Dock
Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 6 Sep 2026
Summary
This week Brigid closed the series by looking at John 21:15–19, where the risen Jesus meets Peter on the shore of Lake Galilee and asks him three times, “Do you love me?” Brigid traced how Jesus forgives Peter, commissions him to “feed my sheep,” and then leads him into a costly future, showing that restoration, not perfection, is the heart of following Jesus. She closed by inviting everyone into the new term ahead asking not “will I do more,” but “will I become more loving?” Grounded in the truth that we love only because Jesus first loved us.
Key Points & Takeways
The charcoal fire deliberately echoes Peter's denial — The last time Peter stood at a charcoal fire, he denied knowing Jesus three times as Jesus was arrested. Returning to a charcoal fire, where Jesus is cooking fish, stirs up all that old fear and shame.
Three questions answer three denials, and it's for restoration, not humiliation — Jesus doesn't pretend the denial didn't happen, and doesn't ignore the failure but he also doesn't define Peter by it. The threefold question creates a deliberate space where restoration becomes possible.
Peter's confidence has shifted from himself to Jesus — Earlier, in John 13, Peter confidently declared, “I will lay down my life for you.” Now he says, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you,” placing his trust not in his own resolve but in what Jesus knows about him.
Jesus loves the Peter who actually failed, not the Peter Peter imagined himself to be — Love for Jesus isn't measured by intensity of feeling but by direction; the slow, steady turning of our lives towards Jesus, because his life is already turned towards us.
The stunning part of this story is that restoration is possible after failure — It's good if we don't miss the mark but the good news here is that when we do, forgiveness and restoration remain possible. The best relationships aren't ones where nothing ever goes wrong, but ones where we can be fully ourselves and still be received.
Forgiveness leads straight into commissioning: ‘Feed my sheep’ — Jesus doesn't quietly demote Peter he invites him to participate in Jesus's own shepherding ministry, promised through Ezekiel 34 and fulfilled in Jesus as the Good Shepherd of John 10, who lays down his life for the sheep.
The commissioning is about love, not sin-avoidance or busyness — Quoting pastor Rich Villodas, Brigid noted that Jesus never said the world would know us by how well we avoid sin, but by our love. The real question underneath any to-do list or reading plan is: ‘Have we failed to love?’
Following Jesus will lead Peter somewhere costly — Jesus tells Peter plainly that his obedience will one day lead to a death that glorifies God (John 21:18–19), love turns us outward again, away from the self-protection that caused Peter's denial in the first place, just as it led Jesus to the cross.
We arrive at the same place a different person, and are asked again to follow — Peter returns to where his calling began by the water, hearing ‘follow me,’ but as someone shaped by failure and forgiveness. As a new term begins, the invitation is not to do more, but to ask what shape our love for God and others will take, trusting 1 John 4:19: ‘We love because he first loved us.’
Dock Discussion Questions
Brigid described feeling unexpectedly nervous cycling past a junction where she'd had a bad experience days earlier. Is there a ‘charcoal fire’ moment or place in your own life that stirs up old feelings when you return to it?
Peter's confidence shifted from ‘I will lay down my life for you’ to ‘Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’ Where is your confidence currently placed: in your own resolve, or in what Jesus knows about you?
Jesus doesn't ignore Peter's denial, but he doesn't define Peter by it either. Is there a failure you're still letting define you, rather than trusting Jesus's forgiveness and restoration?
Brigid quoted Rich Villodas's question: ‘Perhaps we haven't explicitly broken God's law today but have we failed to love?’ How might that question reshape how you evaluate your own faithfulness this week, compared to a checklist of dos and don'ts?
As this new season begins, what's one concrete way you sense God commissioning you to ‘feed his sheep,’ to love and care for someone specific this week?
Long-form, edited transcript
Questions Jesus Asked
Who Do You Say I Am?
John 21:15-19
When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
A third time Jesus said to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”
“Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
A Bike Ride Through Poplar
We're going to unpack that in a minute, but before we do, I want to tell you about something that happened to me this week. We all know that Shadwell is the best place in London, obviously, but second to Shadwell, Poplar is the second best place in London. I highly recommend it; I love living there. Every now and again it has its moments that are a little more hairy.
A few weeks ago I was cycling home, and there's a busy road I have to turn right across to get onto my street. I pulled into the right-hand lane, on my bike, and the car behind me was very upset that I'd done this. I'm a stickler for the Highway Code, I care deeply about being in the right lane, but this driver was not happy. They rolled down their window, let me know in no uncertain terms how they felt, and drove off. I was honestly a little shaken by the interaction, but I was fine.
Then last Thursday, I approached that same junction on my bike, having kind of forgotten what had happened. But something about being in that spot again brought up all those feelings, and I got really nervous about turning right across the road. I thought about getting off and walking across, the superpower of a bike is you can just get off, but I thought, no, I will not be defeated by this junction, I'm going to do it. It felt a bit like returning to the scene of the crime. Very nervous. You'll be pleased to know a kind gentleman let me pull in front of him and everything was fine. Poplar is back to being the second best place in London.
Now, this was all a little irrational, really, but I wonder whether something like that feeling was going on for Peter in this passage.
Back to the Water, Back to the Fire
The context we meet at the end of John's Gospel is that Jesus is alive, good news, the resurrection has happened, but the disciples are still living in the confusion of what it all means for their lives. They've gone back to fishing, back to Lake Galilee, back into their boats, sitting through the night trying to catch fish. They've gone back to what they were doing before Jesus called them, years ago, back to the start of their journey, struggling to catch anything.
Then a voice calls from the shore, telling them to throw their net somewhere else, and a miraculous catch follows, suddenly they catch loads of fish. In that moment they realise the stranger on the shore must be Jesus. And Peter does what Peter often does, something a bit bonkers: he chucks on his coat, you'd think he'd chuck it off, and runs through the water to get to Jesus. Jesus is there with a little charcoal fire going, cooking breakfast.
Jesus is waiting for them when they arrive, and Peter finds himself standing around this charcoal fire. I think that's the moment I resonate with the bike situation, because the last time Peter stood in front of a charcoal fire, things had gone very badly. It was just as Jesus was arrested, and someone said to Peter, “Hang on, I think I know you, aren't you one of those people that hangs out with Jesus, one of his followers?” And three times Peter says, “Nope, not me. You've got the wrong guy.” He denies knowing and following Jesus three times. And Jesus is killed, and then, apparently, rises again.
So Peter's going, what is happening? Jesus is in front of me, and suddenly I'm stood by this charcoal fire again. What's going to happen, is Jesus going to be angry with him, tell him off, make him explain himself? This is the moment we join the passage. After they've eaten, Jesus says to Peter, using his old name, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” Peter says, “you know that I love you.” Jesus says, “Feed my lambs.” Three times Jesus asks that question; three times Peter says yes; three times Jesus responds, “Feed my lambs, take care of my sheep.” By the third time, Peter is starting to feel a bit hurt that Jesus is asking him again: “Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you.” “Feed my sheep.”
We're at the end of our summer series looking at questions Jesus asks. He asks hundreds across the Gospel accounts, to encourage curiosity, challenge norms, and draw us into deeper love for God. But this question, ‘do you love me,’ is even more than that. In it, Jesus is communicating forgiveness, commissioning, and the way that he leads, and those are the three things we're looking at today: Peter is forgiven, Peter is commissioned, and Peter is led.
Peter Forgiven
As I reflected on Peter's life this week, I was struck that so often through the Gospel accounts we see Peter with the right motivation but the wrong judgment about what to do, and I think, if we're honest, that's something we can all relate to. So often as human beings we've got the right motivation, but we put our foot in it, or make the wrong call, and things go wrong.
This is so much of Peter's life. When he's called by Jesus at the start of John's Gospel, the passage we read right at the beginning of this series in August, Peter is so excited that he and his brother Andrew give up everything to follow Jesus. He goes on this extraordinary three years, given a new name, professing that Jesus is the one who brings eternal life, watching miracles and healings and transformed lives. He really does love Jesus. In John 13 he says, “I will lay down my life for you, Jesus,” completely convinced of his own loyalty.
And then comes his denial. It all gets too much; Jesus is arrested, and just as Jesus predicted, Peter denies him three times around a fire: “I don't know Jesus.”
Skip forward to the passage we've just read, I like to imagine they've started walking down the lake shore, three questions after three denials. This is not Jesus trying to humiliate Peter; Jesus is creating a space in which restoration is possible. He doesn't pretend the denial didn't happen, doesn't ignore the failure, but he doesn't define Peter by it either. Earlier, in John 13, Peter insisted, “I will lay down my life for you.” Now he says, “It's you, Lord, that knows all things, you know that I love you.” His confidence, where he places his trust, has shifted. Earlier he says, “I know that I will lay down my life”; now he says, “Lord, you are the one who knows all things.” His confidence has moved onto Jesus.
Maybe that's helpful for us too. If Jesus asked us this morning, ‘Do you love me?’, some of us might go, well, do I? How would I know? How would I know if my love for Jesus is enough? Love for Jesus is not measured by intensity of feeling. It's measured by direction, the slow, steady, consistent turning of our lives towards Jesus, because his life is already turned towards us.
Jesus loves the Peter that he actually is, not the Peter Peter thinks he is or hopes to become, not the brave, confident, impressive Peter who promised he'd never fail. Jesus loves the Peter who actually did fail. And in this moment of restoration, Jesus forgives Peter and restores their friendship.
It's easy to forget, when we're sitting with guilt or shame on our shoulders, that God's great desire is to see us reconciled and restored to relationship with him. I love that Peter runs through the water to Jesus when he sees him on the shore, despite everything that's happened, Peter has this deep gut sense that Jesus wants to be with him as much as he wants to be with Jesus. That same feeling is extended to you this morning: Jesus wants to be with you, wants to be restored and reconciled to you. Loving Jesus isn't a feeling Peter has to muster up as Jesus asks the question, it's a response to the love Jesus has already shown; the response that forgives and restores.
The stunning part of this interaction isn't that Peter avoided missing the mark, it's great when we don't fail, of course, the stunning part is that restoration is possible when we do. In Jesus's presence we don't have to pretend to be something we aren't. Jesus's compassion and mercy mean that forgiveness and restoration are possible. We know that the best relationships of any kind aren't the ones where things never go wrong, they're the ones where we can be fully ourselves, totally marvellous, utterly messy, and find that even when things go wrong, forgiveness and restoration remain possible. That's what's offered to us in Jesus. We must not let the voice of shame or guilt tell us otherwise.
Peter Commissioned
But this passage is more than that. Jesus doesn't simply forgive Peter and send him home, Peter is forgiven and restored, and Jesus's response is to commission him. Every time Peter answers Jesus's question, ‘Do you love me?’, Jesus responds with an instruction: ‘Feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep.’ He doesn't respond with a placating statement, something like, ‘Well, you've messed up, but it's kind of okay, so I'll demote you a bit.’ Not at all, he commissions Peter to do exactly what Jesus himself has been doing. Peter is being invited to love and take care of what Jesus loves.
The language of shepherding runs throughout Scripture. Hundreds of years before Jesus, God spoke through the prophet Ezekiel, in chapter 34, condemning the leaders of Israel who were exploiting God's people rather than caring for them, and then promising that God himself would send a shepherd who would search for his sheep and look after them properly, when human shepherds had failed. In John 10, Jesus takes up that very promise, declaring, ‘I am the good shepherd,’ the one sent to know God's people deeply, lead them into life, and ultimately lay down his life for the sheep, which, of course, he does.
So when Jesus tells Peter, ‘Take care of my sheep,’ he's not handing him a side job, he's saying, I want you to come and participate in my own shepherding ministry. Peter isn't told to go and do a bit better; he's invited to care for what's at the very centre of Jesus's ministry. The sheep remain Jesus's sheep, Peter is an under-shepherd, not the owner of the flock, but it's a hugely significant instruction: take care of and look after the people that I love. Earlier in John's Gospel, Jesus says to his disciples, ‘As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you,’ and that instruction is given to us too.
Peter is forgiven and restored, and that forgiveness and restoration becomes the vocation he's to fulfil. Jesus is saying, it's time to be a shepherd, time to do what I've been teaching you, not because you're perfect, but because you've been forgiven and restored. Peter knows he doesn't have it all together, but this is grace from start to finish, God's gift so that people can be cared for and loved as if Jesus were here himself. We don't do what Jesus calls us to do in order to earn forgiveness; we do it out of the joy that we're already forgiven and restored. Our lives themselves become the sign that we've already received grace, forgiveness and restoration.
The pastor Rich Villodas puts it like this: when our spiritual vitality is measured only by sin avoidance, we can fool ourselves into thinking we're following Jesus faithfully. But Jesus never said the world would know us by how well we avoid sin, he said we'd be known by our love, love for God expressed in love for neighbour. That's the mark of what it is to be a Christian, and it's how we enact this instruction to love and take care of God's sheep. Villodas frames sin like this: perhaps we haven't explicitly broken God's law today, but have we failed to love?
This is the heart of Peter's commissioning. Jesus isn't asking him to be flawless, he's asking him to be loving, to feed and nurture and care for those Jesus loves. And that means Peter is being told to take care of people like himself. That's why his failure matters: his story becomes, ‘I am a sheep who needed a shepherd, who has come looking for me, let me show you who he is.’ That becomes our story too. As a church, our collective ministry, all of us carrying out this instruction to feed God's sheep, begins when forgiven people discover that the love they've received from Jesus is meant to become love given out to others.
Peter Led
So Peter is forgiven and restored, then commissioned with the vocation to love Jesus's people. And finally, Peter is led. This isn't a calling Jesus sends us into on our own, it's a calling Jesus leads us into as one who has already walked it. The call we have as those who follow Jesus is to love like Jesus did. But where will that lead?
Peter doesn't know. He doesn't know where this commission will take him. We have the benefit of hindsight, we get to read the book of Acts and see the adventures ahead of him, the good bits and the hard bits. It will lead him, and us, to extraordinary and wonderful places, a life of ministry, and I don't just mean paid vocational ministry, I mean loving God's people in whatever places each of us is called to, but it will also lead to suffering.
Jesus is really clear about that in verses 18 and 19: this is going to cost Peter something. ‘When you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted. But when you are older, someone else will dress you and stretch out your hands and lead you where you don't want to go.’ John tells us Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God, Peter would eventually be killed in the persecution of the early church. Following Jesus will lead Peter into the way of the cross, the way of suffering for God's glory, just as Jesus's own work was costly, the shepherd willing to lay down his life for his sheep.
Rich Villodas also says that if the greatest commandment is rooted in love, then the greatest sin, and perhaps all sin, is the rejection of that command. Sin curves us inwards, tells us to look only at ourselves, and uproots love and goodness and beauty and kindness. But in this interaction with Jesus, we see Peter's journey coming away from that inward curve and looking outward again. In his denial, Peter was curved inward by fear and worry about what would happen if he was caught as a follower of Jesus. Jesus curves him back out again, towards love, towards others, towards the flock. And Jesus never leads us somewhere he hasn't gone himself, the instruction remains the same: follow me. It's the same invitation Peter got at the very beginning of John's Gospel, and it's the same now, after all the enthusiasm and learning and mistakes and failures and forgiveness and commissioning.
The author Brian McLaren writes that he thinks Jesus chose fishermen as disciples for good reason. I've been fishing twice in my life, I'm not very good; I caught one fish, which means the other time I caught absolutely nothing. But what I learned, in my vast wealth of twice the experience, is that it takes a lot of trying and trying again, and a heck of a lot of patiently waiting for something to happen. Being part of the movement of Jesus followers means being willing to try and try again. Sometimes we'll face long nights where it feels like nothing is happening, but we mustn't give up hope. Jesus has caught us in the net of love, as it were, and now we go on to spread that net for other people.
Paula Gooder, who works at St Paul's Cathedral, puts it beautifully. She reflects that Peter has taken a long and arduous journey from his first call to follow Jesus, through the depths of his own inadequacies and failings, and has arrived again where he started, walking with Jesus, hearing ‘follow me,’ but this time, perhaps, he sees it afresh. That's so often the experience of the Christian life: we come back to the same place, but we're not the same person.
I wonder if you've got a spot in your life like that, your parents' house, or somewhere you love to go on holiday, a place you've returned to again and again. For me, there's a particular spot in the Lake District I've gone to my whole life. Every time I go back, it strikes me that I'm going to the same place, but I'm not the same person, a year or two has passed, I'm a little older, hopefully a little wiser, I've made mistakes, my circumstances have shifted, and I trust that Jesus is transforming my heart and mind little by little into who he's calling me to be. I wonder what that place is for you.
All our best intentions and hopes and dreams can't guarantee we'll be really good people, because we will fail, we'll get things wrong, and discover, like Peter, that we're not quite as brave or faithful or loving as we thought. But Jesus's death assures us that we are forgiven, and his resurrection assures us that we will always be forgiven and restored. Forgiveness allows us to arrive again at the beginning, hearing Jesus say, ‘Follow me,’ but see it afresh, for who he's transforming us into. This doesn't mean life just goes round and round in circles, though sometimes it can feel that way, it means we can arrive again at that place, hearing ‘follow me, love me, love my flock and my people,’ this time a little wiser, a little more humble, a little more intentional, perhaps.
This is the one who continues to call us, just as he called Peter: do you love me? Feed my sheep. Love God, love people. Jesus takes the steep road, he goes through suffering and death, and shows us that on the other side of that there is new life and joy and glorifying God. But the beginning and the middle and the end of Jesus's story, and Peter's story, is love.
Love for Jesus will take us to unexpected places. It took Peter from a charcoal fire to a new charcoal fire, from failure to forgiveness, and from forgiveness into a new calling. It does the same for us, it takes us from what can feel like our deepest failures into forgiveness, and then into restoration and commissioning. This is not a love that's blind to fault or sin, but an open-eyed love that sees the story in each of us, a story healed and renewed by Jesus and the Spirit's strength, that we then get to give away.
A New Term, A Fresh Beginning
I totally agree that September feels like a kind of new beginning, a much better place to start a new year than January, when we just want to hibernate; rubbish time for New Year's resolutions. So I'm firmly starting mine in September. There's something about coming back to the same place, but being a new person.
So let me ask you, in this term ahead, as we start this new year: what direction will you take? Where do you want the love God has given you to go? In other words, where will you give your time, your energy, your attention? Each of us is called to love, because we are forgiven and restored and commissioned by God, and we're given more than enough to be able to give it away. What is the shape of the love God is calling you to give?
The heart of Jesus's commissioning to Peter is not, ‘do more, fill up your diary, here's a list of volunteering opportunities and a comprehensive Bible reading plan.’ Those things aren't bad at all, but the question underneath all of them is: with all the love we've received, will we love God and love God's sheep? Love God, love neighbour. Let your life bend in the direction of love.
John Mark Comer, a pastor in America, says this is the most important question in the Christian life: are we becoming more loving? All of us love something, all of us give our time and attention to something, the question is what it will be. That's exactly what Jesus is asking Peter: do you love me? Not, are you impressive, or strong, or perfect, are you becoming more loving?
If you're not sure whether you love Jesus, if you're worried your love might be too small, let me remind you of a verse in 1 John chapter 4.
We love because he first loved us.
We're only able to love others well because God has first loved us. Our love is always a response, never the starting point, it begins with our own experience of God's love, and the Spirit's work reshaping us from the inside out. Learn to love me, Jesus says, and in that love you will learn to love others, and yourself, even more truly.
So this new term, this new beginning, might love be the marker we're known by. Might love be the sign to the world that we're forgiven, Jesus tells us, ‘This is how they will know that you are mine: by the love that you share.’ Might love be the shape of our calling into the schools and universities and workplaces we're all heading into in the coming days and weeks. Might love, turned outwards, be the direction of our lives. This isn't about trying harder or doing more — it's about receiving and giving the great love God has given us.
Response and Prayer
So I want to ask you this morning: Jesus's question to Peter “do you love me?” then feed my sheep. We took some extra time for ministry, as we do on the first Sunday of the month, standing to respond in worship, with hands open as a sign of wanting to receive what God had for us.
We prayed together, thanking God that we're able to love him and love our neighbours because he first loved us, asking for a fresh reminder of a love that is steadfast and faithful, not flimsy or based on whim or emotion, a love that cannot be shaken by the circumstances of our world. For those carrying guilt or shame, not knowing what Jesus might say to them, we brought our confession, whatever was sitting heavy on our hearts, whatever we wished had not happened, and placed it at Jesus's feet, thanking him that because of his great mercy and compassion, he calls us forgiven and restored, and asking that guilt and shame would leave in Jesus's name.
For others sensing a fresh beginning, a new job, workplace, or school this month, we prayed for a fresh commissioning to love those we're being sent to, asking the Holy Spirit to fill us with the knowledge of God's love to overflowing, and to send us out with courage, boldness, wisdom and compassion to feed his flock and reveal him to those he calls us to. We closed with the sense that God was saying: don't be afraid to ask me for what you need. I have called you to feed my sheep, to love my flock, but you don't do that on your own. You do it with all that I equip you with. As you think about the term ahead, what is it that you need in order to do what God has called you to? Don't be afraid to ask for it.
Closing Prayer
Jesus, our good shepherd,
Thank you that you meet us where we are, even at the fires where we have failed you.
You do not pretend our denials never happened, but you do not define us by them either. Thank you that your first word to us is not condemnation, but restoration.
Search us and know us. Where we are still carrying guilt or shame, lift it from our shoulders. Where our confidence has rested in our own strength rather than in you, turn it back towards you now.
You have asked us, as you asked Peter: do you love me? Let our answer be more than words, let it be the slow, steady turning of our whole lives towards you. And where you call us to feed your sheep, give us the courage to love the people you love, even when it costs us something.
As we step into this new season, let love be the mark by which the world knows we belong to you. Not our perfection, not our productivity but our love, given away because you first loved us.
Wherever you lead us, even into the harder places, go with us, as you promised. We ask this in your name, Jesus, our shepherd and our friend.
Amen.