Lovest Thou Me? What Jesus Asked Peter in John 21 About How to Love

Breakfast is over. The fire on the shore is burning down. And Jesus turns to the man who, only days before, had sworn three times that he never knew Him.

He does not ask Peter what he was thinking. He does not ask for an explanation. He asks one question, then asks it again, then asks it a third time.

“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Peter was grieved. I understand why. When the Lord asks you the same question three times, you begin to suspect He was not satisfied with the first answer.

Underneath that question is another one, and I want to put it to you plainly: Are you sure you know how to love?

Most of us think we do. We love our families, our friends, our church. Many people think they know how to love. But do they really? I have been saved forty-one years, and I am still learning the answer.

Four loves, and only one of them is the foundation

C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Four Loves, and in it he identified four kinds of love. The first is agape, the divine love of God. The second is phileo, which means friendship and brotherly affection. The third is storge, the love within a family, between parents and children. The fourth is eros, which means romantic love.

The Word of God makes it plain that no love is greater than agape. It is God’s unconditional, self-giving love for humanity, and it is the love true believers are supposed to show others. The other three are meant to grow out of it, and without it they never come close to what they could be.

Something worse happens, too. Without God’s love at the foundation, the other three get corrupted by the natural man. And if a saved person is full of pride and thinking in the flesh, what comes out of him is worldly, selfish love. It is love of self dressed up as love for someone else.

Understanding real love is one thing. Living it out is quite another. So if we are going to love the only acceptable way, which is God’s way, we must first know the Author and Giver of love.

Love begins with God, because God is love

Jesus asked Peter three questions, and the wording matters. The first two times He said “lovest thou me,” He used the word agape. That is the self-sacrificing love that can only originate with God.

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)

God’s holiness is His foundational attribute. Everything else submits to it. But after His holiness, His love ranks among the very highest things that are true of Him. He is perfect love, so He defines what love is. Agape is the core of who He is.

And because God is eternal, love is eternal.

Love proved itself at Calvary

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

God so loved. That is beyond anything the human mind can take in. And the world means you, me, and everybody outside the walls of the church.

Then look at the next word. He gave. The giving is the proof of the loving. Calvary was the greatest act of self-sacrifice in history, and He did it for a race of people who were helpless and undeserving.

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8)

Commendeth means He laid it out for inspection, for the whole world to see.

Whosoever brings it down to the individual. Christ died for the world, but each person must repent and trust Christ as Lord and personal Saviour to be pardoned and adopted into the family of God.

“And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

I am glad to hear more preaching on repentance these days, because you cannot be born again without it. You have to take personal responsibility as a sinner before a holy God. You have to own your guilt, turn from sin toward God, and trust Christ.

This past Monday, September 21st, I celebrated forty-one years in the Lord. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It happened in apartment number 123 on Bellflower, in California, around eight o’clock in the evening, in 1985. You may not remember your calendar date. That is fine. The question is whether you remember being there when it happened.

If you are lost and unconverted as you read this, Christ went to the cross for you. You did not deserve it, and I did not deserve it. As one preacher put it, He chose to love us more than He loved Himself.

You cannot love like Christ until you know Christ

Everything from here on is for those who have been born again. If you have not been, it will fly right over your head.

When I preach on the home, I use this verse all the time:

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” (Ephesians 5:25)

The standard is even as Christ. How can you love the way He loved if you do not know Him? That is why it has to begin there.

Once you know Him, the Lord gives you the next step:

“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40)

The entire Word of God hangs on those two commandments. Both of them use the active form of agape.

Peter would not claim what he did not have

Go back to the shore. Jesus asks Peter twice, “Do you agape Me?” He is asking for supreme, unconditional, self-sacrificing devotion. Both times Peter answers with phileo: “Lord, You know I have affection for You.”

The third time, the Lord comes down to Peter’s word and asks, “Do you phileo Me?” It is an easing of the confrontation.

Before the denial, Peter had made big claims about his love. Now, humbled by his own failure, he will not do it. He will not pretend to a flawless love he does not trust himself to give. So he answers honestly, and the Lord meets him where he is.

Then the Lord tells Peter something more:

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.” (John 21:18-19)

That is death by crucifixion. Historians say Peter was crucified upside down, because he said he was not worthy to die the same way as his Lord.

We like to think we love God in the supreme way, and that we have arrived. I have not. But the Lord says this:

“If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

Are you prepared to say you keep the two greatest commandments one hundred percent of the time? I am not. I know deep in my heart that I fail there. They are the goal I shoot for, absolutely. But I am not going to be arrogant enough to claim I live them.

Charity is love with its sleeves rolled up

Loving your neighbor as yourself means choosing to serve others and seek their highest good without expecting anything back. I call that the charity imperative.

“We love him, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9)

Paul wrote his first letter to Corinth to correct a church torn by division, and in it he gave us this:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

Charity is the same agape as John 3:16. The word shifts our focus away from love as an emotion, which is usually what we base love on. Charity is agape actively lived out.

Without it, the most gifted man in the room is an empty suit. He can have the gift of prophecy, which today means forth-telling the Word of God from the pulpit. He can understand all knowledge, though knowledge puffs up. He can have faith that moves mountains, the very faith the Lord spoke of. He can give everything he owns to the poor, which is a good thing. And without charity, Paul says, he is nothing.

“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

And then Paul writes, charity never faileth.

Our Lord was and is all about mercy and compassion, and we should be too. We do not pardon the unrepentant. But we treat one another with kindness and respect.

A Christian author once said, “Kindness is love in everyday clothes.” Being kind requires the surrender of self, because you cannot be pampering yourself while you help somebody else. Kindness means you look at the needs around you and simply meet them, without waiting to be asked.

Men, by the way, never need help. Just ask them. You can watch a man grimacing under a load, ask if he needs a hand, and he will say, “No, no, I’ve got it.” The better thing to do is say, “Here, I’ll take some of that,” and take it. What is he going to do?

I was once witnessing to a lady at an antique shop up in Granite Falls. She told me about her daughter, who had moved to Nevada, Missouri. A Baptist preacher had driven by while the family was unloading a U-Haul, and he could see how much work they had in front of them. He pulled over and said, “I can get a crew of guys, and we’ll come back and help you.”

They were stunned. They had not asked him, and they had no idea who he was. They ended up going to his church, and from what she told me, they got saved and became members. It all started with a so-called random act of kindness, and it was not random at all.

Who is my neighbour?

Everything in 1 Corinthians 13 is wrapped up in one parable. If you really want to know how to love, pattern your life after the Good Samaritan.

“And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,” (Luke 10:25-33)

The lawyer wanted to justify himself, and the Lord went straight to the heart of the matter. That is how God deals with us.

Over the last twenty years or so, one of the saddest things I have watched is begging become an art. Standing on the corner with a sign has turned into a side hustle for some people. I have seen a man working one corner, then another town the next day, and three weeks later he was back on the first corner with the same sign.

The sad part is that when somebody really does need help, most people drive right by because of the reputation the others have created. So be careful, because not everyone in need is in that situation. Most people hate like everything having to ask for help. It is humbling.

When you see a real need, help with it. We get to do that. We give according to the depth of our love for Him, whether we give time, talents, or money. And you cannot outgive God.

Two religious men walked past on the other side. The one who stopped was a Samaritan, half Jew and half Gentile, and he had compassion on him.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “Well, they got what they deserved.” If you and I got what we deserved, we would be in hell right now. People make bad decisions. So have you, and so have I.

When a woman named Alice was trying to witness to me years ago, I would not open the door. I peeked at her through the curtain and left her standing there. That was rude, and all of it is true. She never gave up. I thank the Lord for Alice.

Before I got saved, I was sitting one day in a break room at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. A man named Glen Burke was at the table, known to everyone as a Bible thumper. I sat down with him, and he quietly asked me, “Are you saved?”

I laughed at him. I made a mockery of it and a fool of myself. He hung his head, and I don’t blame him for not saying much to me after that. But I knew he was praying for me.

When I got saved, all I wanted was to find him and thank him. One day in heaven, I am going to give that man the biggest hug ever and tell him, “Brother, I am so sorry.” And when I see Alice, I won’t let her go.

I am still learning this

Do I know everything about how to love? No. But I am learning, and I am endeavoring to learn.

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

Think of the Author and Giver of love hanging on the cross while the crowd yells, mocks, and shakes their fists at Him, full of hatred. What does He say?

“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.” (Luke 23:34)

Only God can do that.

Three ways to start practicing agape love

We are always told to love. We are not always told how. These are not exhaustive, just a few principles to start with.

First, forgive freely. Somebody wronged you? Forgive them from your heart. They’re dead now? Forgive them anyway. They will never understand? Forgive them anyway. If you do not forgive, bitterness will eat you up from the inside out.

“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

Second, serve selflessly. Volunteer in your community, at a food bank, or for a neighbor. Volunteer when there is a need in the church. Don’t wait to be voluntold. I knew a church that ran a food bank with one condition: before anyone took food home, they sat and heard the gospel.

Third, practice kindness and patience. Answer difficult people with calm restraint rather than anger.

That is not always an easy one, is it?

“And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.” (Luke 10:37)

What is that to thee? Follow thou me

Go back to the shore one more time. The Lord has just told Peter how he will die. And the very first thing Peter does is turn around and look at somebody else.

“Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.” (John 21:20-22)

You cannot answer the Lord’s question by pointing at the person beside you. It is not about how they love, or whether they stopped on the Jericho road. The Lord is not asking about them.

He is asking you.

Lovest thou me?

Then follow Him.

Adapted from a message preached from John 21:15-22.