Unveil the deep-seated Christian values that transcend words, highlighting the necessity of converting faith into actionable compassion. This episode sheds light on Jesus’ universal message, urging followers to reach beyond cultural and religious boundaries. It intricately links the profound nature of discipleship with the moral duty to care for the least among us, reinforcing a compelling call to embody faith through genuine acts of kindness.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 02 :
Everyone knows that Simon Peter denied Jesus. When Peter got a little cocky at the Last Supper and Jesus had said, You are all going to forsake me. He said, I’ll never forsake you. Everybody will forsake you, but I won’t forsake you. And Jesus fixed him with a glare and said, Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. Peter didn’t believe that, but Jesus knew his man. Peter, standing later, warming himself by the enemy’s fire, denied Jesus three times, finally cursing and swearing. And then that blasted rooster had to crow. And when he did, Jesus turned and looked at Peter, and Peter knew what he’d done. And he went out and wept bitterly. We know how Peter felt about this afterward. What is never outright spoken in the New Testament is how Jesus felt about it. For Jesus never mentioned this incident to Peter again, and there is no record that Peter ever mentioned it to Jesus either, and I guess I can understand that. The problem was, though, that although Jesus expected nothing more of Peter than he knew what was going to happen, he knew Peter would stay close because of his cockiness. But he also knew that Peter did not have what it took to stand up to the heat. He knew he would deny him. And so he didn’t expect anything else. But the incident had to be hanging over Peter’s head like a terrible cloud. Emotionally, somehow, it had to be dealt with. So when Jesus appeared to his disciples later, it was along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. They had been out fishing all night long, and Jesus appeared to them on the shore. He had a meal prepared for them, and they ate together. And then after dinner, he and Peter walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. And Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me? Do you love me more than these things? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And Jesus then said, well, feed my lambs. Now, there’s a funny play on words that takes place in here that for some strange reason, the King James translators didn’t bother with. Jesus asked Simon, he said, Simon, do you love me? And the word he used was a word for love, which means do you prefer me above all others? It is the highest form of love. And Peter said, Yes, Lord, you know that I have affection for you. And Peter shifted his ground slightly there. I don’t know whether Peter was squirming. I’m just not sure. Except that I do know that Peter had it in his mind that he had denied Jesus. And now they were alone. And now they were talking. So Jesus said to him the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me? He said, yes, Lord, you know I have affection for you. And he said, okay, feed my sheep. The third time, don’t know how far down the beach they are by now, but he said, Simon, son of Jonas, do you really have affection for me? This time Jesus drops off of the agape, the highest form of love, and comes to the same terms that Peter was using. By this time, Peter was really grieved because he said this to him the third time. It implied in Peter’s mind that Jesus doubted it. And he said to him, Lord, you know everything. You know I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Now, it’s no coincidence that Jesus asked this question three times. Peter had denied him three times. And so I think Jesus was entitled to ask him this question three times, even though Peter in the end found it just a little bit annoying. But what did Jesus want from Peter? How did he expect Peter to show his love for Jesus? The answer is simplicity itself. Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. You say you love me? Okay. Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. Peter was, in many ways, the strongest character of the twelve. He was often the first one of them to speak, and sometimes the first to regret having spoken. He was an activist. Let’s do it, says Peter. Let’s do it now. Jesus knew how strong Peter was. And he knew he had to get this strong man focused on the job ahead because men like Peter have a tendency to go off in several directions at once. And what was the job ahead? Well, in the choice of the metaphor, feed my lambs, Jesus emphasized the vulnerability of his disciples and the importance of taking care of them. There would be people who believed in Jesus who would have various and sundry physical weaknesses and many physical needs. They would oftentimes be the poor. and not the intelligentsia, not the wealthy and the well-to-do. They would be people who were in need. Now, it’s tempting when you talk about feeding to think of it purely as being a metaphor, because Jesus’ message was otherworldly, and he did talk about the kingdom of heaven and about the world to come. But feed my lambs is a very practical down-to-earth here and now that Jesus is talking about. Because Jesus was always concerned about how we treat people here, now. It’s one thing to say, well, you know, we’re not going to do anything for you today, but in the kingdom of God, things will be better. It had not been very long before this, actually, that Jesus drew out a parable of the kingdom of God that illustrated what we’re talking about here. And Peter knew that. Peter was there when Jesus drew out this parable. It’s in Matthew 25 and verse 31. You may remember it. When the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, and he shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from the other, like a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. Now, this is an allegory, but the imagery is easy enough to see. Christ returns. All the holy angels are gathered around. There’s a throne set. He’s in judgment, and he gathers all nations before him, and he separates these people according to certain criteria. Some of them he calls sheep. They’re on the right hand. Some he calls goats. They’re on the left. Then shall the king say to them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Now, that’s the group we want to be in, right? The group with whom he is pleased, whom he says, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom. Then he says, inherit the kingdom for, so there’s a because here. And we should, I think, want to know what that is. If there’s a criterion by which we are going to be judged and separated one from another on the basis of who’s going to inherit the kingdom and who’s not, I want to know. So Jesus said, “…inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, because I was hungry, and you gave me meat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.” I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. What a category of people. The hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner. Jesus says, when I was in this condition, you looked after me. Well, the righteous heard all that, and they were puzzled by it. And they say, Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you something to eat? When did we see you thirsty and give you drink? And certainly, you know, down in our generation, we would think, well, we haven’t seen Jesus. He hasn’t been to our house. We didn’t find him as a stranger and take him in or naked and give him something to wear. We never did that. And they ask, when did we see you sick or in prison, and when did we come to you? I don’t understand. And the king shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you have done it to one of the very least of these, my brethren, you have done it to me. Now, I know all the scriptures about salvation by grace. I know all about obedience to the law of God, but what am I supposed to do with this? I suppose I could spiritualize it away in terms of spiritual food and spiritual drink and spiritual clothes and so forth. But if you follow Jesus through his ministry, that won’t hold up. He is talking about the way we treat our fellow man right here, right now. He is talking about not passing by a person that’s hungry and failing to give him something to eat. He’s talking about being concerned about people who are in cold weather and don’t have enough clothes to wear. He is talking about the real physical needs of human beings on this earth. He said, if you’re not willing to help your brother in the flesh, well, then you wouldn’t do it to me if I were there. And in fact, he credits us when we do good to our fellow man with having done good to him. So, here is Jesus saying that the way we treat our fellow man has something to do with inheriting the kingdom. So when he tells Peter, feed my lambs, Peter has to take that very seriously. He is telling him to take care of his sheep in whatever way they need care. Stay with me. When I come back, I’ll explain a little further what Jesus meant by that.
SPEAKER 03 :
If you need help in teaching Christian values to your children at home, write or call and give us the ages of your children and the call letters of this radio station. Born to Win will send you a free sample lesson from Youth Educational Adventures. Listen for the address at the close of this program or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 02 :
The idea of taking care of the needy is a powerful thread and it runs all the way through the Bible. For example, in James 2 and verse 14, James writes, What does it profit my brethren, though a man says he has faith and has not works? Can faith save him? And here’s the illustration he uses. If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled. and you don’t give them the things that are needful for the body, what’s it profit? Well, what indeed? That makes a lot of sense to me. Somebody shows up at your door, bangs on the door, turns out he’s one of your brothers or sisters, and he’s naked and doesn’t have his food. And you say to him, making the appropriate gestures with your hands, while God’s blessing be upon you, brother, be warm and be filled. And then you close the door in his face. Well, you see, Christianity is not like that. At least it’s not supposed to be like that. To where we give people the Bible and we give them all kinds of knowledge and we teach them the truth and show them how to pray and all these good things. But if they’re naked, we leave them that way. If they’re cold, we leave them that way. If they’re hungry, we leave them that way. That’s not what Jesus told us to do. John, in his first letter, 1 John 3.16, said, Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. And whoever has this world’s good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, well, how can the love of God dwell in that man? You know, when Jesus said, feed my sheep to Peter, he’s talking about taking care of those people. Oh, sure, take care of them spiritually. But you can’t neglect the body while you’re taking care of the spirit. My little children, John said, let’s don’t love in word or in tongue. Let’s love in deed and in truth. And so when Jesus said to Peter, you love me? And Peter said, well, Lord, yeah, you know I love you. Well, let’s don’t love in word or tongue, Peter, but in deed and in truth. Feed my lambs. Now, just how serious is this? Well, there’s the rest of the allegory out of Matthew 25. Then one of the sheep and the goats, you know, where he’s got the sheep on his right hand and the goats are on the left. Picture yourself now standing among the goats. Then he says to them on his left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. That doesn’t sound very comforting. Everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For. Okay, there’s a reason why you’re headed that direction instead of the other one. If I read this correctly, just consider it right along with me. Here it is. For I was hungry and you did not give me anything to eat. I was thirsty. You gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t take me in and give me a place to sleep. I was naked, cold, and you didn’t give me a coat. I was sick and in prison. You didn’t come to me. And like most sinners, they answered him and said, Well, Lord, we never saw you hungry or thirsty. We never saw you a stranger or naked or sick or in prison. We would have ministered to you if we’d seen that. We would have given you something to eat. We know you. We would have done these things. And he shall answer them, saying, I’m going to tell you the truth. Now that’s serious. Serious business. That somehow along the way, your Christianity has got to not only touch your intellect, it’s got to touch the way you treat people you come into contact with. It’s got to turn you into a gracious, loving person, a giving and a generous person, or else. So when Peter was told by Jesus, you love me? Feed my lambs. He was laying a pretty serious burden on Peter. The way Peter was to demonstrate his love and his devotion to Jesus was not by going off into a quiet place and seeking God through meditation and prayer. It was by getting down into the dirt of the lives of people in this world and by helping them. Jesus was a very down-to-earth man. As for Peter, his future, Jesus said, I’m going to tell you the truth, Peter. When you were young, you wore the clothes you wanted to, and you went wherever you wanted to go. But when you were old, you’re going to stretch out your hands, and another’s going to put things on you and carry you where you didn’t want to go. And in the process of saying this, he signified by what death Peter should glorify God. And when he had said all that, he said, follow me. Then Peter turned around and saw John walking a little ways behind them on the beach. And Peter said, Lord, what about him? You know, nothing could be more typical of human nature than that. Whenever you’re under pressure, whenever you’re feeling the heat, change the subject. Or point at somebody else. You can almost sometimes call the pointed finger a Christian salute. We are so apt to point the finger at one another. But he looked around and pointed at John and said, Lord, what about him? We want to gauge our performance by the performance of others. We want to know that if we’re going to be in trouble, that other people are in trouble with us. And Jesus looked at Peter and said, forget him. You follow me. Now, through all of this, Jesus never told Peter that his denial was all right. He did let Peter know, though, that everything was okay between them. It’s plain. You’re still in my service. I want you there. I want to know you love me, and I want your devotion. I want your commitment to service. I want to know that you have your mind made up, that you’re going to serve my little ones no matter what it costs you. That was the burden Peter had to bear. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to a mountain where Jesus had told them to meet him. And there he is going to lay on them one more great burden. We’ll talk about that when I come back.
SPEAKER 03 :
For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled, The Words of Jesus, number 47. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 02 :
A lot of people believe that this mountaintop appointment in Matthew 28, 16 is the occasion that Paul speaks of when he says about 500 brethren saw Jesus at one time. And I kind of imagine that if the word had gotten out that he was going to meet them there at this time, that many people would come to see him. Well, when they got there, the scriptures tell us when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. That’s also predictable. But when Jesus came, he had this to say to them. All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go you therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. Amen. The disciples had a lot of trouble with this. It’s easy looking back through all these generations to think they should have gotten it, but they really didn’t. For in the language Jesus used, what he said was, Go ye therefore and teach all Gentiles. Actually, he said more than that because the word teach means essentially to disciple or make disciples of. He is saying go therefore and make disciples of all the Gentiles, which meant that we’re going out to the world to reach everyone. It would take a lot of years and a lot of manipulation by God before this would ever get rolling. He would have to give a special vision to Peter to even get the first Gentile baptized, because these men were still thinking like they were a Jewish sect, and they thought in terms of Judaism. And so consequently, they were basically Jewish. The church was Jewish. The new converts were Jewish. Everything was Jewish. And so one day, when Peter is on a rooftop, God gives him a vision. And meanwhile, he has also given a vision to a man named Cornelius, who is a Gentile down on the coast. He said, send some men to Peter. And he got these two together and finally got Peter to go to a Gentile household and preach the gospel. And just to be sure Peter didn’t miss the point, God gave the Gentiles the Holy Spirit even before they were baptized, so there was no question. But Peter still didn’t really get it. The fact is that whenever this didn’t get the job done, Christ finally had to call one Saul of Tarsus. And that’s another story. And you know, it even took a little while with Paul. What these men, I don’t think, quite understood at this point was that Jesus had no intention of starting a new and improved version of Judaism. Oh, he taught the law, the written law. He observed and taught the Sabbath. He said not one jot or tittle would pass from the written law until everything had come to pass. So make no mistake about it, Jesus was very much a practitioner and teacher of the religion of the Old Testament. But people make a false assumption when they assume that Judaism is the religion of the Old Testament. Judaism is a response of the Jewish people to the revelation of the Old Testament, and it’s quite an edifice of beliefs and customs and practices. But what Jesus came to bring was not a new version of that. Judaism, in Jesus’ day, had become the exclusive religion of the Jews. The Jews wouldn’t eat with Gentiles. They would not allow Gentiles to come beyond certain barriers in the temple. Gentiles, in order to approach God in the eyes of the Jews of the time, basically had to become virtual Jews. And God, this is understandable, isn’t it? God was not content with merely being the God of the Jews. He wanted to be the God of the whole world. Jesus laid the groundwork for this in the Gospels, made it very plain. And the book of Acts is the story of the breakout from being merely a Jewish religion to a faith for all men. He told them something else very important on this occasion that’s easy for religious organizations to lose track of. He said that they were to go out and teach all the nations whatever he had commanded them. And then he said this, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. I’m not going away, fellows. I’m not going to be off somewhere else. I am not entrusting this to your care without supervision. Believe me. There is a religious faith, basically, that believes that the head of the church is like the vicar of Christ. He is the one who acts in the place of Christ while Christ is gone. The only thing wrong with that is that Jesus made it very clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. Oh, I know he would go to the Father, and he would send the Holy Spirit back. But his point is, this is my church, and I will be with it always. I’m not going away. I’m going to be in charge. You may not realize that when you finish reading the Gospels, you’re not through with the words of Jesus. Luke, in his beginning of the book of Acts, continues to tell us some of the events that took place up until the moment of Christ’s final departure. Being assembled with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, Luke says. This is Acts 1 and verse 4. But to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you have heard from me. For John truly baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence. They’d already received the Holy Spirit, but they were going to get it in power. When therefore they were come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel again? And he said to them, It’s not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own power. It’s interesting that these fellows were still thinking in the old messianic concept. The Messiah would come. He would get an army together. He would restore the kingdom. He would oust the Romans. And they said, Lord, you’re going to do that right now? It’s not for you to know, boys, but you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. He gave them the responsibility to take that gospel into every nook and cranny everywhere on the planet. And when he had spoken these things… While they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And here they are standing, gawking like a bunch of country boys up into the sky, wondering where did he go. And suddenly two men were standing by them in white apparel, and they said, You men of Galilee, what are you standing here gazing up into heaven for? The same Jesus which was taken from you shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart reminding you, keep an eye out.
SPEAKER 03 :
He is coming. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560 White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-8 And visit us online at borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 02 :
For information on how to get these albums, call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE44. And we’ll give you all the information. You can call anytime and tell the operator the call letters of this station and ask for information on how to get the entire Words of Jesus series. Call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE44. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart.
SPEAKER 01 :
Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE44 to sign up
Unveil the deep-seated Christian values that transcend words, highlighting the necessity of converting faith into actionable compassion. This episode sheds light on Jesus’ universal message, urging followers to reach beyond cultural and religious boundaries. It intricately links the profound nature of discipleship with the moral duty to care for the least among us, reinforcing a compelling call to embody faith through genuine acts of kindness.
