It is amazing isn’t it? Just to be able to see these common men with an uncommon calling. That is what we have been looking at in this series, "The Twelve". We have been looking at twelve men that Jesus selected to be a part of his team, to be a part of his staff, to be a part of those that were going to take the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit and continue to bring this gospel up the field. What is it about the twelve men Jesus selected to be a part of His team that we need to take time to look at in this series? How can it benefit our life and how does it shape our life? Is there anything that we can learn from their life? A lot of times we hear these names like James, John, Andrew or Peter and we think they are worlds apart from who I am and there is no way that could resemble anything in my life and there is nothing that applies to them that could apply to the things I am dealing with, but, it is exactly that when we begin to look at their life. You begin to see these twelve men that Jesus chose to be a part of His team that we would know as His disciples. These were men that had jobs, that had families and they had fears and they had flaws and things that were going on in their life and in spite of all the different things that we saw in their life last week and we will see this week; in spite of all those different things -- Jesus still chose them. I don’t believe Jesus made a mistake in who He chose. A lot of times you will pick somebody to be a part of your team and as they go forward on the team, about midway through, you are thinking "I picked the wrong person, maybe this is not good". "Can I choose again"? Jesus did not need to choose again even though there were things in their life that were not perfect and just right. Jesus still chose these twelve men that were common and had an uncommon calling.
Last week we looked at the "Sons of Thunder", James and John Zebedee. This week we will look at another set of brothers. Peter and Andrew were brothers just like James and John and they were also in the fishing business. They were from the same region that James and John Zebedee came from and they knew each other growing up and there were common things about their life. There were different things that intertwined with one another and as you study the scripture you can see more about them in Matthew, chapter four. We are going to look at John, chapter 1, where we find Andrew and Peter where they first show up in scripture. I think as a little side note -- that it is amazing to me that as Jesus selected twelve, that four out of the twelve were brothers. There were two different sets of brothers. As I studied their life it has shown me more and more that God has such a sense of humor. He has a sense of humor because these are kids that come from an identical mom and dad and yet they are totally different. When you study Peter and Andrew you find that these are men that are opposites. Even though they were brought up in the same home and ate the same pancakes and were raised in the same house, they were opposites when it compares to the different things about them.
That is a lot like all of our families. There may be some things similar with one sibling or another sibling but there may be so me of you who have siblings and they are nothing like you. They have an attitude --you don’t have an attitude, they are smarter in school, they like different things than you like, and they wear some things that you would never wear. There are some ways that they express themselves and some mannerisms and values they have and directions that they go in their life that when you look at them you think "mom and dad did, you get the wrong person when you brought them to the house"? There are some brothers and sisters that sometimes they act in a way that you think to yourself, "I know they were switched. There is no way they came from these loins".
It was that way in our home. I have two sisters. Sheila is ten years older than me and my other sister, Dena is five years older than me. Sheila’s interests are different from my interest. She is an aesthetician. That is kind of a big word for people who are working on someone’s face. She loves to work on people’s faces. She gets up in the morning and I call her and she will say she has eight appointments. I have to go and give some people a treatment. I have to exfoliate them and I have some lotions and all these different things. Delynn and Sheila will talk on the phone and they will talk about creams and lotions and evening application.
My other sister, Dena teaches dance. She has traveled around the country for the last fifteen years and she goes to cheerleader workshops and she teaches dance to cheerleaders. Every weekend she is in a different place. She loves living out of a suitcase. She is based out of New York City, she lives in Spanish Harlem and she rides the subway. When I go to New York to hang out with the Jets, I am panicking the whole time thinking someone is going to jump me. I am nervous but she is walking through the streets of New York and rolling through the streets of new cities and teaches Hip Hop dance to cheerleaders. My sister has some rhythm. Then there is me. I am a pastor in south Louisiana. Same family, brought up in the same house but opposites.
Jesus dealt with this. He had twelve common, opposite men that were about a same mission. It is amazing that Jesus could do that. Here is where the first scene of Andrew and Peter shows up. It is in John, chapter 1, verse 35. There are some hints about their lives. We are going to look at their personality profile and hopefully learn a few things. "Again the next day John stood with two of his disciples..." This was speaking of John the Baptist. He was the one who came before the main event, which was Jesus and his goal in life was to point people to Christ. People would always ask him, "Are you the Messiah?" and he would always say don’t look at me. John the Baptist had amazing characteristics. They would say "You look like the Messiah", and he would say "No, I don’t". They would say "We think you are the main event", and he would say "No, I am not the main event. There is going to come one after me". One day he sees Jesus and he tells His disciples, "Behold that is the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world". The next day Jesus comes and John gets to baptize Him, the heavens open and God speaks, "Behold, my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased".
John had some disciples who went with him. It tells us in verse 35 that John the Baptist is standing there with two of these disciples. They are looking at Jesus and as He walked by John the Baptist said, "Behold, the Lamb of God. This is the one we have been waiting on and two of His disciples heard Him speak and they followed Jesus." They left John and began to follow Jesus. John didn’t grab them by the arm and hold them back because he didn’t want that to happen. He wanted it to be about Christ. "Then Jesus turned and seeing them following Him said, "What do you seek?" and they said to Him "Rabbi, which is translated teacher, where are you staying?" Jesus was known as a Rabbi. In that culture that was representative of God. It was a man that taught the Old Testament, the Torah. He gave people understanding about the words of God and how you find harmony with God. They saw Jesus in this light. When they came and stayed with Him in verse 39, He said to them, "Come and see". They came and saw where He was staying and they remained with Him that day until the tenth hour. Verse 40 says this, "One of the two who heard John speak about Jesus began to follow Jesus and this was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother." As soon as he begins to follow Christ, it says in verse 41. It is so important that once you find Christ that you help another find Christ. He helps another find Christ and he goes and finds his own brother Simon Peter and he says, "We have found the Messiah". He has called him the Rabbi and now after being with Him he sees Him as the Messiah, which is the Savior, the Anointed One. A lot of times we will come to Christ and we will come to the Word and we may not have full understanding. We just have a spiritual hunger but the goal of all of it, the church, the Word; anything is to discover Christ as the Savior of the world. A lot of us start that journey at a different pace. Verse 42 says when Andrew brought Peter to Jesus that Jesus looked at him and said," You are Simon; you are the son of Jonah. You shall be called the Cephas which is also Peter which is translated "a stone or a rock". Here we have two different opposite individuals that are now following Jesus. Brothers that are fisher men.
I want to look at Peter first. I want to do a personality look. I believe there are some lessons that his life will speak to our life. That is why we are studying the twelve. We are not studying them just for historical reason. We are studying them for life application reasons. Jesus picked them and chose them and he is looking for individuals. He is still looking for someone today to follow Him. He still gives us an invitation to follow Him. Peter is the kind of guy that was first. In reality he is a go for it kind of guy. He was born to lead. He was always first. When you look at the disciples and you look at their list in the New Testament, he is always listed as number one. The only name in the New Testament that is mentioned more than Peter is Jesus. He is the second most mentioned name in the New Testament. He was always first. He was used to giving the orders in life. There were some positives about him. He was the kind of a guy who was talented about a lot of things. He was bold and not afraid. He was a "let’s get started on some things, or let’s get started here" kind of guy. He knew how to get some things done. Peter was the kind of guy that was strong and he had energy in his life.
We have examples of this in the scriptures where he walks on the water. Can you imagine Jesus walking on the water and all the disciples see Jesus coming across the Sea of Galilee and all of a sudden Peter sees Him and has this idea? I want to go out there and walk with Him. He makes a discovery that if you are going to walk on water you have to be willing to get out of the boat. He looks around and he sees eleven boat potatoes and he decides he does not want to stay in the boat. He would rather be out there with Jesus than stay in the boat with everybody else. He asks Jesus if he can come over there and Jesus says why not? Why don’t you give it a try? He climbs over the ledge of the boat and all of a sudden the water holds him up but it is really not the water holding him up, but it is Jesus who is holding him up. He walks to Jesus and he gets a little scared and sinks a touch and Jesus rescues him. Here is the cool thing. He and Jesus walk back to the boat together. Can you imagine rolling up in the boat and Jesus gets in and then you get in? How is the view from the boat? Weak. They get back home and they are with the twelve by themselves and they ask how did it feel Peter? Tell us about walking on the water. He tells them they will never know. You can read my book later. He was that kind of guy. He was one of the first when Jesus is on the cross and when He is buried in a tomb and when the tomb is empty because of the resurrection. He is one of the first who run to the tomb. He is ready to fight for the cause when they are ready to arrest Jesus. He is ready to take off somebody’s head. Usually when a person is like this and God uses them due to his boldness and brashness, there is flip side to it. He was a little impulsive. He could be a hot head. There were times he had a big mouth. He was the kind of person who would say things you were thinking but you don’t want to say.
There is always somebody in the group that is like that. Sometimes someone will say things and you cannot believe, but you are so glad they said it to the person. "Wow! I can’t believe they said that"! He is the kind of guy that says I am going to talk to the boss and you say "go!"! He asks, "Will you go with me? And you say, "No, I am not going with you!" Some of us have children and they will say things like, "That guy has a really big nose". We tell them, "Oh I can’t believe you said that". You tell your child that you are going to talk with them when you get home. Peter was that kind of guy. He would just say stuff. He would just blurt out things and interrupt. He did not understand the interruption rule. He just went for it. In life he was bold and he went one hundred miles per hour and he lived on the edge. Peter saw life as an adventure to be lived. Peter had a wild side and every once in a while God chooses somebody who has a wild side.
If we were to be honest, there are a few in here, just a few, that have got to watch you. Some of us have to watch how we act. How many in here have to be on your best behavior? Sometimes your spouse says you have to be on your best behavior and don’t say a word and just smile. There are some of us in here that have to watch ourself and be careful because we have this wild streak that every once in the while can boil over and we can act in a way that is not pleasing to our Savior.
Peter had that. Peter loved to jump in and then he would jump right out. He made big statements, like "I will follow you the rest of my life". He also made big visible mistakes and a lot of time God uses people like that. They are not afraid. Man, if we are going to start something let’s start it, I’m ready. Then a lot of times their flaws are more visible than someone else. In all of that -- mistakes, flaws, aggressiveness, impulsiveness and boldness, here is the cool thing. Jesus chose him even though he needed to change, he still got chosen. That is good news because in this room is a gathering of people that still need to change some. The hope that we see in Peter’s life is that although you still need to change, God will use you and God chooses those that still need to change. One of the lies of the devil is that you change yourself first and then you will be invited to Christ, but that is not true.
There are two things we need to understand from the life of Peter. The first one is this: God’s grace can compensate for a change. When we are weak He is strong. His grace is sufficient. A lot of times we have issues we need to change and then the grace of God compensates for that. Sometimes we find an area of our life where we have not been faithful and the enemy condemns us and we have guilt in our life to the point that we need to quit but God’s grace is there to say no matter how big the flaw is, my faithfulness is bigger. We see from the life of Peter that you don’t have to be perfect to come to Christ; you just have to be surrendered. You see Jesus makes us new; He doesn’t make us perfect just like that. Yes, our spirit and our heart don’t want to and we never have an excuse to sin but we also understand that all of us are still a work in progress. Jesus is OK with that and He loves us exactly the way we are but He loves us enough not to leave us the way we are. We learned this from Peter’s life.
The other thing we learn from the life of Peter and the relationship that he had with our Savior is that it is better to be a follower that may have a flaw or two than to fail to even follow at all. Many times we will use our flaw in our past and our issue as an excuse to not follow. Peter says there are no excuses allowed. Bring the flaw, bring the fear and bring the challenge and Jesus can change it. We know that He can change it. We see Peter after the cross and the resurrection. Peter is now preaching first, Peter is now one of the first pastors and God used Peter in an amazing way.
Let’s look at the second of the duo and that is Andrew. I call Andrew the introducer. I think that is a good name for him. He is the introducer. The big fact of the profile is this. He is known all over scripture as Peter’s brother. Most people there can’t remember who he is. All his life he was back stage to Peter. What is really interesting to me is that when you read these scriptures in John he is first to follow Jesus but he is never mentioned first in any list. Peter is always first in all the list. Andrew is somewhere in the middle, but every time you see this guy in the New Testament there is one thing he does. He brings someone to Jesus. He is always bringing someone to Christ. He gets personal with someone and brings them to Christ. We need the Peters who can hold the crusades but the Bible tells us that we also need the Andrews who bring individuals to the Savior through their life and their lips. He embraced his fit into the kingdom. He made use of his gift and he did not try to compare his gift to someone else.
What I love about Andrew is that he followed his favor. He had favor in the area of personal ministry and he followed that favor. There was no resentment, there was no bitterness, and he didn’t get offended because he was not in the spotlight. He still served. A lot of times we can be offended because of a family member or friend and we over compensate to try to compete. Andrew did not try to compete with Peter, but he would try to complete others. Oh, that we would be people who would help others be completed in Christ, not just compete with them all the time. That was Andrew’s gift and he was OK with it.
The first lesson we learn from his life is that he knew the value of inviting people to Jesus. Four times in scripture he brings someone to Jesus. The first person is himself. You cannot lead others if you are not leading yourself. The first person to lead in your life is yourself. A lot of times we look at other people and say they need to get right with God, that person needs God, and you need to get in church. We can tell others you need God and you are full of the devil but have we brought ourselves to the submission of Christ? Then he brings Peter. He doesn’t think he is the center of attention or that he has a monopoly on Jesus. He goes and gets Peter even though he knows Peter is going to be the center of attention and then he brings the little boy with five little loaves of bread and two fish.
The last picture we see of Andrew is when there are some Greeks that are undesirables at that time. He brings them to Jesus. Everyone else blocked them off and said they didn’t think they should be there around Jesus. He is always inviting someone. The kingdom of God grows when each one reaches one. It is always life to life. Let’s be a gate that is inviting people to get to know Christ and let’s not be a barricade.
When you and I are in our workplace, the way we live our lives and handle ourselves, publicly and in private are causing us to either be a gate to our family and where we work and serve or we are being a barricade. If we are all honest, we have all seen people that when we have looked at their life that we would say gross. Let’s be a gate. Andrew teaches us that.
The second thing that Andrew teaches us is that little things count big in heaven. There are no small deeds done for Jesus, only faithful ones. He can use anything. You never know when a smile, a hug, a listen, an "others" oriented time, when you let someone else go first, or someone else speak their heart will impact their life. Just something small. I think about the last twelve years of our church and there are so many areas in which we are still learning and so many areas that we need to grow in and that we need to be more like Jesus in.
Do you know the area that this church has done well in? Day by day we have served in little areas like just being there for somebody who is hurting, being there for somebody who needs pantry items, being there for someone who doesn’t fit in, someone who is addicted to something, someone who is going through a struggle in life and just day by day serving the community, loving the community, loving the lost, and loving the hurting. God has blessed that because you cannot do any little things for Jesus. They are all impact things.
The last thing and probably the coolest thing about big "A" is that although Peter is know as the great one, the magnificent one, the head man, Andrew, his brother, is known as the friendly disciple. When you look back at his life and study the life of Andrew he is known as the friendly one. What an amazing title for you and I to have. Wouldn’t it be nice to be known at the end of our life as we were friendly? One of the worse things today that we can be is a mean follower of Jesus Christ. How many of you know there are some mean people in church? Andrew was known as the friendly one. A friendly person in the kingdom is always wanted and always needed. One of the ways the gospel is restricted in a community, a town or a city like ours is when a believer gets so overwhelmed with his life that they become miserable and no one wants to be around them. My mother used to tell me son you draw flies with honey and not vinegar. Vinegar is yuck. Everything is like that. You and I need to work on our friendliness.
We have looked at two brothers and they were opposites. We now have four out of the twelve, James, John, Peter and Andrew. We have eight to go. What is the common thread? It is that they all could have made excuses for not following Jesus, but Jesus did not except any of them. The second common thread throughout the four was that Jesus will use all kinds of people including you. You say, "I have baggage" but there was not a disciple that did not have major baggage. He wants to use you. All of these had their issues and their little stuff but Jesus still selected them and chose them even though they needed to change. If I were the devil I would go around telling everybody that has come to know Christ as their Savior that there is no sense in being used because they have issues and until you get perfect don’t try to be used. If I were the devil I would tell everyone that has not come to Christ to get perfect and change you first, clean yourself up first and then come to Christ. It would never happen because we can’t clean ourselves up. We didn’t create ourself. He created us and because he created us he knows what our use is. He is the one who knows how you are wired and how He wants to use you.
I struggled with this for a lot of years. I came to know Christ and I was a little ADD. I came to know Christ and I didn’t understand the Bible so I decided to go to Bible College. I rolled up to Bible College and had one tie, no socks and just acted like "What’s up, what’s up"? I went to the first orientation meeting and I am thinking about who is the sore thumb here? They had Bible college haircuts and everybody was shouting "Glory to God and Hallelujah". I was saying go for it! They could all sing and preach and I was thinking I was so out of place. Two or three weeks into it I was thinking I could never be used because I didn’t fit. I started thinking there was no way He could use me because I was a surfer and ADD. I went out and bought me some shirts and ugly ties and pants and started saying "glory". I went home on a November break and I was like "Hallelujah, how is everybody doing today?" My mama sat me down at the kitchen table and she said, "Listen to me. I don’t know what it is with this dress and speech but you are making us nauseated. Are you brainwashed? This is not God."
I just got so convicted. I realized in that little lesson that it is not what you don’t have that God is looking for, but what you do with what you do have. God wants to use all kinds of people. Hear me church. It is Christianity and not cronyism. It is about who God has made you to be. It is your gift and personality and who you are and He wants to use that for His kingdom.
