Beeson Podcast, Episode 510
J. I. Packer - Tribute
Aug. 18, 2020

>>Announcer: 


Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. 


>>Doug Sweeney:


Welcome to the Beeson podcast. I’m Doug Sweeney here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. And on today’s episode, we want to remember our dear brother in Jesus Christ, J. I. Packer, who went to be with the Lord on July 17th. Jim was a founding member of Beeson Divinity School’s Advisory Board and a longtime friend of our founding dean, Dr. Timothy George. Almost everyone around here has read Knowing God, Packer’s primer on discipleship. Church historians like me cherish his work on the Puritans. But today we’re going back to the very first sermon Dr. Packer gave at Beeson, in 1989. Kristen, tell our listeners more about this wonderful man of God and what we’ll hear from him today.


>>Kristen Padilla:


Hello, everyone. J. I. Packer was one of the most well-known and influential evangelical leaders of our time. As Doug has already said, many people are familiar with him through his book, Knowing God. He served for many years on the faculty of Regent College in Vancouver and as a senior editor of Christianity Today, among his many, many other roles. As you’ve said, Doug, Jim had a longtime friendship with our school and founding dean Timothy George. 

He gave our Reformation Heritage Lectures in 1994; he preached in chapel several times, including at our Pastors School. In 2012, we hosted a conference called, “J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future,” which a book came out of this conference. You can actually listen to the talk J. I. Packer gave at the conference on his 80th birthday on episode 69 of the Beeson podcast. You can find that on our website.

He also served on the ESV Translation Oversight Committee with two Beeson faculty members, Dr. Paul House and Dr. Frank Thielman. Over on our blog, we have several tributes to Dr. Packer written by three Beeson faculty, including one by Dr. George and one by Dr. House. I encourage you to read those blog posts. Today’s sermon is called, “Can You Cope with Failure?” given in 1989. His sermon is based on John 21:15-25, which focuses on the restoration of Peter and his ministry. Dr. Packer offers a lot of encouragement for those in ministry or those discerning a call to ministry. He reminds us that we serve a God who loves us and puts us back together again each time we fail. I believe you will be encouraged just as I was when listening to his sermon. Doug?


>>Doug Sweeney:


Let’s listen now to J. I. Packer preach on John 21:15-25, “Can You Cope with Failure,” from back in 1989.


>>Dr. Packer:


You have welcomed me very warmly. I’d like you to know that I’m delighted to be here, and to have this opportunity of seeing and fellowshipping with this new community of Samford Divinity School. It’s a joy to be here today. It will be a joy to be here in August, too.

Now come with me to the Word of God. John’s Gospel, Chapter 21, and I’m going to read from verse 15 to the end of the chapter. John chapter 21, verse 15. You remember, I’m sure, what has preceded. John has told us of the third appearance of Jesus, following his resurrection, which it’s his concern to record. They are, the disciples that is, are at the lake side. The master has met them. The catch of a 153 fishes has been dragged ashore, and the Lord has given them breakfast. Now verse 15:

“When they had finished eating Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he said, ‘You know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Feed my lambs.’ Again, Jesus said, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Simon answered, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Take care of my sheep.’ A third time he said to him, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, do you love me. He said, ‘Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, 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 Peter, ‘Follow me.’ Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is going to betray you?’ When Peter saw him he asked, ‘Lord, what about him?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return what is that to you? You must follow me.’ Because of this the rumor spread among the brothers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die, he only said ‘if I want him to remain alive until I return what is that to you?’ This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. Jesus did many other things as well if every one of them were written down I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

This is the Word of God, may he write it on our hearts. And to him be the glory and the praise. Amen.

Can you cope with failure? I expect you know that old English nursery rhyme, “Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.” It’s a riddle, as a matter of fact. After you’ve recited the poem you’re supposed to say, “What is he?” And the correct answer, for the record, is that he’s an egg. Humpty Dumpty is an egg figure and that’s what the riddle is all about. 

But I bring Humpty Dumpty in this morning because he represents, it seems to me, very exactly the condition of Simon, later to be known as Peter. At the time when this story that I’ve just read [inaudible 00:08:31]. For Simon Peter had had a great fall. Simon Peter had told the Lord Jesus that whatever the other disciples might do he would stand fast, he would never forsake the Savior, he would never deny him, he would never show disloyalty in any way at all. And Peter had had a great fall. Denying Jesus three times in the high priest’s house. Panicked out of his skin by the question of a servant girl. You’ve got Galilean accent, surely you know this chap, don’t you?

And Peter began to curse and swear and go red in the face and stamp his feet and waive his arms, I suppose. And insist that he did not know Jesus at all. And now Simon has to live with the memory of what he’s done. And at the beginning of John 21 I think we see Simon, though he knows he’s forgiven, Lord Jesus had appeared to Simon early on after his resurrection and made that clear, nonetheless Simon’s state of mind is that he’s blown it. He’ll never make a minister. He’s going back to where he was before ever he met Jesus. 

When he says, “I’m going fishing,” as he does in verse three, he isn’t telling his friends, “I’m going off for a vacation,” which is what you or I might have meant if we told our friends that we’re going fishing. What Simon means is that I’m going to set up in business as a fisherman again. Uh, will you help me catch my first catch and then sell it and so establish myself in business once more?

And what seems to be weighing on Simon is the sense that having denied his master three times he’s no longer fit for any sort of service. He might as well go back to where he was before his discipleship started. And the lesson that we learn as we read John 21 in its completeness is that Jesus can do for those who failed as Simon had failed what all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t do for Humpty Dumpty. 

Here in John 21 we see the Lord Jesus in his love and mercy putting Simon Peter together again. Time doesn’t allow us to look at the first of the three lessons that Jesus had to teach Simon and did in fact teach Simon in the course of this episode. Lesson number one fills the first half of the chapter as actually a lesson about humility. And the substance of the lesson is that obedience to Jesus is the only fruitful way for anyone to live his life. 

That was worked out for Simon and brought home to Simon by the way in which after they’d had a barren night’s fishing, catching nothing, Jesus on the shore, from the shore, just as dawn was breaking, had hailed them and having discovered that the boat was empty of fish, had told them to drop the net on the other side of the ship from which they’d been fishing up to this point. And I suppose that Captain Peter and his colleagues on the boat had looked at each other when they heard those words floating across the water and said, “What does he know about it? Whoever he is,” because they didn’t just yet know who it was who was calling to them. 

Then I suppose they’d said to each other, “Well, we couldn’t do worse than we’ve been doing already. We might as well try it.” They dropped the net on the other side of the ship, they intercepted a shoal of fish before they knew where they were the net was full. When they totted up what they caught they found 153 big fish in their net. And when they discovered who it was who had told them to drop the net on the other side of the boat, then the lesson surely was plain to all of them. To live your life in disregard of the Savior’s Word leads to barrenness. To live your life in obedience to the Savior’s Word leads to fruitfulness. They’d done what the Savior said. And what a difference it made for the effectiveness of their fishing.

And Peter, I trust, I suspect, I believe took the lesson to heart straightaway. It ‘tis a lesson about humility. For it was wounded pride. Nothing more respectable than wounded pride that had made Simon decide that he was throwing in his hand as far as the service of Christ was concerned. He was going to be a fisherman again. He’d made a mess of his discipleship and so there wasn’t any hope for him anymore. That wasn’t a spiritual conclusion. That wasn’t a conclusion that anything that Simon had learned from Jesus warranted. That was the conclusion of wounded pride. 

It still happens of course. A person called to serve the master makes a major mistake of some kind in their pilgrimage and then are prompted by wounded pride to conclude, “Well, I can never recover from this. I’m throwing in my hand. I’m not going to go any further in the service of the master.” But Simon, I believe, learns the lesson of humility. And let’s the Savior overcome his wounded pride. And now he’s open again to the possibility that Jesus has a future for him in ministry, despite the disaster of that threefold denial. And that’s where the reading that I went through picks up. 

Jesus has given them breakfast, as is part of his practical graciousness. He had breakfast waiting for them when they came to land after their hard night’s work. And after breakfast Jesus takes Simon with him for a walk along the beach. One on one, just the two of them together. And Jesus begins to talk to Simon in a way which eventually brings home to Simon the second of the three lessons he has to learn. This time a lesson about integrity. 

Jesus says to Simon, “Simon, do you love me more than these?” The Greek might mean, “Do you love me more than these colleagues of yours, my fellow disciples love me?” Or it might mean, “Do you love me more than you love all this business of fishing?” I’ll leave it to the commentators to argue about those two options. Either of them fits very well with the story.

Simon responds to Jesus by saying, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And Jesus then responds to Simon by saying, “Feed my lambs.” Then he repeats the question, Simon repeats his answer, and this time Jesus says, “Take care of my sheep.” Then he asks Simon the question a third time. And Peter, we’re told, was hurt because Jesus, for a reason which as yet Peter hadn’t received, was repeating the question a third time as if he couldn’t accept the answer that Peter had given to it the first two times it was asked. 

So, he says, “Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you.” As if to say, “Why are you repeating the question?” But Jesus simply says, “Then feed my sheep.” Do you see what’s happening? Surely Simon, when he looked back, realized what was happening. And surely we, as we read this story, can’t fail to see what was happening. There had been three denials. Jesus invites Simon three time over to reaffirm his love for the Savior as if to wash out those three denials. And more than that, when Simon affirms his love for Jesus, each time Jesus re-commissions him. Telling him that there is a future in ministry for him. There is a restoration for the spiritual Humpty Dumpty. It’s as if Jesus says to him, “I still want you, Simon, in the ministry. I still want you as a shepherd of my sheep. That was what I wanted you for when I called you in the first place. It was with reference to that role you were going to have as shepherd and guide that I gave you prophetically the name that I did give you, and told you that you would be called Cephas, Peter, The Rock. None of that has changed, Peter. I re-commission you herewith. Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep.” It’s a word of restoration. 

Some expositors, of course, think that there’s a further point here that has to do with the fact that Jesus question is rendered in Greek by John with the use of the verb [agapeo 00:19:21], which expresses Christian love and in the full sense and Simon Peter’s response is rendered in Greek by the use of the word phileo, which need only mean the natural affection of friendship of divinity and doesn’t have to mean as much as [agapeo 00:19:40] means.

Personally, I don’t think that is part of what we should learn here because elsewhere in the gospel [agapao and phileo 00:10:50] are used interchangeably for Christian love and in any case in Aramaic, the language that I guess Jesus and Simon were talking, there isn’t any verbal distinction corresponding to [Agapao and Phileo 00:20:06]. So, I think the variation is only stylistic and I don’t think there’s a spiritual [inaudible 00:20:12] there.

No, I think that the point of the exchange is as stated. Jesus gives Simon opportunity by a threefold affirmation of love. As it were to wash out the three denials. And Jesus re-commissions Simon to ministry, reassuring Simon that the original plan still stands. And now you say, “Where does integrity come into that lesson?” It comes in at this point. 

Simon says to Jesus, “Lord, I love you. Lord, you know that I love you.” Words. Words come easy. Jesus’ response to Simon shows that words must be proved genuine by works. “If you really love me, as you say you do, Simon, show it by the way that you love others for my sake. If you really love me, Simon, as you say you do, lavish love on my sheep, my lambs. Show your love to me by the love you show to them as their shepherd.” 

It is truly said that sheep are, of all the animals that man has ever hearded, the silliest. I have a sheep farmer friend in North Wales. I’ve watched him in action. I know that it’s true. He has to be out morning, noon, and often during the night, checking that his sheep are okay as they wander up and down the Welsh hills. Sheep get into all sorts of scrapes, and being stupid they don’t know how to get out of those scrapes. And the sheep farmer has to be there exercising constant care to keep them safe. 

Several times we’ve tried to get this farmer and his wife to come over to Vancouver and see us in our new home. And when the invitation is offered for next year they say, “Yes, we’ll try and come.” But as the time grows nearer the letters come, we’ve almost learned to expect them, “No, we can’t come this year.” His wife writes the letter and she always says, “John, couldn’t leave the sheep.” 

“Prove the truth of your words about loving me,” says Jesus, “by the faithfulness of your works in caring for my sheep. My sheep. They are mine. But I make you an under shepherd. And I give you the responsibility of looking after them for me.” That’s the lesson in integrity, which we all of us got to learn. You have said, in your prayers, you have sung in the hymns that we love to sing, professing your love for the Lord whom you’re addressing. Sure. We’ve all of us done. 

Do our works of love confirm our words of love? That’s the question. Simon has to face this challenge, and it is a challenge. Simon has to learn that integrity of faith means that words of love will be backed up by works of love; serving others for the master. Charity, they say, begins at home. Love for the Lord’s sheep begins at home as well. To married folk, I say, “How do you treat your spouse?” To those of you who still live at home with your parents, I say, “How do you treat your parents?” 

And then others in your church, others to whom God has given you a close relationship with Christ. Do you love them as the Lord’s sheep in a way which shows that when you tell Jesus that you love him your words are really true? Good words must be supported by good works or we become some kind of Christian hypocrite. God forbid that that should have to be said of any of us. 

Well, that’s the lesson about integrity, which Simon had to learn. And that’s the second of the three lessons which set him on his feet in this chapter. That’s number two, we look now at number three. Whereby Jesus completes the process of putting Humpty Dumpty together again. He’s taught Simon humility. You may feel, Simon, that you are useless in my service, but when I tell you to do something for me, you must be humble enough to believe that I know what you can do and I know what I want you to do, and you simply obey. That was lesson number one – a lesson about humility.

Lesson number two, “you tell me that you love me, prove it, Simon. That’s your challenge. I do want you in ministry. And by the way, you discharge your ministry, you will show me whether you love me the way you say you do. Last time you said you loved me, Simon, it wasn’t very long before you were denying me. Try again, Simon. Go back to the beginning. Once more you profess love, now get it right this time by showing that your love is real, showing it by your faithfulness [inaudible 00:26:27]. Feed my lambs. Look after my sheep. Be a loving shepherd of my flock.”

That’s the truth about integrity, as I said. Now, a third lesson. This is a lesson in simplicity. The simplicity of the single eye, the integrated and well directed heart. The simplicity of the man who is doing the one thing that the Lord has called him to do. That’s part of discipleship, to learn to line up with Paul who said, remember, “One thing I do,” of course on a day to day basis from a human standpoint, he and we had 101 things to do, all different, but Paul is talking about the inner integration of his life at this point. And he says, “One thing I do, forgetting what’s behind, straining forward to what lies ahead, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. My life is integrated, one thing I do.”

That’s the lesson about simplicity, which Jesus now proceeds to teach Simon Peter. Lesson number three in the series. He says to Simon, verses 18 and 19, “Simon, I’m going to do something which I don’t ordinarily do. I’m going to pull aside the curtain which hides the future from you and tell you just one thing that’s in store for you as my servant. As a shepherd of my flock, doing the work that I’m now charging you to do. I tell you, Simon, that at the end of that road lies martyrdom, death, for my sake.”

That’s the hint that he’s dropping in verse 18, “When you’re old, you’ll stretch out your hands, someone else will dress you, and lead you where you don’t want to go.” And John telling the story explains Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Execution, in fact, tradition says it was execution by crucifixion. Tradition further says that when it came to the time of crucifixion Simon asked to be crucified upside-down. He didn’t feel worthy even then to be crucified as his master had been crucified. Whether or not that’s true, it seems pretty certain that he, too, like Jesus, was put to death in that dreadful, cruel, obscene way. 

And Jesus pulls aside the curtain and hints at this to Simon, and then he says, end of verse 19, “Follow me. Follow me, Simon, with your eyes open. Follow me, understanding not only what form of ministry I have in mind for you, despite your past failure, but follow me knowing that the climax of your life of discipleship and service is going to be death for my sake. Understand that, Simon, and come after me. Wholeheartedly, single-mindedly, because I tell you that you must follow me.”

And Simon thus challenged almost failed the test. John tells us all about it. He was involved in it as a matter of fact. He was walking behind Jesus and Simon as they strolled along the beach and this exchange was going on. Peter averted his eyes from the Savior’s face. He didn’t want to look Jesus in the face while he was thinking this one over. And swiveling his eyes he saw that John was walking behind them. And, verse 21, when Peter saw John he asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” A sideways glance, brothers and sisters, can ruin our discipleship. 

You look sideways and you can always see another brother, another sister, to whom the Lord seems to be giving an easy time. And you, as you walk with Christ, are very conscious that you’re being given a hard time. And it’s the easiest thing in the world to focus on the apparently easy time that the other person is having and to complain to the Lord, “Lord, why do you make it hard for me and easy for him or for her?” And you become angry and you become jealous and your heart is divided and your discipleship is spoiled. 

Jesus, in gracious wisdom, declines to answer the question about John. Jesus says to Simon, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, so that he won’t see death in any shape or form, well, what business would that be of yours?” That’s his point. “What is that to you?” He says, “You are to follow me. You are to follow me single-mindedly.” Following, of course, in the gospels began with the meaning of literally coming after Jesus. That is, joining his party, as he walked the streets and roads of Galilee, moving from one place to another. He was the Rabbi, he was the leader, he would walk first. And the disciples would come behind him with their eye on him. And it was following in the most literal, physical sense. By now, of course, Simon understands that the words “follow me” imply more than that. 

But the thought that you walk after your master with your eye on him, that thought remains as part of the broader spiritual meaning of following Christ. That thought is a permanent part of the meaning, it’s part of the meaning for you and me just as it was for Simon. “Keep your eyes on me,” Jesus is saying to Simon. You must learn to follow me in a single-minded way. Not worrying about the destiny that I appoint or the path of service that I establish for anyone else. It may be true that some others will have it, at least in [inaudible 00:33:25] terms, easier than you do. “That’s none of your business. You may notice it, but you’re not to concern yourself with it. You are to follow me.”

Actually, in the last words of verse 22 there is an emphasis in the Greek on the “you,” the personal pronoun is there, and the emphasis is conveyed by the fact that that pronoun is inserted, “You, Simon, are to follow me. That’s the only thought that I want you to have in your mind just at this moment. Never mind about him. I’ll settle his destiny. I’ll settle his sphere of service. Directly dealing with him. It’s none of your business, Simon, what I appoint for him. You are to follow me on the basis of what I’ve just told you. Will you do it, Simon?”

It seems plain that Simon, thus rebuked, got the message; accepted that he must not look sideways at other disciples, but only look ahead at the master who calls and leads. And so it appears that Simon learned the truth about simplicity, single-mindedness, which he had to learn in order to become the anchorman of the Early Church, which as you know, is the destiny that Jesus had appointed for him, and the destiny into which he stepped quite suddenly a successfully when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. 

But had he not learned these three lessons, the lesson of humility, the lesson of integrity, and the lesson of simplicity, which Jesus taught him in this episode recorded in John 21, he would not have been on the path to be strengthened for that anchorman role when Pentecost came. He wouldn’t have been with the disciples, praying on Pentecost morning, he would have been out on the lake fishing, having settled for the old business. 

But Jesus came after him, Jesus restored him, and we from our vantage point, 2,000 years down the road, may say, “Thank God he did.” And to you, I say, in the Lord’s name, you will have experiences of failure also in your discipleship and ministry. No doubt you have had them already. Quite certainly you will have them again. Our Savior in his love and mercy doesn’t go back on his purposes, the purposes for which he called us. The king’s horses and the king’s men can’t put Humpty Dumpty together when Humpty Dumpty has failed and fallen. But Christ can do it. And we need now to grasp and take to ourselves the lessons of humility, integrity, and simplicity, which the Savior will be teaching us over and over again in our discipleship and ministry.

There really isn’t any life of fruitfulness except the life of obedience to Jesus. There really isn’t any substance in our professions that we love him, unless we give ourselves to love others for his sake, according to his call. And there really isn’t any true, deep, following of him unless we learn the lesson of not looking sideways at other people; not becoming jealous or envious of what the Lord gives them. But learn, rather, to keep our eyes fixed on the Savior, day in, day out – just concentrating on finding and following his will for our lives individually, personally – your life, my life. 

These are precious lessons, friends. And lessons which we need to take to heart. Not simply now, but week after week, month after month, year after year, in the ministry to which he’s called us. These are lessons that we never get beyond. God help us to learn them now and to go on learning them as long as our earthly pilgrimage lasts. May we pray together?

We marvel, Lord Jesus, at the grace, the love, the wisdom, the skill, the physicianly skill which you showed in putting Simon Peter together after his great fall. Bowed before you, Lord Jesus, we acknowledge that we need that same ministry now and we recognize that we shall continue to need it as we seek to walk with you into and through the ministry to which you called us. So, write your word in our hearts, we pray. Fulfill your own ministry to our hearts, even now, as we bow before your throne. Be teaching us the lessons of humility, and integrity, and single-mindedness this day and for the rest of our lives, we beg. In your own holy name, Amen.



>>Kristen Padilla:


You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.