how he will finally bring it to an end. Maybe relief will look supernatural. Maybe he will send someone to your aid. Certainly they all end when he ends our journey here and calls us home to heaven.

This much we know: We can count on him to bless us and bring our struggles to an end. He participated in our struggles himself to save and win us. He sacrificed heaven’s comforts and endured hell’s torture to spare us from sin’s sentence. By rising from the dead he proved that life’s great struggle, the struggle to be free from death and judgment is over. He has no intention to lose us to some lesser struggle now. So he brings his blessing to life’s struggle, even blesses us with and through life’s struggles. This is another way Jesus shows us he lives.

John 21:1-3 “Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias (which we know better as the Sea of Galilee). It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. ‘I’m going out to fish,’ Simon Peter told them, and they said, ‘We’ll go with you.’ So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.”

These men were here for one reason: they wanted to see Jesus. This is where he told them to go, where he said he would meet them. In the past there were times when they had questioned his plans or resisted his instructions. Not this time. They came as he said. The only problem was, Jesus was nowhere to be seen.

Sometimes we sense Jesus’ absence, too. We may not be surprised when we have chosen our path in defiance of his word. We don’t expect him to follow us into our vices. Psalm 5 reminds us, “You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.”

But what about when we aren’t embracing open sin? We understand that sin is always with us, that our sinful nature taints everything we do, even the good stuff. We make no claims to perfection. But we live in grace. Christ has forgiven all our sins. As forgiven people it is also true that we resist sin. Sometimes, even when we have chosen to sacrifice for others, or we take a stand for good morals that earns us the ridicule of others, it seems that Jesus is absent. We do not sense his blessing. We cannot feel his reassurance.

A man once called me, distraught, because he felt as if the Lord were rejecting him. He attended a small group Bible study, and everyone who came talked about their blessings the entire time. They had great jobs, great families, great lives. He had lost everything. He knew some details about the way they lived that made him question why the Lord seemed to be with them, but not him. He didn’t sense God’s presence in his life.

Here’s our problem. God never promised we would “sense” his presence, as if we had some kind of spiritual metal detectors built into our souls and he was the gold that made them start buzzing. He is present with us all the time because he promises that it is so. He promises “I am with you” dozens of times in the Old Testament, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, and others. Jesus made the promise to his disciples during his ministry and in visions after he ascended. Does he even have to say this if people are sensing he is there? He is with us, because that’s what his word says. He doesn’t go AWOL, whether we sense him or not. He is present even when you can’t see him. That he gives us faith to believe this is also how he shows he lives.

John 20:21-23 “Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you!’ As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’”

Delivering this message is a sobering responsibility. This is not something we get to apply any way we want. These words are the difference between life and death, heaven and hell.

That is why Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” All through his earthly ministry, Jesus did not make his choices or live his life any way he wanted. Everything he did was in line with the heavenly Father who sent him. Even when it meant suffering, pain, and death, Jesus bowed to his Father’s will.

That is just how he sends us out with the power to promise forgiveness. We are to be careful not to announce forgiveness unless he would be announcing forgiveness, too. We are to be careful not to withhold forgiveness, unless clear unrepentance shows us that he would warn the person that they were rejecting God’s grace.

Jesus himself made these bold statements. We thrill to hear him say to the paralytic, the sinful woman who anointed his feet, and others, “Your sins are forgiven.” But we tremble and take warning when we hear him say to his enemies after he healed the man born blind, “Your guilt remains.”

This is a hard assignment. After all, Jesus could see through human hearts. All we can see is what people say or do. But as an added assurance, he also “breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” Our Savior hasn’t left this vital work to good luck. He doesn’t cross his fingers and hope we get it right. Through faith he has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. In his word we have the Holy Spirit to guide us as we apply forgiveness or warn people that they have rejected and lost it. The Spirit’s guiding role is another indication of the importance our Lord assigns to this task. 

When we see how important he considers forgiveness, doesn’t that give us peace? Like the disciples, in our own way we have denied him, deserted him, or disbelieved his words. But when he brings us back, what peace in knowing that forgiveness is what his life and work were all about. We still hear him say “I forgive you” through the lips of his disciples today.

John 20:21-23 “Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you!’ As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven.’”

Jesus places a high priority on delivering forgiveness. Consider the timing of this command.  It was still Easter night. The grave had not been empty for 24 hours. The disciples had not grasped the full implications of the resurrection. They didn’t yet understand why it happened or what it meant.

Nevertheless, as soon as Jesus had proved to them that he was alive, he told them that he was sending them to announce forgiveness. Couldn’t he have spent more time explaining what happened? Couldn’t he have spent more time explaining the meaning of his resurrection for them?

But the assignment sort of does that, doesn’t it? Forgiveness of sins is what Easter is all about. When the disciples went out to forgive people in Jesus’ name, it was not forgiveness based on their say so. It was not forgiveness based on wishful thinking or human philosophy. It was not forgiveness with no basis at all. It was forgiveness based on God’s mighty acts in living human history! God had become a man. He lived with us, seized responsibility for our sins, and died for us as our substitute. He rose from the dead to announce to the whole world that it worked, that forgiveness of sins is ours.

See how important he considers forgiveness! His resurrection has many other messages, many other assurances and promises, too. It tells us he is God, that we will rise and live forever, that Jesus is alive and well even now to fight our battles and preserve his people. But the very first message he sends his disciples to preach in connection with Easter is the message of forgiveness, for without forgiveness, none of the others would even be true.

John 20:19-21 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you!’ As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’”

Each of the gospel writers includes a “Great Commission” statement in his gospel. We are most familiar with Matthew’s. “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Mark records another time when Jesus said to his disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” In the book of Acts, Luke gives us the words Jesus’ spoke right before he ascended, “You will be my witnesses.” And right here, in the book of John, we find that already on Easter evening Jesus was giving his disciples their marching orders. He was sending them out to forgive people’s sins. As the Father sent him, he was sending his disciples.

Does this look like a well-organized, confident, motivated little band of Christian soldiers ready to go out and conquer the world to you? Does this group look like the people Jesus should be entrusting with the task of converting the whole world to the true faith? Not at all! Consider how loyal they had been to Jesus over the last few days. One of them had denied he ever knew him. All of them had deserted him. They had disbelieved his promise that he would rise again. They were hiding in a room behind locked doors afraid of being arrested for their connection to him. They were in crying need of the forgiveness Jesus had just won for them.

And so, did Jesus disown them? Not at all! He came to them and promised them peace. He revealed that he had risen and why. He forgave their cowardice and made them his messengers of forgiveness to the world. In a strange twist, they were just the kind of missionaries he needed.

They wouldn’t talk about forgiveness with any air of superiority, as if it were something they stooped to give to others. They had needed it and experienced all too deeply themselves.

They wouldn’t make any mistakes about who’s strength and whose power was turning people to faith as they spread the message. They had been timid little men too afraid to even go outside their room. Do you see the priority Jesus places on his gospel of grace? He makes sure the messengers he sends to preach it have experienced it personally themselves.

That hasn’t changed, has it. I’m not speaking only about the pastors and missionaries. Of course, we are all sinners saved by grace and forgiven by Jesus, too. But the modern-day messenger list is bigger than the clergy, much bigger. Sometimes rank and file Christians are inclined to excuse themselves from delivering Jesus’ message because they feel unqualified. They don’t feel very holy. They don’t see themselves as Bible experts. They don’t believe they are very knowledgeable about matters of faith. They question their their qualifications for the task.

Let’s be honest. They are right. From the standpoint of our godliness and Bible knowledge, we are not worthy, your pastor included. We have plenty of repenting to do for our less-than-shining moral choices and inattention to Bible study and reading, much because our own priorities are often skewed. How much time have we wasted filling our minds with garbage from TV or the internet? But unprepared and unworthy as we might be, Jesus has placed such a high priority on delivering forgiveness to a dying world that he doesn’t wait for someone better to come along. He gives the task to you and me.

And in a strange twist, our own need for forgiveness, our own experience of forgiveness, makes us just the kind of messengers he wants. By God’s grace we have found forgiveness for our sins. We have seen the cross. We have received the gift. We are the satisfied customers whose personal experience with grace makes our testimony authentic, even if it might otherwise be a little shaky.

A recurring question I see on customer satisfaction surveys today is: “How likely are you to recommend XYZ to a friend or colleague?” I may not know the first thing about how XYZ works, but if I like how it works, they want me as a spokesman. I like how grace works. I sin. Jesus pays for it, all. God forgives it, completely. Don’t you like it, too? That’s why we are messengers.

Philippians 3:10-11 “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his suffering, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Paul rates knowing Christ Jesus so high because it changed his life right now. It meant knowing the power of Jesus’ resurrection. This is not “knowing” in the sense of knowing something from a textbook, knowing some piece of trivia that helps you solve the crossword puzzle or win the game show. This is knowing by experience. This is knowing like I know my cup of coffee gets me started in the morning. I feel the effects of the caffeine on my mind and energy. I know that exposing my skin to the sun too long can give me sunburn. Far too often I have experienced the pain and discomfort from too many hours spent outside.

Those who know Christ Jesus, not just some facts they remember from a Sunday School lesson, but know him by faith, know him as friend and Savior, in the same way know the power of his resurrection working in their lives. You see, the power of Jesus’ resurrection isn’t just the power that raises us from the dead at the end of time. It is that, too. But the power of Jesus’ resurrection is a power in the life of a believer right now. It energizes our souls. It renews our hearts. It changes our wills. It inserts the living Lord Jesus into our own lives so that we love like he loved and serve like he served.

That leads to another change right now, one that might not seem so desirable at first: “the fellowship of sharing in his suffering, becoming like him in his death.” If the power of Jesus’ resurrection has us living more like Jesus, then we can expect to experience the consequences of that kind of life, too. For Jesus, it often meant suffering. He was opposed and persecuted. He was mistrusted and rejected. Eventually he was arrested and killed. He didn’t go looking for all of this, so to speak. But he didn’t avoid it at all costs, either. He accepted it as the natural consequence, the natural reaction of a world that was hell bent on going its own way and didn’t particularly want to be saved.

It’s not that we go looking for this, either. But if wanting to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, if trying to love and save the people around us, makes us the most hated people in town, so be it. Then we will be closer to our Savior. We will be more like him. It’s an acquired taste, to be sure. But Paul said it was something he wanted to know, and by faith so do all who understand the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus.

It is the last change that puts it all over the top, the forever one: “…and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” This is where it all leads. This is what we are trading the trash of our former life for. This is why it is important to have God’s gift of righteousness as our own. Knowing Christ Jesus means death is not the end. It means rising like he did, perfected and glorified.

When that day comes, that will be the greatest thing any of us has ever done. Then we will know Jesus Christ and all his gifts better and better, forever and ever.

Philippians 3:8b-9 “I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

It’s not that God doesn’t want us try to be good and live a life of love. He would have us put our whole heart into it. It’s just that we really, really stink at it. You know Isaiah’s observation, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Have you ever tried to wash the car, or wash the windows, and you tried to use the dirty water in the bucket and the dirty rag too long? At the end you aren’t actually cleaning anything. You are simply moving the dirt around, and when the water dries there are all the spots and streaks.

Isaiah points out that we are unclean (Is. 64:6). It taints our righteous acts. On the surface it looks like clean kindness. But the water is dirty, tainted with our selfish motivations. “Do I look good doing this? Does this make up for my indulgence yesterday, or can I bank it against a little self-gratification tomorrow? I would rather be doing almost anything else, but then I would feel guilty. I think I’m just a little better than your average Joe.”

But to know Christ is to let him throw out the dirty water and hang up the dirty rag at the cross. It is to receive credit not for our own streaked and spotted labors, but his pure love and unsullied mercies, his sincere obedience and selfless service. It is to be righteous not because we live that way, but because for Jesus’ sake God has decided to see us that way.

It is never a righteousness we have earned. It is always a righteousness we have received, received by faith. It is to know Christ not first as my example, but as my substitute, making me look clean and holy and perfect to my God before I have even done a single thing. It is always to look away from myself, and look away from my life, and look to Jesus who makes his righteousness my own.

Doesn’t his life, his righteousness, look infinitely better than yours and mine? If you have to stand before God, isn’t that what you want him to see? Wouldn’t it be great if you could see yourself that way? In Christ Jesus, you can. When we know Jesus as our Lord, we see him replacing our righteousness with God’s own.

Philippians 3:7-8 “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”

In his former life, Paul considered many things “to his profit” that he did not regard so anymore. He was Paul, the great champion of the Jewish people and faith. It made him a highly respected member of his religious party, an up-and-coming leader of his people. All the signs pointed to him achieving even greater things, reaching new heights of power and influence. His opportunity, his stature, his future made him the envy of many in Israel. His moral integrity and activism made many regard him a man worthy of God’s favor. Paul was the kind of man who could claim, “I am a good person,” and almost everyone else would agree.

Then he met Jesus Christ and threw it all away. His heritage, his law keeping, his religious activism, his bright future–he no longer saw these things in the profit column, assets for life and eternity, things that could get him ahead or secure a place in the life to come.

They weren’t even neutral. They were losses, obstacles. He calls them “rubbish,” trash. The Greek word can even refer to animal excrement. We have owned cats before. The contents of the litter box isn’t the kind of thing you save and treasure. It’s the kind of thing you have to take outside and dispose of before it stinks too bad. That was Paul’s new regard for the old life into which he had invested so much effort, on which he had based so many hopes. The surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ made everything else merely trash.

To make Jesus part of his life, Paul had to get rid of the bad stuff: the legalism, self-righteousness, and persecution. But note he didn’t stop there. “I consider everything a loss,” he says. The whole contents of his earthly life, good and bad, was so much trash compared to knowing Jesus. And until we have learned to see our own lives that way, the question can be asked if we really know Jesus at all. It’s not just the wicked and questionable parts of our past or present. In my teens and twenties I can point to self-indulgent or mean-spirited things I did or said. They are things that make me wince and blush, the kinds of things that people sometimes excuse as natural youthful rebellion, the kind of things some will even sit around and reminisce about. I am not going to bother you with the specifics. But that stuff stinks. It needs to be taken out like the trash and left at the curb.

On the backside of middle age, I see the filters coming off my mouth. My patience is getting thin. It becomes easier and easier to be a grouch. There is a reason there is a movie titled Grumpy Old Men, but no movie by the title Grumpy Young Men. One grumpy old man I used to serve as pastor confessed a certain pride in becoming a curmudgeon. But these aren’t changes to embrace. They are sins to repent. They are so much doggy doo stuck to the bottom of your shoes that shouldn’t be tracked through the house and stored in the closet. It should be washed off outside before it has a chance to dry on and stick tight.

That much should be easy to see. But what about the high GPA, the awards and scholarships, the diplomas with the fancy Latin words printed on them? What about the acts of charity, the donations to good causes, the dollars and hours spent helping others? What about finally getting that dream job, that dream house, that dream car, that dream vacation, or that dream family? In and of themselves none of these are evil, any more than it was evil for Paul to be circumcised or born into the tribe of Benjamin. But compared to knowing Jesus Christ my Lord? Rubbish, trash, manure. And if my earthly goodness, successes, or possessions get in the way of seeing it so, then clearly they are not to my profit but my loss. They are blinding me to my one true treasure.

To gain Christ and be found in him—that is profit because in him we get credit for his genuinely righteous life and receive the forgiveness for the entire debt of our sin. To know Christ as my Lord—that is greatness, not because we have done something so wonderful, but because he loves us and treats us so well. He makes everything else merely trash by comparison.

Isaiah 43:3b “I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.”

This is a humbling expression of God’s grace. Let me give you a little history behind Isaiah’s words. The people of Judah were taken into captivity by the Empire of Babylon. They were exported from their homeland and forced to live in a foreign country for seventy years. In order to bring them home, a couple of things had to happen. The Babylonian Empire had to be fall to a stronger empire with different policies for the people it ruled, one that would let the Jews go home to Jerusalem.

That was the Persian Empire. And the nations that filled the vacuum when the Jews were taken away had to be defeated and subjugated by the Persians so that they wouldn’t stand in the way of the Jews going home. That was Egypt, Cush, and Seba.

So, in order to take care of his people, the Lord brought defeat on these other countries. He let them lose their freedom. Wars were fought. People died. In a sense, he traded their welfare for that of his people Israel. He preserved Israel as his distinct people at the expense of these other nations.

That was not because the Jews were better people. The Lord was constantly struggling with them and trying to get them to behave. It was because the Lord chose to show them grace. “Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you,” he says through Isaiah here. That’s how he deals with the people he has redeemed.

You are his redeemed today. And the Lord himself hasn’t changed. It is inevitable in our world that not everyone is going to be a friend of the Lord and his redeemed. What serves your best interests, especially your spiritual needs, may not serve the interests of other nations, institutions, or even individuals. It’s not that we are better people. We sin like everyone else.

But if there is a conflict between what serves the faith and salvation of the people he has redeemed for himself, and what serves the welfare of those who have no particular interest in him, no relationship with him in faith, then he knows what he will do. “I will give…people in exchange for your life.” God will intervene for us and against them.

So don’t be troubled by what you see happening on the international stage, or in the halls of political power, or in the movements that seem to oppose Christianity and its beliefs. They can’t hurt you, even if they should kill you. The redeemed don’t have to be afraid. The Lord will preserve them, even at other’s expense.