The Most important question each one of us will ever need to answer…

Do you have any questions you’d like to ask God? When God? Where God? What God? Who God?!   Let’s stop for a moment and consider what I believe is the most important question God will ever ask you/me/us:

God loves to ask questions. After Adam and Eve had sinned and were hiding in the garden, God engages them only with questions: Adam, where are you? Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat of? And then to Cain: Where is your brother?

God never asks a question because he doesn’t know the answer. He asks it because He wants us to realise the weight of answer. The answer we give is most revealing of what is in our hearts. What our mouth answers is often the way we ourselves discover what is in our hearts. God wants us to listen to him by listening to ourselves.

Jesus also asked tons of questions. In fact, there are well over 100 questions listed in the Gospels that Jesus asked those he engaged with.  Consider these powerful questions Jesus asked:

1. How many loaves do you have?  (Matthew 15:34)
2. What do you want me to do for you? (Matthew 20:32)
3. What were you arguing about on the road? (Mark 9:33)
4. Where is your faith? (Luke 8:25)
5. Who touched me? (Luke 8:45)
6. Why are you sleeping?  (Luke 22:46)
7. You do not want to leave too, do you? (John 6:67)
8. Where are they? Has no one condemned you? (John 8:10)

Jesus asked God the Father only one question: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?  Did Jesus not know the answer to this question? Of course he did, but once again the question is for our sakes, because if we know the answer to that particular question we will know the mystery of the Gospel, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that those who believe in him would not die but have everlasting life.

But lets get back to the most important question each one of us will ever need to answer. It’s in the last chapter of the Gospel of John. At this point Jesus had been resurrected from the dead and has appeared to many, and now he meets Peter and some of the other disciples on a beach. The first question in this chapter isn’t the most important, but it is quite revealing, when Jesus asks them “Do you guys have anything to eat?”  They don’t, and Jesus leads them into a miraculous catch and then they have breakfast together. But there is an elephant in the room – or on the beach in this case.

They are not talking about what everybody is thinking about. Have you ever been with someone or in a group, and nobody is talking about what everybody is thinking about? You see, this is the first time

Jesus has not yet had the chat to Peter about his denial. Jesus had warned Peter that he would be tested, that satan wanted to sift him as wheat. But Peter said: I will never do that. All the others said the same. But while Peter was warming himself at the fire near where Jesus was being interrogated and tortured, a servant girl asks him: Are you not one of those with him. and after the third time he shouts: “I do not know that man!”

I wonder if you have ever been in that same position. by your words or actions you have denied the one you call Lord. Saviour.

Now, this was the same Peter who was the one who answered another very important question, when Jesus asked: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered: You are the Christ, the son of the living God. You see, you can know the right answer, but still deny Jesus. Ouch.

Now back on the beach, Jesus has miraculously provided Peter and the others with breakfast. But Peter has a much greater need: Forgiveness. Restoration. Re commissioning. He has wept at his denial. But he hasn’t yet come back to Jesus with it.

Now Jesus asks him THE most important question. Here it is: Peter, do you love me?  Here’s the message…