Trust God Enough To Wait For Him

An empty net after an all-night grind can feel like failure, but John 21 turns that exact moment into a doorway to guidance, provision, and restoration. We’re wrapping up the Gospel of John with Pastor Carl as we follow the disciples back to the Sea of Galilee, where they return to fishing while they wait for what’s next. Then a voice from the shore asks a simple question, pushes them to try a different side of the boat, and everything changes.

We talk through what it really means to “wait on the Lord” using Psalm 27 as a practical framework: trust God when you can’t see the outcome, seek God through Scripture for clarity and perspective, and pray with honesty for direction. Along the way, we highlight how God’s Word becomes “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” and why waiting is not sitting still, but staying faithful without running ahead.

The story builds to breakfast with Jesus, the miraculous catch, and the unforgettable moment where Jesus restores Peter by asking three times, “Do you love me?” That repetition isn’t punishment, it’s grace, and it points to a calling that still defines Christian leadership today: “Feed my sheep.” 

If you’ve been carrying guilt, confusion, or spiritual fatigue, this message offers a clear next step rooted in biblical teaching, prayer, and God’s steady love. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review telling us what part of John 21 hit you hardest.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

His word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. He will guide and direct me through his word. So we need to get into his word. And of course, we need to pray and say, Lord, what I'm gaining these principles from your word and these ideas where I think you might be guiding me, but what are you showing me? Lord, would you speak to me? Would you guide me? I acknowledge you as being the great God that loves me, that has good plans for me, that wants to guide and direct me in the way I should go.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Transformation, real change, comes through the power of God when we read, when we pray, and when we acknowledge Him. We simply cannot let it go in one ear and out the other. We must take action on what we hear and take action to praise the one whose words we read. In today's message, Pastor Carl will encourage you to try following those three steps as you hear and read the Bible this week. Consume, communicate with God, and then acknowledge that He is King and that He has a plan. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Let's get into a study of God's Word, and we're actually going to be wrapping up the Gospel of John. So if you would turn to John chapter 21, and we'll do our final chapter in our story of the Gospel according to John. John 21, verse 1. And after these things, Jesus showed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, which is the Sea of Galilee. A lot of the Greeks called it the Sea of Tiberias because there was a town called Tiberius, which was built by Herod to honor Caesar Tiberius in that region. And this is the way he showed himself. And it starts out by showing us who was there at this moment Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, and Nathaniel of Cana and Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. So if you do the math right with me, I'm counting seven of the eleven disciples that were left that went up to Galilee and uh were about to run into the Lord. In some of the things that we were doing, we we remember at the Mount of Olives is where Jesus was praying, and then he was brought to Jerusalem, he was put on trial, and then he was crucified and laid in a tomb, and three days later he rose again to prove his power over death and to prove that his sacrifice was accepted, and because his sacrifice was accepted, we are forgiven. And then in other gospels, there's a story of a couple of the disciples, not of the twelve, but uh the extended number of disciples that people that met with them, they were going home after the Passover celebration to Emmaus. And Jesus shows up on the road with them and asks them, Well, what's going on? What's the big deal? Have you not heard? They crucified him and they somebody stole the body. What are we going to do? And Jesus asked questions. Then they started opening the Bible to them, sharing, well, did you not know about this scripture? And did you not know about this prophecy and this prophecy? They all pointed to the fulfillment of the Messiah in Jesus Christ. And maybe, maybe, just maybe, he rose from the dead and he's not stolen. His body is alive, and there's hope and there's healing and there's forgiveness because of this. And then they ended up inviting him in for dinner that night, and he took the bread and he broke it and he lifted it up to heaven, and their eyes were opened. They realized they were with Jesus this whole time. And Jesus disappeared, poof, out of their midst. And they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples what had happened. Then Jesus came and appeared to them in the room, and uh Thomas wasn't there. So another week later, week or two, Thomas was in the room, and Jesus showed up and said, Thomas, don't doubt, but believe. If you need to, here's my here's my wrist, and here's the side where the spear went through. Touch me, believe. Don't go without believing. And so those were two times that uh Jesus appeared to all the disciples, and John would show us here in a few minutes that the third time Jesus appeared to the twelve, which was the sixth, and then the rest of them up in Galilee, would be during this time as they went back to Galilee. Now, the angels in another uh gospel uh told the women that came to the grave that morning to tell the disciples to go back to Galilee, and he would meet them there. All right. So keep that in mind as we continue on in our study. So they they headed up to Galilee, and in verse 3, Simon Peter said to the other sh fishermen, and that's what I'm assuming here, it's the other the other disciples that were fishermen, those seven that uh were going fishing with him. He said, I'm going fishing. And they said to him, We are going with you also. And they went out immediately and got into the boat, and at that night they caught nothing. But when the morning now had come, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know it was Jesus. Now there are a couple interesting things here. Um they were told to go back to Galilee, and there's an implication there that they were to wait on the Lord when he came. But they decided to go back to fishing, and some people use that as a as a criticism of the disciples, that uh they didn't know what else to do, so they went back to fishing. Well, that was their profession, and they had families to care for. And I don't know how often in the last three years of their journey with Jesus they walked with Jesus and went on um, you know, these different journeys that he took them on, and how often that they took a break and they went back home and they worked some more to provide for their families. There was provision for the disciples as well that was collected by different people. Of course, Judas was the money keeper, and we know that. But were there times where they went home and went back and did some work to help the family? And and now they're back in Galilee, the the Passover feast is over, and uh they're gonna go fishing because that's what you do when you're a fisherman, you go fishing. But the there was this implication that when Jesus told the, or the angels told the the women to tell the disciples, and when they told the disciples, they kind of mocked at them, but uh that they were to go to Galilee, and there Jesus would meet with them. Of course, now he's already met with them twice, and so they went back to Galilee and they began to go fishing. But there's this implication that they were to wait on the Lord. Go up to Galilee and I will meet you there. Don't go and do anything else, but you go and you wait on the Lord. And that reminded me of a verse in Psalm 27, verse 14: Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. This is one place in the Bible, and there are other places too that we are encouraged to wait on the Lord, to find help and encouragement in him. But how do we wait on the Lord? What does it mean to wait on the Lord? Does it mean you get on the couch and you just sit there and go, I'm waiting on the Lord? I don't think so. Does it mean um that you can't go and you go work? Uh not necessarily. Um if if that's the last thing that he told you to do, then you continue doing it until he tells you to do something else. But I went to gotquestions.org and uh asked the question, what does it mean to wait on the Lord? And and they brought up this same uh verse in Psalm 27 and actually did a nice uh nice teaching on the whole Psalm of 27 uh to bring out these three parts of what they believe it means to uh wait on the Lord. First thing you need to do in waiting on the Lord is to trust him. That's pretty simple, huh? The Lord said to do this, I'm gonna trust him, I'm gonna do this. I might not see where it's headed, it may not make total sense to me, but I need to trust him. So part of waiting on the Lord is trusting him. How do we not wait on the Lord? I don't know what he's doing, I don't understand this direction. He said, it makes a lot more sense for me to go over here and do this, so I'm gonna go do this. Then you're not waiting on the Lord, are you? But if he had given you the gift of fishing and he's encouraged you to go fish, um, if you go and you go fishing while you're waiting for the next thing for him to do, to tell you to do, uh are you waiting on the Lord? I would say you could make an argument that they were waiting on the Lord. The disciples were. We're going up here, and when Jesus shows up, he shows up. In the meantime, we're gonna do this thing here. It's not saying, I don't want to see what the Lord is going to do. I'm gonna go and do my own thing. But it's like while I'm waiting, I'm gonna continue and do this work. Does that make sense? So we need to trust the Lord in where he is going. We also need to seek the Lord. We need to get into his word. We need to see what is his heart, what what what what direction could he be giving me in this situation? What am I missing that uh I don't see that he sees? Because I trust me, the Lord has great perspectives on things and angles to situations that we never really get a grasp of. And then he gives us glimmers and glimpses into it, and we begin to see, oh Lord, this is what you have in mind. So part of waiting on the Lord is also seeking him and saying, okay, what could it be that he's directing me to do? His word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. He will guide and direct me through his word. So we need to get into his word. And of course, we need to pray and say, Lord, what I'm gaining these principles from your word and these ideas where I think you might be guiding me, but what are you showing me? Lord, would you speak to me? Would you guide me? I acknowledge you as being the great God that loves me, that has good plans for me, that wants to guide and direct me in the way I should go. So, Lord, I'm here to say, I'm I'm ready. I'm waiting, uh, I'm I'm not gonna go and go my own way. I'm gonna do these things. I'm not gonna sit sit quiet on the couch and become a potato, but I'm gonna get out and do the work that you've called me to do in the past until you told me to do otherwise. So the three ways to wait on the Lord is to trust him, to seek him, and to pray. And you can find all those principles in Psalm chapter 27, and you can get those answers from gotquestions.org as well. Really neat website. So then, Jesus, verse 5, said to them, Children, have you any food? That's an interesting phrase, children. He hasn't used that. Uh John, this is the only place in the Bible that particular word is used, as Jesus calls out. And I hadn't seen this before, but as you read the word of God, you you kind of need to imagine what is going on in that situation. It could be, I don't know, I've never seen this before, but maybe Jesus kind of playing with them like an old man that was begging for food. Hey, children, do you have anything to eat? Now, that isn't traditionally how I read it. Traditionally, I was like, Are you guys hungry? And the word children uh is is is an endearing term, uh, which means you know, somebody who's wiser and older speaking to somebody younger, but it's also been translated in other versions of the Bible as fellows, hey fellows, friends. We could say, hey, you guys, are you guys hungry? Did you catch anything? That's the implication of this thing. Are you are you are you did you how'd you do last night, guys? And he kind of has a little smirk on his face, you know. And they say to him, No. And he said to them, Well, cast your net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some. And so they cast, and now there were not, they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. So he told them to go onto the other side of the boat, because that's where the fish are. Now, of course, fish are all over a boat, right? There if if fish are there, they're not swimming on just one side of your boat. But he said, go to the other side, and there they were. It was a miracle, which kind of brought you back to another miracle where he did the same sort of thing at the beginning of his ministry, at the beginning, when he called Peter and the rest, Simon Peter, to follow him and and he would make them fishers of men. You remember that? Well, John did. Therefore, verse 7, the disciple whom Jesus loved, which refers to John, the writer of this gospel, he said to Peter, It's the Lord. It's the Lord. And it clicked with Peter immediately when John said that. And when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment because he had removed it. Again, um, I'm putting a little imagination here. Peter was this strong buff guy, right? And he was always, you know, think second and act first. You know, he was very impulsive, but he had a big heart to do what was right, to protect the Lord and to protect his people and to go out. And so he might have been a kind of guy that was um, you know, it was hot and so he took off his shirt, but it might have been that he was hot and he took off his shirt and he was showing off his pecs and so forth. Could that be, Bill? Could that be the case? But there was Jesus, so he put his shirt back on and he jumped out of the boat and plunged into the sea because his savior was there, and he loved his savior, and he wanted to go see his savior in spite of what the other guys were doing. That's just his impulsive nature, right? He's going, he's gonna see the Lord. Oh, leave the others behind to take care of the fish. I am going to see my Lord. But the other disciples came in the little boat. This wasn't a big boat they were fishing in, it was a little boat, and it was they were not far from land, but about uh 200 cubits. This is one not one of the boats that you would go deep into the into the sea. This was closer to the shore than that kind of boat that you would use. And they were dragging the net full of fish. It was very difficult to bring these fish in. Then as soon as they came to the land, they saw a fire of coals there, and a fish laid on it, and bread. And Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish which you have just caught. He already has some fish ready, cooking up for breakfast. But he says, Come on and bring the rest of your fish that you didn't have but a couple of minutes ago, you know. And then Simon Peter went and dragged the net to the land full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three, although there were so many, the net was not broken. So Jesus said, Go get the fish. And Peter says, Okay, I'll go get the fish, because Peter is the tough guy who will get the job done. And he went and he got the fish that they couldn't pull with the boat. He dragged them in himself. He showed them how to bring the fish in. You can see some of that going on in this story, can't you? It's interesting. He said there John John uh entered in the fact that there were 153 fish. And it's interesting through the last 2,000 years, there have been all sorts of uh different commentators that have different reasons for this represents this, or this represents that, and it could be this and that, and and those are all fine and good, and they make for a good word picture. But I think the deal here is that there were 153 fish, and John counted them, and he wrote it down because this is his testimony. This is again a proof that this isn't a made-up story, because he is uh accounting for aspects of this story that uh you wouldn't normally have. If if you get a bunch of gospel writers together and you're gonna make up a story, they're gonna all say a lot of the same thing. But but when you have different people sharing the same gospel story, but from their vantage point, from what they saw, you'll see different details that are brought out. And this is one of them. There were 153 boats, and the net did not break. Do you remember what happened the first time at the beginning of the ministry of the Lord when he was calling Simon Peter and the rest? Those nets broke in that amazing time. These didn't break. So that's an interesting little tidbit there, too, to prove that this is a real testimony, a real story. And Jesus said to them, Come and eat breakfast. Yet none of the disciples dared to ask him, Who are you? At this point, they had visited with the Lord twice already after his resurrection. This would be the third time they encountered him. It had been a while, probably. You know, the Lord would would be on earth for another forty days since since his resurrection before his ascension. And he did, and he visited a lot of different people. And so who knows how long it was since the last time that he had visited the disciples, but now he's there and they know who he is. With no doubt, they know who he is. And Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise the fish, which reminded them of another miracle that, and actually two miracles, where he fed giant crowds with bread and fish, and they just multiplied and multiplied. And here, you know, he had one fish and some bread, and all of a sudden it multiplied. There are 153 more that came, and just another another confirmation, Jesus is who he claims to be. Jesus is who they recognize he is because he's doing these same things, and he's doing it with love and his and then with grace. See, I I could just feel a smile in his face when he come on and eat. You guys have been up all night. You've done a terrible job fishing, but come on in. I've got some fish for you. I'll take care of you. That's the heart of the Lord. He loves us, he provides for us. He he makes us what we need, and he do and he provides and and he and he just wants to love on us and encourage us and build us up. And John said, This is now the third time Jesus showed himself to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon, Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? He said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, feed my lamb. Okay. He said to him again, a second time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? He said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend to my sheep. Okay, Lord, okay, Lord. Simon, he said to him a third time, son of Jonah, do you love me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him a third time, Do you love me? And and Peter said to the Lord, Lord, you you know all things. You know that I love you. You know that I messed up and I denied you, but you you know I was out of fear, and I really do love you. And it broke my heart when I realized what I did, and and and it just I haven't been right ever since. And and Lord, you know, you know me. You know me better than I know myself. You know I love you. I want to serve you, I want to work for you, I want to, I want to see your kingdom come. You know I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Now, at the beginning, the first question that Jesus asked him, Now, do you love me more than these? Which harkens back to an incident in Matthew's gospel, chapter 26, verses 33 and 35. I've got here. This is what Peter said. Boldness, Peter. This is Peter that, oh, whatever happens, I will never forsake you. Even if all are made to stumble because of you, all these guys, if they fail, I'll never fail you, Lord. I will never may be made to stumble. Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And he meant it. He meant it. Until the circumstance happened where he got all discombobulated and he regressed back to denying the Lord. Have you ever done that? Where you got into a situation and and and you just didn't know what to do, and and you say something that you really don't mean. It's happened to me. And of course I regret it. But did that change my love for the Lord? No. But it shows my fallenness, it shows my need for the Lord. And uh the Lord is bringing that up with Peter right now. He's showing him that, you know, yeah, I I know I love you. I know you love me, and I've got work for you to do. Which was good. He didn't reject Peter like Peter rejected the Lord. But of course, Peter didn't ultimately reject the Lord just before man, and he's got these lessons to learn, and now he's empowered by the Holy Spirit, and and and things will look different. But he still had that guilt within him, and the grace of God here is coming to Peter and saying, Peter, I died for that. I died for your denial, and it's time to be made right with me.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

That's Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross on Come On Up. We're currently going through the book of John. We're so glad you've been with us, and we know there's so much to get out of this gospel book. One of the most powerful moments is in a well-known passage in John chapter 3. Jesus is meeting with Nicodemus and explaining what it means to be born again, not physically, but spiritually. As you might have memorized, Jesus speaks this to Nicodemus, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. What a promise from God! It sounds so easy, right? But sometimes the pressures of life can push you further away from wanting a relationship with God. Let me tell you, the most important decision you'll ever make is being in right relationship with God. He wants you with him for eternity. So don't be waiting around for the right moment. The best time to choose Jesus is now. If you'd like to learn more about what all of this means, head over to themountaincross.com and click on How to Know God. The Mountain Cross is a group of believers in Jesus who seek to grow in faith by simply teaching the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter. We meet on Sundays at 10 a.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville. We look forward to worshiping with you. Well, that's all for today, but come on up to the mountain with us again as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.