Sermon Notes / Transcript

John 21:15-17 — Tend My Sheep

Speaker: Pastor Tim Bayly
Date: November 2, 2025

Transcription

Date: Sep 23, 2026 at 9:07 PM

Scripture Reading

Our scripture text this afternoon. I wrote morning. Our scripture text this afternoon is John chapter twenty-one, verses fifteen to seventeen. So if you have a smartphone or a Bible, you may look at it.

If you don't, you can just listen.

It's very interesting to think back that in the church they never followed along in a Bible. It was audible. And you don't think about that, but I often feel that people listen more closely when they're not looking at the text. And so it's not an it's not come it's it's not a problem for us not to come with Bibles, but I appreciate it if you have one.

This is John chapter twenty one, verses twelve to seventeen. This is the word of God, and it is eternally true. So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? When our daughter, our firstborn, was probably three, two, about three probably, one day I looked at her and I said, Hey Heather, who do you love more, mommy or daddy?

And she sat there and she looked at me. She looked at her mother. That's a bad question. That's kind of what Jesus is saying here.

Do you love me more than these? He said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, Tend my lambs. He said to him again a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

He said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, Shepherd my sheep. He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, Do you love me?

And he said to him, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. Jesus said to him, Tend my sheep. ## Opening Prayer

Let's pray.

Father God, we are very, very self deceived.

We're oppressed by the flattery of socials, by advertising. Some of us are oppressed are flattered by our wives. And Father, we are weak, we are sinful. And so each time we come to the Word, we're convicted anew of our need for the work of the Holy Spirit to make us holy.

We want, Father, to give your Son glory here in this church, in our homes, in our marriages, and so we ask now that the words of my mouth and the meditation of every heart here will be acceptable in your sight. O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen. ## Tend My Lambs, Shepherd My Sheep

If I were to write a book on the pastorate to which Dr. Daniel Coughlin is being ordained today. I would title the book Tend My Lambs or I would title it Shepherd My Sheep, and it's basically the same statement. Tend My Lamb, Shepherd My Sheep.

You know, you could say, tend my ewes, tend my rams, tend my lambs, shepherd my sheep.

It doesn't really matter which title to choose, the meaning is clear either way. And so here we have an exchange between Peter and Jesus. And when was this exchange happening? When did it happen?

Well, shortly after Jesus was raised from the dead by his Father, God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, that's when it happened. Jesus had just risen from the dead. But how had Jesus died? Well, he died on a Roman cross outside the city of Jerusalem, and he had been nailed to that cross by Roman soldiers whose governor had given the command.

Why had that governor given the command? Well, he gave the command because the Jews had hounded him. Abo killing Jesus until he gave in and did the deed. The Jews, along with their elders and their priests and their scribes, had been in a rage crying out to Pilate to crucify Jesus.

And Pilate knew why. We read in the Gospel of Mark that Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. And that the Jews and their elders and religious leaders wanted him dead because they were jealous of him.

We read in Mark 15, verse 10 about Pilate, it says, For he was aware that the chief priests had handed him over because of envy. Jesus had done many, many things that showed he worked in and with the power of God, healing the lame, giving sight to the blind, curing the lepers, feeding the five thousand with a couple fish and loaves of bread, calming the storm, casting out demons, and raising the dead, and cleansing the temple.

The Preaching of Repentance

But at the center of it all was his preaching. Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God and repentance. Corrupt religious leaders always hate repentance. I never realized that until I was writing this sermon.

But if you're a corrupt religious leader, you don't want the consciences of your people awakened. It's inconvenient. It's messy. They come to you crying for 20 minutes.

Did you hear Max this morning? And you can't manage that with Mass and last rites and indulgences.

How do you manage a conscience that's afflicted and that is mourning? What do you do? You tell them, well, go get baptized and then take the Lord’s Supper. It does not cut it.

A wounded conscience that is deeply aware that it has offended God and will be judged for that has to be healed with the blood of Jesus. And religious leaders don't want to be dependent on the work of the Holy Spirit. I would often say to my congregation, you know, what you really want me to do as your pastor is to protect you from the Holy Spirit.

And if you don't understand that, you don't understand the deviousness of your heart. The Holy Spirit never protects our pride. Any of you ever met the Holy Spirit? Was it when you were at the height of your pride and you were able to keep your pride?

You know, I think of the times when I'm most aware of the work of God in my heart through his Holy Spirit. And it's the times when I am absolutely unaware of myself. I'm not thinking about how I look, you know, because usually I don't look good when the when God is working with me.

Usually I'm confessing my sin. And what a relief it is to do that. And so here Jesus was calling men and women to come under conviction of sin. What do you think the Sermon on the Mount was?

The Sermon on the Mount was Jesus taking the law that they knew and then saying it's much worse than you thought it was, because you heard that you shall not commit adultery. Any of you old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter talked about this in Playboy magazine? You know, they're asking him about his his you know his faithfulness to his wife and stuff.

And he says, Well, you know, I have to admit I've committed adultery many times in my life, and I'm ashamed to admit, but I have looked on women with lust. And I just, I think I was in high school at the time. And I just thought, how wonderful to have the holiness of God proclaimed by a candidate for the presidency, confessing his sexual sin.

Jesus went through the Sermon on the Mount. You've heard it said that you shall not commit adultery. I say to you, a man that looks on a woman with lust in his eyes has committed adultery in his heart. Jesus didn't come to make things lighter for us, he came to make them heavier.

Jesus came to drive us to the point of despair about the sinfulness of our hearts. And then those people came to him and said, help. And that was the act of faith which converted them from dead to resurrected, that gave them new life. That was how they were born again, as they despaired of ever doing enough to make themselves good enough for God, and they came to Jesus and had faith in Jesus' righteousness.

And so of course the priests, of course the pastors, of course the elders hated Jesus. So the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees and everybody were. They were all the religious leaders. Of course they hated Jesus, because everywhere he went, there were thousands and thousands.

When he went down by the shore, there wasn't enough space for him to stand, so he had to get out in the boat and go out on the water. It was the only way he had space to stand and teach. His mother and his brothers came to see him in the house.

Remember that? They couldn't get in the house, couldn't get near, so they sent a message in. Jesus' entire life was people who were burdened with sin and sickness and disease and demons. They brought it all to him.

And you know the thing that was the summit, the top, when he dealt with a person, was not when he healed them.

You know that. It was when he said, Your sins are forgiven. It's so beautiful to see Jesus with people allowing them to bring their sins to him. And so the religious leaders saw all the thousands, they saw Jesus able to stop storms, raise the dead, you know, cleanse lepers, and they hated him.

And they hated him, and they hated him and hated him and hated him. The established religious leaders. And so Pilate at the very end, he says, well, he hasn't done anything wrong. It's just envy.

You know, he was a government worker.

He knew what was going on with the masses, you know. And so he said, you know, let me give you let me give you Jesus. no, no, we'll take the guy that was bringing in the kingdom of God with an insurrection. Barabbas. That's why Barabbas was going to be executed.

You know, that he was going to bring in the kingdom of God. Oh, yes, oh yeah, buddy. And so he said, You want me to give you Jesus? They said, No, give us Barabbas.

And they started yelling. And it was the religious leaders that got them to yell. They wanted the blood of Jesus. The Jews and their leaders, both, okay, not just the leaders.

And so they screamed, they cried out, they shouted, crucify him, crucify him. And Pilate gave in to them, and he sent Jesus outside the city to be crucified. But three days later, God raised his only begotten son from the dead. That was the last word.

Jesus Restores Peter

And now here he was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee serving breakfast he had cooked to a few of his disciples whom he'd called in from the lake where they were fishing. Do you guys remember the sweet thing about that scene? You know, Jesus has been killed, now he's resurrected, and they see him on the shore.

Do you remember what happens? I always love this. Any of you, any of you remember kids? Do you remember what happens?

They're out in the boat fishing, they haven't caught anything, and so they see Jesus. And do you remember what happens? Come on. Huh?

What? Somebody speak up a Yeah, I know he's talking, I can't hear him. Yes, cast your net on the right side.

Yeah, very good. and of course they cast it on the other side and there were no—how many? Two hundred? A lot. Yeah, a lot.

It almost sank the boat.

But do you remember what else happened? You do based remember. They like the it was Jesus. Yeah, but come on.

It should be a full. You're letting me down. Do you remember? Someone jumped in.

Yes! And who was the song? Of course! Peter!

It's irrepressible! He's like he's like he's like Maria, the sound of music, he's like Tiggering.

Like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh. bounce, bounce, you know. Peter sees Jesus, and can you imagine how he felt? You'll hear a little bit of that. And so Peter jumps out of the boat.

But what does he do before he jumps out? He takes off his cloak and jumps into the water because he's going to get there before the other disciples go back. I just look people. It's like he stops.

And so he's a man. He's not a woman. That's so sad. Let's speak dignified.

But not either. He's not dignified, he whips off his coat and he just jumps into the water because he wants to be with Jesus. Now it gets more interesting.

At the end of breakfast, Jesus gets the fish. Jesus catches the fish. They catch them. They bring them in.

Jesus cooks the fish.

At the end of breakfast, what happens is that three times Jesus asked Peter if he loves him. Okay? And if you listen to people preaching on this text, you will hear them telling you that the reason that Peter that the reason he asked him three times, he used three different words, and then Peter uses different words, and they'll go off and off about this word for love and that word for love and the other word for love.

And there's some difference between the words. But the English word love is a good translation of all the words. Okay? It's okay that it just says love every time.

Instead of focusing on the words changing and then going back to the previous word, they come back to the words for love and then they repeat them.

Let's focus on Jesus' repetition of the question. The question. Peter, do you love me? If your father or husband asked you if you loved him, and then if he repeated the question three times, what would you know? Well, certainly you wouldn't just think, but you would know that he was trying to make a point.

And that point would be that your love was in question. Right? You don't ask somebody if they love you three times in a row unless you're not quite sure. And you know, I want to say I didn't write this down, but do you know how vulnerable a pastor is when he cares for you as his flock?

That is the currency of pastoral ministry is that the pastor is endlessly putting himself in a position that you can reject him. And that you're not rejecting him, but you're rejecting his master who sent him to you. And so here Jesus is obviously indicating to Peter the wound that Peter gave to him.

And so he was asking three times, and if you were the one that your dad or your wife or your husband was asking three times, do you love me? You would do everything you could to heal the breach in your relationship, and you would keep answering, yes, honey, yes, honey, I love you.

I do love you. yes, you know me, you know I love you. And every time that Jesus repeated this question, you would repeat your answer if you were Peter. You would know what you had done. You would know how you had hurt Jesus, how you had sinned against him, you would know why he wanted you to tell him that you loved him.

Telling him over and over again, you would feel his hurt, his pain, you would feel it acutely. And you would hear him putting his pain on display. And you would wish you had never sinned against him. Now, what had Peter done to hurt Jesus?

What sin had he committed against Jesus? Well, just before Jesus' crucifixion, Peter had been eating at a table with Jesus and the other disciples, when Jesus had announced to them all that one of them was going to betray him. And all the disciples by responding saying, no, it's not going to be me.

Not me. Mark 14, beginning with verse 18, as they were reclining at the table and eating, Jesus said, Truly I say to you that one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me. And they began to be grieved and to say to him one by one, surely not I. It was inconceivable to them that they could do so, that they would do so.

But it was particularly inconceivable to Peter that he would do so. He was the stalwart one. He was their leader. He was the one who had first confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Most High God.

He was the one who had served as their spokesman, time after time, including at one of the most crucial critical moments that many of the followers of Jesus had turned away from him and left. We read that a particular moment when Jesus talked to them about his body and blood, it says that many of his followers left him at that time.

And after that Jesus turned to his disciples to ask them plaintively, do you remember what he asked them? Kids? Any of you remember? Do you know your Bibles?

Come on, do you remember?

Oh no. No, I don't remember. I was a man who might remember. But I'm trying to get you the spirits.

Do you remember? Any of you remember?

Do you remember? Jesus said to the disciples, Are you going to leave me too? Do you remember what I said about the vulnerability of ministry? Are you going to leave me too?

You remember when the apostle Paul says in Galatians, if I become your enemy by telling you the truth.

Isn't that a beautiful statement of the Apostle Paul? If I become your enemy by telling you the truth. In John 6, 67 to 69, so Jesus said to the twelve, You do not want to go away also, do you? And who do you think it was that answered him?

Huh? Come on, tell me. Lower yourself. Yeah right on dude.

Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.

We have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. Now listen, if you're a disciple of Christ today, you have joined Peter in this cry. Lord, if we were to leave you, to whom shall we go. You alone have the words of eternal life, and we have put our faith in you alone.

And so Peter was the stalwart one. Peter was the leader. Peter was the strong man. Peter was the faithful one who didn't quiver or flinch.

When others held back, Peter jumped forward. Peter jumped in the water. Later, after Jesus announced that one of them would betray him in the upper room, and they all had denied it. They sang a hymn, and then they went out to the Mount of Olives.

And out there on the Mount of Olives we read that Jesus addressed the issue again. It says in Matthew 26:30–35 after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, You will all fall away because of me this night.

For it is written I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered. But after I have been raised I will go ahead of you to Galilee. But who do you think said it? Who do you think said it?

Come on. Peter. Peter.

Peter. But Peter said to him, even though all may fall away because of you, I will never fall away. Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, that this very night, before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Three times.

But Peter wasn't done, was he?

When Peter dug a hole, it was a deep hole. And so Peter then says, Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And all the disciples said the same thing too. Oh my goodness.

Now we begin to understand this exchange between Jesus and Peter, don't we?

Three times. Do you love me? No. Oh my goodness.

Jesus didn't say to him, I told you so. He just asked him three times, which is just a little bit short of I told you so, you know. Now listen, here's where I get deadly.

Okay? I have a point. And I want to say to you that like you and me, Peter is so very sure of himself. Peter is so sure of himself.

Peter knows his commitments, he knows his faith, he knows his strength. never, Lord, impossible.

Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. Oh yes, we know ourselves, don't we? We are so very strong. Jesus doesn't need to worry about us.

We're a superior woman. Look at our children, they tell you how superior we are as a mother. We are a godly woman. I'm a strong man.

I have godly children. I am a godly man. God doesn't need to worry about me. I'm good to go.

And so what came of it all? Well, all the disciples fell away. Jesus was arrested. He was placed in bonds, and all his disciples abandoned him.

That's what happened. You see, we really don't know ourselves.

And that's why Jesus sends us pastors. We don't know ourselves. And socials are not gonna help us know ourselves. Because the purpose of socials are to flatter us in our particular sphere of conviction.

And you can find endless spheres of conviction on socials, and each one you go in, and if that's your area, you will be flattered because everybody else will tell you things that you really agree with. That's flattery. I am not telling any of you what you agree with right now.

Not one of you. I know that. I'm trying to do that. And that's the nature of the word of God.

God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, as high as the heavens are above the earth.

And every single time we read the Bible, if we read the Bible with eyes that see and ears that hear, it always goes against our grain. Because we're not God. And pastors bring us the Word of God in a way that convicts us of sin and calls us to repentance.

Day after day, when they preach to us, that's what they do. That's what John the Baptist did. John the Baptist came preaching what? Flattery?

He came preaching repentance.

What did Jesus come preaching? He came preaching that the kingdom of God was upon us. Therefore, repent. We are called to repentance.

That is an act of faith.

And I tell people: you want to know what the happiest moments of a pastor's life are? There's nothing that makes a pastor happier than when someone comes to him and confesses their sin. It's just such a joy. And you say, well, you're kind of perverted, you know, why is it a joy?

You just, you know, are you are you a sadist? You know, do you want people in pain? You like people coming to you and crying? And the answer is yes.

I want people coming to me and crying. Do you know that pastors generally can't stand doing weddings and are happy to do funerals? This is basically true. I mean, I can Daniel can't tell you that yet, but in a couple years he'll tell me.

It's true, isn't it? Do you know why we don't like doing weddings? We don't like doing weddings because the hopes and fears of all the years are met at you that moment. I mean, and especially the bride's mother. oh, every pastor has stories of bride's mothers.

I always used to bring my rehearsals to it to the beginning by saying, Now, listen, all of you, whatever the bride says to me, that's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to listen to any of the rest of you. You want me to be talked to, ask the bride to talk to me.

And of course I was saying that for whom? The bride's father? No. You know?

And so at weddings, there's pride, there's unbelievable demonstrations of wealth, there's demonstrations of relations and friends out the wazoo. I mean, some of the weddings, they go out the side door on each side.

There's so many of them, you know, and it's hoopla, and it's it's the little kids, and it's oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And all the pastor has to do is say the words and shut up. Because this is the moment we've all been waiting for. But listen, that's not the way it is at a funeral, although it oh my goodness, don't even get me started on funerals today.

For the first couple of decades of my ministry, funerals were sober. And there was fear of God, and there was humility. And so The work of a minister is to preach the word of God in such a way that it brings you to humility and meekness and to you confessing your sin.

And you have sin. You have sin. Just because you're teenagers doesn't mean that you get let off the hook, you know, well, you know you're a wow at this for few years we won't we won't ask you to repent of this You will commit service service because reading an article this last week about a Muslim woman or a woman who lived in a Muslim society, she wrote a book about the evil eye in a Muslim society.

Any of you ever heard about the evil eye and this is fascinating because she talks about how women live under the terror of the evil eye and so I'm thinking what's evil eye was it like something on the top of the high food of the tower something. And the evil eye is the jealousy of other women.

And that woman they're afraid will cast a spell on the spirit of jealo And I was sort of shocked and I read that you really doesn't have a link is their own sisters and their own family. The family will try to ruin their life because they're jealous that their sister is crazy.

Or maybe she's the oldest. no, no, no, you have any problems with that. Tell me, this is not a problem. Just walk. And you know, when we get old and we die, when our parents die, pastors are there, and you know what pastors observe when a parent dies?

That jealousy is still there. And a lot of times the fighting over money and the fighting over property and furniture is just a surrogate for the envy and jealousy that has corrupted the relationships of the brothers and sisters their whole life. Pastors come to you pleading with you to admit who you are, to admit what your motivations are, to admit, to say to you why you just said that thing you shouldn't have said, and to say, bring that sin to Jesus.

Jesus came for sinners. And so if pastors don't confront you with your sin, if they don't admonish you, if they don't rebuke you. know what? You'll sing about Jesus, you'll talk about Jesus, you'll belong to a church that belongs to Jesus, but you'll never bring your sin to Jesus.

You won't do it without a pastor. And I have spent my life watching Christians who are certain that they're superior to their pastor, and they know themselves. The whole time I'm preparing to preach today, I don't have this in the sermon, but I'm just remembering this guy that Max and I went to confront about a serious sin in his life.

We went out to the back screen porch, remember this? And we gently tried to say to him, Do you know why you are and I won't go into the things, but they're not good. Do you know why you're treating your wife this way? Are you with me?

Do you know why you're this at work? Do you know why? And it was because of his sin. And so we finally said it's because of this sin.

And he got furious with us. And he said, I know myself. And we said to him, No, you don't know yourself. You don't know yourself.

And that was really the end of our relationship with him. And about a year and a half ago, he killed himself. It is serious business to ask a pastor to care for you. And that pastor will see you in a way you don't see yourself.

And he will speak to you about what he sees, or his wife will. And it's so irritating to have a wife talk to you if you're another woman, because woman thine name is jealous. But that's the nature of the church. And if we love Jesus, if we're united with Jesus, we will be united to his church and under the care of his shepherds.

And so, Peter, he keeps saying, you know I love you, and now I want us to focus on the other thing that said three times, which is not you know I love you. Peter was adamant that he had not was not going to abandon Jesus, and we read in Matthew 26, Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard when Jesus was arrested, and a servant girl came to him and said, You too were with Jesus the Galilean.

But Peter denied it before all of them, saying, I don't know what you're talking about. And when he had gone out to the gateway, another servant girl, a servant girl, you know, very intimidating, a servant girl saw him and said to him, and to those who were around him, this man was with Jesus of Nazareth.

And again, Peter denied it with an oath, you know. I just love that. With an oath, you know, wasn't sufficient to say no. He had to swear with an oath.

I don't know the man. A little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter,Surely you too are one of them, for even the way you talk gives you away. And then he began to curse and swear. I don't know the man.

And immediately a rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly. Peter, do you love me?

Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? The first time he says, yes, Jesus says, tend my lambs. The second time, Jesus says, Shepherd my sheep.

And the third time, he says, Tend my sheep. ## Love for Jesus Means Tending His Sheep

So what is for Daniel? What is love for Jesus? Love for Jesus is he's heard the call.

He doesn't need you. Doesn't need me. Daniel, before he ever came to Bloomington, loved the sheep. I know because I talked to him before he moved to Bloomington, and I was just so moved, really.

There have been a couple of men that have come to the pastors college and talking to them before they came, they told of their grief over the lack of care for the sheep that they knew.

And Daniel said, I just want to learn to be a shepherd to people who have no shepherd. Do you remember what Jesus said over and over again when he looked at the crowds? Jesus said what? Do you remember this?

The Bible tells us, give me a second to turn my page.

It's 71, my fingers jump up and down. Mark 6, verse 34, when Jesus went ashore, he saw a large crowd, and he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep, without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. And then in Matthew 9, 36 to 38, seeing the people, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.

And then Jesus said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest. And so an ordination of service is a time when we take a man that God has called to shepherd his sheep.

And we lay our hands on him in behalf of all of you as a congregation, and we call down the Holy Spirit to fill him and to give him faith to do the hard work that he has to do. And that's why I would call the book Tend My Sheep, because that's what a pastor does.

Any of you ever cared for livestock ever? Cows or goats or livestock. So for a short period of time I worked on it a goat farm. We milked 50 goats by hand, you know.

And do you know what's true of somebody that cares for for a flock? Don't talk! The man that cares for a flock smells of the flock. Okay.

And that's true of pastors. And that's the sign you can have a vision.

He's not sin at all. And it doesn't need anything on, more than stuff. And he's always overstead. Daniel loves Jesus.

Because he loves Jesus, he loves that's all this is.

That's all it is. So when we order him all the things falling down the power of the Holy Spirit to his idol, and to give him the ability to be honored to sheep at hard work. There's a big description password. And yet you update.

I remember going to a barn with one of my near men at my first church. And as we walk by the roads in the stanchion, he says, watch out for that one. That one will flip you with its tail, and then another one will step on your feet. You knew his cows.

And some of you will flip or his wife with your tail. And some of you will step on his toes. And some of you will protect him. You'll go out and jump off a cliff, you know, sheep.

And so I just wanted to give you a picture of Jesus’ love for Christians. That when he went to heaven, he appointed men who would with their wives carry people. And I want you to love him because I love him. Even if we don't love Jesus, you better love Daniel because I love him.

I might love that. Now that's a joke. ## Closing Prayer

Father, we thank you for the service. We thank you for the privilege that we have of acting in your behalf and calling down your power on Daniel to tend your sheep.

May he be faithful in that, and may he have a flock that loves him for his work, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.