Breakfast on the Shore

This week, Dave Blow wraps up our series on what it means to be resurrection people by sharing his testimony and how he knows that "Jesus is in the restoration business".

Please find the slide deck for this week's teaching here.

Home Church Questions:

1. What stood out to you from this week's teaching?

2. What’s a simple or ordinary moment (like a meal or conversation) that has stayed meaningful to you? What made it significant?

3. Read John 21:1-19 (preferably in multiple translations). What stands out to you from this passage?

4. In the story, the disciples fish all night and catch nothing. What do you think that moment represents in their lives? Have you experienced something similar?

5. Why do you think Jesus chose to meet the disciples in such an ordinary setting rather than in a dramatic way?

6. Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” What stands out to you about this exchange?

7. Why do you think Jesus focuses on love (“Do you love me?”) rather than failure (“Why did you deny me?”)?

8. What does this story teach us about how Jesus responds to our failures or shortcomings?

9. Jesus restores Peter before giving him a calling. Why is that order important?

10. Do you ever feel disqualified from being used by God? How does this passage challenge or reshape that thinking?

11. Pray with and for one another, our church community, and our world.

Instagram: @theharbournewmarket
Website: theharbournewmarket.ca
Email: david@theharbournewmarket.ca

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

All right, well, this morning's uh teaching is the last in our post-resurrection sermon uh series. And uh it's certainly a personal and a meaningful one, and I've entitled this Breakfast on the Shore. And to uh some of you to capture an image, I have a couple of pictures of a couple of shores that mean something to me. Um the uh the docks is the waterfront at our where we have our trailer at a place called Dreamland, and that is the Trent. And that was taken this time of year last year, and uh that shore is uh full of docks and uh a very, very popular fishing location, but uh the ducks get quite mad if you uh if you intrude when they're you know building their families. And then we have Myrtle Beach, and that's how well maybe the top left I would envision the shore that Jesus and Peter have their interaction. Um the others are just little mental hooks of a happy place, and to you landlords, looking at that dog rolling in the uh sand there is a reason why you don't want renters in your condo because all that sands and all that wet is coming home. And uh of course, Sherry and I hose the dog off liberally. And um yeah, so when I think of the shore, uh the shore is a happy place, and uh it leads us into our text this morning. So let's uh let's read that together. It's a it's a beautiful story. John 21, 1 to 19 from the New Living Translation. I'm reading it from this morning. Later Jesus appeared again to the disciples beside the Sea of Galilee. This is how it happened. Several of the disciples were there. Simon Peter, Thomas, nicknamed the twin, Nathaniel from Cana and Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples. Simon Peter said, I'm going fishing. We'll come too, they all said. So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night. At dawn Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn't see who he was. He called out, Fellows, have you caught any fish? No, they replied. Then he said, Throw out your net on the right hand side of the boat, and you'll get some. So they did, and they couldn't haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. Then the disciple Jesus loves, said to Peter, It's the Lord. And when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his tunic, for he had stripped for work. He jumped in the water and headed to shore. The others stayed with the boat and pulled the loaded net to the shore, for they were only about a hundred yards from shore. When he got there, they found breakfast waiting for them, fish cooking over a charcoal file, and some bread. Bring some of the fish you've just caught, Jesus said. And Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net to the shore. There were 153 large fish, and yet the net hadn't torn. Now come and have some breakfast, Jesus said. None of the disciples dared to ask him, Who are you? They knew it was the Lord. Then Jesus served them the bread and the fish. This was the third time Jesus had appeared to his disciples since he had been raised from the dead. After breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Yes, Lord, Peter replied, you know that I love you. Then feed my lambs, Jesus told him. Jesus repeated the question. Simon, son of John, do you love me? Yes, Lord, Peter said, You know that I love you. Then take care of my sheep, Jesus said. A third time he asked him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was hurt that Jesus had asked them the question a third time. He said, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. Jesus said, Then feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked. You dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don't want to go. Jesus said this to let them know by what kind of death he would glorify God. Then Jesus told him, Follow me. Well, there's something deeply human about this story we're stepping into today. It's quiet, it's ordinary. It certainly doesn't feel like a grand resurrection scene with angels and earthquakes. Instead, it feels like early morning, and we often face those tired eyes. Here, I suspect the smell of water and nets. Those of you that have cottages or camp around fishing know that smell of you know water and uh seaweed and fish. And here we also have the weight of unfinished stories. And we find our disciples back to where it all began, fishing. And after everything they've seen, after the cross, after the empty tomb, after encounters with the risen Jesus, they go back to what they know, which would make sense. And it's not necessarily because they've lost faith, I don't think. It's because they're likely very unsure of what's going to come next. And I think if we're honest, that's a place many of us recognize. There's moments where we're not in crisis, but life doesn't feel dramatic or clear, just kind of an uncertain space. Moments when we quietly remember return to familiar rhythms because we don't know what else to do. So it would make sense for Simon Peter to say, I'm going fishing. And for the others to say, we go with you. We're happy to go with you. So of course they fish all night, and there's nothing. Empty nets and likely some growing frustration. And this isn't a story just about fishing. It's uh, you know, these are experienced fishermen. They're not uh they're not new at this. This is what they do. So even in their place of competence, they come up empty. You know, we've often felt that, I'm sure, even when the things we're really good at don't seem to work, um when our effort doesn't equal outcome, and where our nets come up empty and empty again. So for Peter, this isn't a story about fish. It's a story much deeper about something unresolved beneath the surface. Because, of course, we know not long before this, Peter had a moment that he would rather forget. And around a fire, he asked, or he answered, that he didn't know Jesus. Three times when asked if he knew Jesus, he said no. There was a moment in time, and Peter said, No, I don't know Jesus. And that's the shadow that he carries into the boat that evening when he went to fish. And that's where this story gets very personal with me. Uh, a moment in time, about almost 30 years ago now, I made some choices in business that impacted people's life. And certainly gave me the feeling that I had betrayed not only my family, you know, my church, and certainly my faith. And in that moment in time, I had incredible difficulty seeing a a way back. And I'll share more about that in a few minutes. But uh back to our story. At dawn, someone stands on the shore and uh they don't recognize him at first, but he calls out, friends, haven't you any fish? And it's probably a gentle knowing question. And so, no wouldn't be a surprise. So Jesus tells them to throw, of course, the net over to the right side of the boat. A simple instruction. But they do it. Um, they didn't ask why. Interesting, they did it, and suddenly the net's full. Overflowing, abundance where there had been emptiness, and in that moment, recognition begins to dawn on them. It's the Lord. So Peter, and those of you who follow Peter, he's impulsive. He's an impulsive guy, so he doesn't hesitate. He jumps into the water and heads straight for Jesus. And I would submit that something in him knows that this is the moment he's been needing. So he arrives on shore and he finds a charcoal fire, fish cooking and bread ready. A charcoal fire. Well, that means something more than we might think. Because the only other place in the gospel where a charcoal fire is mentioned is the night where Peter denies Jesus. So same setting, same sensory memory, same smell of smoke in the air. Those of you who still barbecue with charcoal know that smell. So Jesus is intentionally recreating the moment, and I would say not to shame Peter, but to restore him. And this is so important, Church. Jesus never avoids us in our places of failure. He meets us with grace, and he invites us. Come and have breakfast. And that's what he did to Peter and the disciples. There was no lecture, there was no rebuke to Peter, there was no, well, let's talk about what you did. Just food, just presence, just welcome. And before anything is said, there's a time of communion and community. And before talking about next steps, there was simple care. And again, reflecting back on my journey over the last 30 years, you know, we all we all make a choice. And uh I made a a particularly bad choice, and I can trace it back to the moment in time where I um in uh well, I was uh convicted of the offense of fraud. So I had uh messed up big time. There was uh certainly much more to the story, but at the end of the day, I made a choice. It was a wrong choice, and it set off a chain of events that are still um, well, here I am. So that was the start of this story, but uh certainly not the end. And I did have trouble seeing a way back. And um, although my time of incarceration was was short, it was probably the most impactful experience of my life. I spent time in pretrial custody. Now, those of you who follow the court system or at least watch the news knows that most people get bail. The lawyer I hired was a Christian real estate lawyer. Well, he didn't really know how to do a bail hearing. And again, I would say a God thing. So there was no bail for Dave. And during that time, my father passed away, and God put a chaplain in the institution into my life. And uh he basically, I remember I I'm I was working in the kitchen because if you weren't, if you're kind of a first-time guy and your offenses weren't violent, you got to work in the institution, which was fine, fine with me. And uh, I remember looking him straight in the eye, and he looked right at me and said, You can't control this. Jesus will control this, and you will see. And that's exactly what happened. And uh there, from that moment on, I met men from various walks of life who certainly did not enjoy any of the privileges that I enjoyed. I had two loving parents, I had a a loving wife and children, I had a a church community. And, you know, I was in a uh, you know, I was in a a safe space, and Sherry really bore the brunt of much of this um, you know, everything that was going on during that time. Um and throughout this journey, volunteers met me with a clear message, and um I pled um guilty and was sentenced and ended up in an institution, uh a minimum security institution in Muskoka, and there someone I had never met in my life or even thought of meeting met me with a clear message saying, it's not over. Jesus loves you and he forgives you. And that was 25 years ago now, and I chatted with him at length yesterday. He's now 78, and through the magic of our crack social media person, Melanie, um he saw me on on Facebook and was so excited and uh reached out and we had a wonderful conversation. So God puts people in your life. Anyhow, back to the story. After breakfast, Jesus turns to Peter and notice it wasn't in front of the crowd to embarrass him, but in a way that invites healing. And three times he asks, Do you love me? And three times Peter responds, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And each question mirrors each denial, and not to reopen wounds, but to redeem. And with each response, Jesus now gives a calling to feed my lamb, take care of my sheep, feed my sheep. Church, Peter's failure is not the end of the story. My failure is not the end of my story. And I would say to you that any failure you may have faced in the past is not the end of your story. It becomes the place where Jesus met Peter and meets us all to redefine and refine. And Jesus never says, Well, first you better prove yourself. He doesn't say, Well, you know, there's a way back, but you have to earn it. Instead, he restores relationship and then entrust responsibility. I was released from Fenbrook Institution on 9-11, 2001. It's a memorable day for two reasons. Um I was released early in the morning and and uh driven by uh Sherry and my son Justin to a halfway house in Toronto, and where I was to meet a parole officer, and the office was closed. They uh because of 9-11, everything was shut down, so I was delivered to the halfway house. And there the road back began. Um we had lost everything, literally. Um, everything we had um was was cashed in to uh to uh provide restitution. And um, you know, that was a journey that that took a few years in a variety of of ways. Um but it was important for me to find work. Sherry had found work, and uh so I can't even describe how it happened. I don't know other than it was a God thing. I found a job delivering sandwiches to gas stations. Those lovely little cryovac egg salad sandwiches that sit there for way too long with CO2 inside them. I was the guy that would go to a little place in Etobicoke, get in a pickup truck, and drive them around. Now that was a bit of a bit of a come down to what I was doing before, and many people had bright ideas of what I could sell for them, because I could sell stuff. And uh, but I had this parole officer who then sent me to visit with the parole supervisor, the one with the corner office, and she suggested strongly that in spite of all these well-meaning people advocating for me, I would uh be perfectly suited to deliver sandwiches for the foreseeable future because my file was quite thick, and uh that's what I did. And I did it happily to be able to support uh Sherry as we worked at restoration. I think the couple of key moments that we were uh probably the biggest, that's I really felt the need to get back to church. Um, it had been an impactful time, a formational time, but I really felt the need to go to church. And we had been at the same church for a long time. We had never been in a church in Keswick. So I remember knocking on the door one day and tentatively walking in on a Sunday morning where I met a David and Susan Andrews and from the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, and I'll never forget his words. David, you're welcome here. We're in the restoration business, and Jesus is in the restoration business, and I've never forgotten that. Another one through the crack social media person that saw my announcement this week and reached out, and those words burn in my heart still. And that's our heart of our story, church. And that's the heart of our big idea this morning that the risen Jesus restores and then he commissions us. And how often do we think, well, I gotta get myself back together first before I can be used by God? You know, once I fix this, once I'm stronger, once I've proven that I won't fail again, then maybe God can call me. But as Craig said this morning, this story flips. It's flipped completely. It flipped over my narrative. Jesus met Peter in the failure, not after it was all cleaned up. And from that place of restoration, he said, I still have a purpose for you. And church, some of us carry quiet failures, moments that we wish we could redo, things we wish we could take back, times where we didn't show up when we were wanted to be, or we didn't see who we wanted to see. And maybe sometimes it feels like too much, so we just go back to fishing. To the safe space. And it's not because you don't love Jesus, it's because you're unsured if you're still called. And if that's your space this morning, I would say the passage that we shared in our text speaks directly into that space. Jesus is not standing at a distance disappointed. He's on the shore preparing breakfast. Young or old, it doesn't matter. And the question is not why did you fail? His question is simple. Do you love me? Love, not perfection, is the foundation of calling. So three years went by, I was home, parole was finished. I can't tell you how blessed I was to have a wife who many people thought should terminate our marriage. She looked at them and said, no, I love him, and God isn't done with him, and I'm not done with him. And uh I just think of that whenever I have any bright ideas. But something was stirring in my heart, and I had lots of opportunities then. You know, the parole officers were quite happy with me. Um I showed up to all my appointments and did what I was supposed to do. And a friend of mine that had walked with me through all of this, he uh encouraged me to go to seminary. And uh he he just thought, Dave, you you seem to like this stuff. He wasn't sure what it was. And I was doing some um chaplaincy work. I was Sherry and I were involved in Dismas Fellowship that you heard about a couple of weeks ago. Um, and he offered me employment, and that was the start of the digital photography age, where you no longer had to wait for Santa pictures, you can go back and get them, you could do them instantly. And so he thought we could grow a great business doing this. He had the personality of a soil sample, but I was a little more, I was a little more likable at times. He's a great tech guy, Mr. IT, but you can let him talk to people. It didn't always go well. So I said, well, you know, I really want him to do the seminary thing, but you know, I still have to make a living. So he uh we were able to put together enough money for Sherry and I to live on. I attended Tyndale in 2005, and God blessed our business. Uh I thought if we could get Yorkdale for Santa Claus photography, that would be quite a coup. And for some strange reason, we got it. And I know it was a I know it was a God thing. We had no experience. And over the the few years, we ended up with 12 shopping malls, and we did high school proms and all this, you know, just digital photography. And to me, it was a means to finance being able to, you know, consider ministry. And so upon graduation, I really sensed that ministry was calling, and uh the Brethren in Christ denomination, some friends there had tracked with me through all of this, and uh they offered to credential me and ordain me. And I can assure you there was a lot of pressure not to do that, but they did. And there was an opening at Mennonite Central Committee. Um, I didn't feel necessarily called to traditional church ministry at that time, and there was an opening doing restorative justice work, working with high-risk offenders coming back into the community. And that was an area that I was perfectly suited to do, and that Sherry was suited to do as well as as uh as a partner because she was the partner who stayed with her man. And that is a different concept for many who are incarcerated that come out with no community. So I will be, you know, I signed a three-year contract and stayed 17 years, and here we are today. Um, many twists and turns and ups and downs, but God has been incredibly faithful and continues to uh, yeah, continues, and the journey continues. Well, back to our conclusion of our story. After restoring Peter, Jesus gives him a glimpse of what's ahead. It won't be easy. Well, it hasn't been, it will cost him something. But then Jesus says, in the very same words he spoke at the very beginning, follow me. The call hasn't changed, failure didn't cancel it, shame didn't erase it, doubt didn't disqualify it, and the same is true for us. So my invitation to you this morning in this space is just a question: where do you need restoration? Is it your relationship with God? Maybe it's how you see yourself, maybe it's something that you've carried a long time. Some of us have certainly done that. And I invite you this morning to picture the shoreline, picture Jesus not rushing, not condemning, but welcoming, preparing, inviting, and hear him ask you, not as a test, but as an opening. Do you love me? Because the other side of that question is both healing and calling. And as a community, we often talk about a community shaped by love and care and compassion. And this is why this is a safe space for me here. This is how I've been treated, and it's an honor and a privilege to uh to have the privilege of leading you as your pastor. Um the story reminds us that we are people that have first been restored, and we don't serve out of perfection. We don't follow out of pressure, nobody's pressuring us. We follow because we've been met by grace on the shore and we've been fed, and hopefully we've been restored, but most importantly, we're people who are still being called. So today, um, as we leave this place, may we come to the fire. May we receive the grace of Christ who's there waiting for us, and may we hear again the voice of Jesus who says, follow me. So let's pray together. Jesus, I thank you for this beautiful text. Thank you for the image of meeting you on the shore. Lord, may you meet us each individually and our place of need and want this morning. May we be a restored people, and we may we pursue our calling with with passion for whatever you call us to do. And we ask this in your name, Jesus. Amen.