Christ's Faith In You And Me

Annual Sermons: Vol. 2 Sermon 21*

Bob Marcaurelle: 1988 John 1:42

* Catalog of all messages (1000 +) bmarcaurelle.@charter.net

CHRIST’S FAITH IN US

As a boy, Sir Walter Scott was left week and lame by a severe attack of fever. Some misjudged him and thought he would never amount to much. When he became a teenager, he visited in a home where some famous literary guests were being entertained, including the poet Robert Burns. In one room was a picture under which was written a beautiful bit of verse. Burns asked who wrote it, but no one seemed to know. Timidly, Scott gave the author’s name and quoted the rest of the poem. Burns was delighted. Laying his hand on the young fellow’s head, he exclaimed, “Ah, my boy, I’M SURE YOU’LL BE A GREAT MAN IN SCOTLAND SOMEDAY!” From that hour, Walter Scott was a changed person. That brief conversation set him on the road to greatness. Why? Because someone believed in him and helped him believe in himself.

Simon Peter was like this. He became one of the great champions of the early church. In the early chapters of Acts he is the chosen leader of the church. He stand like a giant oak against all oppositions, preaches the gospel with Pentecostal power and is willing to die for Jesus. Today he is the best known and best loved of our Lord’s Twelve Disciples. The Roman Catholic Church, without a shred of evidence, claims him as the first Pope. They are wrong, but their claim points to his greatness. Protestants and Catholic alike, look up to Simon Peter.

How did he reach such heights? It wasn’t natural ability, wealth or brilliance. Peter left much to be desired. He was ARROGANTLY SELF CONFIDENT. He was the one who foolishly boated that he would die before he would deny Jesus. He always had to be first to speak or act. When Jesus tried to warn him about over confidence, Clovis Chappell says it was like shooting a BB gun at a battleship.

He was UNPREDICTABLE and UNRELIABLE. He, like us, was a mixture. He was both wise and fool with his words. One minute he named Jesus as the “Son of the living God” and the next he was up to his chin in the waves, hollering for help. One minute he was facing an army with a sword in Gethsemane and the next he was backing down from a servant girl.

Now Peter never got entirely away from this. We never do, because there is no perfection this side of the grace. But I submit that the best of him was dominant in his later years. He was far more wise man than fool; far more hero than coward; far more faithful than unfaithful and far more success than failure.

How did he change? Well, certainly it was because HE PUT HIS FAITH IN JESUS. Simon Peter became a stable, dependable, rock-like man because he took the weak clay of his human nature and by faith placed it in the hands of Jesus, the master Potter, who fashioned him into what he became.

But there was another reason, revealed the day he met the Lord, and that was CHRIST’S FAITH IN HIM. When He first laid eyes on Simon He looked beneath the surface of the rugged fisherman into his inner being and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated is Peter) (Jn. 1:42). It was God, in the Old Testament, who changed men’s names to fit their character. He changed Jacob (supplanter_ into Israel (Prince with God). Here, God in human form, changes Simon-the weak, unstable, unreliable - to Peter, which means “rock”. What was it that the Lord believed about Him and believes about you and me? For one thing ...

I. HE BELIEVES WE CAN BE SAVED

Our Lord’s mission in life was to save men and women, to get them to turn to God for forgiveness and for the power to live a life pleasing to Him. The angel said, “You will call His name Jesus (the Lord saves), for He will save His people from their sins.” Jesus said, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

One mighty force in the ministry and method of Jesus is that He believes we can be saved. No one else may believe it! We may not even believe it! But, praise God, He believes it.

He does not believe it because of blind optimism that refuses to face the truth. Jesus was no humanist. He knew human nature was corrupt to the core. He knew the heart of man’s problem was his heart. The four men brought their paralyzed friend through the roof for physical healing; but Jesus knew his problem was spiritual. What he needed was forgiveness and power to live right.