"Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" on John 21: 15-22 by Christopher Yeker - Oct 4 2026
Today I’d like us to think together about what it means to be followers of Jesus. This is a really big question, and the words I am sharing with you today are at best just a little sliver of the complete picture. We might all come away with more questions than answers. I would like to pray and ask God that he would speak through his holy scriptures today, and that he would speak through me, and speak through you.
I’m wondering if anyone has ever read a story where somebody followed someone else? These could be stories your parents have read, stories you have read, maybe even movies you have watched. I have a few suggestions, but I was wondering if you had any ideas? I wonder if as we think of some of these stories together, we could think about who is following whom? I wonder if we could think about why one character is following another character? Do they want to? Do they have to? Is it a good person to follow? What happens to them?
Sam following Frodo
Fellowship following Gandalf
Ron and Hermione follow Harry, sometimes they all follow Dumbledore.
The bible has many stories about following as well. Can anyone remember any?
Abraham following God to Canaan.
Joseph’s family follow him into Egypt
The Hebrews follow Moses out of Egypt
I’d like to start by reading a little from a story called Prince Caspian. Some of you might know it. It is part of the chronicles of Narnia, which are stories where children from our world end up in another world called Narnia and have adventures and learn to love a giant golden lion called Aslan. In this part of the story, some of the children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy have gotten back to Narnia after being away. They’ve been trying to find their way to help a boy prince named Caspian who is in serious trouble. Time works differently between Narnia and our world, and so the children are lost in an overgrown country that they once knew well. Everything is vaguely familiar but they keep losing their way. Lucy, the youngest, has been catching glimpses of the Lion Aslan, and has been trying to convince her siblings (and their new friend Trumpkin the dwarf) to follow where Aslan has been leading them. The others can’t see Aslan yet, and the way that he seems to be showing Lucy seems more difficult and dangerous. They keep trying different ways through the wilderness, but their own routes keep going badly.
Read Pg 128-130 of Prince Caspian.
I wonder how Lucy felt in this story? I wonder why she was so determined to follow Aslan, even if it meant leaving her brothers and sisters behind?
We as a church have been thinking, and reading, and talking about what it means to be followers of Jesus. There are several stories in the Bible when Jesus tells people to “Come, follow me.” The grownups heard one of these stories from Neil and Virginia two weeks ago. Jesus tells a rich young man to “come follow me,” and to give up his wealth. Another story that you might have heard is by the disciple Mark. Jesus tells the fisherman Simon and Andrew to leave their nets and to come follow him and become fishers of men. I read through several passages in preparation for this reflection today where Jesus uses these words, and it struck me that he often says them when he is asking people to do hard things.
Another good example of Jesus trying to help us understand this is in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 14.
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
At first I find hearing these words from Jesus really hard. I find them hard to understand.
Also in the Gospel of John Chapter 12: Maybe some of you remember the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a Donkey, with the crowds all cheering him and calling him the King. This seems like a moment where everything is going really well, but Jesus knows things are going to get harder.
20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
Again these words feel hard to accept, hard to understand. How would loving my life make me lose it? Why does Jesus want me to “hate my life” in this world?
We know that Jesus loved his mother Mary. When he is dying on the Cross, Jesus takes the time to tell his disciple John to look after his Mother. In John 19 Chapter 26 he says to her “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
Scripture tells us that Jesus with God the Father and the Holy Spirit were there at the beginning of the creation of the world and they called the world Good! In the very first chapter of the Bible, Genesis Chapter 1 it says:
31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
Even though it is broken and hurt, this world that we are living our lives in is still fundamentally good, so why would Jesus tell us that we need to hate our lives in it?
Things out of order:
I don’t think Jesus is trying to change our understanding of what is truly good in the world. As others have suggested, Jesus is using really strong language to emphasize how big of a deal this is. Over and over again we learn from scripture that we human beings get things out of order. We are constantly placing things other than God at the center of our lives. Jesus is telling his followers, then and now, about how the upside down nature of how our brokenness ends up defeating us. When we cling to our plan, to our way of overcoming sin, our way of trying to save the good things that we love, we will ultimately lose them. If we cannot put our desire to save these good things, ourselves, our families, the world, in their proper relationship with our desire to follow Him, we will lose them. We cannot save them, only he can. I think this is one of the things he is trying to tell us when he says : anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Following Jesus and putting Him at the center is such a big deal, such a radical act, that our love for everything else seems like “hate” in comparison. We cannot save our own lives. Only Jesus can.
Teaching us what is necessary
Jesus is using these strong words to help his friends understand what is coming for him, and ultimately for them. There is a big cost to putting Him back at the center of our lives. He knows that he will have to suffer and die on the cross for God’s plan to save everyone to work. He uses the picture of a wheat seed “dying” in the ground and then coming back to life and producing many more wheat seeds. If the wheat seed never “dies,” no more wheat can grow, and the crop fails. In the same way, his followers will have to give up on all these other Good things being the center. They will have to give up on putting their love for their wealth, their families, and their own lives in the center, because only in giving them up can they be saved at all. As we learn to follow him, we have to learn continually what it means to make everything else less important than Him. I don’t think this is because God is self-centered, or because he is insecure. He knows that if anyone, anything is to be saved, it cannot take his place in our hearts.
The question that all of this raises is How? How can we possibly follow Jesus like this?
How to Follow Jesus.
After Jesus died and was resurrected he appeared to His disciples on a few amazing occasions. I would like to focus on one of these stories because I think it gives us a really amazing picture of how this works in practice. Peter (one of those fishermen we mentioned earlier, has met Jesus with several other disciples. They have been trying to catch fish in the sea of Galilee without success, Jesus appears and instructs them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat and they catch a whole bunch of fish. Jesus makes them breakfast on the beach and this conversation follows. It’s helpful to remember that Simon Peter in this story is the same Peter who swore he would never deny Jesus, and then went right ahead and denied him three times after he was captured and taken to be put to death. John 21 15-22
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.”
16 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.”
17 The 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. 18 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.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
20 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?”) 21 When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”
22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”
I am so struck in this story by how Jesus interacts with his friend and follower Simon Peter. Often when reading the gospels, when I am bewildered, or afraid when I read these hard things that Jesus asks of us, I am so deeply comforted by the way that Jesus treats his disciples. Peter has very obviously, very spectacularly, gotten things out of order. Three times Peter denied Jesus. Three times he put something else (love of his own life) in the center. Three times Jesus asks him if he loves him. Three times Peter replies “of course I love you, you know I do, you know everything!!, and Jesus tells him what he must do to keep following Him. “Feed my sheep”. Even if Peter is afraid. Even if it means he will die, Jesus says, “You must follow me.” Peter has already tried to go his own way, denying Jesus in his fear, but Jesus graciously calls him back to himself and reminds him that following him is the only thing that can possibly matter. Peter has to put that love for Jesus in its rightful place, right at the center of himself.
Lucy loves her brothers and sisters. She knows that what they need to do is follow Aslan, yet she knows, as the only one who has seen him, that following him may mean plunging off into the forest in the dark on her own, because if she ignores Aslan, they will all remain lost together, and she will not be able to save her brothers and sisters and Trumpkin from endlessly walking the dark forest. Only Aslan can.
What do I do? Where have I gotten things out of order?
One of difficulties of sharing about this question of following Jesus is that it can seem so hard to sort out what exactly we are being asked to do. Jesus’s strong words are uncomfortable to hear. Examining my own life to see what I am placing in the center of my life instead of Him is a difficult exercise.
I think one direction that this goes wrong is where I constantly find myself looking sideways at what other people are doing in their lives and thinking “is that what I’m supposed to be doing?” “Is that what being a real follower of Jesus means?” “Am I spending my days doing it all wrong?” Probably the answer is yes most of the time. I am probably supposed to be doing something else than what I am doing. Yes, what that person is doing is probably what being a real follower of Jesus looks like. Yes I am like Peter somehow trying to save my own life in some fashion. Sometimes I think the right answer must just be doing a hard thing, just because it is hard! But, I don’t think this is right either. Another way that I get it wrong is wanting to be like Jonah. What God is asking must be so hard and uncomfortable that it can’t possibly be right, and running away. We can go the wrong way in the other direction, and run away like Jonah from the hard thing that God is asking of us, justifying it however we can. I think all of these failures are just different ways for me to avoid looking in the right direction, and try to figure it out on my own.
In the last part of the passage Peter looks over at John and says: “Lord, what about him?” Jesus’ replies: “what is that to you? You must follow me.” I imagine Jesus and Peter sitting by the fire after breakfast. Peter has been looking over at John, but Jesus calls his gaze back to himself and reminds him of what he must do. Instead of looking side to side, picking battles that are not ours, or simply running away, we must look to him. We must be willing to hear the hard words of where we have gotten it wrong, where we have loved ourselves and our lives in such a way to push Jesus out. But we also must hear Jesus’ affirmation of Peter’s love for him and his gentle redirection of Peter’s gaze once more to himself.
I hope as we continue to learn and reflect as Jesus’ body on what being a follower of Jesus means, we will hear from people wiser than me on how this looks in our lives here in the Bulkley valley. Can we reflect on this place that we find ourselves in this week and ask him to show us where we have gotten our priorities wrong? Can we start with fixing our eyes on him, and learning to be ready to plunge off into the bushes knowing that it will cost everything, and knowing that Jesus has already paid everything.
I’d like to close with a prayer.
Dear Jesus. Help us to see where we must follow you. Help us to see where we have put things in place of you. Help us to fix our eyes on you. In your precious name,
Amen.
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